However, most of the pressure still fell on Lin Xiao and Liao Pantu.
Every day, their minds were practically running nonstop. No matter the time, they were constantly pondering these matters.
Sometimes Lin Xiao thought that, really, he could just put in a little extra effort and use the System to synthesize items every day. Even if he simply made an ordinary synthesis machine, it could still produce quite a lot over time.
But every time, Senior Liao—still brimming with energy and completely absorbed in his research—would drag him back into persevering.
A person’s patience and determination were ultimately limited, though, especially when it came to different pursuits. Studying something new was indeed rather interesting to Lin Xiao, but it was not interesting enough to keep him focused on the same thing for such a long time.
Since he had been so busy that he was completely overwhelmed, he had even temporarily canceled his lessons at Qingyun Peak.
Clearly, Lin Xiao was not the sort of scientific researcher who could bury himself in research with complete dedication.
At that moment, inside the research room shared by Lin Xiao and Liao Pantu, Lin Xiao was lying flat on the messy floor amid the research materials, pretending to be dead.
Liao Pantu shuffled over in his slippers and nudged Lin Xiao’s leg with his foot. “All right, get up. Stop slacking off. You were the one who came up with this work on a whim in the first place.”
Lin Xiao opened his eyes weakly and looked at him with complete sincerity. “Senior, to be honest, I’m starting to regret this.”
Liao Pantu nodded. “Fine. I’ll go tell your brother that you regret it and don’t want to continue. He can hurry up and shut down all the projects.”
With that, he turned around and started to leave.
Lin Xiao immediately sat up, grabbed him by the hem of his clothes, and hurriedly said, “Hey, hey, wait! Don’t do that. I was just saying it casually.”
As if he had expected this reaction, Liao Pantu turned back and gave him a cold laugh before shuffling back to his seat.
Lin Xiao hung his head dejectedly for a while. Then he raised his hand, vigorously rubbed his face, and briskly stood up, preparing to continue with his research.
Just then, Liao Pantu suddenly waved him over. “Didn’t you say that you were planning to establish a base in the cultivation world later? Go pack up over the next few days and get out of here.”
Lin Xiao was immediately tempted. Raising an eyebrow, he asked, “What about all our research projects? Can you manage without me?”
Liao Pantu looked up and shot him a deeply disdainful glance. “With the way you keep making a racket every day, you scare away half the ideas that come to me. Without you, I’ll have some peace and quiet.”
Although he put it that way, Lin Xiao knew that Senior Liao was merely looking for an excuse to give him a chance to get out and relax.
Still, it did not seem right to leave Senior Liao alone here, conducting research day and night. Thus, Lin Xiao struggled to refuse. “Forget it. It would be too hard on you to leave you here alone.”
Liao Pantu looked at him with an indescribably complicated expression. “In your current state, you’re not helping me at all. You’re only getting in the way and affecting my performance. Stop talking nonsense and get lost.”
Seeing that Lin Xiao still looked as though he wanted to refuse, Liao Pantu hurriedly added, “You clearly want to go out more than anything. Why are you putting on this fake polite act in front of me? What is this? Have you become hypocritical after being sect master for a few years?”
Tsk. Senior Liao was wonderful in every way, except that his tongue was far too sharp.
Lin Xiao decisively swallowed the words of refusal at the tip of his tongue and changed his tone. “All right, then. Since you’re so graciously insisting, I’ll accept your kindness. For the sake of advancing our sect’s grand undertaking, I’ll take the trouble to make a trip to the cultivation world. Hopefully, by the time I return, our research projects will have made significant progress. Senior, keep up the good work.”
His even more hypocritical speech successfully earned him a roll of Senior Liao’s eyes.
After leaving the research room, Lin Xiao began planning his itinerary for the cultivation world.
He took out the System mission and looked it over again.
[Version 2.0 Sect-Building Series Mission (1): Because of the sect’s outstanding performance, it has gained tremendous prestige in the Mortal World. However, for an excellent sect to continue developing, it cannot remain secluded in one corner. It must dare to expand and advance, taking the sect’s first steps beyond the Mortal World and into the cultivation world. Please establish a sect base in the cultivation world within ten years.]
[Note: The location of the base will have a significant impact on the sect’s future development in the cultivation world. Please choose the site with care.]
Establishing a sect base itself was not difficult.
Having already gained experience from founding the sect the first time, Lin Xiao was not worried about that at all.
As far as a sect base went, a simple thatched hut would do.
The difficult part was choosing the location.
After all, the System had gone out of its way to add a warning telling him to choose carefully. It was probably best to take the System’s words seriously.
Since he needed to choose a site, he would have to explore as much of the map as possible.
In reality, exploring the map was naturally not as simple as flying over an area in a game and calling it done. Since he was establishing a sect base there, he at least needed to learn about the local customs and social conditions. It would be even better if he could understand the local power structure and find a place that would make it convenient for the sect to sell its goods in the future.
All of these factors had to be investigated during the exploration.
Since that was the case, he obviously could not go alone. Exploring without anyone to keep him company would be far too boring.
Besides, Lin Xiao had another idea.
Could he use this trip to explore the cultivation world as an opportunity to give some of the more capable disciples a chance to gain experience?
After all, remaining in the sect to cultivate for too long really amounted to shutting themselves away and trying to build a carriage behind closed doors.
Although disciples could be sent out to gain experience in the sect’s various branches throughout the outside world once they reached the Foundation Establishment Stage, that still only applied to the Mortal World.
The Mortal World could certainly be said to be developing at a rapid pace now, but when it came to the depth of its cultivation heritage, it was still far behind the cultivation world. There, the disciples would have the opportunity to encounter and experience a broader, more comprehensive, and more diverse cultivation world.
Lin Xiao wondered whether he should bring along a group of the sect’s strongest disciples who were willing to travel and gain experience, allowing them to explore the cultivation world together.
Although there were many high-level cultivators there, Senior Liao had said that most high-level cultivators were unwilling to become entangled in cause and effect and affect their cultivation. As a result, they generally would not casually attack or harm others.
Moreover, most of them secluded themselves in meditation for years at a time and did not have much opportunity to come out and cause trouble. Conflicts were actually more common among low-level cultivators.
Of course, he and Yin Xuanzi belonged to the minority outside that majority. And in the cultivation world, they could not even be considered high-level cultivators yet; at most, they were at the upper end of the middle tier.
Besides, most regions were governed by major sects that maintained public order. It was not as though fighting and killing happened everywhere. As long as they did not deliberately seek out places where conflicts were likely to occur, they generally should not encounter much danger.
The people of the Lingxian Sect also all possessed lock rings. Over the past two years, they had used the various “Complete Compendiums” within the sect to create quite a few life-saving treasures and the like. If they encountered danger, they could contact others and at least preserve their lives.
All things considered, there should not be any major problem with going to the cultivation world.
Still, perhaps he should have another discussion with Senior Liao later.
As the sect master, Lin Xiao repeatedly weighed everything in his mind for the sake of his disciples’ safety.
he colors of other people’s emotions. Light red meant anxiety. Gray meant exhaustion. Orange meant excitement. Yellow... meant repression. At the same time, he could gain unlimited control over one of those colors. Pale cyan: relaxation. Using this ability, he started offering “two-yuan hugs,” spending an afternoon exchanging emotional-color experiences with others. Then came his final female customer of the day— a girl whose emotional color was pure black... —— A week later, Xu Chuan had become skilled at using pale cyan—Relaxation—treating it like a bottle of menthol balm whenever he needed it. That was when he discovered he had unlocked another unlimited emotional color: Purple, the color of fear. So these emotional colors refresh every week? Fine, I take it back—I’ll never call you useless again... —— Much later, after Xu Chuan had accumulated countless emotional abilities, one night, he suddenly found himself inside someone else’s dream. There, he could use the emotional colors he possessed to paint. And in her dream, he painted her a shower of pink shooting stars, spreading across the depths of the night sky...
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
to panic—he has a system. As long as an investment target dies, he can claim a reward. And since he is immortal, the one thing he has plenty of is time. ... Countless years later. “Immortal Emperor of Longevity? I invested in him.” “Supreme Celestial Venerable? I invested in him.” “Undying Empress? I invested in her.” “...” “Heh. Once they’ve all died, even the Heavenly Dao will have to kneel and call me Dad.”
. As long as he maintains the villain image and follows the plot to the grand finale, he can obtain generous rewards and return to the real world. So Gu Chen'an entered the role and began to act as a scumbag villain, but who would have expected that the female leads could hear his inner thoughts. Miss Su from the Su family was shocked: "I originally thought Gu Chen'an was a scumbag, but I didn't expect he turned out to be a gentleman! What? You said I have to call off the engagement? I definitely won't, I'll piss you off!" Bai Yuan Tian was dumbfounded: "Young Master Gu is usually unreasonable and a complete brat, but he actually calls me little sweetie in his heart? What, Young Master Gu even said he likes me?" As the female leads' images collapsed more and more, the plot also collapsed with it. Gu Chen'an looked at all this chaos. "Ladies, don't aggro me, if you keep this up the male lead really will stab me, I still need to survive to the grand finale!"
