"Brother Yuan, have some of this!"
"Brother Yuan, try this one. This is delicious!"
The next day, Huo Yuhao, whose stall had done booming business the moment it opened yesterday, had made quite a bit of money. Combined with the Gold Soul Coin generously sponsored by Xu Sanshi, he was feeling rather flush today and wanted to treat everyone to a meal.
Of course, it was breakfast from the Ordinary Window.
However, Tang Ya and Beibei, the young couple, had other plans, while Jiang Nannan needed to have breakfast at home with her mother. In the end, Lu Yuan was the only one able to come.
But Lu Yuan was not the only one there for breakfast.
"Yuhao, eat up, eat up. Your Brother Yuan is full."
Feeling the resentful gaze behind him, Lu Yuan swallowed. The breakfast that had seemed so sweet and delicious suddenly tasted rather bland.
Damn it, I thought Yuhao was treating me to breakfast alone. Where did this annoying guy come from?!
Wang Dong viciously stabbed a soup dumpling with her chopsticks, her large pink-blue eyes fixed gloomily on Lu Yuan.
I was here first!
Watching Huo Yuhao fawn over this guy, calling him "Brother Yuan" so affectionately and piling food onto his plate, Wang Dong felt thoroughly miserable.
"Um... Yuhao," Lu Yuan said as he rose to his feet, having nearly finished eating. He patted Huo Yuhao on the shoulder and gave him a meaningful look. "I'm about done eating. You and your roommate take your time! Eat more, you're still young and need to grow! I'm going outside for a walk to settle my food!"
With that, Lu Yuan picked up his tray and bid the two farewell.
Only then did Huo Yuhao realize that he seemed to have neglected his roommate. He turned and secretly glanced at Wang Dong, only to see her silent pink-blue eyes and the soup dumpling that had died with its eyes open. He hurriedly said, "Well, Wang Dong, let me explain—"
You got this, Lu!
Having fled with his bucket in hand, Lu Yuan still entrusted the task of keeping Wang Dong occupied to Shrek's number one weightlifting champion, Huo Yuhao. After all, without Huo Yuhao bearing the burden, how could Lu Yuan develop in such a sneaky way?
Leisurely strolling by Sea God's Lake, Lu Yuan quietly enjoyed the fresh air. After all, the industrialized cities of his previous life had never possessed air quality like this.
After passing through a stretch of woods, the sparkling Sea God's Lake appeared before Lu Yuan.
A gentle mist of water mixed with fresh air washed over him. Although Sea God's Lake was merely an artificial lake, its waters were exceptionally clear. The azure water was pure blue, deep blue, and softly elegant blue. Gentle ripples rose and fell across its brocade-like surface, like the limpid autumn eyes of a young girl, reflecting the blue sky, white clouds, and the lush green trees shading the lakeshore.
Then, upon the calm azure lake surface, a jarringly red dot suddenly appeared and rapidly grew larger in Lu Yuan's vision.
"Xiao Yuan, be careful!" Elder Yi was always so reliable. The instant the red dot appeared, he had already warned Lu Yuan.
"Don't worry, Elder Yi, I know what I'm doing!" Lu Yuan had naturally noticed the red figure as well. Familiar with the original plot, he knew it was Ma Xiaotao, whose reason had been eroded by Evil Fire. Rather than panicking, he was thinking about how to use this opportunity to collect more Soul Devouring Dagger Fragments.
While the two spoke, the red figure had already approached at a terrifying speed. She was tall and slender, with red hair and red clothes. Even the eyes beneath her red mask were a frightening blood-red, radiating an aura of madness and evil.
"Chaos, evil?" Elder Yi's voice held a trace of confusion. "And an extremely violent fire aura."
"Elder Yi, help me subdue her!"
Surging heat rushed toward him. Unlike Wu Feng's petty flames, Ma Xiaotao's fire was truly close to Ultimate Fire. In her chaotic state under the erosion of Evil Fire, her flames had, at certain moments, already touched the threshold of Ultimate Fire.
Mental Shock!
Unlike Huo Yuhao's Mental Shock, Elder Yi possessed genuine God Rank Divine Sense. Lu Yuan's eyes suddenly lit up, a crystalline gray filling his pupils. Then, the gray light flickered faintly, like a gray steel needle piercing into Ma Xiaotao's Spirit Sea.
Thud! Ma Xiaotao, who had fallen into a baby-like sweet slumber, immediately collapsed unconscious onto the ground. The Evil Fire on her body gradually dissipated along with the host's unconsciousness.
Then, without the slightest thought of showing tenderness toward a beauty, Lu Yuan turned the curvaceous Ma Xiaotao over from where she had fallen flat and began feeling around on her body—
Found it!
Don't misunderstand. Lu Yuan was not taking advantage of Ma Xiaotao; he was looting his spoils of war.
A belt-shaped Storage Soul Tool appeared in Lu Yuan's hand. After searching through it, he took some pills and resources that aided cultivation, along with several Gold Soul Coins. Then, he tossed the Storage Soul Tool, now containing only her intimate clothing, back onto Ma Xiaotao.
As the old saying went, a man could not get rich without windfall wealth, and a horse would not grow fat without night grazing. Murder and arson brought golden belts.
After knocking Ma Xiaotao out and looting her, Lu Yuan had gained quite a haul. As an Inner Court student and Yan Shaozhe's disciple, Ma Xiaotao clearly possessed many good things.
It almost made Lu Yuan want to knock her out a few more times!
While Lu Yuan was looting her, Elder Yi was also examining Ma Xiaotao's body with his Divine Sense.
"Strange, exceedingly strange," said Electrolux, who had been a peak eighth-rank light-element professional in life before becoming a demigod-ranked necromancer and who clearly possessed a great spirit of research. "The world truly is full of wonders. With such a degree of evil aura, this little girl could be considered innately evil. In my homeland, she would have been tied directly to the stake by the church."
"However," Elder Yi paused before continuing, "the fire within her Martial Soul was able to contend against this evil during the early stages of her cultivation. Yet as her cultivation deepens, this evil aura will grow alongside her Martial Soul. One day, she will fall onto the evil path because of it. The path of Martial Souls truly differs greatly from the cultivation system of my previous life!"
"Then, Elder Yi, with your methods, is there any way to help me control the evil aura in her Martial Soul? Preferably by forming a seal that I can control?" Seeing Elder Yi's interest in research had been stirred, Lu Yuan quickly made his request. "With the insight and methods of a Holy Necromancer like you, Elder Yi, I'm sure it would be effortless!"
Lu Yuan did not have much to say about Ma Xiaotao herself. All he could say was that it was Chang Gong Wei's fault. The entire continent, including Shrek, had been afflicted with the Nine-Turn Ten-Thousand-Year Glory Gu. However, she would later become the Holy Spirit Cult's Saintess, and that identity was extremely important.
After all, it was not important who Ma Xiaotao was. What mattered was who the Holy Spirit Cult's Saintess was.
Even with the help of his memories of the original work, Lu Yuan still hoped to plant a nail among those madmen of the Holy Spirit Cult and keep track of their movements. After all, cultists could do anything when their brains short-circuited. At that point, Ma Xiaotao's identity as the Saintess would prove highly useful.
"Haha, Xiao Yuan, you're right. I really can accomplish this!" Lu Yuan's flattery had clearly scratched Elder Yi right where it itched. "If you wanted me to remove this evil aura, I truly could not do it. It is inseparable from her origin. Unless I were to parasitize her Spirit Sea, it would be difficult."
"But if it is merely sealing it," Elder Yi's tone shifted as he said calmly, "this level of evil aura is at least somewhat interesting to me!"
As he spoke, he took control of Lu Yuan's body and began a series of high-level operations—after all, such operations were still far too difficult for a novice mage like Lu Yuan, who had only just begun.
Before you continue