Zhong Yi’s Palworld.
Desert Sub-Base.
A massive metal contraption operated over a patch of black oil, creaking and groaning as it worked.
The Pals in charge of transportation carried the Spirit Oil from the oil extractor to the guild storage chest, one can at a time.
Players who had grown accustomed to letting their Pals automatically handle every resource were destined to hit a wall at Level 50 because of a material called Polymer.
Polymer was made from Spirit Oil—the equivalent of crude oil in the original game.
There were very few ways to obtain crude oil. The only method for fully automated mass production was to use an oil extractor on an oil field.
It consumed a great deal of electricity, operated slowly, and, most importantly, depended heavily on the location of the oil field.
Zhong Yi and the others had failed to discover the two isolated islands east of the beginner spawn area, each of which had three naturally occurring oil fields. Instead, they had been forced to make do with a two-field site in the desert and establish a sub-base there.
The output from two oil fields was nowhere near enough to meet the Spirit Oil needs of a four-person team.
Polymer production was severely limited, so the four of them had only upgraded the helmets and shields they absolutely needed.
After all, they only had to survive. Their Pals would handle most of the fighting.
As for the Ultimate Pal Sphere, which had unlocked at Level 51, each of them carried ten in case they encountered a rare, high-level Pal. In their day-to-day activities, they still used the previous-generation Legendary Pal Spheres as sparingly as possible.
The four had agreed from the very beginning to wait until they had built up their Spirit Oil reserves before making any further plans.
“Aren’t there still more than a hundred cans of Spirit Oil left? How could that possibly not be enough?”
Zhong Yi glanced at the guild storage chest, puzzled.
A hundred-plus cans of Spirit Oil were enough to make dozens of Ultimate Pal Spheres. He couldn’t understand why Zhou Qiaoling had suddenly started complaining about a shortage.
“I got a golden Cold-Resistant Polymer Armor schematic from a dungeon chest… One suit of armor needs two hundred Polymer! We’re ridiculously short on materials!”
Zhou Qiaoling pulled out a golden schematic, waved it in front of everyone, then protectively hugged it to her chest.
“Holy crap… Golden Polymer Armor? Doesn’t that mean we can go fight Frostallion!?”
The moment he heard that it was a high-grade suit of armor, Zhou Yue’s eyes lit up.
Just like Lu Ze’s other illusions, weapons and equipment in this one were divided into different color-coded rarities.
The items players unlocked through leveling were ordinary white-grade items.
The upgraded versions above white grade could only be crafted with schematics.
Schematics could be obtained from chests and powerful monsters. Gold was the highest grade. Its stats were tremendously enhanced, but the required crafting materials were several times greater than those of the ordinary version.
Most importantly, schematics could be used an unlimited number of times.
Once one person obtained a schematic, the entire sect could benefit from it.
“If everyone in the group had a full set of golden Polymer Armor… Frostallion definitely wouldn’t be able to one-shot us!”
Zhong Yi became excited as well.
Frostallion.
A top-tier powerful monster that lived in the northern reaches of the frozen wasteland. It was clearly no ordinary creature.
In Lu Ze’s previous life, Frostallion had been a mid-game demon king-level boss.
Now that the game’s difficulty had been increased, it was even more terrifyingly powerful.
Zhong Yi and the others had challenged it three times as a group, and all three attempts had ended in failure.
“But at this extraction rate, when are we ever going to gather enough Polymer for eight hundred pieces?”
Zhou Qiaoling looked dejected.
Her imagination even ran wild with the thought that perhaps the extraction speed would improve if Elder Chaowen were turned into a Level 10 Electric-type Pal and sent over to work.
“What if we farm the poachers’ oil fields again?”
Zhou Yue suggested.
He had just lost to Li Moran in the arena and was desperate to increase his strength.
Whether it was Frostallion or the golden equipment, both represented a substantial upgrade.
“The Level 30 oil field doesn’t yield enough. The Level 55 one hasn’t respawned yet, and we can’t beat the Level 60 one…”
Zhong Yi frowned and began thinking through their current situation.
It was obvious that their shortage of Spirit Oil couldn’t be solved with a one-time haul. They needed a permanent solution.
At present, the only answer was to find more oil fields.
“Looks like we’ll have to search for new locations after all!”
Zhong Yi sighed. He was just about to mount his Ragnahawk and start looking for oil when the Pal Terminal behind him suddenly began flashing brightly.
Mu Yawen’s figure appeared at the base.
“Senior Brother Zhong, what are you three doing at this base?”
Mu Yawen looked at the others curiously. His equipment was in tatters, making it obvious that he had gone out to fight another powerful monster.
“We’re producing crude oil to make Polymer… We don’t have enough Polymer!”
Zhong Yi sighed.
“Polymer? I have some!”
Mu Yawen chuckled and took two pieces of Polymer from his backpack, handing them to Zhong Yi.
“We’re not short by just two pieces… Wait! Where did you get Polymer!?”
Zhong Yi stopped halfway through his sentence as he suddenly realized that something was wrong.
“I think… it dropped from the Astegon in the forbidden hunting zone?”
Mu Yawen pondered for quite some time before offering his uncertain guess.
“Isn’t Astegon a powerful monster? Powerful monsters are only supposed to drop Ancient Civilization Parts. Why would it drop Polymer?”
Zhong Yi was confused.
“Uh… The nest was a little strange. Besides the powerful monster Astegon, there were also three shiny Astegon there… That powerful monster was incredibly fierce. I was no match for it at all, but I got lucky and managed to capture one of the shiny ones… The Polymer probably dropped from the shiny Astegon.”
Mu Yawen recalled the events.
“I see. It must have been a special event… Probably a powerful monster that had just given birth to its young.”
Zhong Yi nodded, and an audacious theory instantly formed in his mind.
“Could it be…”
He opened the Paldeck.
Sure enough, in Astegon’s drop list, he saw the following items clearly recorded:
Large Pal Soul and Polymer.
“Just as I thought! Non-boss Astegon can drop Polymer!”
Zhong Yi became excited at once.
“You mean we should go farm ordinary Astegon now?”
Zhou Yue said, understanding only half of what he was hearing.
“No, no, no… There’s no such thing as an ordinary Astegon. Junior Brother Mu just happened to stumble upon a special event.”
Zhong Yi shook his head and smiled mysteriously.
He had guessed correctly.
When Lu Ze created this illusory version of Palworld, he had added even more random events and side quests.
A powerful monster protecting its young was one of them.
Zhou Yue was even more confused. “Then do we still have to search for an oil field?”
“Search for one my ass!”
Zhong Yi laughed cheerfully and began constructing a Breeding Farm right where he stood.
“We’ll make our own! Aren’t the Pals that hatch from Pal Eggs ordinary Pals?”
“You bastard… Are you planning to use a Meat Cleaver!?”
Zhou Yue’s eyes widened.
The Meat Cleaver’s infamous reputation was known to everyone.
A post on the forums showing someone personally crafting a Meat Cleaver with a Cattiva, then using it to butcher that same Cattiva to death, had spread far and wide. As a result, the Meat Cleaver had been rejected by the vast majority of players.
Even Zhou Qiaoling, who was usually the least softhearted of them all, couldn’t accept the sight of a Pal being chopped into pieces with a butcher’s knife.
“Huh? What Meat Cleaver? I told you from the very beginning that we can’t be too cruel to our Pals!”
Zhong Yi waved his hand with a solemn expression.
“Senior Brother, I’m pretty sure that wasn’t what you said at first…”
Mu Yawen muttered under his breath.
“Then what do you plan to do? Raise them and release them into the wild? It doesn’t seem like we can do that either…”
Zhou Yue was even more confused.
“Don’t forget about the new technology we just unlocked.”
Zhong Yi gave him a mysterious smile. He had already summoned an Anubis and was hammering away at something on the ground alongside it.
Before long, a strange contraption with a long conveyor belt appeared before Zhou Yue.
“The Rebirth Apparatus.”
pression Bureau] Transported to a fantasy world overrun by demons and monsters, Gu Qingfeng becomes a jailer in the Demon Suppression Prison of the Great Yan Dynasty's Demon Suppression Bureau. From this point on, bizarre cases frequently occur in the Demon Suppression Prison, once known as hell on earth and infamous for its gloomy, terrifying atmosphere! Why do the demons and monsters in the prison wail miserably every night? Why has the corpse demon, capable of transforming into various beauties, donned black stockings and switched careers to become a foot massage therapist? Why has the eye demon, expert in soul-snatching and illusions, turned into a VR headset? Why is the fox spirit performing otaku dances? Are all these occurrences a twisted expression of demonic nature, or a descent into moral depravity? After peeling away layer upon layer of mystery, all clues ultimately point to a jailer named Gu Qingfeng. Gu Qingfeng: "Hehehe... My dear demons and monsters, whose card shall we flip today?"
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.
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."
transmigrates into the world as the sect master of the Heavenly Yan Sect, which is on the verge of being wiped out. He binds a system that grants him cultivation power based on the number of disciples he has: for each disciple, he automatically gains a year's worth of cultivation every single day! Take one disciple: every day he gains 1 year of cultivation power. While others struggle through a year of bitter training, he gets the same just by sleeping through a single night. Take ten disciples: every day he gains 10 years of cultivation power. Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul—he breezes through all bottlenecks without lifting a finger. Take one hundred disciples: every day he gains 100 years of cultivation power. Even a Soul Transformation Venerable before him can’t survive a single blow. Take ten thousand disciples: every day he gains 10,000 years of cultivation power! With a wave of his hand, he topples empires. With a single step, he crushes the sacred grounds of the universe. ... While others fight tooth and nail for secret techniques, Lin Yan casually hands out Nascent Soul-level cultivation manuals as beginner textbooks. While others strain to find talented recruits, Lin Yan opens his doors to anyone—so long as they’re human. In just three short years, the Heavenly Yan Sect went from a backwater sect made up of three crumbling huts to a sacred land that every cultivator under heaven would kill to enter. ... One day, otherworldly demon gods invade, with a million demon soldiers pressing down upon the realm. Lin Yan, yawning, rises from his lounge chair and glances at the system panel: [Current Disciples: 1.28 million] [Daily Cultivation Increase: 1.28 million years] He waves his hand casually, and the countless demon soldiers are reduced to ashes in an instant. “So noisy… interrupting my fishing.”
