Lin Xiaolu laughed wildly for a good while before tossing down the boulder and bouncing over to Li Mingru’s side: “Boss, quick, feed me some tiger blood!”
Li Mingru smiled. With his palm stretched out before Lin Xiaolu, a blood sphere slowly condensed in the center of his palm, three inches wide.
Staring at the spinning blood sphere in front of him, Lin Xiaolu leaned in and sniffed. He didn’t detect any bloodiness, only a faint, delicate fragrance.
“Boss, where’d you get this tiger blood?” he asked curiously.
Li Mingru smiled. “Your teacher has a Ring of Na that can hold some items.”
Having said that, he flicked the blood sphere toward Lin Xiaolu. “Drink up quickly. This refined beast blood has no unpleasant odor.”
Hearing this, Lin Xiaolu didn’t hesitate any longer. Pursing his lips, he craned his neck forward. His lips met the blood sphere and with a soft suck, it flowed entirely into his mouth and down his throat.
He was shocked that he’d swallowed it just like that without even tasting anything.
Just as he was about to smack his lips to savor the flavor, a swelling heat suddenly rose inside him!
“Yeowch! Ow ow ow ow ow!”
The swelling heat came extremely quickly, flooding his entire body in an instant, making him yelp in pain again. Li Mingru and Ye Qingluan also noticed Lin Xiaolu’s change.
Right now, the boy’s originally snow-white skin was visibly reddening before their eyes, even emitting wisps of blue smoke! His clear eyes had turned completely bloodshot!
“Ahhhhhhh!” Lin Xiaolu shrieked as he rolled around on the ground, pounding the earth with his fists. With each punch, cracks spiderwebbed through the thick snow and into the rocky mountain beneath!
“Roarrrrr!” He was howling now! The eight-year-old’s body curled up as he emitted snarls like a small beast.
Seeing this, Li Mingru said, “Go to the cliffside waterfall. Train until you are utterly exhausted! Quickly!”
Lin Xiaolu couldn’t even respond. He just turned and raced toward the cliffside waterfall north of Pluck Star Peak.
He was in so much pain, feeling as if his belly might burst open at any moment. All the way, he ran and shrieked, his bare shoulders flashing as he sprinted to the crashing waterfall and dove right in beneath the spray.
“Hsss~” The cool waterfall water met his fiery skin, immediately billowing up clouds of steam wherever it touched.
“Ahhhhhhh! It hurts so bad!”
Under the waterfall’s barrage, Lin Xiaolu began doing pushups at a shockingly fast speed, his small body rising and falling so quickly he seemed to leave afterimages.
The water plunged onto his young back again and again but could not bend him.
His body continued smoking. No matter how the waterfall washed over him, it was useless. Instead, it made his whole body seem wrapped in steam—the waterfall plunged into whiteness, nothing visible underneath.
“Roarrrrr!”
The pain drove Lin Xiaolu to the edge. Unable to endure, he let out another roar, then hugged the enormous boulder next to him. Lifting it high over his head, he began squat training under the waterfall, bearing its immense weight.
By now, Li Mingru and Ye Qingluan had also unhurriedly come to the cliffside falls. Seeing the white plumes below and hearing the continuous roars within, their expressions held traces of concern.
“Won’t this damage the little guy?” Ye Qingluan said to Li Mingru. “You supplemented him with too much at once. I’m afraid he can’t handle it.”
Li Mingru stood expressionless, holding his jug of wine. “Martial training itself goes against the flow. To match cultivators, one must have great will and endure immense hardship. As the Analects says, ‘Go above and get the understanding; with that understanding, you can then implement below.’ By implementing below, you gain nothing.”
Ye Qingluan gave him a sideways glance. “Junior Brother, you really are eccentric—a cultivator acting just like a secular martial teacher now.”
“Senior Sister, in my travels I also witnessed some formidable martial artists and exchanged insights with them, so I have some knowledge,” Li Mingru said.
Ye Qingluan nodded, listening to the waterfall’s continuous young roars. Curious, she asked, “So how will you train Little Deer in the future?”
Taking a mouthful of wine, Li Mingru chuckled lightly. “That’s confidential.”
Ye Qingluan: (◦`~ ́◦)
That day, Lin Xiaolu did not return to the cottage. He trained madly under the waterfall all night—squatting with thousand-jin boulders, doing pushups, even punching the ground in pain.
Not until the next afternoon, when his energy reached an utmost peak after over ten hours of training, did he finally return to normal.
Li Mingru and Ye Qingluan accompanied him the entire time, watching his relentless exercising. With their own eyes, they saw his final enraged punch straight up at the waterfall overhead.
This punch sent the entire falls reverse-cascading into the heavens, water waves flying into the clouds! Leaving even Ye Qingluan shocked.
Only then did the drenched little boy emerge from the waterfall, bare-shouldered with jutting toddler belly. Raising his bright, clear eyes, he gazed confusedly at Li Mingru and Ye Qingluan, then slowly grinned.
“Boss, Sect Leader Sis, am I powerful?”
...
That afternoon, at the cottage on Pluck Star Peak.
Xiao Yuer, Dongfang Dan, Tang Hanqing, Liu Shuai and other children sat in rows on little stools, faces full of reverence as they listened to Lin Xiaolu’s story.
They all listened extremely intently, faces etched with awe!
“After that bout of natural fortune from the boss, he was deeply shocked by my talents and efforts,” said Lin Xiaolu. “He said though I can’t cultivate, I’m still a once-in-a-century genius for martial arts, with peerless potential to turn rot into magic. I’ll definitely become a big shot in the future. Even the Sect Leader was affected by my air, sighing that she couldn’t compare. She wanted to join my Serve People with Virtue Gang, but since she's the boss's senior sister, I didn't agree to avoid embarrassing him. As you know, I, Lin Xiaolu, am extremely loyal and gave the boss face by rejecting the Sect Leader.”
“Big Bro, wasn’t the Sect Leader really sad to be rejected by you?” Xiao Yuer asked, cradling her head.
Hearing this, Lin Xiaolu heaved a mournful sigh.
“Of course she was heartbroken. At the time she was crying floods, even saying that with no hope of joining my gang, she had no reason to live on even as an Infant Stage expert or Sect Leader of Emei. Big Bro and the boss spent a long time talking her down.”
Dongfang Dan’s shocked fat face quivered. “Whoa—I didn’t expect Big Bro Lu to be so powerful already. Clap clap clap!”
The children broke into applause.
“Boss,” said Tang Hanqing, swinging his snot bubble. “Since you can’t cultivate anymore and can only train in martial arts, how will Teacher Li instruct you?”
“He hasn’t said yet,” Lin Xiaolu declared. “The boss said someone as talented as me is just too freakishly powerful. His original training methods don’t match up, so he’s going to find a new approach and tell me tomorrow.”
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.
shall grant"] ["Inscribing the glory of our race upon tombstones"] ["All that is threatened, I shall protect"] How his younger sister sees her brother: A brother who only makes eye contact once a day, mostly fading into the background as he tinkers with who-knows-what in his room all day. Their life paths should have remained largely separate. Until one day. Su Qi created an equipment card for his never-met "online girlfriend." His sister fell into silent contemplation upon receiving the "white stockings." [Card can be upgraded] [Upgrade by fulfilling any of the following conditions] [Condition ①: Consume one hundred higher-tier cards] [Condition ②: Complete one 'Heart-Pounding Adventure'] What constitutes a Heart-Pounding Adventure? [Heart-Pounding Adventure (Beginner Level): Equip the card and invite 'Su Qi' to admire it.] [Heart-Pounding Adventure (Easy Level): Equip the card, invite 'Su Qi' to touch it, and analyze the equipment's texture.] [Heart-Pounding Adventure (Entry Level): Equip the card and invite 'Su Qi' to...] [Heart-Pounding Adventure (Challenge Level): Freely combine the words 'Brother' 'Out' 'Brother' 'Me' 'Please' into a complete sentence...] "Please help me analyze both teams' mistakes in this match, brother..." His sister exhaled in relief—surely... surely there couldn't be anything more difficult? [Heart-Pounding Adventure (Suicide Mission Level): Sneak a peek at the names of the galgames in 'Su Qi's' hidden E-drive folder]
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.”
pression Bureau] Transported to a fantasy world overrun by demons and monsters, Gu Qingfeng becomes a jailer in the Demon Suppression Prison of the Great Yan Dynasty's Demon Suppression Bureau. From this point on, bizarre cases frequently occur in the Demon Suppression Prison, once known as hell on earth and infamous for its gloomy, terrifying atmosphere! Why do the demons and monsters in the prison wail miserably every night? Why has the corpse demon, capable of transforming into various beauties, donned black stockings and switched careers to become a foot massage therapist? Why has the eye demon, expert in soul-snatching and illusions, turned into a VR headset? Why is the fox spirit performing otaku dances? Are all these occurrences a twisted expression of demonic nature, or a descent into moral depravity? After peeling away layer upon layer of mystery, all clues ultimately point to a jailer named Gu Qingfeng. Gu Qingfeng: "Hehehe... My dear demons and monsters, whose card shall we flip today?"
