[Tree] Chapter 650: Midas Bank (Patreon)

The Ashfallen Empire had been undergoing radical changes every day, and Catherine was frankly exhausted from trying to keep up. Or maybe it was Julius's fault. As head of the Ashfallen Trading Company, he made it a habit to fill her in on the Empire's daily happenings over dinner every night.

Whatever the reason for her stress, it was definitely his fault she had been waiting in a line that wrapped around the central marketplace since sunrise.

"Next," a stern-faced cultivator in Team Phoenix robes said, gesturing for the elderly lady at the front of the queue to step forward into the building—making Catherine next in line after hours of standing.

Catherine glanced up at the building's exterior, her eyes settling on the beautiful sign over the doorway.

[Midas Bank - Ashfallen City Branch]

"Please wait a moment," the cultivator guarding the entrance said cordially, possibly recognizing her as Julius's wife. She simply nodded and pulled her hat down, not wanting any more attention because technically, she was undercover.

Waiting in line for hours wasn't something she'd normally do for anyone, but Julius had begged her to go and experience the opening of the first bank branch for herself because, in his own words:

'Everyone is scared of telling me no, or that I messed up, due to our Jasmine being Stella's disciple. Could you go and give me your honest opinion? Because I know you won't hold back, and I can't get this wrong.'

Catherine smiled at the thought that, of everyone in the Empire, he still trusted her opinion most.

I should tell Julius later that Team Phoenix is doing a good job maintaining public order for today's grand event, considering it was advertised in yesterday's newspaper and everyone seems to be here.

A few nights ago, Julius had excitedly explained to her how important creating this banking system was.

"Honey! The Empire is saved!" he shouted in triumph before he had even set foot through the door. "I don't know how, but Ashlock has come up with a way to facilitate trade seamlessly across the cities—"

"Whoa, slow down," she had said. "Breathe. It's not even dinner yet, and you're already talking about work—"

"Because he solved everything!" Julius said, madness and excitement in his eyes as he dropped his things. "You know how trade between the old Celestial Empire cities and ours has been an absolute nightmare due to the differing currencies and collapse in the value of spirit stones?"

"Yes, dear," Catherine sighed. "It's all you've talked about for days."

"He solved it. Heaven knows how, but... if this crazy idea of his works, it's going to change everything forever." Julius frantically closed the door and headed for the kitchen. "Come, let me explain it all to you."

Catherine sighed. What followed were many hours of confused rants, parchments with plans spread across the dining room table, and drinking. The general idea was that the Ashfallen Empire had created a new currency and a way to distribute it. Anyone could deposit their current wealth, no matter the currency, into this bank and have it stored in the new currency that would become standard throughout the Ashfallen Empire. The idea was that people could then make transactions by tapping these rings, or something else, together rather than relying on physical currency, though they could still withdraw physical currency at any bank throughout the Empire.

The entire system apparently worked through trees, because of course it did.

Julius seemed more stressed than he had ever been while he explained, yet Catherine had never seen so much hope and excitement in his eyes. Because of that, she was here, on the ground, experiencing the founding of this bank for him.

"Mother?"

Catherine turned. Her daughter was pushing through the crowd with an odd look on her face. Jasmine wore the cult's black robes with a red eye stitched across the chest, and her lovely hair of green grass and tiny white flowers flowed freely down her back.

"Hello, darling," Catherine said. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm with Team Phoenix. We are handling the crowds today—but why are you here?"

"To open an account with the Midas Bank, of course," Catherine chuckled, ignoring the horrified stare the guarding cultivator was shooting them.

So he didn't know my identity. That's another point is his favor for how he treats others.

"Why?" Jasmine demanded. She seemed somewhat annoyed to find her mother here while she was working.

"Your father asked me to," Catherine said. "Blame him."

"He made you stand in line—wait, you didn't cut in, did you?"

"Heavens no. I've been here since sunrise."

Jasmine looked her up and down, perplexed. "You really waited here for hours? Even when Dad or I could have sorted this out for you?"

Catherine crouched down with a sigh and cupped Jasmine's cheeks.

"Darling, it's not good to expect special treatment all the time. I'm quite happy to stand here in line like everyone else." She smiled and hooked some of Jasmine's grass-like hair behind her ear. "And if what your father told me about this bank system is true, it will be worth the wait."

Jasmine frowned, but didn't push back. "I'll at least escort you inside."

"I'd love that, my little peacekeeper," Catherine said, pinching Jasmine's nose and rising. Her daughter huffed in annoyance but didn't berate her for the embarrassment in front of the other cultivators.

"The bank is ready for you, Mistress," the cultivator said, bowing. He hadn't done that for anyone else so far.

Catherine sighed at the special treatment now that her cover was blown.

"Thank you. What is your name, cultivator?"

"Allen."

"I'll put in a good word for you with my husband," she said, then headed through the open doors. Allen bowed again as the pair passed and pulled the doors closed behind them.

"Whoa," Jasmine muttered, and Catherine agreed once she got a look at the inside. The bank was a sturdy building of black stone, but it wasn't gloomy, as the glass roof let streaks of sunlight beam onto the demonic tree that dominated much of the space. It wasn't the largest she'd seen, standing only around ten meters tall. What set it apart were the veins of gold running between the hairline cracks in its bark. They ran from the roots to the tips of the branches and were so fine she had first mistaken them for morning light. They pulsed ever so faintly, as if something were breathing through them.

Five metal desks stood before the tree, and its gold-veined roots ran straight through them, the metal molded around the exposed roots as if the desks had been poured in place. Behind each one sat a young cultivator wearing the silver droplet pin of Team Quicksilver.

"Over here," a young man who couldn't have been older than twenty called out, waving. Aside from his, every desk was occupied. Catherine noticed the one on the far right was handling the elderly woman from earlier.

"Mother, don't just stand there," Jasmine said impatiently and led her over, which amused Catherine. Since Jasmine was always so busy with work, cultivating and training under Stella, she rarely got to see her daughter, despite Jasmine being only ten.

"Welcome to the Midas Bank, Ashfallen Branch," the man said, with the stiffness of someone who had repeated the words many times. "Are you opening a new account, making a deposit, or withdrawing today?"

"Obviously—"

"To open a new account," Catherine said, pinching Jasmine's arm to quiet her. "But I'd like an explanation of how it all works."

Julius had explained it already, but she was supposed to be inspecting the process, and not everyone had the head of the Ashfallen Trading Company for a husband. Many people would be deeply confused by the concept of a bank.

"It's simple, Miss. You put your hand here on the tree's root, and it learns your Qi, then records it in a ledger artifact. We don't need your name or any paperwork. The tree handles it all, and don't worry, nobody can pretend to be you, because nobody's Qi is exactly the same as yours. Then it grows you a ring."

Catherine raised a brow. "It grows me a ring?"

The man nodded. "I'll engrave the ring with runes so it can communicate with other ones and you can make transactions seamlessly." He picked up two black wood rings and clinked them together. "Just like that, money can be transferred. We call it root pay."

"Why root pay?" Catherine asked.

"Because the money is exchanged between the roots of the trees," he lied. Catherine knew it was a lie, because Julius had explained how it actually worked. The money wasn't physical, at least not yet. Only when someone requested a withdrawal did money move from the vault through a portal and get handed over to the customer.

When a transaction happened, all that changed was a number in the ledger. There wasn't actually enough real money stored at any given time—Ashlock had called it fractional reserve banking. But people didn't like that idea, so they pretended money was exchanged through the roots.

A white lie to calm the public. Catherine overlooked it.

"I see," she said, smiling. "That all makes sense. Can we begin?"

"Certainly. Place your hand in here," he said, gesturing to a deep, hand-shaped cut in the wood. Catherine slid her hand in and marveled at the warm sensation of the tree's bark. It felt so alive.

She then felt something coiling around her finger.

"Don't worry, that's the ring I mentioned, growing around your finger," the man explained, noticing her worried expression. "Now, I'm going to need you to feed some Qi into your hand. Can you do that for me? If not, I can assist you."

Catherine bit her lip. Unlike Jasmine, who had taken to cultivating like a duck to water, she had her reservations. Listening to the heavens' delusions drove her mad. But once she realized her resistance worried Julius, she begrudgingly worked to reach the Soul Fire Realm.

"It's like letting out a sigh, Mother," Jasmine said, "just close your eyes and focus on—"

"I can control my Qi, darling," Catherine said, but secretly took Jasmine's advice. Closing her eyes, she felt her Qi and, as if exhaling, pushed the energy into her hand.

Her eyes snapped open as she felt something clamp hard around her finger.

"Just the ring again," the young man assured her. "It's done. You can take your hand out."

"It's done?" Catherine was surprised. Pulling her hand free, she marveled at the glossy black wood ring around her index finger. It was too tight to fall off, but didn't feel restrictive. It was quite fashionable too.

"Easy, right?" He held out his hand. "I'll apply the runes now."

Catherine lent him her finger, and he took out a sharp tool. Steadying the ring between his fingers, he worked the tool against the hard surface and carved the runes.

"Done," he said after a few minutes and sat back. "Tap your ring against the wood."

Catherine did as she was told and was taken aback as she felt the demonic tree's Qi move to form words on the surface of its root.

[Welcome to Midas Bank]

[Balance: 0 Ambers]

"Ambers?"

"That's what we are calling the new currency," the man explained as he held three amber-colored discs up to the light. Catherine compared their shapes and patterns. "Bark, Leaf, and Eye Coins. A Bark Coin is one Amber. A Leaf Coin is worth a hundred Bark, and finally an Eye Coin is worth a hundred Leaf—or ten thousand Ambers. Once they're in the bank, we just count everything in Ambers. You should be able to buy a loaf of bread for a few, and a basic pill from the Ashfallen Trading Company for a hundred."

Catherine frowned at the zero. She wasn't one to flaunt wealth, but her husband was successful, and Jasmine kept sending her pills in hopes she would cultivate harder. She had some wealth to her name, not zero!

"How can I increase my Amber balance?"

"That's where this hole comes in." The man smiled and gestured to a fist-sized hole that seemed to end in a swirling desolation rift. "Just pour whatever currencies or valuables you wish in here. The conversion is automatic, and the numbers will update. Oh, and only for this week, we are offering a fixed conversion rate on spirit stones!"

That was why the queue wrapped around the entire market. Everyone in Ashfallen City was eager to convert their spirit stones into something better, and a currency backed by the All-Seeing Eye was a fantastic option.

Catherine was no different. She had saved for years.

She placed her hand over the hole, and her spatial ring flashed with silver light. Everything she owned that was valuable, including finger-sized bars of precious spirit metals, poured into the hole and vanished.

The number slowly ticked up as her deposit was counted.

"A spatial ring, I'm jealous," the young cultivator said. "I'm still saving up for one myself."

"I heard the price spiked after the war," Catherine said.

The man nodded. "All of the Empyrea Nobles are buying up the supply, and Argentum can't keep up with the demand." His gaze drifted to the demonic tree behind him. "At least with Midas Bank, I don't have to carry a pouch around with me and worry about being pickpocketed by all the awakened criminals. They are quick, you know. My buddy even broke a rib when he tried to chase one and got punched."

"Rising crime has been a bit of a problem," Catherine agreed. Not that she had seen it much personally. She preferred staying home and reading. But Julius kept her informed about the outside world. "Does this Midas Bank not have any security issues?"

"I've been told there might be some. There's no way to totally prevent robbery—someone can always threaten you into transferring—but it's far better than the alternative, at least..." He trailed off as he glanced at the rising number on the root. "You put in quite a lot, Miss. As expected of Jasmine's mother, I suppose."

[Balance: 121,347 Ambers (12 Eye · 13 Leaf · 47 Bark)]

"I assume those numbers on the right are the physical amber coins my money can be withdrawn as?"

The man nodded. "That's correct. This is the largest amount I've seen so far."

Catherine wasn't sure what to say, so she just smiled.

"Is that everything?" she asked.

"Oh—yes. There are only a few branches in each city right now, but we're expanding rapidly. Feel free to try transferring money another time with someone else." He stood and gave a short bow. "Thank you for visiting Midas Bank."