The smile froze on Ding Mingcang's face.
Never in his wildest dreams had he expected that answer.
As far as he was concerned,
he was a Sect Elder, and he had offered to meet Lu Ze halfway.
Yet a sect disciple,
an Outer Disciple who had not even entered the inner sect,
had the nerve to speak to him like that?
Faint ripples surged around Ding Mingcang, one after another.
If so many eyes had not been watching, he would have struck without hesitation.
Chao Wendao gave him a meaningful look, and Ding Mingcang forced down his urge to kill.
"So you intend to honor the wager... Fine!"
Ding Mingcang ground the words out through clenched teeth, his eyes fixed on Lu Ze.
"Then today, I'd like to see just how endless this Endless Mode really is..."
"And how you cleared those waves!"
"If you can reach wave fifty in front of every disciple here, I'll concede defeat!"
He had not tried Endless Mode himself, but according to Qian Yutang's reports, its difficulty was beyond anything an ordinary person could overcome.
After three full days, the sect's highest record was only twenty waves.
And that run had ended in crushing defeat!
However he looked at it, Lu Ze had designed it to keep everyone from clearing it.
Even Lu Ze himself could not do it.
"Sure. Let's begin."
Lu Ze smiled faintly.
He had guessed from the start that Ding Mingcang would not let the matter rest.
He had long expected things to come to this.
What a joke...
A mere fifty waves?
For a veteran who had spent his previous life tackling challenge runs with fellow players online, it was child's play.
Forget fifty waves.
He could devise a Formation for a hundred, a thousand, or even one that could run unattended.
"Wait!"
Seeing how calm Lu Ze was, Ding Mingcang stopped him with a suspicious look.
"I'll have someone check whether you've tampered with the Crystal or the Illusion Tower before you demonstrate anything!"
News that Lu Ze would demonstrate Endless Mode at Lingxiao Plaza spread like wildfire.
"Elder Ding has a point. If Junior Brother Lu deliberately made it impossible for us to clear, that's hardly fair."
"Junior Brother Lu has some nerve, challenging the Second Elder in front of so many fellow disciples."
"A live demonstration all the way to wave fifty? Surely not?"
"I can't even clear wave five..."
"Absolutely impossible! The firepower by wave ten is inhuman! Wave fifty? No one could beat that!"
"I'm starting to wonder whether this Illusion Realm even has a fiftieth wave."
"Junior Brother Lu must have been drunk when he set the Zombie count. I want to see how he gets through it."
The disciples talked among themselves.
Even though Lu Ze had created the Illusion Realm, no one believed he could reach wave fifty.
Everyone had seen how sharply the difficulty climbed in Endless Mode.
With that staggering number of Zombies, they thought clearing it was impossible without cheating.
So when Ding Mingcang demanded an inspection of the Crystal and Illusion Tower, the disciples considered it only natural.
Once the inspection confirmed that none of the items had been tampered with, Lu Ze sent his consciousness into the Illusion Tower and prepared to begin his performance.
He projected the Illusion Realm's images outside.
Ding Mingcang and the Enforcement Hall disciples stood watch nearby, scrutinizing his every move.
If Lu Ze made any move that even looked like an attempt to alter the Crystal's data, Ding Mingcang would seize him without hesitation.
Every disciple watched Lu Ze's screen with curiosity.
But as soon as Lu Ze entered, he stopped at the Endless Mode selection screen and did not move.
"Why did he stop?"
"Don't tell me he's scared..."
"Maybe he's looking for a chance to adjust the difficulty?"
"That won't be easy... Elder Ding is watching him."
The disciples wondered what he was doing.
Lu Ze, meanwhile, was frowning in thought.
He was considering two questions.
First, which level should he play?
Second, which Formation should he use?
If he were not putting on a live demonstration, his choice would not matter.
Forget fifty waves.
He could easily handle five hundred, or even five thousand.
The problem was,
he did not want to teach so many people how to clear Endless Mode step by step, not yet.
For one thing, it would cut short the time players spent figuring things out and, in turn, shorten the game's lifespan.
For another...
If every player knew how to clear Endless Mode, where would he earn his Demonic Value?
Take the classic Eight-Cannon Corn Formation, for example.
It was no exaggeration to say that
if he demonstrated how to build it now, the disciples would know how to farm Endless Mode while leaving it unattended by that very evening.
Even with the difficulty raised considerably, they could probably reach at least wave one hundred.
Naturally, they would have much less reason to keep playing Plants vs. Zombies afterward.
Lu Ze decided he absolutely could not choose such a simple, mindless Formation.
It was better to leave Formation development to the players.
After a little thought, Lu Ze chose Daytime Pool, the third level, and started Endless Mode.
Because the third level had a pool, the two water lanes required less defense. It was also the easiest level overall, making it convenient for a demonstration.
As for the Formation,
Lu Ze chose a fairly classic No-Cannon Formation.
A No-Cannon Formation required more manual input, and he could deliberately mix in a few other plants to throw the players off.
After quickly selecting his Spirit Plant Cards, Lu Ze entered the game.
Below the stage,
countless eyes followed Lu Ze's every move.
When they saw the cards he had chosen, puzzled voices rose from the disciples.
"What's this? Why didn't Junior Brother Lu bring a Peashooter?"
"Forget the regular Peashooter. He didn't even bring an Ice Peashooter?"
"Never mind the Peashooters—Junior Brother Lu only brought one Puff-shroom and one Doom-shroom! How is he supposed to get through the first wave?"
"He's going to trade Potato Mines and Squash Daoists for Zombies? Isn't that just wasting Spiritual Energy?"
"Wait... He didn't even bring a Tall-Nut!"
"He's asking to die!"
"Has Junior Brother Lu given up?"
Up in the air,
Mu Yawen and Zhong Yi were also watching Lu Ze.
"Senior Brother Zhong, isn't Junior Brother Lu a little too confident, not bringing any Tall-Nuts?"
Mu Yawen could not understand it.
She had a particular fondness for the tank plants in this game.
She lined up Tall-Nuts and Pumpkin Shields in a full column every wave. Without them, she always felt something was missing.
Now that she saw Lu Ze had brought no Tall-Nuts at all, she felt as if ants were crawling over her skin.
"The first wave isn't too intense. The priority is building up Spiritual Energy, so leaving out Tall-Nuts makes sense."
Zhong Yi had more experience than most.
He frowned as he considered the purpose of every card Lu Ze had brought.
The Imitater copied the Sunflower to speed up Spiritual Energy collection. That was easy enough to understand.
The Potato Mine and Squash were there to take out Zombies early on with the fewest resources possible. He could accept that too.
But he could not understand why Lu Ze had chosen the seventy-five-Spiritual-Energy Puff-shroom instead of a Peashooter that could work with a Torch.
The former even required an extra Awakening Bean to wake it up!
Even those choices could be understood with some effort.
What baffled him most was the Garlic.
To him, that card was utterly useless.
All it did was drive Zombies onto another lane with its stench.
It merely changed their lane. It neither killed them nor dealt damage—dead weight, pure and simple.
Zhong Yi had used it once in a story level, then left it gathering dust in his inventory. He had never touched it again.
Watching Lu Ze select those strange cards without hesitation, Zhong Yi grew more curious by the moment.
With that bizarre collection of cards,
how did Lu Ze intend to hold out until wave fifty?
Before you continue