"A Foundation Establishment Pill? Old Zhou, you're making progress this fast?"
Zhong Yi was slightly stunned.
The Foundation Establishment Pill was refined using an alchemy furnace and required various rare materials.
Many of these materials could only be obtained by defeating monster leaders.
Zhou Yue couldn't help but complain, "Exactly… Have you even considered how long you guys have been messing around with those shady methods?"
"H-How can you call it shady? I'm researching the logic of how the world operates…"
Zhong Yi's face flushed red as he quickly changed the subject.
"By the way, why didn’t you just take the pill yourself? Did you come looking for me to give it to me?"
"Dream on. If I left it with you, you’d probably feed it to some villager for an experiment."
Zhou Yue shot Zhong Yi a disdainful look before explaining,
"Here’s the thing—the Foundation Establishment Pill I refined is fifth-grade…"
Zhong Yi wasn’t surprised at all. "Hmm, now that I think about it being refined by you, that suddenly makes sense."
"Shut up."
Zhou Yue’s lips twitched.
"The success rate for a fifth-grade pill is only thirty percent, so I need your help."
"Help? What can I do?"
Zhong Yi pointed at himself in confusion.
Zhou Yue grinned. "Not that kind of help—I need your blessing! Just say, 'Your Foundation Establishment will definitely fail this time,' and I’ll be set."
"???"
Zhong Yi’s face instantly turned red with frustration.
What kind of reputation did he have in his teammate’s mind?
"You actually believe in this kind of nonsense?"
"Hah, Old Zhong, you still don’t understand the sheer power hidden within you. Just do as I say this once, and I won’t bother you again."
"Fine, fine…"
Unable to resist Zhou Yue’s persistence, Zhong Yi reluctantly agreed.
"Old Zhou, your Foundation Establishment will definitely fail this time."
"Perfect!"
Zhou Yue clapped his hands in delight and immediately swallowed the pill.
Zhong Yi eyed him skeptically. "Does this really work?"
"Relax, even if it doesn’t, I won’t blame you. If I fail, I’ll just refine another one."
Zhou Yue’s attitude was remarkably carefree.
Zhong Yi nodded. "Fair enough… It’s just Foundation Establishment. Failing probably isn’t a big deal."
Just then, a faint blue glow began to shimmer around Zhou Yue’s body—almost like a creeper about to explode.
"It’s happening! Is this the breakthrough?!"
Feeling the surge of energy within him, Zhou Yue was ecstatic.
Above them, dark clouds gathered, and thunder rumbled.
"Whoa, does breaking through to Foundation Establishment in this illusionary realm really cause such a spectacle?"
Zhou Yue looked up at the sky, clicking his tongue in amazement.
This celestial phenomenon…
Could it be granting him a Thunder Spirit Root?
Just as he was lost in his fantasies—
CRACK!
A bolt of violet lightning descended from the heavens and struck him squarely on the head.
"HOLY—?!"
Zhou Yue jolted violently from the shock.
"Tribulation Lightning?!"
……
"Puny lightning, bring it on!!"
CRACK
[You have been struck by Tribulation Lightning. Abnormal status applied: Epilepsy.]
"My fate is mine to control!!!"
CRACK
[You have been struck by Tribulation Lightning. Abnormal status applied: Inverted.]
"What the—why is the world upside down??"
CRACK
[You have been struck by Tribulation Lightning. Abnormal status applied: Drop Prone.]
……
Half an hour later.
Zhou Yue ultimately failed to endure all 99 strikes of the Foundation Establishment Tribulation and was reduced to a charred corpse.
His backpack items scattered across the ground.
Zhong Yi waited for a long time before Zhou Yue finally respawned and returned.
"Old Zhong… I think the lightning messed up my eyes. Everything looks upside down?"
Zhou Yue stared at Zhong Yi in confusion.
"Or maybe… you’re just walking upside down?"
Zhong Yi struggled to hold back his laughter.
At that moment, Zhou Yue was standing—or rather, hanging—completely inverted, feet in the air, with occasional full-body spasms. The sight was utterly ridiculous.
"...This Tribulation Lightning is such a scam."
Zhou Yue checked his status panel and saw that the debuffs from the lightning would last for half an hour and couldn’t be reset by respawning.
Not only was he upside down and occasionally seizing, but items from his backpack would also randomly drop out.
"What kind of nonsense is this… Screw it, I’ll just log out and come back in half an hour!"
Zhou Yue gritted his teeth in frustration.
"Whoa, bro, what happened to you?"
Zhou Qiaoling, who had followed the sound of thunder, couldn’t help but laugh at the sight.
The ever-stubborn Zhou Yue absolutely refused to let her see him in such a pathetic state.
"...Found a rare cultivation manual. Standing upside down boosts EXP gain."
"Then why were you twitching earlier?"
"Practicing my techniques."
"Wow! Bro, you keep dropping stuff—wait, is that a diamond?!"
"...Got too many. Not worth keeping."
"Then I’ll take it~"
"......"
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
] [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!"
ver to a world of cultivation and returned invincible. Modern medicine is child's play compared to elixirs; technological might crumbles before true cultivation. My name is Qin Ning, Earth's sole cultivator!
