Gu Qingfeng examined the crystal-clear Cultivation Foundation Pill in his hand, sniffed its medicinal fragrance, and then swallowed it in one gulp.
"Ugh~ it's so bitter!" Gu Qingfeng's handsome face instantly scrunched up.
The Cultivation Foundation Pill truly lived up to its reputation - fragrant to smell but bitter to taste.
After all, it was a medicinal pill, and like all medicine, how good could it possibly taste?
As the bitterness in his mouth gradually dissipated, Gu Qingfeng suddenly felt a surge of pure, powerful energy flowing from his dantian.
It felt like drinking a full pot of hot water in one go - bloated and hot, as if his dantian was about to burst.
This was because his cultivation level was too low, only at the third stage of Qi Gathering, yet he had consumed a pill meant for Internal Energy realm cultivators, causing his body to be overwhelmed by the medicinal power.
His dantian was already filled with medicinal power, but the Cultivation Foundation Pill continued to release more energy, causing the excess to spill throughout his body.
Gu Qingfeng was alarmed - this wouldn't do, as waste was shameful.
He hurriedly activated the Pure Yang Technique, rapidly circulating his energy through the meridians, desperately absorbing the medicinal power.
Under the pill's effects, the hair-thin streams of qi in Gu Qingfeng's body rapidly grew stronger, and his cultivation efficiency increased dozens of times compared to before!
An hour later, Gu Qingfeng felt his body reach a critical point.
It was like a balloon inflated to its limit.
As he continued absorbing the medicinal power...
Pop!
A soft sound resonated within his body!
The barrier broke through!
Gu Qingfeng's aura rose steadily.
Fourth stage of Qi Gathering!
"Haha, finally break-..."
Before he could finish speaking, his expression suddenly changed as the medicinal power surged within him once again.
He never expected that a pill meant for Internal Energy realm cultivators would be so potent.
Yet those Internal Energy realm cultivators didn't seem that strong - they couldn't even break through his defense.
Gu Qingfeng had no time to think further. To avoid waste, he once again frantically activated the Pure Yang Technique, immersing himself in cultivation.
.......
At dawn, the sun rose in the east, blazing like fire.
A ray of golden sunlight shone through the window onto Gu Qingfeng.
He had remained motionless like a statue, meditating through the night.
Suddenly!
Gu Qingfeng's tightly closed eyes opened, a brilliant light flashing within them, bright as stars.
His aura erupted - he had nearly reached the fifth stage of Qi Gathering!
"Already at the peak of the fourth stage?" Gu Qingfeng felt somewhat dazed.
If cultivation had a progress bar, his would now be at ninety-nine percent of the fourth stage, just one percent away from breaking through to the fifth stage.
"If I had a few more Cultivation Foundation Pills, wouldn't I reach the Internal Energy realm in no time?"
"Pills! I need more pills!"
Having tasted the benefits, Gu Qingfeng no longer complained about the bitterness of the Cultivation Foundation Pills - truly, good medicine tastes bitter!
Cultivating with pills was completely different from regular cultivation.
Qi Gathering realm cultivation required absorbing natural qi from heaven and earth and storing it in one's body.
The human body was like a sponge, and the natural qi in the air was like water vapor.
Placing a sponge in humid air and letting it slowly become damp - that was the normal cultivation process for the Qi Gathering realm.
But taking pills?
That was like directly dripping water onto the sponge!
The difference in effectiveness was on entirely different levels.
"Ah." Gu Qingfeng suddenly sighed: "The Demon Suppression Bureau is too stingy, only giving out one Cultivation Foundation Pill. If Yellow-rank Demon Eliminators want more, they have to keep doing missions to earn merit points and exchange them for pills."
Gu Qingfeng felt the Demon Suppression Bureau did this deliberately, giving out one free pill just to let you experience its effects.
After experiencing it, who would want to continue with boring regular cultivation? Everyone would want more pills.
Then you'd have to become an obedient worker, doing 996 every day to earn merit points.
Speaking of 996, Gu Qingfeng suddenly remembered he needed to go to work.
He was now a Yellow-rank Demon Eliminator, a proper official, and today was his first day reporting for duty. He couldn't be late.
So Gu Qingfeng hurriedly got ready, put on his Mysterious Fish Robe, fastened his yan-feather sword, attached his Demon Elimination Token, and left.
Running all the way there, when he arrived, Gu Qingfeng was dumbfounded.
He saw He Fenghua lecturing several Yellow-rank Demon Eliminators.
These Yellow-rank Demon Eliminators were the four newly promoted ones, and including Gu Qingfeng, there were exactly five, filling the previous vacancies for Yellow-rank Demon Eliminators.
On their first day of work, the newly promoted Yellow-rank Demon Eliminators naturally had to report to their superior.
However, Gu Qingfeng hadn't expected his superior to be He Fenghua!
According to the Demon Suppression Bureau's system, one Dark-rank Demon Eliminator led five Yellow-rank Demon Eliminators, so He Fenghua, as a Dark-rank Demon Eliminator, was naturally the leader of Gu Qingfeng and the other four.
After a moment of stunned silence, Gu Qingfeng finally understood everything.
No wonder He Fenghua was the judge for this martial arts competition - he had replaced the deceased Dark-rank Demon Eliminator Lord Yang, and he presided over the competition to select his subordinates.
Since other Dark-rank Demon Eliminator teams were already fully staffed, all the newly promoted Yellow-rank Demon Eliminators were assigned under He Fenghua.
This was bad - he had rejected He Fenghua twice, and now this old fox would surely make things difficult for him!
For a moment, Gu Qingfeng stood at the doorway, unsure whether to enter or not.
At this time, He Fenghua noticed Gu Qingfeng at the door and coldly said: "Gu Qingfeng, you're late on your first day of roll call, showing complete disregard for rules. You're fined one month's salary. I hope you learn from this."
Hearing this, Gu Qingfeng became furious. Damn! Losing a month's salary on the first day? So he'd have to work for free for a month!
If he hadn't received those twenty-four taels earlier, wouldn't he have to go hungry for a month?
He had just been wondering if He Fenghua would make things difficult for him, and the very first words out of his mouth proved it!
Gu Qingfeng wasn't one to meekly accept such treatment and was about to respond with sarcasm, but when his peripheral vision caught the sundial in the room, he suddenly felt confident.
Pointing at the sundial, he said, "Who says I'm late? There's still a moment before the time."
(A sundial is a device that measures time using the shadow cast by the sun.)
He Fenghua frowned and looked at the sundial, seeing that the shadow pointer was indeed still slightly short of the mao hour mark.
He fell silent, just staring wordlessly at the sundial, as if he had been rendered speechless by Gu Qingfeng's retort.
Gu Qingfeng stood at the door watching the silent He Fenghua, showing a slight smile of satisfaction, thinking to himself that he had at least saved a month's salary.
However, in the next moment, He Fenghua suddenly raised his head, looking straight at Gu Qingfeng, and said: "It's now the mao hour, and you're still not inside the door, so you are late."
Go to hell!
Gu Qingfeng instantly exploded with anger. He looked at the sundial showing exactly the right time, then at He Fenghua, cursing violently in his heart.
So that's why you kept quiet - you were waiting for the exact time!
"Heh, Lord He certainly throws his weight around!" Gu Qingfeng sneered.
At these words, the other newly promoted Yellow-rank Demon Eliminators all changed expression, shocked at Gu Qingfeng's defiance. They never imagined someone would dare to be so bold as to confront their superior on their first day, even though the superior had started it first. After all, when you're under someone's roof, you have to bow your head.
Faced with Gu Qingfeng's sneer, He Fenghua showed his sophistication.
He maintained a calm expression and said coldly: "I am merely enforcing the rules."
"Hahaha." Gu Qingfeng suddenly burst into loud laughter: "What a fine example of enforcing rules! I'd say you're abusing your power to suppress those who oppose 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.”
. As long as he maintains the villain image and follows the plot to the grand finale, he can obtain generous rewards and return to the real world. So Gu Chen'an entered the role and began to act as a scumbag villain, but who would have expected that the female leads could hear his inner thoughts. Miss Su from the Su family was shocked: "I originally thought Gu Chen'an was a scumbag, but I didn't expect he turned out to be a gentleman! What? You said I have to call off the engagement? I definitely won't, I'll piss you off!" Bai Yuan Tian was dumbfounded: "Young Master Gu is usually unreasonable and a complete brat, but he actually calls me little sweetie in his heart? What, Young Master Gu even said he likes me?" As the female leads' images collapsed more and more, the plot also collapsed with it. Gu Chen'an looked at all this chaos. "Ladies, don't aggro me, if you keep this up the male lead really will stab me, I still need to survive to the grand finale!"
] [Lone Wolf, No Male Gaze] [Protagonist is pursued early on; extreme protagonist-stans, stay away!] The "Carnival Paradise" descends and slowly devours the real world in the form of a game. By chance, Zhu Yan awakens the talent [Roleplay], becoming one of the first beta players. He thought he could develop safely, but after clearing the first instance, he is branded by humanity as the chief culprit behind the game's spread—a traitorous villain. A villain? Who would ever... become one! He'll be the villain! From then on, Zhu Yan is not only a player but also a lackey for the Carnival Paradise. Between the straight path and the crooked path, he chooses the con. With his left hand, he dons the villain's mantle, staging scenes within instances, infuriating players who decry him as a despicable traitor, all while the game happily promotes him. With his right hand, he joins the non-human organization "Fangcun Mountain," which opposes the Carnival Paradise, transforming into a mysterious player who slaughters game bosses, earning cheers of "Long live the expert!" from fellow players. Gradually, Zhu Yan rises to become an S-rank human player in Fangcun Mountain's archives, while also being the Carnival Paradise's certified top game Boss. But when the final war erupts and both major factions place their hopes in him— Players tag his various aliases: "Experts, this offensive depends on you." The Carnival Paradise's supreme Boss throws an arm around his neck: "Bro, you're the iron, I'm the steel; you can't let me down again!"
rowess are unmatched, commanding a million-strong army! Yet, the Emperor wants to depose him for the sake of a false prince? Hold on, are you throwing me into some female-oriented romance plot? How can I tolerate this? With a grand wave of his hand—the Nine Clan Extraction Technique! Slander the Emperor? Very well, all of you shall die! ... The False Prince: "Although I am not the biological son, Father and Mother love me more. The throne should be mine!" The Female Lead: "Qin Xiao, you are the Emperor, and I am a commoner. If you wish to marry me, you must abdicate. Otherwise, you will never have me!" The Empress: "After we divorce, you must give me half the empire!" The Transmigrator Consort: "You worthless Emperor, why should I kneel to you? All men are equal—I advise you to be kind!" The Great General: "The enemy general is my childhood sweetheart. For her sake, I willingly abandon the frontier defenses!" The Retired Emperor: "Although Yu'er was adopted, I prefer him. Qin Xiao, you should abdicate and let him become Emperor!" ... Very well! So this is how you want to play? Facing this twisted world of female-oriented tropes, Qin Xiao grins and raises his hand to unleash—the Nine Clan Extraction Technique! I am the Emperor. Why would I bother reasoning with you? Seal the gates! Leave none alive!
