Zhou Qiaoling wore a black top hat she had never seen before, a monocle over one eye, a pair of fake whiskers pasted across her lips, and a whip twirling in her hand.
The Feather-Arrow Archer on the Palu ball assembly line in front of her was rolling Palu spheres so furiously they nearly sparked into flames.
Li Moran stood frozen in place, utterly stunned by the scene before her.
Weren't Palus supposed to be cultivators' companions?
According to the NPCs she'd met earlier, weren't the rules supposed to be all about loving and helping your Palu, working hand in hand?
So this was...
What on earth was going on here?
"What is Junior Sister Qiaoling wearing...?"
Li Moran pointed at Zhou Qiaoling's bizarre getup, speaking in astonishment.
"It's the 【Capitalist Suit】 she traded from a black market merchant. The effect is that it increases the working speed of nearby Palus, but it also speeds up how fast their spirit points drain..."
Zhou Yue explained in a low, helpless voice.
Although he had no idea what a "capitalist" was, the moment Zhou Qiaoling put it on, it somehow looked unnervingly perfect on her, which was why Zhou Yue figured the thing definitely couldn't be anything good...
"Oh! Senior Sister Li is here!"
Hearing Li Moran's voice, a hint of normal humanity finally returned to Zhou Qiaoling's eyes. She skipped over cheerfully and linked her arm through Li Moran's.
"Hehe~ Come on, come on~ Let me show you the fruits of our base!"
"I really think we shouldn't! Let's take Junior Sister Li around to get familiar with the place first!!"
Zhou Yue waved his hands frantically, barely stopping himself from shouting, "Don't air dirty laundry in public!"
"No worries, no worries~"
Zhou Qiaoling proudly pulled Li Moran along, leading her down to the work area on the lower floor.
Row after row of mines and logging camps, with cramped and dim workstation booths crammed full of Palus, all of them sweating buckets, swinging their pickaxes and hatchets so fast they turned into blurs of afterimages.
Behind every single work area hung a banner written in brush calligraphy.
At the very center hung a huge banner, its handwriting bold and imposing, clearly the handiwork of Zhong Yi.
It read: 【Heaven Rewards the Diligent】.
A perfectly serious phrase, yet appearing here, it somehow gave Li Moran an overwhelming sense of...
Unsettling wrongness.
In the other corners, the handwriting was delicate and neat, but the words were far from respectable, clearly the little brainchild of Zhou Qiaoling.
【Want to succeed? Go insane first】
【Sleep on the floor today, be the boss tomorrow】
...
Of course, none of these were the real attention-grabbers.
Li Moran hadn't walked more than a few steps before she was completely dumbstruck by the farm at the deepest end of the work area.
A gigantic King Pamelu was hot on the heels of a pitiful little Qiwanwan, chasing it across the entire field in a frantic sprint.
"Why are all the other Palus working, but those two are just playing around?"
Li Moran asked with genuine curiosity.
"Them? Oh, they're laying eggs. It's Senior Brother Zhong's masterpiece. Lately he's been obsessed with researching how to breed new Palus."
Zhou Qiaoling pouted and explained.
"This thing... with... that thing? Laying eggs??"
Li Moran's eyes widened involuntarily.
That tiny little Qiwanwan, and that absolutely massive King Pamelu??
No wonder Qiwanwan was screaming so miserably...
"Strange, where did Senior Brother Zhong disappear to?"
Zhou Qiaoling looked around and soon spotted Zhong Yi's figure standing by a fire pit on the other side.
"Oh? Junior Sister Li is here? Give me a moment, I'm currently treating the injured Palus."
Zhong Yi heard the commotion, smiled, and greeted her, then led a few Palus that were heavily injured and depressed toward a staircase.
Driven by hunger, the Palus followed the wooden steps down toward an underground pit. They lowered their heads to eat the feed, and in the same instant found themselves engulfed in flames, passing away peacefully.
The firelight flickered across the faces of Zhong Yi and Zhou Qiaoling, creating an air of unreality.
Li Moran blinked.
They called that... treatment?
As unbelievable as it was, when she thought about how this was all part of the illusion world Lu Ze had created, she suddenly felt a strange sense of acceptance.
Ever since Lu Ze had come into the picture, Lingxiao Sect's path seemed to be straying further and further off course...
"How long did it take all of you to build this base?"
Li Moran suddenly asked.
Even though it did have a slightly heretic-cultivator vibe to it, aside from the Palus, the overall layout wasn't bad.
Li Moran suddenly felt the urge to build a base of her own.
"Building the houses wasn't so bad... but we had to build the whole thing THREE times!"
Speaking of building, Zhou Qiaoling clutched her heart in anguish.
"Would you quit your crying, sis?! Every time we were building, you were too busy fighting the Palus for a spot in the hot spring..."
Zhou Yue retorted with a scowl.
"Don't worry, this time our base is impenetrable. There won't be a fourth rebuild!"
Zhong Yi patted his chest proudly, then added one more line:
"As long as Lao Zhou doesn't stay home too often, nothing will go wrong."
Zhou Yue: "Then should I just leave?"
"Senior Brother Zhong, you might want to hold off on the jokes... I'm getting a little scared..."
Zhou Qiaoling couldn't help but shiver.
Just as Zhong Yi was imparting his base-building wisdom to Li Moran, a crisp ding echoed through the base, followed by Mu Yawen's voice ringing out from the top floor.
"Senior Brother Zhong! The Palu expedition team is back, and they got one of those slate fragments again!"
The Palu Expedition Hall was a base facility they had unlocked at level 22.
It allowed them to send out idle combat Palus to raid dungeons and gather rewards.
After several consecutive days of expedition dispatches, the rewards gradually accumulated until they were finally enough to unlock a complete Summoning Slate.
“A Summoning Slate? We can summon a Level 35 otherworldly Great Demon with this?”
After crafting the first Summoning Slate, Zhong Yi immediately perked up with interest.
This was yet another brand-new thing they had never encountered before.
Otherworldly Palus were Palus that didn't exist on Palu Continent—they only appeared alongside falling Otherworldly Magic Stones.
Compared to other Palus of the same level, they had noticeably stronger stats and were currently Zhou Yue's main fighting force.
Now that an even more powerful Great Demon had appeared, everyone couldn't help but want to capture one.
“Old Zhong, are we taking this on or not?”
Zhou Yue was itching for action, eager to get his hands on a more powerful otherworldly Great Demon.
“Of course we're taking it on! A measly Level 35 Great Demon can't possibly be… mmph! Mmmph!! Mmmph!!!”
Zhong Yi was mid-sentence when Zhou Yue, quick as lightning, clamped a hand over his mouth. Zhou Qiaoling and Mu Yawen both let out sighs of relief.
At present, their levels were all uniformly around 37–38. Facing a single Level 35 Great Demon with four of them working together—the pressure really wasn't that bad.
The group decided to give it a shot.
“Junior Sister Li, would you like to join our sect? If we take down this Great Demon, it should be enough to boost you all the way to Level 15.”
Zhong Yi suggested.
“No thanks. I want to try seeing how far I can go with just the sword in my hand.”
Li Moran shook her head calmly.
The answer caught everyone off guard.
In a Spirit-Catching illusion realm, Li Moran was actually going to rely on herself?
But then they remembered she was the peerless sword-path prodigy that Lingxiao Sect hadn't seen in a thousand years, and they quickly let it go.
“In that case, Senior Sister Li, take this sword! I use a spear now, so I've got no use for this thing anymore.”
Zhou Qiaoling pulled a crudely crafted iron sword from her backpack and handed it to Li Moran. She accepted it with a smile and didn't refuse.
Li Moran didn't leave. Instead, she stood quietly off to the side, wanting to observe their battle against the Great Demon.
The process for taking on the Slate Boss was a bit special—they needed to build an altar and use the Slate to summon it.
The Summoning Altar was absolutely massive and had to be set up inside a stronghold.
Zhong Yi headed to the wide-open rooftop at the top, where he had the Feather-Arrow Archer construct the enormous Summoning Altar.
Zhong Yi walked excitedly to the center of the altar and placed the Summoning Slate inside.
Behind him, everyone immediately grew expectant.
“So who do you think the Great Demon is gonna belong to?”
“Whoever catches it, duh! Anyway, it won't be you, bro~ hehe~”
“True Disciple Li got me all fired up! I wanna go one-on-one with this Great Demon with my fists!”
“Then go for it! It's only Level 35, there's no way it'll—”
Zhong Yi's words were cut off mid-sentence.
An enormous, pitch-black, blue-haired humanoid Palu appeared above the base.
Its long HP bar alone made everyone's scalp crawl.
Zhong Yi sucked in a sharp breath: “How much?? 330,000 HP???”
“Old Zhong, it's all your fault for saying a Level 35 Great Demon couldn't possibly be a match for us!”
Zhou Yue shot Zhong Yi a glare.
“Bullshit! I didn't even finish my sentence before you clamped your hand over my mouth!!”
Zhong Yi firmly denied such rumors—he felt everyone had way too much prejudice against him.
The next moment, this otherworldly Great Demon named Bellanova let out a piercing, ear-splitting shriek, and a pitch-black terrifying shockwave exploded outward.
With a deafening “BOOM—”
The entire building was blasted to pieces.
“Damn!! No excuses this time, right?? You just said the base absolutely wouldn't have any more problems!!”
“Motherfcker, you're blaming me for this too??”
“Aaaah, run!! We're absolutely no match for it!!!”
“We're doomed! Our home is gone again!!!”
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."
Cheng's father told him he was getting remarried—to a wealthy woman. Cao Cheng realized his time had finally come: he was about to become a second-generation rich kid. Sure, it might be a watered-down version, but hey, at least he'd have status now, right? The wealthy woman also had four daughters!! Which meant, starting today, Cao Cheng gained four stunning older sisters?? But that wasn't even the whole story... "My name is Cao Cheng—'Cheng' as in 'honest, smooth-talking gentleman'!"
for mindless slaughter, this isn't for you.] My name is Ye Shu, and I'm a transmigrator. It seems I'm supposed to be the protagonist, but that feels pretty unlikely. This world has been invaded by a system. The antagonists on the other side have suddenly become pure, flawless saints. The female leads have been force-fed the so-called "original plot," making them think they've been reborn. Now, everyone thinks I'm scum. Including the old lady in my ring. And here I am, in the Monster Beast Mountain Range, braising pork. To put my situation in perspective— It's as if, the moment Xiao Yan stepped into the Monster Beast Mountain Range, the Soul Emperor already knew he would become the Flame Emperor, and Yao Lao had been turned to the enemy's side. I have nothing right now. Oh wait, that's not true. I do have a white-haired loli child-bride who's the Heavenly Dao, and her only skill is acting cute. So, tell me guys... what are my chances of making it to the end?
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.
