I am the founder of Floralai

Lu Ze yawned and leisurely entered the illusion realm.

It wasn't that he was intentionally late.

But rather, his main account, Realm Master Lu Ze, hadn't been logged into for far too long.

When he entered the illusion realm and found himself on the White Screen, he hurriedly switched accounts.

[Initial funds have arrived!]

As a contestant who had just joined the competition, Lu Ze received his first batch of startup funds.

A mere 500,000 spirit stones.

This was the main attraction of the first stage of the competition:

Initial startup funds were distributed daily. If you went bankrupt, you couldn't even enter the map, so you had to plan your fund usage carefully.

Especially in the early stages of the competition, when everyone was penniless, the psychological battles between the players were the most exciting.

However, at this point, the first stage was already more than halfway over.

The top-tier players already had assets exceeding fifty million.

Lu Ze's meager funds weren't even enough to fill the gaps between their teeth.

"So..."

"It's about risking a little to win big, right?"

A smile crept onto Lu Ze's lips.

He had far too much experience with this sort of thing.

"Let me see... today's map is the Dam?"

Lu Ze raised an eyebrow.

Risking a little to win big at the Dam?

His eyes involuntarily drifted to the event interface in the upper right corner—

[Character Research: Gilded Rose (Red Wolf)]

"Isn't this just perfect timing?"

Lu Ze was instantly amused.

It just so happened to be the Dam, he just so happened to need to win big with a small stake, and Red Wolf's Gilded Rose had just so happened to come online recently...

"There truly is a divine will at work in the unseen world!"

Lu Ze sighed with emotion and quickly pulled a Gilded Rose set for himself.

And it took hitting the hard pity to get it.

Lu Ze couldn't help but feel that the remnant spirit of the Heavenly Dao was targeting him...

Equipping Red Wolf's [Gilded Rose] skin, Lu Ze began preparing his weapons—

Handgun, [Rat-18].

Which was the body-snatching divine weapon of his previous life, the G18.

While buying equipment, Lu Ze discovered something interesting.

That was, 9x19 flesh-damage rounds were selling for cheaper than ordinary blue rounds!

Spirit bullets were the bullets of his previous life, divided into different tiers.

Each tier possessed stronger armor penetration capabilities.

Tier 1 bullets could pierce Level 1 armor, Tier 2 bullets could pierce Level 2 armor... and so on.

Regardless of the tier, all spirit bullets dealt the same amount of damage when hitting an unarmored body.

The only difference lay in their armor penetration damage.

Flesh rounds, however, were a special type of spirit bullet.

They couldn't penetrate even Level 1 armor;

But as long as there was no armor, the damage they inflicted was far higher than any other spirit bullet!

This was the core of a massively popular playstyle in his previous life—the leg-meta playstyle.

Logically speaking, the price of flesh rounds should be far higher than ordinary Tier 3 spirit bullets.

Yet the current prices in the trading house were actually comparable to Tier 2 bullets?

Lu Ze immediately realized the issue—

In this world, the leg-meta playstyle simply hadn't been born yet!

It made sense when he thought about it.

Operation Immortal Abyss had been out in the cultivation world for less than two months, even by the most generous estimates.

Although advanced behaviors like hatchet-running, secret signals, and even bridge-camping had emerged.

These were all reliant on Zhong Yi's research.

And Zhong Yi was fundamentally an honest and kind-hearted person; naturally, it was impossible for him to specifically research all sorts of degenerate playstyles.

The body-snatching playstyle did exist and had quite an audience, but its development was ultimately a bit slow.

"Which means..."

Lu Ze looked thoughtfully at the golden rose in his hand.

"In this world, I am the founder of the Flower Delivery sect???"

Lu Ze still found it a bit unbelievable, so he checked the data from the backend.

He had hidden an easter egg in the [Gilded Rose] skin.

An easter egg related to the body-snatching playstyle.

So far, the number of triggers was 0.

This meant his guess was not wrong.

In this world, a complete body-snatching playstyle had yet to appear!

"Am I really going to be the grandmaster??"

Lu Ze looked between the [Rat-18] in his left hand and the golden rose in his right, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, trying hard to suppress the corners of his mouth from curling up.

"It's all the system forcing me, it's definitely not voluntary, definitely not..."

...

...

Following that, the projection in the center lit up, and the audience who had been waiting there instantly boiled over with excitement.

This meant that Lu Ze had already matched with his opponents!

Soon, the roster of seventeen contestants was listed in the center.

The comments in the live stream immediately became lively.

[Old Demon Lu is here!]

[I really hope he runs into the top-ranked experts... preferably going bankrupt at the speed of light!]

[Impossible, right? Old Demon Lu is a newcomer, with few kills and low assets. There's no way he'd be matched with those people.]

[With Old Demon Lu's meager assets, he can only do hatchet runs, right? If he dares to gear up, he'll probably have to end the stream after just one match.]

[Wait! Why are there seventeen contestants?]

[Old Demon Lu is queuing solo, and there's another person queuing solo... It really is a hatchet run!]

[He chickened out!]

[Boring, I want to see Old Demon Lu go bankrupt...]

[Why choose Red Wolf for a hatchet run? Shouldn't it be Wasp Medic?]

...

The comments in the sky were densely packed.

Below, the area exclusively belonging to the Lingxiao Sect was even livelier.

Under the call of Zhao Wendao, nearly half of the cultivators in the entire sect who weren't pushing for rankings were sitting in the live stream, waiting to wave flags and cheer for Lu Ze.

After all, a few days ago, Lu Ze had drawn forth a holy manifestation, seemingly becoming the face of the sect.

Coupled with Lu Ze's undefeated record, everyone wanted to witness the continuation of this myth.

"Elder Nangong, you've truly brought up a good disciple!"

Zhao Wendao stroked his beard and sighed with emotion.

At this moment, the eight elders were gathered together, and everyone congratulated Nangong Yuan one after another.

He received Heavenly Dao rewards in reality, and he received Heavenly Dao rewards in the illusion realm as well.

Now that the Heavenly Dao had once again bestowed heavy rewards, with Lu Ze's arrival this time, everyone naturally felt that securing the Heavenly Dao reward was a sure thing once again.

Nangong Yuan, however, was very calm at this moment.

After all, having been praised to the moon and back for more than half a month, no matter how smug he was, it was time to settle down.

"This disciple of mine, he just takes after me."

"Rewards or no rewards, he definitely doesn't care."

"Besides... what do you mean my disciple? He belongs to the Lingxiao Sect; he's everyone's disciple!"

The more Nangong Yuan spoke, the less he could suppress the upward curve of his lips.

The elders sat in the centermost area of the Lingxiao Sect, with true disciples like Zhong Yi and Zhou Yue sitting nearby.

The disciples whispered among themselves.

"True Disciple Lu really has a huge presence... When has our Lingxiao Sect ever been this united?"

"Wow, Senior Sister Li from the Sword Query Peak is here too... Isn't she fighting for a ranking anymore?"

"True Disciple Lu is now the key to the Lingxiao Sect's providence; of course everyone is paying attention!"

"Magnificent is our Lingxiao Sect!"

"I wonder what kind of providence and surprises True Disciple Lu will bring us this time..."

[I wanted to serve up all three Flower Delivery chapters together, but I got delayed by something... The next chapter is being rushed out, sorry about that!]