"Boom!!"
"Boom! Boom! Boom!!!"
Fierce strikes landed on the training dummy.
The flexible steel dummy, reinforced with special formations, was utterly deformed and shattered by Zhong Yi's blows.
"Senior Brother Zhong, you're amazing!" Mu Yawen gave a thumbs-up in admiration.
"Though your progress in illusion techniques hasn’t been smooth, it seems you’ve made a breakthrough in physical cultivation!"
"Junior Brother Mu… Tell me, what kind of mental state was Junior Brother Lu in when he created this illusion?" Zhong Yi murmured, his expression dazed.
Among the three of them, he had suffered the longest.
He had plenty of experience venturing outside and exploring secret realms.
Though not a master of mechanisms, his skills were far above the average cultivator.
He could say with certainty:
If you picked just a few traps from "Cultivator’s Descent: 100 Floors" and placed them in a secret realm, they’d be deadly.
The problem was,
In this "game," he faced over a dozen such traps per floor.
And none of them repeated!
Take the level that broke him earlier, for example.
Who would’ve thought that after dodging a barrage of apples, the real test was to answer how many apples there were?
Fine, he learned the trick and restarted.
But the next round, the apples suddenly flew at blinding speed?
After dying again, he strained his eyes to the point of tears to count them accurately—
Only for the next wave to introduce red, yellow, and gray apples.
He desperately tallied the red ones,
Only for the game to ask:
"How many yellow apples were there?"
At this point, Zhong Yi’s sanity still held.
He adapted again, counting every color meticulously.
Then, the final question was:
"How many spikes were on the wall?"
Zhong Yi immediately cursed out loud, exited the illusion, and vented his rage on the training dummy.
"Senior Brother Zhong, even you’re this furious. Could it be that Junior Brother Lu designed this illusion to temper our mental fortitude?" Mu Yawen chuckled.
"Mental fortitude?" Zhong Yi’s eyebrows rose, and the idea actually made sense.
"In that case, I misunderstood its purpose…"
He nodded thoughtfully, a hint of shame flashing in his eyes.
"Competing for dominance? That’s unbecoming of us cultivators… Junior Brother Mu, your composure puts me to shame!"
Zhong Yi looked at Mu Yawen with admiration.
"Oh? Really? Heh, hehe…"
Mu Yawen quickly hid his hands behind his back, concealing the training dummy he had twisted into a metal coil, and nodded with a dry laugh.
"Oh, right, there’s also Junior Sister Li. She’s always calm under pressure—"
As Zhong Yi turned, a terrifying wave of frost energy erupted from Li Moran’s direction.
Zhong Yi: "…"
Mu Yawen: "…"
The two exchanged glances.
Judging by Li Moran’s furrowed brows and trembling fists,
Her experience in the illusion hadn’t been pleasant either…
"BOOM—!!"
An even more chilling aura of ice exploded outward.
Li Moran opened her eyes, exiting the illusion.
Only when she saw the real world did her heaving chest gradually calm.
Her cold, composed demeanor returned.
"Junior Sister Li, how did it go?" Zhong Yi hurriedly asked.
"The task assigned by the elder is complete," Li Moran replied coolly, standing up.
"Junior Sister Li truly outshines us seniors," Mu Yawen teased, grinning at Zhong Yi.
Originally, Zhao Wendao had pinned his hopes on Zhong Yi.
But after one night, he realized his disciple was just as hopeless as he was.
So he hastily summoned Mu Yawen and Li Moran to tackle the challenge together.
With home-field advantage, if the Tianxuan Sect snatched first place, Zhao Wendao would wake up furious even in his dreams.
Li Moran was a natural at games.
She mastered action-based challenges with ease.
Yet even she was tormented by "Cultivator’s Descent: 100 Floors."
Now, she had broken through the 50th floor.
The difficulty was on an entirely different level.
Not only were the traps fiendishly creative, but even the straightforward sections were mind-numbingly complex!
Some spikes didn’t move at all—
But figuring out how to jump past them…
Even an expert like Li Moran struggled.
Sometimes, even knowing the correct path didn’t guarantee success.
Just now, while clearing Floor 50, a gauntlet of spike traps had pushed her to the brink.
Since the Tianxuan Sect’s record was only Floor 46, she decided to stop there and return to her cultivation on Sword Inquiry Peak.
For the first time, she found solace in the thought of training…
---
Artifact Refining Pavilion, Blazepeak.
"Good disciple, where did you learn all these traps and mechanisms in your illusion? How could you design so many levels in such a short time?"
Nangong Yuan eyed Lu Ze suspiciously.
The day before, Lu Ze had crafted over a hundred maps in just an hour and a half.
Rumors spread that Nangong Yuan had secretly provided him with blueprints, allowing him to breeze through Yang Zhengxin’s test.
These rumors terrified Nangong Yuan.
He refused to take the blame for tormenting the righteous path!
"Master, I occasionally brainstorm tricky mechanisms in my free time. These designs are just casual creations," Lu Ze replied without batting an eye.
"!!!"
"???"
Nangong Yuan’s face twisted in disbelief.
Listen to yourself!
Who spends their free time making this stuff??
Are you secretly a demonic cultivator???
"What, Master doesn’t believe me? Should I make another one on the spot? You can set the requirements," Lu Ze offered cheerfully.
"No, no, I believe you!" Nangong Yuan waved his hands frantically, fearing humiliation.
"By the way, since you designed these traps, you must know how to clear them?"
"Of course."
"Perfect! The Grand Elder is worried the Tianxuan Sect might take first place. With your help—"
Before Nangong Yuan could finish, Lu Ze gasped in shock.
"Master, are you suggesting… that I help the sect cheat!?"
Nangong Yuan stammered, "W-what cheating? I just meant… guiding your fellow disciples, cough cough…"
Lu Ze raised his voice, righteous indignation blazing in his eyes.
"Master! We are a righteous sect!"
"Taking shortcuts for glory goes against our principles!"
"Fairness and justice are the core values of Lingxiao Sect. This is wrong!"
His inner monologue:
Yeah right, if I give out the strategies, where will I farm my demonic cred?
Nangong Yuan was speechless.
Lu Ze’s response was so morally upright that he had no rebuttal.
But then it hit him—
Wait a minute!
You spend your free time designing torture devices, and now you’re preaching righteousness??
Gritting his teeth, Nangong Yuan relented.
"Fine. About those live-streaming artifact components we discussed earlier… I’ll see what I can do."
Seeing Lu Ze remain unmoved, he added after a pause:
"You may choose one artifact that catches your eye from my treasure vault," the master said.
Lu Ze: "But then again..."
Nangong Yuan: "..."
...
Nangong Yuan naturally didn’t reveal all the strategies, only providing a few key pieces of information that would help the Lingxiao Sect stay ahead of other sects.
After sending Nangong Yuan away, the system’s voice echoed in his mind:
[Congratulations, Host. Within a single day, you have slain a total of ___ cultivators!]
[Host has exceeded the mission requirements. Reward multiplier activated!]
[Obtained Artifact: Ten Thousand Souls Banner]
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."
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.
young master of the Shen family—a figure of immense power and wealth beyond measure—and awakened the "Destined Ultimate Villain System"! His starting scenario? Running into his icy fiancée who shows up with a mountain-descending divine doctor to break off their engagement. The divine doctor arrogantly taunts: "What does your Shen family have besides a bit of stinking money? You're not even worthy of tying Qingxue's shoelaces!" Shen Fei just smiled. He completely defied the usual script: "Fine, I agree to break off the engagement. Also, notify the finance department to withdraw all investments from the Su family." Minutes later, with its capital chain severed, the Su Group teetered on the brink of bankruptcy! The once aloof and proud ice queen CEO was thrown into utter panic. That very night, she went to Shen Fei's villa, casting aside all dignity to beg and plead desperately... From then on, in this world teeming with Sons of Destiny, Shen Fei embarked on a path of extreme dimensional suppression! A mountain-descending divine doctor? Peerless medical skills? Shen Fei: "Reporting you for practicing medicine without a license! I'll gladly take your ancient medicinal cauldron and twin sister assassins." The Crooked-Smiling Dragon King? Commanding a hundred thousand soldiers with a single order? Shen Fei: "Illegal assembly and suspected treason! Let a fleet of attack helicopters sanitize the area and teach you what the state apparatus really means!" A reborn tycoon? Knows all the golden opportunities of the next decade? Shen Fei: "A trillion in capital to reverse and pump the stock market, making you blow your margin and jump on the very first day of your rebirth!" What Chosen Ones? What bearers of Heavenly Fortune? In Shen Fei's eyes, they're all just chives (i.e., suckers/marks) waiting to be harvested! Shen Fei: "Sorry, but as the Destined Ultimate Villain, I don't play by the rules of honor. I only play the game of dimensional suppression."
