Chapter 41

“Look into my eyes.”

“Look!”

Lu Mingfei’s deep voice rang out, tone brooking no defiance, like a sleeping lion just awakened, lecturing his subjects within his domain.

“Puh—!” Su Lin glanced over and couldn’t hold it in.

“Sorry, hahaha!”

Before him was a spherical creature, its swollen face squashing a pair of golden eyes—unless you looked closely, you’d struggle to find them at all.

“Don’t you feel even a shred of shame?!”

That ball before him—no, the pressure radiating from Lu Mingfei’s Golden Eyes was enough to make half-breeds tremble.

“Are you even still human?”

“But it’s not entirely my fault,” Su Lin chuckled, his shoulders shaking uncontrollably: “I helped you find your Qi sensation, and after you got it through two stages, you just stopped.”

“Who in their right mind would sit and absorb Qi without even learning the basic cultivation method?”

Zhong Li shook his head beside him—he’d walked in and immediately seen a round, bloated meatball.

Yet Lu Mingfei himself still hadn’t realized it, and kept absorbing Qi.

Su Lin pulled out his phone and took a photo, ignoring Lu Mingfei’s resentful, puppy-eyed stare.

“I messaged you—said you could come to Rongcheng and hang out with us—but you just sat here practicing all day.”

“I didn’t know cultivation could be this addictive.”

It wasn’t really Lu Mingfei’s fault—when a living being draws Spiritual Qi into the body, it’s like someone who hasn’t eaten or drunk in ages, endlessly craving to satisfy their instinct.

It felt like a parched land finally receiving life-giving rain.

When Su Lin first sensed the Qi of heaven and earth, he’d been just like Lu Mingfei—but back then, he had the method to refine it.

“Can I go back to how I looked before?” Lu Mingfei muttered gloomily.

“Of course. Just refine away all that Qi.” Zhong Li pulled a bamboo scroll from a wooden rack: “I’ll leave Lu Mingfei to you.”

“No problem.”

Zhong Li nodded and walked into the room. After several bookshelves shifted and rearranged, his figure vanished entirely.

“How long will it take to return to normal?” Lu Mingfei asked.

He didn’t want to go back to his world looking like this—he’d have to find another world to stay in for a few more months. He couldn’t exactly say he’d swollen up just from going to the bathroom.

“A few days at most, maybe just one night,” Su Lin patted Lu Mingfei’s belly.

“That’s good, that’s good…”

Lu Mingfei exhaled deeply and finally relaxed.

“When Zhong Li held up the mirror earlier, I thought I was about to explode.”

Su Lin wrapped Lu Mingfei in a sphere of Spiritual Qi, flicked his finger—and Lu Mingfei floated into the air, a thread of golden light coiling around him like a tether to a balloon.

“It won’t explode that easily. You’re a half-breed, and you’ve already eaten so many Spiritual fruits.”

Crack

“If you don’t refine it, this Qi will leak out on its own within two weeks.”

Crack crack

“I’ve had it with you!” Lu Mingfei roared from behind: “Can you stop taking selfies with your camera pointed at me?!”

Leaving Wangshu Pavilion, Su Lin glanced at the mountain forest—several spots pulsed with cultivation fluctuations, gulping down the surrounding Spiritual Qi.

He turned around and found a quiet spot, casually setting up a small array.

“Here’s fine,” Su Lin patted Lu Mingfei and set him down:

"You kid, practice well here."

Practicing indoors wouldn’t hurt, but since this was his first time, being close to nature would let him feel the changes in surrounding Qi more directly.

“Did I forget anything this time?” Lu Mingfei asked anxiously.

“No.”

Su Lin waved goodbye and walked off without looking back.

Though it was nearly the next day, Lu Mingfei felt no fatigue—he only wanted to cultivate.

Following the mental cultivation route, the accumulated Qi within him began peeling away from his flesh and blood like silk unwound from a cocoon, becoming finer, integrating deeper into his body.

Around him, trees, grass, even the sky—dots of light appeared…

Gradually, Lu Mingfei lost himself once more in this cultivation, this evolution of life’s very level.

Cultivation makes me happy…

The ancients didn’t lie!

Second day, afternoon

Kleen sipped a milk tea, carrying a few skewers of fried snacks as he returned to Rongcheng, finding Su Lin lounging listlessly in a master’s chair, scrolling through videos on his phone.

“Ah, you’re back,” Su Lin greeted.

"Didn’t you go cultivate?" Kleen asked, noticing no activity in the chat group—he’d assumed everyone had gone off to practice.

He’d slept until naturally awake, wandered the city, eaten lunch, bought some snacks, and planned to stroll up Water Mirror Peak to digest.

He hadn’t properly looked at the scenery of this floating island since arriving yesterday.

It was time to shift away from the industrial aesthetic of Beckland and its European-classical style.

"Early or late, cultivation is still cultivation. Early or late, refining is still refining," Su Lin said without ceremony, pulling a fried starch sausage from Kleen’s plastic bag, the red oil and spices evenly coating its surface.

“You’re not used to living here?” Su Lin asked.

As the authorized manager of Water Mirror Peak, he could track who entered or exited through the teleportation gate.

"Yeah, I still prefer living in the city," Kleen said.

“I see.”

Su Lin thought for a moment, then pulled a rectangular jade pillar from his system inventory, carved with unfamiliar beasts.

“Take it.”

Kleen took the jade carving and asked: "What is this?"

“It offers some resistance to spiritual corruption.”

The sect left few resources—this was one of them.

"What do you want?" Kleen nodded—he truly needed this item.

“The Witch…”

“….”

“The Witch’s potion.”

“Which sequence?”

“The one that turns men into witches.”

Kleen felt his Faceless Man nearly crack.

“I just want to collect something interesting,” Su Lin explained. “Your world’s sealed items all have side effects—why not give me a vial of Sequence 7 Witch’s Potion? I’ll keep it as a collectible.”

"That’s not enough," Kleen said, looking at the jade carving.

This item’s value far exceeded a Sequence 7 potion.

"No problem," Su Lin took the plastic bag from Kleen’s hand, picked out a string of pork belly, and said: "I don’t even know how effective this thing really is."

The strange rules and conceptual abilities in the Lord of Mysteries world—how much this would help remained unknown.

Its rank was fine—it was a fairly excellent defensive artifact.

“Then thank you.”