Lu Ze yawned and slowly entered the Illusion Realm.

It wasn't that he was intentionally late.

It was just that his main account, 【Realm Master Lu Ze】, hadn't been logged in for a very long time.

When he entered the Illusion Realm, he found he was on 【Anonymous】, so he quickly switched accounts.

【Initial funds have been credited!】

As a contestant who had just joined the competition, Lu Ze received his first bit of startup capital.

Only 500,000 Spirit Stones.

This was the highlight of the first stage of the competition:

Initial startup capital was distributed daily; if you went bankrupt, you couldn't even enter the maps, so one had to plan the use of their funds carefully.

Especially during the competition's Early Stage, when everyone was a pauper, the gamesmanship between contestants was at its most brilliant.

However, by this time, the first stage was already more than halfway through.

The assets of the top-tier contestants were already well over fifty million.

Lu Ze's small amount of capital wasn't even enough to get between someone's teeth.

"So..."

"Using a small stake to win big, is it?"

A smile played at the corner of Lu Ze's mouth.

He was far too experienced in this sort of thing.

"Let me see... today's map is The Dam?"

Lu Ze's eyebrows quirked up.

Winning big with a small stake at The Dam?

His eyes involuntarily drifted to the event interface in the top right corner—

【Character Research: Gilded Rose (Red Wolf)】

"Isn't this a coincidence?"

Lu Ze was instantly amused.

It just happened to be The Dam, he just happened to need to win big with a small stake, and Red Wolf's Gilded Rose skin had just happened to go live not long ago...

"It's destiny!"

Lu Ze sighed with emotion and quickly pulled a Gilded Rose set for himself.

He even had to hit the hard pity to get it.

Lu Ze couldn't help but feel that the Fragment of the Heavenly Dao was targeting him...

Equipping the Red Wolf 【Gilded Rose】 skin, Lu Ze began to prepare his weapon—

A pistol, the 【Zishu-18】.

Otherwise known as the Possession Divine Artifact G18 from his past life.

While purchasing equipment, Lu Ze discovered something interesting.

And that was, the 9x19 Flesh Rounds were selling for even cheaper than ordinary blue bullets!

Spirit Bullets were the bullets of his past life, coming in different Ranks.

Each Rank possessed stronger armor penetration capabilities.

Rank one bullets could penetrate Rank one armor, Rank two bullets could penetrate Rank two armor... and so on.

Spirit Bullets of all Ranks dealt the same damage when hitting a body without armor protection.

The only difference lay in the penetration damage against armor.

Flesh Rounds, however, were a special type of Spirit Bullet.

They couldn't penetrate even Rank one armor;

But as long as there was no armor, the damage they caused was far higher than any other Spirit Bullet!

This was the core of a wildly popular meta in his past life, known as the Leg Meta.

Logically speaking, the price of Flesh Rounds should be much higher than ordinary Rank three Spirit Bullets.

But the current price on the exchange was actually comparable to Rank two bullets?

Lu Ze immediately realized a problem—

In this world, the Leg Meta hadn't even been born yet!

It made sense.

operation xianyuan continent had been in the cultivation world for less than two months, all told.

Although advanced behaviors like the Knife-Run, secret codes, and even Bridge-blocking had emerged,

These were all based on Zhong Yi's research.

And Zhong Yi was essentially a kind and honest person; he naturally wouldn't specifically research various scummy metas.

The Possession Meta did exist, and it had quite a few followers, but its development was ultimately a bit slow.

"Which means..."

Lu Ze looked at the golden rose in his hand thoughtfully.

"In this world, I am the founder of Hualai???"

Lu Ze still found it somewhat hard to believe, so he checked the data from the backend.

Inside the 【Gilded Rose】 skin, he had hidden an easter egg.

An easter egg related to the Possession Meta.

To this day, the trigger count was 0.

This meant that his guess was correct.

A complete Possession Meta had not yet appeared in this world!

"Am I really going to be the Ancestral Master??"

Lu Ze didn't know whether to laugh or cry as he looked at the 【Zishu-18】 in his left hand and the golden rose in his right, trying his best to suppress the upward curve of his lips.

"It's all the System forcing me, it's definitely not voluntary, definitely not..."

...

...

As the central projection lit up, the audience who had long been waiting here instantly erupted in excitement.

This meant that Lu Ze had already been matched with opponents!

Soon, a list of seventeen contestants was displayed in the center.

The bullet chat in the livestream immediately became lively.

【Old Devil Lu is here!】

【I really hope he runs into those top-ranked experts... preferably going bankrupt at light speed!】

【That's impossible, right? Old Devil Lu is a newcomer with few kills and low assets; there's no way he'd be matched with those people.】

【With Old Devil Lu's meager assets, he can only do a Knife-Run, right? If he dares to gear up, he'll probably have to end his stream after one match.】

【Wait! Why are there seventeen ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) contestants?】

【Old Devil Lu is solo queuing, and there's another person solo queuing too... It really is a Knife-Run!】

【He's played it safe, he's played it safe!】

【No fun, I wanted to see Old Devil Lu go bankrupt...】

【Why choose Red Wolf for a Knife-Run? Shouldn't it be Bee Doctor?】

...

The bullet chat in the sky was dense and packed.

The area below, exclusive to the Lingxiao Sect, was even more boisterous.

Under Chao Wendao's call, nearly half of the Cultivators in the entire Sect who weren't competing for rankings were sitting in the livestream room, waiting to cheer for Lu Ze.

After all, a few days ago, Lu Ze had drawn a Sacred Phenomenon, effectively becoming the face of the Sect.

Coupled with Lu Ze's undefeated record, everyone wanted to watch the continuation of this myth.

"Elder Nangong, you've certainly brought up a fine Disciple!"

Chao Wendao stroked his beard and sighed with emotion.

At this moment, the eight Elders were gathered together, and everyone offered their congratulations to Nangong Yuan.

He received Heavenly Dao rewards in reality, and Heavenly Dao rewards in the Illusion Realm.

Now that the Heavenly Dao had bestowed heavy rewards once again, with Lu Ze coming this time, everyone naturally felt that the Heavenly Dao reward was a sure thing.

Nangong Yuan was actually quite calm at the moment.

After all, having been praised to the moon for over half a month, no matter how smug he was, he had to settle down eventually.

"This Disciple of mine, he's just like me."

"Whatever rewards there are, he certainly doesn't care about them."

"Besides... what do you mean by 'my Disciple'? He belongs to the Lingxiao Sect, he is everyone's Disciple!"

The more Nangong Yuan spoke, the more he couldn't suppress the smile on his face.

The Elders sat in the very center of the Lingxiao Sect area, with Zhong Yi, Zhou Yue, and other core Disciples sitting beside them.

The Disciples were all whispering to each other.

"Core Disciple Lu's presence is truly grand... when has our Lingxiao Sect ever been so united?"

"Wow, even Senior Sister Li from Wenjian Peak is here... is she not going to fight for the rankings anymore?"

"Core Disciple Lu is now the key to the Lingxiao Sect's Luck; of course everyone is paying attention!"

"Magnificent is my Lingxiao Sect!"

"I wonder what kind of Luck and surprises Core Disciple Lu will bring us this time..."