After tossing the last relatively intact fragment of the tortoiseshell into his storage space, Chen Guan dusted off his hands.
“Awoo…”
A feeble whine came from beside his feet.
Baobao was sprawled on the ground, its belly rising and falling slightly as purple light flowed across its body. Clearly, it was still digesting the enormous energy brought by the crystal core.
It lifted its eyelids, glancing at Chen Guan, then at the tortoiseshell fragments. Its golden, slit-pupils were filled with the utter despair of someone silently declaring, “I can’t eat another bite. Really, not even one more.”
This wasn’t just a food coma anymore. It had indigestion.
“All right, I know you overate.” Chen Guan crouched down and amusedly scratched its furry chin. “Just keep the rest for now. A little exercise later should take care of it.”
Baobao contentedly narrowed its eyes. A satisfied purr rumbled in its throat, and the tip of its tail swayed lazily back and forth.
“This Void Crystal Turtle is considered a troublesome creature even around here.” Li Yan walked over. “Its regenerative ability can wear down most opponents of the same rank, yet you dealt with it quickly.”
Chen Guan could hear the approval in his voice.
“I got lucky. Its abilities happened to be a bad match for it,” Chen Guan said modestly as he rose to his feet.
He knew that what Li Yan wanted to see wasn’t him taking advantage of a favorable matchup, but his ability to fight head-on.
That high-frequency barrage of attacks just now had been his answer.
“This isn’t the academy. There’s no such thing as luck here.” Li Yan shook his head and said no more. His gaze swept toward the distant signal tower, which was only faintly visible through the haze. “Let’s go. The real trouble is still ahead.”
With that, he led the way toward the depths of the island.
Chen Guan picked up Baobao, which was still completely out of commission, and followed.
The farther inward they went, the stronger the sweet yet rotten stench in the air became. The fleshy fungal carpet covering the ground also grew slicker. Beneath it, they could even see vein-like tissues pulsing faintly.
The entire island resembled a gigantic living creature that was breathing.
“Cackle, cackle. Feel it, kid?” Baal’s lazy voice rang out. “Things are lively up ahead.”
Baal didn’t need to remind him. Chen Guan’s mental power had already sensed the dense, hair-raising presence of life ahead.
It wasn’t one or several powerful individuals, but a huge population tangled together into a single mass.
After walking several hundred more meters, the two stopped before a broad basin.
The basin was filled with fleshy, tumor-like plants half a person’s height. Their wrinkled surfaces constantly opened and closed, while each plant had a black, gaping maw at its top that exhaled pale-purple spores with every breath.
At the roots of those fleshy plants, the ground was blanketed with writhing, earthworm-like creatures.
They were completely black, only as thick as a baby’s arm yet several meters long. They had no facial features, only rings of razor-sharp teeth encircling their mouths. They ceaselessly gnawed at the fungal carpet beneath them, producing a grating, sandy rasp.
There were thousands upon thousands of them, stretching beyond sight.
“Void Worms are generally considered one of the lowest-level Void creatures. They possess no independent intelligence and act purely on instinct.”
Rarely did Li Yan’s voice carry such gravity.
“But this place is an exception. They’ve mutated here and gained an almost limitless regenerative ability. More importantly, they function as a single entity.”
The instant he finished speaking, every worm in the basin stopped feeding as if they had received the same command.
The front halves of thousands upon thousands of worms rose high into the air. Their featureless heads all turned toward Chen Guan and Li Yan, the two unwelcome intruders.
“Awoo?”
Sensing the threat, Baobao finally snapped out of its overstuffed stupor. It leaped from Chen Guan’s arms, arched its back, and let out a warning growl.
Purple arcs of electricity sprang to life across its body once more.
“Aw!”
Before Chen Guan could give an order, the provoked Baobao could no longer hold itself back. It opened its mouth and fired a purple pillar of lightning—thicker than any it had unleashed before—straight into the densest part of the swarm.
Boom!
The lightning exploded, instantly vaporizing hundreds of worms and clearing a large patch of scorched-black ground.
However, before Baobao could even reveal a smug expression, the worms surrounding the empty patch surged toward it like mad.
More worms burst from beneath the charred ground. In the span of only a breath or two, the cleared area was filled again—more densely than before.
“It’s useless,” Li Yan said solemnly. “Unless you can burn the entire basin to ash in an instant, killing them faster won’t matter. Their regeneration is simply too fast.”
Different regions of the Void Realm possessed different characteristics. Those traits guided the mutations of the monsters within them, and this region had clearly pushed regenerative speed to its absolute limit.
That was why this area had always been a headache for Li Yan. Even if he encountered a seventh-rank monster here, he might have to deal with it personally. Clearing the place was extremely difficult.
Baobao refused to accept defeat. It lashed out with several more bolts of lightning, but the result was the same as before. The number of worms did not decrease in the slightest.
It began to panic. The growl in its throat grew tinged with irritation.
This was the first time it had discovered that its attacks could be as useless as throwing stones into the sea. Aside from splashing up a little water, they accomplished nothing.
“Stop wasting your strength,” Chen Guan said, putting a halt to Baobao’s efforts.
“Be quiet and watch.”
Baobao stopped. Unwillingly, it retreated to Chen Guan’s feet and rubbed its head against his trouser leg, letting out a pitiful whimper.
These meat noodles couldn’t be bitten, couldn’t be cooked by electricity—they were bullying Baobao too much.
Chen Guan paid it no attention. He took two steps forward and stood at the edge of the basin.
He raised his head and looked at the seemingly endless mass of writhing black worms. Then he closed his eyes.
Li Yan’s gaze fell upon him. He said nothing, but his mountain-like figure straightened slightly.
He wanted to see how this student, who always managed to surprise him, would handle a situation that seemed almost impossible to solve.
After a while, Li Yan felt a faint breeze stir the ends of his hair.
The wind had risen.
No. That wasn’t right!
Li Yan quickly realized that there was no wind here.
Then the only possibility was…
He abruptly turned toward the source of the breeze.
The countless worms in the basin likewise turned in unison toward its source—Chen Guan.
They had sensed a threat: an instinctive fear of a natural predator.
In the next instant, every worm went berserk. They transformed into waves of black, surging toward Chen Guan at the edge of the basin.
They were going to devour the source of the threat.
s + Rent Collection Wealth】 At the start, he inherited a rundown house in the urban village from his grandfather. The house had no tenants, but the moment he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, a self-proclaimed empress from the Tianxuan Continent arrived as his first tenant. Ye Chuan soon discovered that with every new tenant moving in, not only did he receive massive daily payments, but he also obtained unique items related to their backgrounds. 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Tiger Strength Pill—dramatically enhances physical power!】 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Deer Blood Pill—significantly boosts vitality!】 …… From that day on, all sorts of bizarre tenants began appearing in the house: the empress from Tianxuan Continent, an apocalyptic sorceress from the Magic Realm, a mysterious scientific girl who fell through a spacetime rift… Every single day, he received strange, powerful items and endless money. Then one day, he suddenly realized—he had become invincible. Enough, enough! Stop giving me more!
uld barely embark on the path to immortality. Just as he was on the verge of death, his golden finger awakened. No matter whether it was poison, drained blood and vital energy, diminished lifespan, or any other physical debuff caused by paying a price—once midnight passed, everything would be refreshed. From then on, whenever someone asked what kind of person Chu Ran was, the answer was simple: Forbidden arts that other cultivators dared not learn? Chu Ran would learn them. Prices that even demonic cultivators dared not pay? Chu Ran would pay them. Lifespan that even righteous cultivators dared not burn? Chu Ran would burn it. All the blood essence in his body? Take it. Want both his hands and feet? He would cut them off and send them to you. You say he’s finished? He wasn’t built to sit idle. You think he’s gone mad? No—he was simply waiting for midnight. From that day onward, Chu Ran would respect neither Heaven nor Earth, bow to neither gods nor ghosts. He had only one wish: For midnight to arrive a little sooner.
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
【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.)
