Chapter 116 - 111: Sugar-Coated Bullets...

Chapter 116: Chapter 111: Sugar-Coated Bullets...

The next day.

Dawn.

Light gradually dispersed the darkness. The sky shifted from pitch-black to a faint, deep blue. Sunlight crested the eastern slopes of the mountains, illuminating the dense green forest and cradling Chen Family Village—nestled amid the greenery—in its palm. The midnight chill was slowly erased by the sun’s rays. Birds sang among the fragrant flowers. It was a remarkably comfortable summer morning.

Su Tan woke up early and cultivated for two hours. He washed up, ate breakfast, and then went out to the courtyard to tend to the flowers and plants. Although he couldn’t see them, Su Tan still loved a yard surrounded by vibrant blossoms. The faint fragrance, mixed with the scent of the morning sun, accompanied by the chirping of birds... it was incredibly soothing.

"I think I got a book in the Void God Realm about how to cultivate flowers and plants..." Su Tan rummaged through his Warehouse for a long time.

Sure enough, he found it. Equipping the book into the Ten Thousand Dao Furnace, he instantly learned the skill of cultivating flora. It was just that simple.

"When I was performing Alchemy before, the quality of the medicinal herbs wasn’t great, causing me to accidentally fail in refining Perfect grade Elixirs. If I grow the herbs myself and improve their inherent quality, it will definitely aid my Alchemy," Su Tan thought, the idea taking root in his mind.

Growing flowers and herbs. He had already learned how to infinitely elevate his Body Refinement methods. He had also learned how to infinitely elevate his Qi Condensation realm. As for Alchemy... he had mastered the Perfect Alchemy Skill.

However, he felt that Alchemy wasn’t too important to him, as its essence was merely a convenient way to grow stronger. With his system and the Ten Thousand Dao Furnace, Su Tan didn’t really need Elixirs for assistance. At most, there were times when his body’s natural vitality recovery couldn’t keep up with its growth rate, requiring him to refine a few Elixirs to accelerate the healing process.

But that was during the Body Refinement realm; now, he had reached the Qi Condensation realm. Qi Condensation nurtured the body. With Spiritual Qi nourishing him, he actually didn’t need Elixirs for support anymore.

Cultivating flowers and herbs was purely for personal interest. Life... was about more than just endless, sleepless cultivation. Su Tan disliked that kind of robotic existence. Moderate cultivation was fine, but beyond that, he wanted a relaxing life of his own. Tending to flowers, feeding fish, planting trees, cooking meals, cleaning up the place, or just lying back and basking in the sun... Su Tan felt he was perfectly capable of doing all these things.

With the Equipment System and the Ten Thousand Dao Furnace’s Body Refinement section, his Body Refinement tiers would skyrocket as long as he mastered the Body Refining Map. As for Qi Condensation... he currently had thirty halos of light around him, which meant he had already reached the thirtieth tier of Qi Condensation. That’s right—he had advanced another three tiers without doing a thing.

Because on the Marching Battlefield, as long as Yin Demons died, he would receive a certain percentage of Spiritual Power. In other words, the more Yin Demons there were and the more players there were, the stronger Su Tan would become. He could grow stronger just by lying down. As for the system... it was even simpler; he only needed to equip items to gain strength.

However, even though the system was called "infinite," Su Tan felt it was still limited in certain aspects. Take cultivation, for example. It could indeed allow him to infinitely equip various items and grow stronger rapidly, but if his cultivation reached the ninth tier of Body Refinement, the system definitely couldn’t elevate him to the tenth tier; instead, it would push him toward Qi Condensation. In that case... the ninth tier of Body Refinement was the system’s limit. For the Qi Condensation realm, the ninth tier of Qi Condensation was also the system’s limit...

If he kept relying solely on the system’s functions, Su Tan could certainly become incredibly strong, progressing all the way from Body Refinement, to Qi Condensation, to Grandmaster, to Grandmaster, and then to the King Realm... achieving an infinite horizontal progression. But with the Ten Thousand Dao Furnace, Su Tan could achieve infinity not only horizontally, but vertically as well.

Su Tan felt that developing only one aspect—whether horizontal or vertical—was insufficient. He needed to develop both simultaneously.

What kind of result would this bring him? A terrifying one! He would become far more powerful than all the previous hosts. He would surpass the expectations of whatever entity had created this auxiliary tool.

In fact, Su Tan sometimes pondered whether this system was ultimately good or bad. If you called it good, it indeed was. It allowed one to quickly grow stronger and infinitely elevate their realm. By equipping anything, one could rapidly acquire numerous skills and vast knowledge. This was undeniably comfortable, making it effortless to gain power and achieve success.

But if you called it bad... thinking about it, the so-called "infinite" was a trap. It seemed that as long as he grew stronger according to the system’s methods, no matter how many skills, attacks, or defenses he equipped, he would always be entirely within someone else’s grasp, bound by the system’s predetermined parameters... and could never achieve Transcendence.

It seemed to erode a person’s creativity, deliberately causing them to lose their sense of self and gradually lose their rationality amid endless equipping, reducing them to mindlessly equipping items! Perhaps Su Tan was just a conspiracy theorist who loved linking everything to hidden plots, or perhaps he only started thinking this way after going blind. If he could still see, he might also be out showing off, running wild everywhere, and utilizing the system’s functions to relentlessly act like a big shot. After all, the system’s capabilities were simply too formidable to resist.

However... Su Tan now appeared to have exceeded the system’s settings, attaining true infinity. If another cheat-like individual with the exact same system and at the same cultivation realm stood before him right now, he could crush them to death with ease.

Su Tan sometimes imagined having an opponent who possessed a system just like his. If that person had the same cheat, what would happen if they clashed? His thoughts would often wander into all sorts of chaotic scenarios. Was the system’s blessing an aid or a restriction? If it was an aid, there was nothing more to say; but what if it was a restriction? Why did he go blind? Since the Spirit Body in the Void God Realm was clearly a mental login, why couldn’t he see there either? He thought about many, many things...

Of course, there were times when he felt he might just be overthinking things. Perhaps the system was purely a cheat meant to help him grow stronger, and his blindness... was simply a side effect.

...

"Sir, may we come in?" Yun Chu asked. Outside, the three of them had been waiting for a long time.

"Come in," Su Tan replied.

The three entered the courtyard.

"Have a seat first. I’m just watering the flowers and will be done shortly," Su Tan said.

"Okay!" Yun Chu replied obediently.

However... Yun Buliu and his apprentice, Shangguan Xiu’Er, reacted very differently from Yun Chu. The old face and the innocent young face twitched simultaneously, their eyes darting around in unison. They were truly master and disciple; their movements were perfectly synchronized.

"Grandmaster, are you tending to the flowers? I’m great at watering plants. Here, let me help you..." Shangguan Xiu’Er offered enthusiastically, hurrying forward.

"Master, you’ve worked hard. This disciple actually has a lot of experience in growing herbs and cultivating flowers. To tell you the truth, I nearly grew a Holy Medicine in my villa at the imperial capital! Let me help you, and I guarantee I’ll elevate the flowers in this garden to a whole new level.

"And as for raising fish, keeping pets, and the like, I’ve specially studied those as well. In the Celestial Fragrance Empire, besides you, Master, there is absolutely no one more skilled at it than me! Give your disciple a chance to try, I promise I won’t let you down," Yun Buliu boasted, thumping his chest.

The master and disciple were frantically trying to curry favor. This left Yun Chu, who was standing to the side, utterly dumbfounded.

"What the hell? These... these two are incredibly shameless!" Yun Chu thought.

However, this master and disciple duo were the two best Pharmacists in the Celestial Fragrance Empire. Normally, they never gave anyone a good look, acting unbearably arrogant and aloof. How had their image changed so drastically upon arriving here? Their fawning attitude was like night and day compared to their usual behavior, as if they had been replaced by entirely different people. If the nobles and officials of Celestial Fragrance found out about this, their jaws would drop in shock.

"Master, I assure you, I will make the flowers in this courtyard look extraordinary right away. If anything goes wrong, you can hold me fully responsible!" Yun Buliu promised.

A Medicine King was actually fighting for the chance to tend to someone’s flowers and plants, terrified of being denied the opportunity. If word got out, would anyone even believe it?