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!"
't think I'm that capable, I'm just trying my best to stay alive. I've been kind all my life, never did anything bad, yet worldly suffering spared me not one bit. The human world is a nice place, but I won't come back in my next life. A kind young man, who wanted to just get by singing, but through repeated deceits and betrayals, has gone down an irredeemable path.
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 + Rent Collection Wealth】 At the start, he inherited a rundown house in the urban village from his grandfather. The house had no tenants, but the moment he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, a self-proclaimed empress from the Tianxuan Continent arrived as his first tenant. Ye Chuan soon discovered that with every new tenant moving in, not only did he receive massive daily payments, but he also obtained unique items related to their backgrounds. 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Tiger Strength Pill—dramatically enhances physical power!】 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Deer Blood Pill—significantly boosts vitality!】 …… From that day on, all sorts of bizarre tenants began appearing in the house: the empress from Tianxuan Continent, an apocalyptic sorceress from the Magic Realm, a mysterious scientific girl who fell through a spacetime rift… Every single day, he received strange, powerful items and endless money. Then one day, he suddenly realized—he had become invincible. Enough, enough! Stop giving me more!
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.
