You shouted for ages, but aside from smoking, the Qiankun Mirror only gained more cracks on its surface.
Oozing black mist, the Myriad Soul Banner floated right next to your ear.
"Are we stuck here?"
"Do you know anything about transmigration?"
"Nope."
"Does the Jiuzhou Cauldron know anything about it?"
You and the Myriad Soul Banner looked over at the Jiuzhou Cauldron. Its artifact spirit, Da Chun, had already detached himself from the cauldron and was curiously exploring this entirely new world.
You and the Myriad Soul Banner said in unison, "He doesn't know."
The Myriad Soul Banner's voice suddenly jumped an octave.
"This godforsaken place doesn't even have any worldly essence! What is this dump?! What a dump! A dump! You brought me here, so it's your responsibility to take me back!"
"Holy crap! This is bizarre. Why isn't there any worldly essence here? How am I supposed to cultivate?"
"With your trashy bone root, what difference does it make whether you cultivate or not! Hurry up and get the Qiankun Mirror working again so he can take us back! My spirit artifact kingdom! I plotted for hundreds of years to make it happen, how can we be separated by the boundaries of life and death?! I was planning to go sit on my throne and rule once I outlived you and regained my freedom!"
"I want to go back too! I mean, is there something wrong with this Qiankun Mirror? We just needed him to take us out of the star domain. Why did he bring us to the Demon Realm?! Is this how a normal brain works?!"
"He's only got half a body left, how could he be normal?! A physically crippled but stubborn lunatic! And a physically sound but mentally crippled idiot! Why did I ever get on this pirate ship with you guys!"
Both you and the Myriad Soul Banner felt extremely depressed.
So, you relieved some of the stress by getting into a shouting match.
After the argument, you still had to face reality.
You took a stroll around the vicinity.
Everywhere you looked was desolate; there was not a single living creature in sight.
There were only countless departed souls of the demon race drifting about.
Seeing a living being, they were utterly astonished and flocked over to spectate.
Before long, the demon souls around you were swarming in droves, packing in layer upon layer until they completely blocked your path.
The Myriad Soul Banner let out a sigh.
"It's confirmed. Every demon soul here says this is the Demon Realm, so it seems it really is."
You also sighed.
"It's confirmed as well. For at least a thousand miles around us, there is absolutely no worldly essence. I don't know about places further away, but it's highly likely there isn't any there either."
You had traveled to many places in the Human Realm.
The distribution of worldly essence was indeed uneven; it was dense in some areas and sparse in others.
However, a situation where there was absolutely zero worldly essence was impossible.
"Hey?"
You suddenly pointed your pinky finger at the sky, struck by a burst of inspiration.
"We can't cultivate without worldly essence, but demon souls are everywhere here! We just need to suck them into the banner, refine them, and feed the cultivation base back to me!"
As your cultivation realm increased, just like the Myriad Soul Banner had said, he wouldn't be able to provide you with cultivation boosts forever.
But even a mosquito's leg is meat. Besides, this kind of feedback was still much faster than cultivating with your low-grade bone root.
The Myriad Soul Banner was left speechless by you.
"Cultivation! Cultivation! All you think about all day is cultivating! We've been reduced to this pathetic state, and you're still obsessing over your damn cultivation!"
You snatched the Myriad Soul Banner over, channeled your three types of qi to activate it, and began harvesting souls.
"Cut the crap! Get to work!"
The demon souls who had gathered to watch the spectacle saw you suddenly trying to suck them into a bizarre object billowing with black mist. Terrified, they scattered in all directions.
"Where do you think you're going!"
The Myriad Soul Banner was the natural nemesis of these ghosts. With a shake of the banner, the crowd of demon souls flew backward uncontrollably and were all sucked inside!
Some of the demon souls attempted to fight back.
Their cultivation realms varied from high to low, but regardless of what level of demon they were in life, their attacks right now were nothing more than a bunch of useless visual effects to you.
"This living being is incredibly powerful! I still retain at least the strength of a Demon King, so why are my attacks completely ineffective against him?!"
You spotted a demon with a tiger's head and a human's body.
He looked somewhat similar to Boss Hu from Baiyun County.
His attacks appeared to pack the most punch, so you gave him special attention and sucked him right into the banner.
With so many demon souls, the Myriad Soul Banner immediately initiated its refining process.
As you harvested them, he refined them.
The current Myriad Soul Banner was at the level of an Immortal Artifact!
Although he still hadn't reached his peak state, he was far beyond what he used to be.
The refining speed was incredibly fast. Demon souls below the Golden Body Realm were basically tossed onto the assembly line the moment they entered, instantly converting into soul power.
Half of the soul power went to you, and the other half went straight into the Myriad Soul Banner's own pockets.
Outwardly, he claimed this was a seventy-thirty split: seventy for you, thirty for him.
You knew well the principle that water too clear has no fish, so you turned a blind eye to it.
The voice of that tiger demon rang out from inside the banner.
"Whoa! This thing can refine us and scatter our souls! This is fantastic!"
The moment the tiger demon's words echoed out, the fleeing demon souls around you suddenly acted as if they were possessed, eagerly flying into the banner on their own accord.
"Holy shit! I've been using the Myriad Soul Banner for so long, and this is the first time I've run into something so bizarre!"
You couldn't make sense of it at all.
It didn't take long for all the demon souls in the area to cram themselves into the Myriad Soul Banner.
It was unbelievably crowded inside the banner; even the assembly line for refining souls got jammed.
The Myriad Soul Banner was throwing a furious tantrum inside.
"Are you dead demons out of your minds?! I am the Myriad Soul Banner! I'm going to refine you into nothingness! Can you show me a little respect?!"
The tiger demon just laid himself down on the assembly line.
"Refine away, make it quick."
The Myriad Soul Banner was exasperated.
"Why I oughta..."
You told the Myriad Soul Banner to hold off for a second.
When things are this abnormal, something is definitely amiss.
You had to figure out what was going on.
"Fellow demons, why are you in such a rush to be refined?"
The mob of demons started chattering all at once inside the banner.
You were completely bewildered and couldn't make out a single word.
"Send out a representative, or else I'm going to let you all out! I'll set you free!"
"No, don't! Please, you have to kill us! Don't let us out!"
What the hell!
You had never heard such a request before!
The demons pushed forward a representative—the tiger demon with the highest cultivation realm among them.
You could actually understand what this tiger demon was saying, as he spoke directly in the human tongue.
"We wandering ghosts have existed for far too long. We can't dissipate, and we can't come back to life. We just drift around all day, unable to touch or experience anything. It's pure torture..."
"Just how long has it been to make you this miserable? Miserable enough to beg to be refined?"
"Thirty thousand years..."
Thirty thousand years again.
You had heard this specific timeframe in several different places now.
"I find that strange too. When living beings die, shouldn't their souls dissipate very quickly? How have you managed to stick around for thirty thousand years without fading away?"
The tiger demon spoke with deep melancholy.
"Living outlander, you only know half the truth. Do you truly believe that the natural dissipation of a soul means it simply vanishes? That it dissolves? That it returns to the heavens and the earth?"
"Is that not the case?"
m back to his original world. In the end, he realized he had overthought things. [Hey, why is Shen Manni, the female lead, acting strange? Shouldn't she be fawning over the male lead at this point?] [Zhou Qiaoqiao, are you sick? Weren't you supposed to break off your engagement today?] [Damn it! An Youyi, please do your job as an undercover agent and sell my information to the protagonist, you idiot!] ... At this moment, Xu Mo himself didn't know that these female leads had already heard his inner thoughts. Then they decided not to play by the rules. Xu Mo: Please respect my profession as the big villain!
] [Lone Wolf, No Male Gaze] [Protagonist is pursued early on; extreme protagonist-stans, stay away!] The "Carnival Paradise" descends and slowly devours the real world in the form of a game. By chance, Zhu Yan awakens the talent [Roleplay], becoming one of the first beta players. He thought he could develop safely, but after clearing the first instance, he is branded by humanity as the chief culprit behind the game's spread—a traitorous villain. A villain? Who would ever... become one! He'll be the villain! From then on, Zhu Yan is not only a player but also a lackey for the Carnival Paradise. Between the straight path and the crooked path, he chooses the con. With his left hand, he dons the villain's mantle, staging scenes within instances, infuriating players who decry him as a despicable traitor, all while the game happily promotes him. With his right hand, he joins the non-human organization "Fangcun Mountain," which opposes the Carnival Paradise, transforming into a mysterious player who slaughters game bosses, earning cheers of "Long live the expert!" from fellow players. Gradually, Zhu Yan rises to become an S-rank human player in Fangcun Mountain's archives, while also being the Carnival Paradise's certified top game Boss. But when the final war erupts and both major factions place their hopes in him— Players tag his various aliases: "Experts, this offensive depends on you." The Carnival Paradise's supreme Boss throws an arm around his neck: "Bro, you're the iron, I'm the steel; you can't let me down again!"
rowess are unmatched, commanding a million-strong army! Yet, the Emperor wants to depose him for the sake of a false prince? Hold on, are you throwing me into some female-oriented romance plot? How can I tolerate this? With a grand wave of his hand—the Nine Clan Extraction Technique! Slander the Emperor? Very well, all of you shall die! ... The False Prince: "Although I am not the biological son, Father and Mother love me more. The throne should be mine!" The Female Lead: "Qin Xiao, you are the Emperor, and I am a commoner. If you wish to marry me, you must abdicate. Otherwise, you will never have me!" The Empress: "After we divorce, you must give me half the empire!" The Transmigrator Consort: "You worthless Emperor, why should I kneel to you? All men are equal—I advise you to be kind!" The Great General: "The enemy general is my childhood sweetheart. For her sake, I willingly abandon the frontier defenses!" The Retired Emperor: "Although Yu'er was adopted, I prefer him. Qin Xiao, you should abdicate and let him become Emperor!" ... Very well! So this is how you want to play? Facing this twisted world of female-oriented tropes, Qin Xiao grins and raises his hand to unleash—the Nine Clan Extraction Technique! I am the Emperor. Why would I bother reasoning with you? Seal the gates! Leave none alive!
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.”
