"Damn it! Restoring the eldest senior brother's dignity is our sacred duty!" Ouyang grumbled inwardly as he climbed the mountain path.
Ding! Host, your AFK gains have arrived. Gains from this AFK session: true qi +1000.
Hearing the voice ring out in his mind, Ouyang reluctantly chose to collect the reward. A faint warm current flowed from his lower abdomen through his limbs and bones, then vanished without a trace.
Ouyang opened his status panel with a thought:
Name: Ouyang (transmigrator) Cultivation: Qi Refining, ninth level Root bone: 1 Charisma: 6 Luck: 1 Special aptitude: true qi value 906962543 Exclusive skill: not unlocked Evaluation: You are the worst batch of hosts I have ever handled!!
The Strongest AFK System! This was his transmigrator perk.
As long as he lay still, he would automatically enter AFK mode and could collect the true essence accumulated through cultivation while AFK.
But the drawback was that he had to remain completely motionless. He couldn't do anything!
Ever since he had transmigrated and awakened this system, he had turned up his nose at a system that could do nothing but idle.
He would rely on his extraordinary talent and a perspective beyond this world to climb to its very peak.
Even if I die, even if I jump off Little Mountain Peak, I will never use this lazy-ass system!!!
But now? Hehehe. It tasted damn good!
After all, an entire day of working himself to death cultivating yielded less progress than ten minutes of the system going AFK.
At first, Ouyang had still comforted himself: I'm not living off the system like a kept man. I just like lying around when there's nothing to do...
Ouyang now: Fine, I'm coming clean. I'm a cheating bastard!
But as he spent longer and longer going AFK, Ouyang gradually realized something was wrong.
The system had an enormous flaw: it couldn't level him up!
Fuck!
He could only collect the true qi awarded for going AFK, but he couldn't level up!
The cultivation ranks in this world were exactly the same as those recorded in novels. Why were they the same? Because the author couldn't be bothered to think up new ones.
Qi Refining, Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul, Out-of-Body, Spirit Division, Integration, Mahayana, and Tribulation Transcendence. Nine major realms, each divided into nine levels.
This drew on the notion of nine times nine returning to one.
Above those lay the Immortal Realm, which every cultivator dreamed of reaching.
After collecting his AFK true qi and breaking straight through to the ninth level of Qi Refining, he could no longer advance a single step!
His cultivation had remained forever stuck at the Qi Refining Stage!
As for why, Ouyang had always felt his system had something to do with it.
Even if he was a hundred million little bits stronger than an ordinary Qi Refining cultivator, Qi Refining was still only Qi Refining.
He couldn't condense true qi into true essence, let alone condense true essence into a golden core, then shatter that core to form a nascent soul.
He had gone from a young genius who reached the ninth level of Qi Refining overnight to a good-for-nothing trapped forever at the Qi Refining Stage.
Ouyang's spirits had plummeted straight from the heavens into the dirt.
Only upon entering the Foundation Establishment Realm could one truly be considered to have begun cultivating.
Only after reaching the Foundation Establishment Realm would he have a chance to get his hands on those dazzling Magic Treasures and supreme Dao arts!
And now he was just one final step away, yet that step was like an eternal chasm he could never cross!
Although his realm couldn't rise, the amount of true qi he possessed had grown to a terrifying figure with the Idle System's help.
He no longer felt anything about how much true qi he had. After all, it was just a number. No matter how large that number became, could it let him break through to Foundation Establishment?
Sword flight was a Dao art that could only be comprehended in the Foundation Establishment Realm!
His dream of soaring around atop an immortal sword had already been shattered.
Cultivation without flying atop an immortal sword with a pretty young immortal maiden in his arms had already lost its soul!
Whenever he thought about this, Ouyang tossed and turned, unable to sleep.
Another drawback of his inability to advance was his lifespan.
The Qi Refining Stage would freeze his appearance at eighteen, but his lifespan fell far short of those of higher-realm cultivators.
By comparison, Mahayana cultivators could casually live for several thousand years, or even ten thousand.
A cultivator at the Qi Refining Stage could live to two hundred at most. That was the absolute limit!
In other words, if he never managed to break through, he would have to delete his account and start over in two hundred years at the latest!
Two hundred years was merely an instant to a cultivator, but for him, it might be an entire lifetime!
Ouyang drew his thoughts back and shook his head in frustration. He took a yellow talisman from inside his robe. It was a Speed Talisman his third junior brother, Chen Changsheng, had given him.
By tearing the talisman open and channeling true qi into it, he could activate the formation inscribed on the Yellow Talisman.
It could double a person's speed.
Let's put those worries aside for now and head back to eat.
That unfilial brat had just said he wouldn't save Ouyang any food if he didn't return before dusk.
Heaven was vast and earth was vast, but eating mattered most.
Ouyang murmured, "Wind!"
Suddenly, a mountain breeze swept along the path. The strange wind blew upward from the foot of the mountain, gently pushing Ouyang forward.
Ouyang channeled true qi into the yellow talisman. It instantly turned into a flash of flame and vanished, followed by a shimmer of golden light flowing over his body.
Pumping his arms, Ouyang sprinted toward Little Mountain Peak!
Before you continue