On the way to the stone pillar with the three companions, Zhong Yi turned on his live stream.
For the past few days, he had been deeply engrossed in studying the villagers. Due to his extremely cruel and twisted methods, he had kept the stream offline.
Now, the moment he reopened it, countless cultivators flocked to watch.
[Finally, Senior Brother Zhong is streaming again!]
[So, how many more villagers have you tormented this time?]
[Ever since Zhong Yi started researching redstone, he’s been acting more and more like a demonic cultivator…]
[I actually enjoy watching him experiment on the villagers—it’s a pursuit of knowledge.]
[Curiosity is good, as long as you don’t lose your humanity.]
[What’s this stone pillar? Why is it built so high?]
……
"Old Zhong, stop keeping us in suspense… How much longer do we have to climb? Can this pillar really generate experience orbs?"
Zhou Yue had been climbing the ladder for a while and was growing impatient.
"Remember the dungeon challenge from a few days ago? I told you the mobs spawn within a 128-block radius."
Zhong Yi climbed onto the final wooden rung and grinned.
"This height from the ground? Exactly 128 blocks."
"You mean… preventing mobs from spawning?"
Zhou Yue caught on quickly, immediately looking up at the sky.
They stood on a small platform now.
Above it loomed an enormous diamond-shaped structure.
"So, you’re making monsters spawn up there? But how do you plan to clear out a whole crowd of mobs?"
Zhou Yue pointed at the diamond platform in realization.
"Simple—make them fall… and get critically injured from the drop."
With that, Zhong Yi pulled a nearby lever.
The torches flickered with a red glow as a beam of crimson energy surged upward.
"Once I pull this lever, the redstone signal transmits to the top, where a dispenser in the enclosed space receives it…"
"Upon activation, the dispenser releases a water bucket. The water spreads infinitely in the space, pushing the mobs into the channel…"
"After they’re funneled in, they’ll plummet and take massive fall damage—just like this."
No sooner had Zhong Yi finished speaking than mobs began raining down into the narrow passage before him.
At the bottom, a one-block gap revealed only their feet.
"Now that they’re all weakened, I just need to make my move, and the experience is mine."
Zhong Yi drew his diamond sword and swung horizontally. A chorus of death cries echoed as waves of mobs perished.
Large experience orbs burst forth, flying straight into Zhong Yi’s body.
The live chat exploded.
[Holy crap, you can farm XP like this?!]
[This feels like studying scriptures for a century and finally achieving enlightenment…]
[Damn, he actually cracked redstone mechanics.]
[This leveling efficiency is insane.]
[Honestly, you’d probably max out just by grinding mobs in the time it took to build this.]
……
After a few cycles, Zhong Yi’s cultivation level skyrocketed, reaching the peak of Qi Refining Ninth Layer in mere moments.
"So? Told you this wasn’t some shady shortcut," Zhong Yi boasted, straightening his posture.
"If you’re so brilliant, why not help me figure out how to swap my spiritual root?" Zhou Yue suggested.
After breaking through to Foundation Establishment, his spiritual root had upgraded from fifth-grade to fourth-grade—but it remained an Earth root.
The passive effect changed from doubling dirt drops to doubling stone drops.
In short, it was utterly useless.
He just wanted a combat-oriented one.
"Spiritual roots? Heh, as it happens, I’ve already been researching that."
Zhong Yi’s lips curled into an eerie smile.
"Among villagers, there’s a chance of encountering those born with spiritual roots. If ordinary villagers breed with them, there’s a fifty percent chance their offspring will inherit a root."
"The attribute and grade are randomized… With enough time, we could cultivate a villager with a supreme-grade root."
"All we need is to figure out how to exploit the rules and extract the root from them—"
Before he could finish, Zhou Yue and the other two lunged forward in horror, clamping their hands over his mouth.
"Stop! Stop!"
"Senior Brother Zhong, we’re live! The Tianxuan Sect is watching!!"
"At this rate, the Lingxiao Sect will be labeled a demonic faction by tomorrow!!"
……
……
Lingxiao Sect, Forbidden Grounds.
Ding Mingcang, clad in black robes, arrived alone at the entrance.
"Elder Ding Mingcang of Linxian Peak seeks an audience with the Sect Master on urgent matters!"
He knelt on one knee, presenting a violet token.
The orange crystal at its center flickered several times before a distant, ethereal voice echoed from the depths:
"Elder Ding, why disturb my seclusion?"
The speaker was the current Sect Master of the Lingxiao Sect, who had been in closed-door cultivation for nearly a decade, striving to break through to the next realm.
Ding Mingcang bowed his head respectfully.
"Esteemed Sect Master…"
"Recently, a vile influence has spread within our sect—a bewitching illusion that ensnares disciples, distracting them from cultivation…"
"The Enforcement Hall sought to rectify this, but Elders Zhao Wendao of Leigong Peak and Nangong Yuan of Lihuo Peak repeatedly obstructed us, indulging in the illusion alongside the disciples. Despite my efforts, I cannot defy the will of two elders alone."
"If this continues, our sect’s prosperity will surely decline!"
"I humbly request the Sect Master’s decree, that I may purge this scourge and restore order!"
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."
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.
lity and could only live as an ordinary mortal. He only wished to live a peaceful life. Yet he didn't know— The dog he adopted, because it ate his food, became a legendary demon king. The kitchen knife he casually forged became a peerless divine weapon, causing numerous experts to fight desperately for it. The young disciple he took in became an immortal lord that led an era, due to cultivating the techniques Ye Feng taught him. Even the skeletons he looked down on the most were ominous demon kings that suppressed countless worlds. Many years later, looking at the void shattered with a punch, Ye Feng murmured to himself: It turns out the peerless kings were myself all along...
