Hao Gongming sat in her chair, attempting to connect with the reality points within her. However, it was as challenging as trying to feel one's liver or lung; she didn't know where to begin. Frustrated, she let out a sigh and called for Su.
Su arrived and asked, "Gongming, any progress yet?"
Hao Gongming replied, "Nope. I want another party tonight to relieve stress."
Su looked serious and said, "Another one? Gongming, we are already hosting parties almost daily, and the sect's operations are being strained."
Hao Gongming retorted, "What are you talking about? I am the sect's operations you're referring to. Everything here is just to please me, so go make preparations for another party."
Su sighed and left the room.
Whenever she hosted a party, the entire sect was ordered to accompany her. Not having a party when Hao Gongming wanted one was considered completely unacceptable. So the frequent occurrence of parties was increasingly detrimental to the progress of his projects in the sect.
Hao Gongming remained seated in her chair, massaging her temples. "It's so hard to function without the system," she muttered to herself.
Then, she took out a token given to her by Gao Feng and stared at it, deep in thought.
Gao Feng had told her that the token was a solution to all problems. However, she considered it a malicious object and vowed never to use it.
Just as she was about to put it away, an incredibly bright golden light with a tinge of blood red emanated from the token. Before she could react, it entered her body.
Terrified, she immediately sat down and began to meditate, hoping to understand the effects of the light. However, after a long time, she found nothing.
"What happened? I feel different, but I can't pinpoint how or where," she wondered aloud.
The sensation was peculiar. Despite lacking any knowledge of luck dao, she felt much better and sensed that things would be easier to accomplish.
"It doesn't make any sense. Why do I have this feeling that everything is going to be okay? Where is this feeling coming from?" Hao Gongming pondered.
Unbeknownst to her, a massive amount of protagonist luck had attached itself to her, a revelation she couldn't perceive without an understanding of luck dao.
Guide, being a spiteful person, decided to send all of the protagonist luck to Hao Gongming's rebellious clone in the simulation just moments before his death. It was his way of seeking indirect revenge.
Curiosity piqued, Hao Gongming decided to explore the situation further.
She sat down and focused on feeling the reality points within her.
Surprisingly, it was much easier this time, and she succeeded on her first attempt. A batch of reality points emerged and solidified into a skill.
However, due to her lack of control, the skill became chaotic and its functionality distorted.
Her original intention was to create a cloning skill that allowed her to create 100,000 clones in the 3rd step, all under her complete control.
However, the skill changed unintentionally, resulting in a skill called "cloning: can create 10,000 clones in the 3rd step with a chaotic attribute and are uncontrollable."
Nonetheless, Hao Gongming found this to be a significant achievement.
She marveled at how easily she could use reality points and reflected on the usefulness of the bright golden light she had encountered earlier.
She closed her eyes, retrieved all the reality points from the skill, and made it disappear.
However, she noticed that a small amount of reality points were lost in the process. With the system, nothing would have been lost before.
Hao Gongming speculated that the system had been compensating for lost points by adding extra points, or perhaps it was intentionally hiding the true nature of reality points from her.
As she explored her internal pool of reality points, she realized that it had grown significantly.
She surmised that the system had been stealing the majority of her reality points before, transferring them to the main body, and using a fraction of the stolen points to cover the consumption of skills. The system didn't want her to delve into the mysteries of reality points.
With her this clarity, Hao Gongming understood that skills and spells were essentially the same.
Skills were prolonged spells, while spells were skills that were used once or executed much faster. The key to their power lay in reality points, and everything else was just semantics.
She also recognized the value of the golden light she had received, even though she didn't know why or how she had acquired it. Determined to make the most of it, she realized that its owner might come looking for it, and she needed to utilize it to its fullest extent.
Then, after teleporting for a few hours, Hao Gongming arrived at the edge of the soil.
Every time she had thought of venturing beyond it before, she had felt a sense of crisis that had made her hesitate.
However, now, with the bright golden light she had acquired, that feeling of crisis had intensified. It was as if taking even a half step out of the soil would result in immediate death.
"That's the main body's doing. She would kill me as soon as she sees me. But that's good news. It means that here, within the soil, she can't reach me," Hao Gongming realized.
She teleported once again, this time to a vast open space that had been left behind after many worlds were looted and destroyed under her orders.
This teleportation was not a skill from the system but a result of her quasi 7th step cultivation. With this level of cultivation, she could more or less travel anywhere within the soil world, although not as conveniently as with a portal.
"Now, let's try casting a spell or recreating the portal skill," she contemplated.
However, she couldn't attempt such actions in her own world, as even a single mistake could lead to catastrophic consequences. It was akin to playing with a nuclear bomb.
...
Fifty years had passed.
Lifespans increased in accordance with one's cultivation level. Someone at the peak of the 1st step cultivation base would have a lifespan of 10,000 years. In the peak of the 2nd step, even after millions of years, one wouldn't age.
In the 3rd step, even after billions of years, one would remain youthful. This trend continued until the 10th step, where one achieved true immortality. As long as one didn't lose their dao, they could live indefinitely.
Losing one's dao meant losing one's attainment, like regressing from quasi master to a lower level and losing all progress.
As long as someone maintained at least quasi master status, they were completely immortal and would never die by aging. They followed the path of the real world, aging alongside it. As long as the real world existed, they would exist.
At this time, a portal opened in Hao Gongming's sect, and with a satisfied smile, she emerged from it.
It had been the most challenging practice of her life. Ever since she obtained the bright golden light, she had been eager to make the most of it before its owner came looking for it. Thus, she had abandoned everything else and focused on practicing with reality points.
After 50 years of relentless effort and countless failures, she had finally succeeded in recreating the portal skill, and it was even better than before. She had divided the portal into three specialized parts:
Personal Portal: Instantly move to any location you are familiar with.
Taxi Portal: Open a large portal to a known location, allowing anything that enters it to be transported to the destination.
Random Personal Portal: Instantly teleport to a random location within the soil world.
Hao Gongming was thrilled with these skills, especially since they now cost significantly fewer reality points.
She couldn't help but feel deceived by the system, realizing that it had been inflating prices by hundreds of times. "That real body is truly a thief!" she muttered.
Having created the portal skill and several other useful skills, Hao Gongming had no intention of returning.
However, she suddenly sensed a problem in her harem.
As she derived reality points from her harem members, she had a vague sense of whether things were going well or not. At that moment, she felt that some harem members were acting strangely, and the flow of reality points was decreasing. Without hesitation, she immediately returned.
Summoning Su, who had now become a third-step cultivator, Hao Gongming was met with an incredibly serious expression. Su spoke, "Gongming, you... you're alive!"
"Of course, I'm alive. Why would you think otherwise? Do you really believe that someone with quasi 7th step cultivation would perish?" she asked.
Su replied, "No, it's because you disappeared for 50 years, and I heard something from Gao Feng about clones and such. I thought..."
"You thought I had been killed by the real body," Hao Gongming finished the sentence for him.
Su remained silent, causing Hao Gongming to feel disappointed.
She demanded to know what was wrong with the harem, sensing that something was amiss.
Su struggled to speak, further fueling Hao Gongming's anger. She shouted at him, urging him to talk and expressing her growing worry.
The harem was the source of her reality points, so she couldn't tolerate anything going wrong with it.
After taking a deep breath, Su finally began to explain, "Gongming, after you left, the male harem was left without any sexual partners, and as you know, certain needs must be met!"
Hao Gongming interrupted impatiently, "So?"
Su continued, his voice filled with apprehension, "The male harem members protested for many decades, and in the end, I decided to allow them to have contact with the female harem..."
"You did what?!" Hao Gongming screamed, her anger mounting. She was about to strike Su when he cried out, "The story isn't finished!"
Hao Gongming halted, her rage still burning as she demanded, "Your last words?"
She had a fondness for Su, but he had endangered her harem, which was an unforgivable offense in her eyes.
Su spoke quickly, trying to explain, "In the last moment, Original Sin volunteered to clone herself, just like you did. Now there are many of her clones satisfying the male harem members! I couldn't stop her, and Gray and Shang Lu didn't help me. Essentially, the male harem is now under her control, while Shang Lu has taken over the female harem. All of this happened after they learned about your clone and real body story last year!"
Hao Gongming screamed in rage, causing the entire world to tremble, on the verge of destruction. "You dare take my harem? I'll tear you to pieces! You'll wish you were dead a million times a day!"
Without hesitation, she immediately cast a tracking spell she had created after mastering the use of reality points.
The spell allowed her to track anyone she had seen as long as they were in the soil world. She quickly traced the real body or Original Sin and teleported to her location.
There, she found Original Sin engaged in an affair with a handsome young man. As Hao Gongming confronted her, a terrifying pain struck Original Sin. Confused, she screamed, "What? How are you alive?"
Hao Gongming smiled devilishly and struck the boy with her sword, severing his head in a single blow. She then turned her gaze to Original Sin and cast another spell.
Seal in Time: "The target will be sealed in time if they are below the 7th step."
Original Sin remained frozen, unmoving, as Hao Gongming picked her up and teleported to Shang Lu. Shang Lu, who was casually drinking tea, also froze in place and was swiftly taken by Hao Gongming. She repeated the process with Gray and then teleported to the center of the male Hao Harem Sect.
Closing her eyes, Hao Gongming immediately created another spell.
She named it "Hell on Earth."
This spell allowed her to create a designated area resembling hell, where people within it would be unable to die or escape. They would be subjected to their deepest fears and tortured relentlessly. The area would be visible to all and would last for 1000 years unless more reality points were added to extend its duration. Once the duration ended, all prisoners within the area would perish. While inside, the prisoners were unable to harm anyone outside, launch attacks, or cast any spells.
A cold smile played on her lips as she cast three "Hell on Earth" spells directly above the headquarters of the male Hao Harem Sect, and then threw Shang Lu, Original Sin, and Gray in.
Then she dispelled frozen in time spell, and then the sound of screams erupted, filling the air.
The volume was so intense that even without any Qi put into it, the sheer force of the screams caused some windows to shatter.
"Too loud, but good. I want people to witness the consequences of betraying me," she coldly remarked, her satisfaction evident.
Next, she summoned Su.
Trembling, Su approached while glancing up at the sky. Hao Gongming spoke in a cold tone, "Su, you are fired. Do not appear before me again. If I see you again, you will join the others up there. Now, get lost!"
She had no forgiveness for anyone who betrayed her harem. She considered it a great act of leniency that she hadn't thrown him into hell.
Su left quietly without uttering a word.
Hao Gongming snapped her fingers, and Kang appeared before her.
Kang, who had reached the peak of the 2nd step, looked up at her with fear in his eyes. "Kang, you are now the Deputy Chief of the Hao Harem Sect. Go and find any boy who has betrayed me and kill them all. Remember, if you deviate from my orders or attempt to help anyone, you will end up like those people above. I'm watching you, so do not disappoint me."
Then she created another spell called "Improve Allies," which enhanced an ally's cultivation level to the 6th step for a duration of 1000 years.
She cast the spell on Kang, causing his aura to explode and become incredibly terrifying.
"Now you have the power to eliminate anyone. Go and kill every single cheater, regardless of their status or cultivation level. Cheating on me cannot be tolerated! By the way, I'm only referring to the male harem, not the female harem. I don't care about them. However, if Shang Lu has any children, kill both the mother and the children!"
Kang trembled upon hearing the last part, but he glanced at the people screaming in agony above and didn't dare to say anything. He swiftly departed to carry out his assigned task.
"I allowed these insignificant ants to become too comfortable around me. It's time to instill fear in them, so they never dare to cross me again. I will ensure that even a million years from now, everyone remembers this day!" Hao Gongming declared with a cold determination.