"Don't overthink it. My standards are very high. It's not that easy to become my wife."
Xu Mu knew Tantai Quan was joking. He bid her farewell, "I have other matters to attend to, so I'll take my leave. Once the pills are refined, I'll let you know."
With that, he walked toward the exit.
After Xu Mu's figure disappeared, an elderly man in a suit, his face covered in age spots, approached from a distance.
"Princess."
The old man gave a slight nod.
"Do you think this Xu Mu can be trusted?"
Tantai Quan looked at the old man beside her.
"I don't know his character well enough, so I can't say for sure. But there is one thing I am certain of: he will definitely become a powerhouse."
The old man said softly, "From the first time we met him until now, how much time has actually passed? Do you know what his cultivation realm is? Peak Grandmaster."
"What?"
Tantai Quan's expression abruptly changed. "I couldn't sense his realm and assumed he had just acquired some technique to conceal it. I never expected him to already be a Peak Grandmaster!"
"I was observing closely from a short distance away just now. The Qi he leaked when injecting energy into his spatial ring gave it away. There's absolutely no mistake."
The old man glanced at Tantai Quan. "Princess, this man is very dangerous. Before deepening our ties with him, we must see his true colors."
"I understand."
Tantai Quan replied softly.
Xu Mu's terrifying cultivation speed had already exceeded Tantai Quan's imagination.
If he was ruthless, cruel, and selfish, then cooperating with someone like Xu Mu would be like asking a tiger for its skin.
In the future, they would inevitably suffer from his backlash.
But if Xu Mu was a man of honor, it would mean she had a genius under her wing.
He would definitely bring her powerful support in the future.
"It seems I need to thoroughly investigate this Xu Mu, especially the master backing him."
Tantai Quan took out some shredded tobacco, stuffed it into her jade pipe, and elegantly struck a match.
...
After leaving Lumang Mountain, Xu Mu rushed non-stop to where Nalan Shisan was located.
Once he delivered the spirit stones to her this time, the matter would pretty much be settled.
Arriving at the Demon Sect where the Demon Queen resided, Xu Mu walked in wearing a black robe.
Seeing him from afar, the guards approached.
"Who are you?"
"My surname is Xu, and I'm here to deliver some treasures to the Demon Queen. Just pass my words on to her, and she will let me in."
Xu Mu told the guards.
"Hehe, so it's Mr. Xu. The Demon Queen specifically instructed that if someone with the surname Xu came by, we were to treat him with the same respect as the Demon Queen herself."
Upon hearing Xu Mu's identity, the leading middle-aged man's expression immediately turned respectful.
"Then can I go in now?"
Xu Mu asked with a smile.
"Of course. However, the Demon Queen has a guest today. She specifically ordered that no one is to disturb her."
The guard reminded him with a smile.
Xu Mu said, "Don't worry, I won't disturb her. I'll just wait outside."
"Alright, thank you for your understanding. Please follow me, sir."
The guard nodded and led the way.
The two went deep into the ruins and stopped in front of a palace.
Xu Mu sat on a nearby rock. At this distance, his perception could easily cover the area.
He spread out his perception, and Nalan Shisan's figure appeared in his mind's eye.
Besides Nalan Shisan, standing opposite her was a Caucasian man.
He had brown hair and a full beard, looking to be around fifty years old.
His deep blue eyes showed neither joy nor sorrow, much like an emotionless machine.
"Nalan Shisan, the mission has been issued. I am returning now."
The middle-aged man pulled his cloak's hood back up, speaking in slightly accented Dragon Country language.
"What do you take me for? You want me to do such dangerous things for you without any benefits?"
Nalan Shisan's eyes gradually grew fierce.
"The Abyss Chapel saved your life, and it can take it back."
After speaking, the middle-aged man turned around and walked toward the exit.
"How many things have I done for you over the years? Is it still not enough to repay the favor of saving me?"
Nalan Shisan clenched her fists and asked loudly.
"It is not enough. The Abyss Chapel saved you, and it requires your lifelong devotion."
The middle-aged man didn't look back. "I will return in half a month. If you haven't completed the mission, I will take your life."
With that, he left the palace.
Swish!
A black shadow flew over Xu Mu's head. Clearly, the middle-aged man from just now had already stepped into the Realm-Breaking stage.
"The Abyss Chapel?"
Xu Mu muttered to himself. There was no record of this in the previous plotlines.
"Mr. Xu, let's head over."
The guard beside him said.
Xu Mu nodded gently and followed the man to the front of the palace.
Hearing the guard's words, a few female guards outside the door walked into the palace.
Not long after, Nalan Shisan personally came out of the palace to greet him. "Xu Mu, you're here?"
"Yeah."
Xu Mu gave a slight nod.
"Come in."
Nalan Shisan opened the main doors herself.
"I'm here to deliver the spirit stones to you this time. However, Sister Demon Queen, your connections are truly vast. I just saw a Realm-Breaking expert fly away from your place."
Xu Mu stepped into the palace, deliberately steering the topic in this direction.
He had arrived a bit late and hadn't heard much.
He only learned from their conversation that Nalan Shisan had once been saved by people from the Abyss Chapel.
And she had been working for this organization ever since.
This time, they obviously wanted Nalan Shisan to execute another mission, and planned to kill her if she refused to help.
"He is not a connection."
Nalan Shisan's expression turned incredibly gloomy when speaking of this person, but then she put on a smile again. "Come with me first."
Xu Mu nodded slightly.
She led Xu Mu all the way to the grassy formation in the deepest part. "What do you see here?"
Xu Mu checked with his perception and then asked, "Where did everyone here go?"
"I let them go. I even gave them a lot of compensation. I didn't even make things difficult for those scumbags who were captured. From now on, I want to be a good person, for you."
Nalan Shisan smiled at Xu Mu.
"Fu Jinyu isn't here, so don't be so cheesy. I'm here to deliver the spirit stones to you this time, three tons in total."
Xu Mu pointed at the ground. "I'll unload them here for you."
"I don't want them anymore."
Nalan Shisan shook her head. Her hands gripped the hem of her clothes, her eyes looking off into the distance. "I hardly ever go out. Having these things is useless to me."
"You can use these spirit stones to exchange for heavenly treasures to improve your cultivation realm, or save them up so I can deal with the Gu worms in your body."
As Xu Mu spoke, he had already placed all the spirit stones down.
Nalan Shisan looked at the man in front of her and revealed a smile. "It's just a pity you're too young. If only I could have met you earlier."
[Affection +20]
Looking at the sudden increase in affection from her, Xu Mu looked somewhat surprised.
What was going on with this woman?
He checked Nalan Shisan's filial piety value toward him and was surprised to find that it was actually a positive 2.
This meant they were at the level of a lower-tier father and daughter, proving she had already accepted him as a father figure.
Could it be...
Xu Mu roughly guessed why her state of mind had changed.
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.”
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.
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?"
villain is the number one simp for the book's leading female protagonist, Shen Wan'er. As expected, he later becomes a tool for the main character to show off and slap faces, ultimately meeting a tragic end with his family ruined and his life in shambles. Fortunately, he awakens the [Universal Pure Love System], which allows him to earn points by performing acts of pure love. To change his fate, Gu Yan makes a decisive choice to seek warmth and companionship with the book's biggest villain—Cold Qingqiu. ........... My name is Leng Qingqiu. To find the murderer who killed my parents years ago, I deliberately blinded myself so that everyone would lower their guard around me. Just as I was secretly accumulating power and capital according to my initial plan, a man walked into my world. "Lengleng, Qingqing, Qiuqiu, which nickname do you prefer?" I don't like any of them. You'd better leave quickly! "Why aren't you saying anything? How about I call you my baby wife?" Leng Qingqiu thinks to herself, this man is truly annoying! (Stubborn pure love warrior + single female lead + true pure love + 1v1)
