Ye Chuan finished clearing out the monsters and surveyed the scattered remains. He used his spiritual sense to search but couldn’t find a second energy core.
"Looks like only that leader dropped one core for me, and not every leader even drops one. These things are way too rare," Ye Chuan muttered, staring at the core in his hand as he pondered.
If that were the case, unlocking the entire tech tree would probably take a long time.
"Ke Ning, any way to get more of these?" Ye Chuan finally handed the core to the bespectacled science girl beside him.
"This is…?"
"The energy core I mentioned earlier. Just extracted from a monster," Ye Chuan explained.
Ke Ning pinched the core between her fingers. At a glance, it looked like nothing more than an ordinary gemstone, and a rather impure one at that.
"You need this?" she asked, adjusting her glasses.
"Yeah. Badly."
"Understood." Without further questions, she let the floating cube beside her drift closer to the core. Holding out her palm, she allowed the cube to scan its composition.
After a moment, Ke Ning pulled up a translucent window and skimmed through the core’s analyzed components.
"If you have other similar mineral materials, I can replicate this stone for you," she said.
"Replicate?"
"Correct. Replicate."
Ye Chuan immediately retrieved a spirit crystal from his backpack space. "Try this."
After all, the spirit crystal was the closest thing he had to a similar mineral.
Taking the crystal, Ke Ning examined it briefly, looking slightly puzzled. "Do you just enjoy collecting minerals?"
"Uh, they’re useful."
She didn’t press further, slotting the spirit crystal into the cube. A blue light flickered for a few seconds before a brand-new energy core materialized.
"Will this do?" Ke Ning asked.
Ye Chuan took it and immediately inspected it—
[Item: Energy Core
Contains condensed power. Can be used to unlock tech tree points.]
It actually worked!
Ke Ning was like Doraemon!
Ye Chuan was growing fonder of this glasses-wearing girl by the minute—she was basically a walking treasure trove, delivering one surprise after another in such a short time.
"Can you replicate as many as I have materials for?" he asked.
If he could mass-produce spirit crystals with his own replication magic and then have Ke Ning convert them into energy cores, wouldn’t that be perfect?
"You might be disappointed. The Cube V3 can only replicate one per day at most," Ke Ning said.
One a day…
Not ideal, but at least it was steady income.
Clutching the core, Ye Chuan glanced at the tech tree and unlocked the most basic node.
[Unlock successful: Obtained Mental Recovery Lv.1 (Increases spirit regeneration speed.)]
"Small gains are still gains," Ye Chuan muttered, but then he suddenly noticed his spiritual sense range had expanded significantly.
Huh?
Stronger than he expected.
Looking at the densely packed skill points on the tech tree, he realized that unlocking all of them would bring terrifyingly powerful enhancements.
Even a 1% boost was still a boost.
Damage stacked up percentage by percentage.
While Ye Chuan was absorbed in studying the tech tree, Ke Ning walked over to the spatial rift. She gazed at the shimmering light within before directing her Cube V3 to scan it.
The rift pulsed with an eerie blue glow as Ke Ning stood motionless, occasionally adjusting her glasses.
After a while, the cube finished scanning, and Ke Ning seemed to have obtained the data she needed. She turned and gave Ye Chuan a slight nod.
"That should do it, right?" Wang Yanran asked. Though she had no idea what Ke Ning was doing—or what that floating cube even was—she had learned not to ask too many questions.
After all, sticking with the experts meant guaranteed rewards. No need to stir up trouble.
Just then, the rift began visibly shrinking. What had once resembled shattered glass in space was now rapidly repairing itself.
"…" Ke Ning seemed to understand something but merely nodded without speaking.
"Does the rift disappear once all the monsters are eliminated?" Ye Chuan wondered.
"That seems to be the case here, though some rifts remain. Most follow this pattern, though," Wang Yanran explained.
"Alright, let’s head back first."
…
After returning home, Ke Ning headed to her room—or rather, her lab. But as she passed through the hallway, a head suddenly popped out from the wall, grinning mischievously.
Ever since she had successfully startled Ke Ning once, Lan Xiaoke had taken a liking to scaring her, thoroughly enjoying the way the girl trembled in response.
"Alright, Ke Ning has work to do. Stop messing around," Ye Chuan said, spotting Lan Xiaoke’s sneaky antics. He pinched her cheek and shoved her back into the wall, then smacked her butt.
"Go play your games."
"Okaaay~" Lan Xiaoke flailed her legs before finally vanishing into the wall.
A moment later, her head popped out again, this time with a cat-like expression. "Hey, Ye Chuan, I’ve reached Foundation Establishment now."
"Oh?" Ye Chuan gave her a surprised glance and probed her aura, confirming her newfound strength.
"Not bad. But with this much spiritual energy, even a pig could ascend."
He wasn’t about to credit Lan Xiaoke’s laziness for her progress—it was all thanks to his own blood, sweat, and heavy spending.
"Keep it up," he said.
"Will do!" Lan Xiaoke blinked her big eyes at him, sparkling with expectation.
Ye Chuan crossed his arms. "What? Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Foundation Establishment… comes with rewards, right?"
Lan Xiaoke distinctly remembered Ye Chuan promising her a hefty sum if she broke through to this stage. That was why she had been grinding so hard lately.
"Oh? Forgot about that," Ye Chuan said.
"Whaaat?!" Lan Xiaoke lunged out and clung to his leg. "You promised! I didn’t forget!"
"I feed you, house you, and let you game all day, and now you’re asking me for money?" Ye Chuan said, arms still folded.
"Wuuu…" Lan Xiaoke wilted, slinking back toward her room like a dejected caterpillar. "Fine… I’m going back…"
Seeing this, Ye Chuan pulled out his phone and transferred 50,000 to her.
He had previously agreed to give her 5,000 per minor breakthrough and more for major ones.
The moment Lan Xiaoke heard the notification sound, she immediately slithered back and hugged his leg again. "Hehe, Ye Chuan, you’re the best!"
Her pitiful expression vanished faster than flipping a page.
reezy rom-com) Good news: Jiang Liu is quite the ladies' man. Bad news: He’s lost his memory. Lying in a hospital bed, Jiang Liu listens to a parade of goddesses spouting "absurd claims," feeling like the world is one giant game of Werewolf. "Jiang Liu, I’m your first love." "Jiang Liu, you’re my boyfriend—she’s your ex." "Jiang Liu, we’re close friends who’ve shared a bed, remember?" "Jiang Liu, I want to have your baby." The now-lucid Jiang Liu is convinced this must be some elaborate scam... until someone drops the bombshell: "The day before you lost your memory, you confessed your feelings—and got into a relationship." Jiang Liu is utterly baffled. So... who the hell is his actual girlfriend?! ... Before recovering his memories, Jiang Liu must navigate this minefield of lies and sincerity, fighting to protect himself from these women’s schemes. But things spiral even further out of control as more people show up at his doorstep—each with increasingly unhinged antics. On the bright side, the memories he lost due to overwhelming trauma seem to be resurfacing. Great news, right? So why are they all panicking now?
lities. One day, Qi Yuan was buying groceries when he unfortunately came face-to-face with a monster. Just when he thought he was going to die on the spot, he suddenly heard the monster's thoughts... "This aura, he's definitely not an ordinary master!" "So terrifying, so terrifying." "A fight with my back against the wall, I can't take it anymore." Qi Yuan: Ah, no one told me that my awakened ability isn't telepathy, but rather the stronger my enemies imagine me to be, the stronger I truly become. PS: Zhou Hai in the first chapter is not the protagonist.
ither go to a cultivation world where a single sword strike can defeat ten thousand enemies. Or they travel back to historical dynasties to alter history and wield imperial power. At the very least, they'd go back a few decades to get rich using their future knowledge and build a harem. Who the hell would transmigrate here!
u Chenyuan transmigrated into a female-oriented novel about a real and fake heiress, becoming the CEO elder brother of both. Unfortunately, the entire Lu family—including himself, the CEO—were mere cannon fodder in the story. Determined to save himself, Lu Chenyuan took action. The spoiled, attention-seeking fake heiress? Thrown into the harsh realities of the working class to learn humility. The love-struck real heiress? Pushed toward academic excellence, so lofty goals would blind her to trivial romances. As for the betrayed, vengeful arranged marriage wife… the plot hadn’t even begun yet. There was still time—if he couldn’t handle her, he could at least avoid her. "CEO Lu, are you avoiding me?" Mo Qingli fixed her gaze on Lu Chenyuan. For the first time, the shrewd and calculating Lu Chenyuan felt a flicker of unease.
