Seeing Bai Lan gradually take on an air of giving up, the system panicked. "Besides, it's not as if this mission is impossible to complete. You have the save-and-load cheat. If you want to melt their hearts with love, it's only a matter of time!"
As it spoke, the system eagerly stepped forward and kneaded Bai Lan's shoulders. "You can use your cheat to gradually capture the hearts of the two Children of Destiny. If you accidentally hit a landmine or encounter danger during the mission, you can load a save and start over. How convenient is that~"
"Besides, with such an incomparably handsome system as me assisting you from the sidelines, what mission could possibly fail?" The system floated around Bai Lan, trying to persuade her.
"Hmph, melt them with love? Why don't you melt me first?" Bai Lan closed her eyes. "What kind of rotten mission is this? I'm not doing it. They can do whatever they want. They can cultivate now, so who still cares about this stuff? You know I came here purely to cultivate."
"...You really do love cultivation." The system fell silent.
Ordinarily, the first goal of mission-takers who traveled to other worlds was to return to their original world. To that end, they would stop at nothing to complete their missions in exchange for rewards and a chance to go home.
Especially in a cultivation world—one of those high-martial worlds with extreme danger levels, where there was an eighty percent chance of receiving a boxed lunch right at the start—most people were unwilling to linger here for long.
But the host before it clearly did not play by the rules.
She had never intended to complete the mission at all! She merely wanted to borrow the power of world-hopping to cultivate in a cultivation world.
"Can anyone really dislike cultivation?" Bai Lan's tone was fervent. "Don't you want to experience flying on a sword? Don't you want to see the world of the strong?"
The system silently shook its head, turned around, and wiped away a bitter tear.
If its host did not do missions, it would have no performance evaluation. Without an evaluation, there would be no bonus. Without a bonus, all its beautiful hopes for the world, its belief in the kindness between people, all its passion for work—would vanish like smoke and clouds.
Wuwu, how tragic.
While the crowd cried out and clamored in amazement at the emergence of two Heavenly Spiritual Roots, Bai Lan directly ignored the two hostile gazes fixed on her. She tucked the jade token into her robes and prepared to slip out through a gap in the crowd.
Based on her understanding of this sort of plot—
Next, Long Aotian, whose engagement she had broken off three years ago, would publicly make trouble for her.
Surely, three years ago, when the engagement had been annulled, that Long Aotian had also declared that famous line before everyone: "Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river—do not bully the poor young man."
That line had only just flashed through Bai Lan's mind when a young man's voice came from behind her.
"Bai Lan! Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river! Three years ago, you saw that my family had fallen into ruin and that I was a useless waste, so you came to annul our engagement and humiliate me. Today, I will wash away my former shame!" Long Aotian thundered.
Bai Lan, who had just wanted to make a run for it: "..."
"With my Heavenly Spiritual Root aptitude, once I enter the sect, I will surely become the direct disciple of a Core Formation elder. But you, with your mere Five Spirit Roots, will be nothing more than a servant in the sect." Long Aotian sneered. "If you do not want to die, then apologize to me publicly. Afterward, come to my side and become my personal maid. Then perhaps I may spare your life."
"...Hiss." Bai Lan sucked in a sharp breath.
That was so cringe. As expected of Long Aotian—she felt embarrassed even reading such overbearing wish-fulfillment lines in private, yet he could recite them with such feeling and flourish.
But... she could not lose in momentum! She could not lose face!
At worst, she could load a save.
Bai Lan calmly made a save before slowly speaking. "Mere Long Aotian, you are nothing but withered bones in a grave. If you have the courage, do you dare fight me?"
The moment those words fell, everyone was startled.
Setting aptitude aside, Long Aotian already possessed Qi Refining level one cultivation. He was a genuine cultivator.
And Bai Lan... was still a mortal who had only just been tested and found to possess cultivation aptitude.
A mortal facing a cultivator—the outcome spoke for itself.
Long Aotian was also stunned. Then he threw back his head at a forty-five-degree angle and gave three sinister "jie jie jie" laughs. "I have already achieved Qi Induction and am now a Qi Refining level one cultivator, while you are merely a mortal. You actually dare challenge me? You truly do not know your own limits!"
"...Indeed." Bai Lan gave a slight nod. "So, how about we fight three months from now? With your pathetic waste-like bearing, by then you definitely will not be my match!"
After hearing those provocative words, Long Aotian on the other side was already so furious that flames seemed to burst from his head.
"What? Don't tell me you don't dare? Heh, that's all the courage you have?" Bai Lan raised a brow, her tone scornful.
Three years ago, Long Aotian had already suffered a setback at Bai Lan's hands once. Naturally, he was unwilling to suffer another.
Long Aotian gritted his teeth. "You! Why would I not dare! You have only Five Spirit Roots. Even if I give you three months, how strong could you possibly become? I accept! Three months from now, victory and defeat will reveal themselves!"
After saying that, Long Aotian gave a cold snort, turned, clasped his hands behind his back, and left.
"Host, you're amazing! You actually dared face a Child of Destiny head-on!" The system floated over, its eyes filled with stars.
Bai Lan gave a light cough.
Since she had saved just now, she could afford to be a little arrogant. If Long Aotian got enraged and went berserk, refused the challenge, and insisted on killing her, she could only load a save and switch to another set of lines to stall for time.
Besides, a Core Formation elder was stationed aboard the flying ship in the distance. No matter how arrogant Long Aotian was, he would not act rashly at a time like this. At most, he could show off his verbal skills.
"So, Host, can you really defeat Long Aotian three months from now?" the system asked curiously.
Bai Lan shook her head. "I don't know whether I can win three months from now, but if I fought Long Aotian now, the one who would lose would definitely be me, a mortal."
Therefore, of the Thirty-Six Stratagems, delay was the best policy.
What was more, she already had a strategy for dealing with Long Aotian.
According to the plot, on the day of the spirit-root test, she, the supporting female character, would be publicly humiliated and suppressed by the two geniuses found to possess Heavenly Spiritual Roots. For the following years, she would be mocked by those in the sect.
Now that the Child of Destiny had been temporarily dealt with, the next one would one hundred percent be the Daughter of Destiny.
Out of the corner of her eye, Bai Lan saw the white-robed woman in the distance slowly walking toward her. She decisively turned and left.
What a joke. She had already been forcibly dragged into the broken-engagement plotline by Long Aotian because she had taken one step too slowly. How could she possibly walk the same old road from a minute ago?
As long as she ran fast enough, the plot would not catch up to her.
The system was still standing where it was, lowering its head to read the Destined Female Lead's information. Just as it was about to analyze the Destined Female Lead's current state of mind, it looked up and saw that its host had already vanished.
It hurriedly chased after Bai Lan, crying out anxiously, "Host, don't run! What comes next is important plot, you..."
"What plot? What normal person follows them through their plot? Come on, let's find somewhere safe and achieve Qi Induction first." Bai Lan strode like the wind. In less than a quarter of an hour, she had left the area where the crowd had gathered and returned to the residence of the original body.
The Minister's Estate.
Bai Lan's current identity was the eldest daughter of the Minister's Estate.
This was a country in the southern part of the Human Realm, named the Southern Kingdom.
The Human Realm was thin in spiritual energy and served as a place where mortals gathered. Mortals revered the Son of Heaven and lived according to feudal rites and teachings.
But this was a cultivation world. The Human Realm was merely a residential area that cultivators had carved out for mortals from a barren land with sparse spiritual energy.
Cultivators stood above mortals here. They could command wind and lightning, control water and fire, ride the clouds and mist, and live for tens of thousands of years.
Yet among those cultivators, the land beneath their feet was called the Mist Cloud Continent, and the cultivators who had come to the Southern Kingdom this time all belonged to the Azure Origin Sect.
Every ten years, the Azure Origin Sect came to mortal kingdoms to seek out those with spirit roots and the aptitude to cultivate, bringing them into the sect to cultivate and replenish its fresh blood.
Before you continue