A stiff smile froze on Ding Mingcang's face.
He had never expected such a response.
In his eyes,
as a dignified elder of the sect, having taken the initiative to propose a compromise,
a mere disciple—
not even an inner disciple, just a nominal one—
how dare they speak to him like this?
Around Ding Mingcang, imperceptible waves of energy surged and churned.
If not for the crowd watching, he would have struck without hesitation.
Zhao Wendao gave him a meaningful glance, forcing Ding Mingcang to suppress his killing intent.
"What a fine 'honor the bet'... Fine!"
Ding Mingcang gritted his teeth, his eyes locked onto Lu Ze.
"Then today, I shall witness just how 'endless' this Endless Mode truly is..."
"And how you plan to clear these stages!"
"If you can clear 50 stages in front of all the disciples, then this old man will gladly admit defeat!"
Though he hadn’t personally attempted Endless Mode, according to Qian Yutang’s intelligence, its difficulty was beyond ordinary comprehension.
Over the past three days, the sect’s highest record was only 20 stages.
And that was a miserable failure!
No matter how he thought about it, Lu Ze must have designed it deliberately to prevent anyone from clearing it.
Even he himself couldn’t do it.
"Very well, let’s begin then."
Lu Ze smiled faintly.
He had long anticipated Ding Mingcang’s refusal to back down.
Reaching this point was no surprise to him.
What a joke…
A mere fifty stages?
For someone like him—a professional in his past life who had collaborated with netizens to design challenges—it was child’s play.
Not just 50 stages.
Even 100, 1,000, or mindless auto-battle formations—he could devise them all.
"Wait!"
Seeing Lu Ze’s calm demeanor, Ding Mingcang stopped him with suspicion.
"First, I’ll have someone inspect whether you’ve tampered with the crystal or the Illusion Tower before you proceed!"
……
……
News of Lu Ze’s impending demonstration of Endless Mode at Lingxiao Plaza spread like wildfire.
"Elder Ding makes a fair point. If Junior Brother Lu deliberately made it impossible to clear, that’s hardly fair."
"Junior Brother Lu is truly bold, daring to defy the Second Elder in front of so many fellow disciples."
"Clearing 50 stages live? Impossible, right?"
"I can’t even get past the fifth stage…"
"Absolutely no way! The firepower by the tenth stage is inhuman! Fifty stages? No chance!"
"I even suspect there isn’t a fiftieth stage in the illusion."
"Junior Brother Lu must’ve been drunk when setting the zombie numbers. Let’s see how he handles this."
……
The disciples buzzed with discussion.
Even if Lu Ze was the creator of the illusion, no one believed he could reach the 50th stage.
The exponential difficulty spike in Endless Mode was undeniable.
With such absurd zombie numbers, everyone assumed cheating was the only way to clear it.
So when Ding Mingcang demanded an inspection of the crystal and Illusion Tower, the disciples found it perfectly reasonable.
After a thorough check confirmed no tampering, Lu Ze immersed his consciousness into the Illusion Tower, ready to begin his performance.
He projected the illusion’s visuals for all to see.
Ding Mingcang and the Enforcement Hall disciples stood guard, scrutinizing his every move.
The moment Lu Ze showed any sign of altering the crystal’s data, Ding Mingcang would seize him without hesitation.
All eyes were fixed on Lu Ze’s screen.
Yet the moment he entered, he paused at the Endless Mode selection, unmoving.
"Why isn’t he moving?"
"Is he scared now…?"
"Maybe he’s looking for a way to adjust the difficulty?"
"Hard to do… Elder Ding is watching."
……
The disciples grew restless.
At that moment, Lu Ze was deep in thought, frowning.
He was considering two things.
First, which stage to play.
Second, which formation to use.
If this weren’t a "live broadcast," his choices wouldn’t matter.
Not just 50 stages.
Even 500 or 5,000—he could clear them effortlessly.
The problem was,
he didn’t want to teach everyone how to clear Endless Mode at this stage.
For one, it would shorten players’ thinking time, affecting the game’s longevity.
And secondly…
If everyone knew how to clear Endless, where would he earn his Demon Points?
Take the classic Cob Cannon formation, for example.
Without exaggeration,
if he demonstrated how to set it up, disciples would master auto-battling Endless Mode by nightfall.
Even with adjusted difficulty, they’d easily reach a hundred stages.
That would kill their motivation to keep playing "Plants vs. Zombies."
Lu Ze knew he couldn’t choose such a brainless auto-battle formation.
Formation development was best left to the players themselves.
After brief deliberation, Lu Ze selected the third stage—Daytime Pool—for Endless Mode.
The pool’s presence reduced defensive pressure on the two water lanes, making it the easiest stage for demonstration.
As for the formation,
he chose a classic no-cannon setup.
No-cannon formations required more manual control, and he could intentionally mix in other plants to mislead players.
Once his plant cards were set, Lu Ze entered the game.
……
……
Below the stage,
countless eyes followed his every move.
When the disciples saw Lu Ze’s plant selection, confusion erupted.
"What’s this? Why isn’t Junior Brother Lu bringing Peashooters?"
"No regular Peashooters is one thing, but not even Snow Peas?"
"Forget Peashooters—he only brought one Fume Shroom and Gloom Shroom? How’s he clearing the first stage?"
"Relying on Potato Mines and Squash to trade for zombies? That’s a pure waste of spiritual energy!"
"Wait… he didn’t even bring Wall-nuts!"
"Is he trying to lose?"
"Has Junior Brother Lu given up?"
……
In the air,
Mu Yawen and Zhong Yi also observed Lu Ze’s actions.
"Senior Brother Zhong, isn’t Junior Brother Lu overconfident by not bringing Wall-nuts?"
Mu Yawen was puzzled.
He had a soft spot for the game’s tank plants.
Every stage required a full row of Tall-nuts and Pumpkin Shields, or he’d feel uneasy.
Seeing Lu Ze skip them entirely made his skin crawl.
"The first stage isn’t intense. The focus is accumulating spiritual energy, so skipping Wall-nuts is understandable."
Zhong Yi had more experience than most.
He frowned, analyzing the purpose behind each of Lu Ze’s choices.
The Twin Sunflower copy was to speed up energy collection—that made sense.
Potato Mines and Squash were to trade zombies for minimal cost early on—acceptable.
But why use 75-energy Fume Shrooms instead of Peashooters that synergized with Torchwoods?
The former even required an extra Coffee Bean to awaken!
If those choices were somewhat justifiable,
the most baffling was the Garlic.
In his eyes, this card was utterly useless.
Its effect was to make zombies switch lanes by repelling them with a foul stench.
All it did was change their path—it couldn’t kill them or even deal damage. Completely pointless.
Zhong Yi had only used it once during a story mission before tossing it into storage, where it gathered dust ever since.
Watching Lu Ze decisively pick up this stack of cards, Zhong Yi grew even more curious.
With these bizarre cards in hand,
how exactly did Lu Ze plan to hold out until the 50th wave?
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.
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!
. 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!"
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!
