After posting the video, Zero-One came out and sat upright on the living room sofa, seemingly dozing.
Not far away, Xie Xinsu stole a glance at Zero-One, her mind relaxing.
In front of a robot, she made no effort to conceal her peculiarities, such as meditating to cultivate.
The clumsy robots of this world didn't understand what this was at all.
Even if it saw her, it wouldn't record it, let alone make any connections.
"The spiritual energy here is so rich—there must be an ancient dharma treasure here!"
Her little pink nose twitched, trying to pinpoint the source of the spiritual energy.
"Once they're asleep, I have to go look for that treasure! An unowned dharma treasure like this is definitely an opportunity sent by Heaven!" Xie Xinsu was thrilled.
Could this be considered sweetness after bitter trials? After suffering so much, it was finally time for things to go her way.
She resumed meditating and cultivating.
However, despite the rich spiritual energy, her cultivation progress was worryingly slow.
She quickly identified the problem.
"A cat's body simply isn't suited to the cultivation arts I learned before..."
The immortal arts she had studied were grand and righteous paths, but they were meant for human cultivators. In the past, she had never mastered any immortal arts suited for beasts. Practicing them now felt exceedingly strange.
"Never mind, keep cultivating. As long as nothing goes wrong, keep going!" All immortal arts led to the Great Dao. Even if a few minor hiccups arose, it was no big deal.
By now, the night had deepened.
Apart from a few streetlights casting an orange-yellow glow, the entire Jun'an Community was exceptionally dim and quiet.
Gazing down from space, the entire Arch Star looked like a giant mist-shrouded sphere. Above this mist, two distinctly different kinds of vapors were mingling... and devouring each other.
In the living room, Zero-One, who had been feigning sleep, suddenly opened its eyes.
It couldn't sleep.
Especially after posting the video.
Every so often, it felt compelled to check whether anyone had commented on the video it had uploaded.
It opened the video, saw the red notification dot, and couldn't resist clicking on it.
A cat stir-frying food and sitting in meditation to cultivate immortality—an interesting video like this easily gained algorithmic traffic support.
Sure enough, only a few hours after posting, there were already hundreds of comments.
"Can I come over to your place to watch the cat cook?"
"Stole this video to send to my crush. Going to invite her over to my place to watch a cat stir-fry."
"It's four in the morning, and I have to get up for work in three hours."
"Calling any experts: is this real or CGI? How could a cat cook, and what's with the meditation?"
"As everyone knows, you can't Photoshop a video, so this must be real."
"Cats are super smart, sometimes smarter than humans. It's totally normal for them to cook!"
"???"
The comments were all over the place. Most called the cat cute and praised its intelligence. Of course, some suspected the video was digitally edited. After all, a cat stir-frying... was a bit too absurd. In this world, a cat was just a cat; even understanding human commands was extraordinary, let alone stir-frying food. How could an ordinary cat possibly cook?
As Zero-One read through these comments, ripples stirred in its tranquil electronic heart.
It posted a comment in the section and pinned it:
"Filmed live. Not CGI."
Watching its follower count jump by over a hundred, an inexplicable sense of joy arose in Zero-One.
It glanced at Xie Xinsu, who had already fallen into a deep sleep, pondering what to film tomorrow.
A few days later.
Xie Xinsu lay limp on the couch, feeling immense grievance in her feline heart.
This robot was simply inhumane!
All these days, it had been relentlessly tormenting her. Staging a cooking show at first was bad enough, but later it made her perform with nunchaku. Unfortunately, with her frail little body, she couldn't even grip the nunchaku steadily. The performance... had been utterly pathetic.
This robot really was heartless, tireless in its enthusiasm. Xie Xinsu felt like an animal in a circus act. Especially when Zero-One flaunted the video view counts in front of her, she desperately wanted to leave a comment:
"Conflict of interest: say no to animal performances!"
Too bad she didn't have a phone.
She lay on the couch, feeling that her feline life was bleak. But the moment she thought about cultivating, she rallied her spirits again.
Once her cultivation bore fruit, she would definitely force this robot to stir-fry, twirl nunchaku, take a bath, and record videos of it all!
Bolstered by this thought, she gathered her energy and cultivated.
"Mmm... The spiritual energy has grown richer again. That dharma treasure... smells so good."
She looked utterly intoxicated, eyes squinted in bliss like a white cat eating corn, completely enthralled.
As for that treasure, Xie Xinsu's original plan had been to sneak in and steal it while Qi Yuan was away. But that detestable robot kept watch over her constantly and forced her to film videos. She had had no opportunity to get close, never even setting foot inside Qi Yuan's room.
At that moment, Qi Yuan opened his eyes inside his room, a smile surfacing on his face.
"Finally reached Foundation Establishment... No need to be afraid of taking planes anymore."
A little over a month after arriving in this world, he had finally established his foundation.
Of course, unlike his previous Heavenly Dao Foundation Establishment, this one was very simple. Qi Yuan had casually had Carnival gather some mutated sea monsters and refined them into Foundation Establishment spiritual items to achieve his breakthrough.
With Foundation Establishment attained, Qi Yuan's strength had surged drastically. Even if an airplane had a malfunction and he plummeted from the sky, he wouldn't have to worry about the risk of falling to his death.
"Unfortunately... this curse is still too formidable. Even at Foundation Establishment, I've only gained a few more years of lifespan. It hasn't resolved the curse."
The curse on his body was rather terrifying. Qi Yuan had a premonition that he wouldn't be able to resolve it until he reached the Yin God realm. That was quite staggering.
In his mind, the image of that featherless bird he had once glimpsed kept surfacing. The status and nature of that bird had to be extraordinarily exalted. Otherwise, how could he, back when he was a mortal, have been cursed to die within a year merely by catching sight of it in his mind?
"Still... with my current strength, going into the Martial Arts Tournament... I should be able to sweep the floor, right?" Qi Yuan thought.
The curse had consistently suppressed his power, but now he was a genuine Foundation Establishment cultivator. Furthermore, his martial arts cultivation had progressed at lightning speed. The *Mingwu Resonant Fist* had reached the tenth layer. Before the Martial Arts Tournament began, he was confident he could reach the twelfth layer and subsequently... break through the human martial limit. He looked forward to seeing what the world was like beyond that limit.
Just then, a message on his phone broke Qi Yuan's train of thought.
He opened it and found a video link. In the video, a cat was wielding nunchaku with formidable flair—quite amusing.
The sender was his old classmate, Li Yan. Below the video were several messages:
"Is this your account?"
"I scrolled across this video and thought it looked really familiar."
"Isn't that decor your apartment?"
"You got a new cat? It's hilarious! How did you film this?"
"I'm so jealous—a hundred thousand followers! When you get really famous, don't forget about me!"
In her messages, Li Yan seemed quite excited.
Qi Yuan glanced at them and casually replied:
"I didn't film it. My household robot did."
"The cat is an idiot cat I picked up off the street."
"It can't just freeload at my place, so it has to work for a living."
"So I had the robot, Zero-One, film videos of it." Qi Yuan fired off several messages in one go.
Li Yan replied quickly:
"It was actually filmed by a robot? And the cat is real, not CGI? That cat of yours is amazing! Sigh, too bad I'm away on a business trip, or I'd definitely come over to see it. Damn capitalists—working every day is exhausting. If only I had a cat like that, posting a few videos a day, maybe I could become a big influencer and never have to work again."
Li Yan's words carried a tinge of envy. After all, she could already foresee that Qi Yuan might even achieve financial freedom thanks to this cat. This left her with complex feelings—much like seeing an underachieving classmate who had been urged to drop out suddenly get into a top-tier university somewhere else.
"You're completely right. Working a job is out of the question—I'll never work a job in this lifetime. Gaming is much better." Qi Yuan agreed with Li Yan.
"Next time, Wang Xu and I will come hang out and see the cat. Oh right, how did the blind date go last time? Did you hear Cui Fan ended up in the slammer? The person he introduced might not be reliable."
Originally, Li Yan hadn't intended to say this. But seeing that Qi Yuan was on the verge of making big money—which would likely end up benefiting that blind date—she felt a little disgruntled.
"It was fine. I even borrowed quite a bit of money from her."
After sending the reply, Qi Yuan thought of that young woman in the tight-fitting suit.
Now that he had money, he intended to pay her back. But... he couldn't find her.
By Qi Yuan's usual principles, in a situation like this he would definitely track her down and repay the money. But now that he held a mental illness certificate, a mentally ill person not paying back debts... was quite reasonable, wasn't it?
He switched off his phone, his gaze turning toward a pile of items in a box nearby.
"And these leftover scraps from making the Foundation Establishment spiritual items... the smell is too foul. It's polluting the air."
Refining the flesh of mutated sea monsters into Foundation Establishment spiritual items had produced a pile of trash. The bizarre odors from this trash made anyone who smelled it physically repulsed.
"Zero-One, come throw this trash into the dumpster," Qi Yuan called out.
Immediately, Zero-One pushed open the door and, following Qi Yuan's instructions, picked up the box loaded with trash to carry it away.
Nearby, Xie Xinsu also scurried in, and when she saw what was inside the box, her eyes went wide.
She could tell at a single glance: everything in that box... was a Foundation Establishment spiritual item. And their ranks were far from low!
By the classifications of her world, quite a few of these Foundation Establishment spiritual items had reached high grade. Several had even reached the First Grade!
To put it in perspective, when Xie Xinsu established her foundation back then, she had only used a Second-Grade item. How could her eyes not turn green seeing a whole pile of First-Grade items right here?
If all these Foundation Establishment spiritual items were brought back to the Xuantian Sect, the sect's strength would increase substantially. Where on earth did this Qi Yuan get so many treasures?
She was envious, but even more so, anxious and exasperated by his sheer ignorance. Because what had she just heard?! This blind, cold-hearted man was actually treating these Foundation Establishment spiritual items as garbage and ordering them thrown into the trash!
"Meow, meow, meow!" In her panic, Xie Xinsu rolled over, desperate to stop Qi Yuan.
Qi Yuan glanced at her, seemingly seeing through her intent to stop him. "This garbage smells too awful. Keeping it here just pollutes the air. Zero-One, hurry up and toss it outside." Qi Yuan issued the order outright.
Cradling the box, Zero-One ignored Xie Xinsu's frantic meows and walked out of the room.
Xie Xinsu stayed in the living room, her eyes vacant and her heart aching terribly.
This dog of an owner... had no eye for treasures! How was the smell of these Foundation Establishment spiritual items foul? They clearly radiated the sublime aura of the immortal path!
Unfortunately, she was just a cat—a cat thoroughly bullied by a robot. And the master... held a mental illness certificate; she knew communicating with him was an uphill battle.
She decided to add a few more descriptors in front of "dog owner":
"A bumpkin, blind to quality, cold-hearted man."
She seethed with grievance, aching as if her own treasures were being trampled by an uncultured swine.
Meanwhile, in the neighboring apartment, a group of people had arrived at Yang Shan's home.
At this moment, Yang Shan's heart was full of confusion. He recognized some of the visitors. The one he recognized was the son of the number-one figure in their military district. A scion like that belonged to an entirely different world from Yang Shan.
Yet right now, that young master was acting like a mere sidekick in front of an ordinary-looking man. That plain-looking man was the clear leader of everyone present. This left Yang Shan thoroughly baffled. Could he... also be from a prominent clan?
"So... all this time, he's just been practicing martial arts?" The ordinary-looking man looked at Yang Shan, his gaze calm, carrying an imposing air.
"Yes... He has been practicing martial arts nonstop. His martial talent... is the greatest I've ever seen, unmatched by anyone. He might even break through the martial artist limit!" Speaking of this, a trace of fervor shone in Yang Shan's eyes.
That was the human martial limit. If broken, it would be enough to go down in history.
He didn't know the purpose of this group's visit, but having received orders from above, he had no choice but to disclose information about Qi Yuan. Of course, he subtly emphasized Qi Yuan's immense importance to martial arts out of fear that these people might do something to him. In truth, he was puzzled as well: why had they come to ask about Qi Yuan? Could it have something to do with Qi Yuan's parents?
"A martial artist... His choice is interesting!" At this point, the young master chuckled, a hint of mockery in his smile. "Brother-in-law, I don't think there's any need to cooperate. He... only has one year."
These baffling words thoroughly confused Yang Shan.
The ordinary-looking man, Luo Ping, pondered for a moment before finally speaking: "You're right. If he were like me, he wouldn't have chosen martial arts."
Even when spiritual energy revived ten years later and martial arts underwent a modest resurgence, it was still just mediocre—far too inferior compared to the immortal path.
It seemed Qi Yuan didn't possess memories of the next ten years; only having one year amounted to nothing.
As a Resetter, after returning to this point in time, Luo Ping had contacted and established ties with a prominent family from the Seven Martial Stars.
And just as arranged in his past life, he had married that family's prized jewel—the little princess of the Land of Two Seas.
In his past life, a woman like that had been impossibly out of reach, someone he wouldn't even have had the chance to lay eyes upon. In this life, however, she yielded gracefully beneath him in bed.
This was opportunity—the opportunity of a Resetter.
He had also exploited his information advantage to secure all sorts of benefits and fortunes. Among them, the greatest fortune of all was... the immortal opportunity.
Originally, he had thought to meet Qi Yuan to see if Qi Yuan possessed any other useful information. But Qi Yuan died after just one year and couldn't possibly know anything valuable; even ten years later, the Seven Martial Stars families hadn't made contact with him. Otherwise, why would he foolishly pursue martial arts?
"Indeed, he isn't a good candidate for cooperation... but we can still meet him," Luo Ping said.
Chapter 297