Chasing the Wind's body had really recovered well. The soft, mochi-like state only lasted for a day. After resting overnight, he turned back into that small sturdy white tiger the next day, the kind that could devour a whole basin of beast pills in one meal.
But he was still recovering from his major illness after all. Qin Ran couldn't bear to make him work, so he let him play on his own.
With nothing to do now, the tiger lay on the old locust swing under the tree, manipulating the wind to push himself back and forth.
After consuming the Plundering Wind, ordinary winds were like obedient children before him. He could order them around however he wished, and using them to swing on the swing was most suitable.
Long Qiqi pulled a cart of gravel to the ground. Seeing Chasing the Wind over there leisurely swinging on the swing, she felt very imbalanced. She transformed into human form and asked Qin Ran, who was reading by the pit, “Why doesn't he have to work?”
“Who?” Qin Ran didn't notice.
“Him!” Long Qiqi pointed at Chasing the Wind on the swing.
“Oh...” Qin Ran lifted his head from the illustrated guide on spell formations. “He was heavily injured. He’s a patient recovering from injuries!”
“Where does he look injured?!” Long Qiqi was annoyed.
This girl is a snake demon, stingy, petty and extremely jealous. Qin Ran had no intention of entertaining her further. He continued browsing his illustrated guide on spell formations, pretending not to see her at all, even taking out a pen to read while making sketches.
“Humph!”
Seeing that Qin Ran ignored her, Long Qiqi pouted. She walked over to Chasing the Wind and huffed, “This is my swing!”
Chasing the Wind looked at her blankly and asked, “Is it......yours?”
“Can't even speak clearly...” Long Qiqi said disdainfully. He's still at the seventh rank, but she nodded. “I said so!”
Hearing that, Chasing the Wind crawled up from the swing, wanting to make space for Long Qiqi. But swinging made him feel very comfortable and he was a little reluctant to stop. He sat there rocking for a while, then suddenly spoke, “Come... It's not...... Don't falsely accuse...... good people. My beast pills are round!”
Although it was gibberish, Long Qiqi reacted guiltily as if her tail had been stepped on. She understood instantly and got agitated, saying repeatedly, “I'm human. I eat human food. Only demonic beasts eat beast pills! I don't eat beast pills!”
“Beast pills, delicious!” Chasing the Wind said.
“Not delicious! Delicious my a**!” Long Qiqi retorted.
“Delicious......”
And so the two entered infinite loop bicker mode, one insisting delicious, the other insisting not delicious.
At this moment, someone flew over on a sword.
Long Qiqi took a look in the midst of arguing and found it was that girl called Tian Wenjin. She came unsteadily on her flying sword, her face pale, clearly injured.
“Give it...... back!” Taking the chance, Chasing the Wind pulled them out of the argument loop to ask Long Qiqi for his treasures back.
“Thick tongue...” Long Qiqi shot back casually at Chasing the Wind as she watched Tian Wenjin land by the pit.
"You're...... the one...... with the thick tongue!"
Qin Ran looked at Tian Wenjin who landed before him and asked, "What happened?"
"I was guarding the mining cave. Underground Demon Beasts attacked and then the miners rioted," Tian Wenjin replied. "I was hit by the miners' techniques."
Qin Ran tossed her a bottle of premium Great Recovery Pill. "The mining cave didn't sustain any damage right?"
"No..." Tian Wenjin caught the pill bottle, opened the jade seal, and found extremely high quality Great Recovery Pills inside. She silently closed it again and placed the bottle on the table. From her interspatial pouch she took out 500 spirit stones, stacking them on the table as well, and said to Qin Ran, "This is 500 spirit stones. Still lacking 4,000 spirit stones."
Qin Ran looked at the spirit stones on the table and the pill bottle in silence for a bit. Finally he just said, "Take care of yourself... Don't die."
"Mm." Tian Wenjin nodded.
She also asked, "Has Senior Brother Huang woken up yet...? Has the first phase been completed?"
"It hasn't been completed yet. Looks like his subconscious is resisting," Qin Ran said. "The situation does not look optimistic."
Tian Wenjin's expression turned worrying. She urgently said, "I'll go take a look at him!"
Qin Ran put away his pen and notes, accompanying Tian Wenjin to the entrance of the Earth Flame Chamber.
Outside the entrance of the Earth Flame Chamber, the two of them could see inside through the spell formation. Huang Feiyu's body floated in the flames, surrounded by other spell formations continuously supplying medicinal pills with healing properties into his body.
Watching this, Tian Wenjin dared not imagine the actual value of those medicinal pills. She gritted her teeth, shook her head, and steeled her resolve. Pushing open the door to the Earth Flame Chamber, she said, "I'll go try persuading him!"
"Be careful..." Qin Ran reminded, "Don't touch the spell formations or get burnt by the flames."
"Mm!" Tian Wenjin nodded and closed the door to the chamber.
The temperature inside the Earth Flame Chamber was extremely high. She had to rely on magical energy to protect herself to barely maintain. She walked as close to Huang Feiyu as she could. Separated by the raging flames, gazing at Huang Feiyu within, thinking of everything she had gone through recently, sorrow welled up and she began to cry.
"Senior Brother Huang..." she wept. "I'm still waiting for you to wake up!"
Qin Ran leaned against the door with his back facing the interior.
Actually he should leave, since he didn't like this kind of sob fest. But he had to prevent Tian Wenjin from getting too emotional and getting burnt by the flames or the Lion Heart Mad Flame Beast. He also needed to monitor Huang Feiyu's condition.
Huang Feiyu should be in a state of clear consciousness. He could perceive things happening externally but couldn't wake up. So Tian Wenjin speaking to him, he might react.
What a good girl Tian Wenjin is, Qin Ran thought back to first meeting this cheeky, competitive girl, who would even consume Accumulating Spirit Pills for cultivation.
But ever since Huang Feiyu was injured, she never left his side...
Even adding his past and present lives, Qin Ran had only seen this kind of love in works of fiction.
"Senior Brother Huang, no matter how you change, I will always be by your side..." Inside the Earth Flame Chamber, after telling him about everything that happened recently, Tian Wenjin continued crying, "As long as you wake up...
"We can cultivate together and improve together. Don't you remember you said before, we have to walk this path together to the end, become immortals and seek the Dao together?"
Suddenly, the earth flames surged violently.
Tian Wenjin instantly became emotional, crying loudly, "Senior Brother, it's me Wenjin..."
Sensing the activity inside the chamber, Qin Ran hurriedly opened the door and pulled Tian Wenjin back.
"You go out first, let me help him." He said to Tian Wenjin.
So Tian Wenjin had no choice but to leave.
"Sigh..." Watching the melting medicinal pills dripping out healing essence to blend into the flames for Huang Feiyu to absorb together, Qin Ran couldn't help sighing.
Tian Wenjin had already said so much, but Huang Feiyu showed no reaction until she mentioned becoming immortals and seeking the Dao.
The inner meaning was hard for Qin Ran to articulate.
He circulated his magic power to help Huang Feiyu absorb the pills...
Soon, Huang Feiyu completed the first phase of transformation. Qin Ran then placed the mad flame crystals in the spell formation to help Huang Feiyu enter the second phase.
"When successful, you will become the Fire Master!" Knowing Huang Feiyu could hear him, Qin Ran deliberately added that last line.
Then, the flames inside the Earth Flame Chamber raged wildly!
【Prologue: The Beginning of It All – Use holy water to heal the saintess tainted by demonic energy, then converse with her.】 Shen Nian stared at his older sister sipping yogurt, lost in thought. So you’re telling me my sister is the saintess, and yogurt is the holy water? 【Main Quest 1: Brave Youth, Become an Adventurer! Reward: Rookie Adventurer Title.】 【Side Quest 1: Find the Adorable Kitty! Reward: 1000 Gold Coins.】 Shen Nian: "Wait, I’m a high school senior here—did some guy who got isekai’d accidentally bind his system to me?" Hold on, completing quests gives gold rewards? Titles even boost stats? Is this for real? (A lighthearted, absurd campus comedy—not a revenge power fantasy.)
transmigrates into the world as the sect master of the Heavenly Yan Sect, which is on the verge of being wiped out. He binds a system that grants him cultivation power based on the number of disciples he has: for each disciple, he automatically gains a year's worth of cultivation every single day! Take one disciple: every day he gains 1 year of cultivation power. While others struggle through a year of bitter training, he gets the same just by sleeping through a single night. Take ten disciples: every day he gains 10 years of cultivation power. Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul—he breezes through all bottlenecks without lifting a finger. Take one hundred disciples: every day he gains 100 years of cultivation power. Even a Soul Transformation Venerable before him can’t survive a single blow. Take ten thousand disciples: every day he gains 10,000 years of cultivation power! With a wave of his hand, he topples empires. With a single step, he crushes the sacred grounds of the universe. ... While others fight tooth and nail for secret techniques, Lin Yan casually hands out Nascent Soul-level cultivation manuals as beginner textbooks. While others strain to find talented recruits, Lin Yan opens his doors to anyone—so long as they’re human. In just three short years, the Heavenly Yan Sect went from a backwater sect made up of three crumbling huts to a sacred land that every cultivator under heaven would kill to enter. ... One day, otherworldly demon gods invade, with a million demon soldiers pressing down upon the realm. Lin Yan, yawning, rises from his lounge chair and glances at the system panel: [Current Disciples: 1.28 million] [Daily Cultivation Increase: 1.28 million years] He waves his hand casually, and the countless demon soldiers are reduced to ashes in an instant. “So noisy… interrupting my fishing.”
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
d intelligence to keep the plot moving, and sometimes even the protagonists are forced into absurdly dumb decisions. Why does the A-list celebrity heroine in urban romance novels ditch the top-tier movie star and become a lovestruck fool for a pockmarked male lead? Why do the leads in historical tragedy novels keep dancing between love and death, only for the blind healer to end up suffering the most? And Gu Wei never expected that after finally landing a villain role to stir up trouble, she’d pick the wrong gender! No choice now—she’ll just have to crush the protagonists as a girl!
