"Look into my eyes."
"Look!"
Lu Mingfei's low voice rang out, carrying a hint of unquestionable authority, like a sleeping lion that had just awakened and begun lecturing the subjects within his territory.
"Pfft—!" Su Lin took one look and failed to hold it in.
"Sorry, pfft hahaha!"
Before him was a round creature, its swollen face squeezing a pair of golden eyes so tightly that one might have trouble finding them without looking closely.
"Don't you feel even a shred of guilt?!"
The pressure emanating from this ball—no, from Lu Mingfei's Golden Eyes—was enough to make a Mixed-Blood tremble in fear.
"Are you even human?"
"But you can't blame me entirely." Su Lin's laughter came in trembling bursts, his shoulders shaking uncontrollably. "I helped you sense qi. After you sensed it and passed through two gates, you just stopped there."
"What normal person keeps sitting in one spot gathering qi without even learning an introductory cultivation method?"
Zhongli shook his head at the side. The moment he entered, he had seen a plump ball of flesh.
Yet Lu Mingfei himself had not noticed at all and was still continuing to gather qi.
Su Lin took out his phone and snapped a photo, ignoring Lu Mingfei's resentful little eyes.
"I sent you a message saying that you could come to Rong City to hang out with us whenever you had time, yet you sat here meditating for an entire day by yourself."
"How was I supposed to know cultivation could be this addictive?"
Lu Mingfei could not be blamed either. When living beings drew spiritual energy into their bodies, it was like someone who had gone without food or water for a long time; they would constantly want to satisfy that instinct.
It was a sense of fulfillment like parched land receiving rain after a long drought.
When Su Lin had first sensed the qi of heaven and earth, he had been just like Lu Mingfei. The only difference was that he had possessed a cultivation art for refining that qi.
"Can I go back to how I looked before?" Lu Mingfei asked gloomily.
"Of course. You just need to refine all this qi." Zhongli pulled out a bamboo scroll from a wooden rack. "Then Lu Mingfei is in your hands."
"No problem."
Zhongli nodded and walked deeper into the room. After the many bookshelves shifted and rearranged several times, he vanished from sight.
"How long until I change back?" Lu Mingfei asked.
He did not want to return to his own world still looking like this. Otherwise, he would have to find another world willing to take him in for a few months. He could hardly claim that he had become bloated from using the bathroom.
"A few days at the slowest. If it goes quickly, one night will do." Su Lin patted Lu Mingfei's belly.
"That's good, that's good..."
Lu Mingfei let out a long breath and finally relaxed.
"When Zhongli showed me my reflection in the mirror earlier, I thought I was about to explode."
Su Lin wrapped a mass of spiritual energy around Lu Mingfei. With a flick of his finger, Lu Mingfei floated into the air, while a strand of golden light turned into thread and wound around him as though Su Lin were holding a balloon on a string.
"It won't be that easy for you to explode. You already have the body of a Mixed-Blood, and you ate so many spirit fruits before this."
Crack.
"If you don't refine it, this spiritual energy will remain in your body for at most two weeks before dispersing on its own."
Crack, crack.
"I've put up with you for long enough!" Lu Mingfei roared from behind. "Can you stop pointing the camera at yourself and taking selfies?!"
After leaving Wangshu Pavilion, Su Lin glanced at the mountain forest. Several pockets of cultivation fluctuations within were greedily devouring the surrounding spiritual energy.
He went in the opposite direction, found a quiet place, and casually made a few arrangements.
"Here is fine." Su Lin patted Lu Mingfei and set him down.
"You should cultivate properly here, kid."
It would not actually matter if he cultivated indoors, but since this was his first time cultivating, being close to nature would let him sense the changes in the surrounding spiritual energy more directly.
"You haven't forgotten anything else you need to tell me this time, right?" Lu Mingfei asked worriedly.
"No."
Su Lin waved his hand and left without looking back.
Though it was nearly the next day already, Lu Mingfei did not feel tired in the slightest. All he wanted now was to cultivate.
Following the circulation route in his mind, the spiritual energy accumulated within his body began to peel away from his flesh and blood like silk drawn from a cocoon, integrating into his body in a more refined form.
Countless points of light appeared among the surrounding trees, grass, and even the sky...
Gradually, Lu Mingfei lost himself once more in this cultivation that evolved the level of his life.
Cultivation makes me happy...
The ancients truly did not deceive me!
The afternoon of the second day.
Klein returned from Rong City with a cup of milk tea and several skewers of fried snacks. He found Su Lin lying bored on a grandmaster's chair, scrolling through videos on his phone.
"Ah, you're back." Su Lin greeted him.
"You didn't go cultivate?" Seeing no activity at all in the Chat Group, Klein had assumed everyone had gone to cultivate.
After sleeping until he woke naturally, he had wandered around the city for a while. Once he finished lunch, he bought some snacks and thought he would take a walk on Water Mirror Peak to help digest his food.
After arriving yesterday, he had yet to properly appreciate the scenery of this Floating Island.
It was time to take a break from Backlund's industrial style and its vaguely European and American classical aesthetic.
"Cultivate in the morning or at night, it's still cultivation. Refine in the morning or at night, it's still refinement." Su Lin did not stand on ceremony. He took a fried starch sausage from Klein's plastic bag, its surface evenly coated in a sauce of red oil and spices.
"Are you not used to living here?" Su Lin asked.
As the administrator with authority over Water Mirror Peak, he could tell whenever someone entered or exited through the portal.
"Yeah, I think I'm more used to living in the city," Klein said.
"Is that so?"
Su Lin thought for a moment, then took out a rectangular jade pillar from the System Inventory. Several unfamiliar beasts were carved into its surface.
"Take this."
Klein accepted the jade carving and asked, "What is this?"
"It can resist mental corruption to a certain extent."
The resources left behind by this sect were limited, and this was one of them.
"What do you want?" Klein nodded. He truly needed something like this.
"Demoness..."
"..."
"A Demoness Potion."
"What Sequence?"
"One that can turn a man into a Demoness."
Klein felt like his Faceless almost failed to hold together.
"I just want to collect some interesting things," Su Lin explained. "Most Sealed Artifacts in your world have side effects. Why not get me a vial of Sequence 7 Potion instead? I'll keep it as a collectible."
"I'm afraid that isn't enough." Klein looked at the jade carving in his hand.
The value of this item far exceeded that of a Sequence 7 Potion.
"It's fine." Su Lin took the plastic bag from Klein, found another skewer of pork belly, and said, "After all, I can't say for certain how useful this thing really is."
With all the strange rule-based and conceptual abilities in the world of Lord of Mysteries, it was still unknown how effective this item could be.
Its grade was not a problem, though. It counted as a fairly fine defensive Dharma Artifact.
"Then thank you."
(End of chapter)