Forty-five minutes later.
"Fuck, my hand's sore from grilling."
Su Yuan rubbed his aching wrist and gazed at the girl in front of him, whose appetite seemed like a bottomless pit as she continued devouring grilled meat and all sorts of staple foods.
He wanted to take back all the rules he'd just laid down for her about eating at a buffet.
A monster with stats like hers would get her money's worth no matter what she ate. She had to be nerfed, right?
"Hey, hey, don't eat the bones!"
When Chen Nuoyi crunched through a bone-in pork chop, bone and all, Su Yuan hurriedly pulled the remaining half of the chop out of the girl's mouth.
"What's wrong? You should be able to eat the bones too."
Chewing with her mouth full of bone fragments, Chen Nuoyi asked indistinctly:
"I looked it up online. Eating more bones can help you get calcium. And based on my experience with food, bones are the most filling thing you can eat."
What kind of experience was that? Had she been so poor that she'd had to gnaw on bones to survive?
Su Yuan was completely speechless. He really wanted to know how Chen Nuoyi had managed to get by when her family had first gone bankrupt.
But cultivators wouldn't get indigestion from eating bones anyway, so he let her be.
He picked up a freshly grilled piece of meat, dipped it in the seasoning, and popped it into his mouth, savoring its rich, savory flavor.
"Strange, why do I already feel full?"
Su Yuan patted his stomach. He hadn't eaten that much—less than he usually did.
The more he thought about it, the more he felt he was getting ripped off. There was still over an hour left before their dining time was up, yet he was already full? If only he could eat a Blue Pill...
Just then, a server pushing a dish cart passed by. Along with a pile of used plates, the cart carried quite a bit of slop.
A flash of inspiration crossed Su Yuan's mind. If he could use Demonic Cultivation Technique · Finger Spirit to refine Blue Pills from the slop in the school cafeteria, could he do the same with slop from a buffet restaurant?
The moment the thought occurred to him, Su Yuan quickly surveyed the layout of the buffet restaurant. Drawing on his long experience as a delivery driver, he soon figured out where the back entrance was.
"I'm going to the restroom. Keep grilling on your own for now."
After saying that, Su Yuan avoided the staff and the cameras, then quietly slipped through the employee passage to the back entrance. Several full buckets of slop sat there, not yet taken to the dumpster.
I absorb!
Taking advantage of being alone, Su Yuan immediately activated Demonic Cultivation Technique · Finger Spirit.
A large number of specks of light surged out of the slop, turning into two deep-yellow Spirit Pills that fell into Su Yuan's hand. Their descriptions appeared on the System Panel as well.
[Unnamed Yellow Pill: When consumed, greatly increases satiety. You will not need to eat for up to a week. Side effect: seeing greasy food will trigger an instinctive feeling of revulsion, lasting until the pill's effects wear off.]
Su Yuan: "..."
Fuck, why did this lousy pill do the exact opposite of what he'd had in mind?
Wasn't this basically a fasting pill?
Wait! No, that wasn't it!
Su Yuan had been ranting to himself when he suddenly realized something.
The effects of Spirit Pills condensed by Demonic Cultivation Technique · Finger Spirit varied according to the composition of the items they were extracted from.
So the Yellow Pill increased satiety because the slop from the buffet restaurant contained a lot of ingredients that increased satiety?
"No wonder I got full after eating so little."
Su Yuan's expression darkened.
The righteous path was a foot tall, but the demonic path was ten feet tall! He could score huge discount coupons through all sorts of channels, but businesses had their own surefire ways to avoid losing money!
Which raised the question: since Blue Pills existed, did the food in the school cafeteria really contain ingredients that made people's heads come to a point?
Su Yuan fell into deep thought.
He didn't come back to himself until a server pushed a dish cart to the back entrance and called out to him.
Su Yuan pushed aside his many distracting thoughts, explained that he'd taken a wrong turn while looking for the restroom, then hurried off to the restroom and pretended to do his business before returning to the table.
Looking at the pile of meat on the grill, charred black as coal, Chen Nuoyi lowered her head like a child who'd done something wrong.
"I tried really hard to turn the meat over, but I never imagined it would burn so fast."
Su Yuan sighed and said:
"Class Monitor, being a grill chef isn't as easy as it looks. Leave it to me."
After changing the grill mesh, Su Yuan stopped worrying about whether they were getting their money's worth and devoted himself to grilling meat for Chen Nuoyi. They ate for the full two hours before finally leaving beneath the owner's face, dark as the bottom of a pot.
Su Yuan didn't feel guilty in the slightest.
If not for Chen Nuoyi, that stat monster, the restaurant would probably have taught the two of them a harsh lesson today.
By the time they walked out of the restaurant, it was past three in the morning. There was just enough time to go back and doze for a bit before they'd have to get up and head straight to school.
Cultivators could take it or leave it when it came to sleep, so Su Yuan decided to start squeezing the Righteous Path Saintess for all she was worth from that moment on—or, in other words, tutor her.
Have you ever seen Taihua City at three in the morning?
Come to think of it, it was already the next day. He could check Chen Nuoyi's refreshed fate again. Maybe it had something to do with his studies.
With that thought, Su Yuan immediately activated Demonic Cultivation Technique · Finger Command and checked Chen Nuoyi's fate for the day.
Then he saw several pitch-black characters above the girl's head!
[Eternal Descent into the Abyss (Unfulfilled)]
???
Come on, man.
Wasn't fate supposed to refresh daily? How had it suddenly become so heavy?
She'd fall completely in a single day? Wasn't that a little too fast?
Who did it? Who did it?
I'm asking you, who could make a Righteous Path Saintess completely fall in a single day?
It couldn't be me, could it?
Su Yuan desperately wanted to distance himself from the change in Chen Nuoyi's fate, but... aside from him, was there another Demon Lord at Taihua High School?
Even if there was, wouldn't her Dragon King father take care of them before they could get close to Chen Nuoyi?
In other words, the Demon Lord who'd be killed by Chen Nuoyi's Dragon King father was none other than Su Yuan!
Su Yuan trembled with fear.
But just then, the system rang out with an especially ill-timed [ding-dong].
[By peering into another person's fate, you glimpse your own destiny. To your surprise, the Righteous Path Saintess's Saint Fall Degree will skyrocket from 20% to 100% within a single day, leaving her no way back!] [What kind of evil and depraved deed could make her descend forever into the abyss? Faced with this abyss that will decide her fate, the Righteous Path Saintess will unconsciously resist, trying to escape this despairing fall. How will you guide her toward this very outcome?] [Limited-time Demon Lord Mission triggered] [Mission: First Follower (In Progress)] [As a proper Demon Lord, you should have countless followers loyal to you. Turn the fallen Saintess into your first fanatical follower!] [Task Progress: Saint Fall Degree: (20%/100%)] [Mission Reward: Abyss Dharma Vein] [Mission Time Limit: Before the end of the day]
Oh boy, this was a huge problem now.
Before you continue