Chapter 2: One-Click Auto-Pilot, Online Death Sentence

“System! Stop! This isn’t a place I can go!” Pei Ling shouted in his mind at once. As a grand power of the demonic path, the Nether Abyss Sect was always overbearing and vicious.

Don’t be fooled by the Pei clan’s influence in Luquan City. No matter how much wind and rain the Pei Manor could summon, in the eyes of the Nether Abyss Sect the entire Pei family was nothing more than an ant.

He had heard plenty of rumors like this: some young master from a noble clan failed to salute a Nether Abyss Sect disciple, and the whole household was wiped out overnight, every member skinned and hung from the trees; a Nether Abyss Sect disciple took a fancy to some clan’s young lady, and if that clan did not personally send the girl to his door, the disciple would drain the entire family’s blood and essence dry...

What was most terrifying was that, including Luquan City, everyone believed the Nether Abyss Sect disciple was not wrong at all, and the noble clans were.

As for why?

Simple.

Weakness was the original sin.

The law of the jungle, the strong devouring the weak, was only natural. People born and raised on Nether Abyss Sect territory, after generations of conditioning, had already accepted the sect’s worldview deep in their bones whether they joined it or not, and most of them took it for granted.

No need to imagine how dangerous Biwu Courtyard was right now!

Seeing that the system still showed no reaction, Pei Ling’s consciousness was almost splitting apart: “Fuck, I don’t want you cultivating anymore, stop! Stop now! Stop, do you hear me?!”

Maybe sensing his collapse, the system kindly chimed, “Ding-dong. The Smart Cultivation System is at your service. One-click auto-pilot, intelligent cultivation!”

Pei Ling was practically coughing up blood. He had absolutely no control over his own body now, and could only watch helplessly as the system drove him straight toward the front rooms on the west side of Biwu Courtyard.

That was where a Nether Abyss Sect disciple named Zheng Jingshan was staying.

Two Nether Abyss Sect disciples had come to Luquan City this time, invited by the clan heir, Pei Hongnian, to stay in Biwu Courtyard.

One of them had never appeared before the public, so his looks, cultivation, and temperament were unknown and that was that.

But Zheng Jingshan was different. His cultivation was profound, and just as famous was his notorious reputation.

Rumor had it that in order to compete for the position of an inner-sect lineage master, he had not hesitated to murder his own father, rip out his soul, refine it into a bloodline divine ability far more powerful than anything ordinary, and then make a dazzling debut in the Nether Abyss Sect’s inner-sect competition, becoming famous in one battle.

Bang!

In the next instant, Pei Ling watched helplessly as his own foot kicked open Zheng Jingshan’s door, after which he swaggered right inside.

“Fuck!!!” Pei Ling’s vision went black. He roared in his mind, “System! Are you fucking dissatisfied with me and want to change hosts?!”

He frantically spun his thoughts, hoping to wrest back control of his body, but the system remained unmoved, and his struggle obviously had no effect.

At that moment, Pei Ling remembered the fear of being ruled by all kinds of artificial idiots in his previous life.

The system guided his body around the screen at the entrance and into a very spacious room, richly furnished. A carved moon gate leading to the inner chamber was hung with a curtain of beads, which swayed faintly and made a pleasant sound.

“Sys...” Pei Ling was still trying to talk the system down and keep it calm when he suddenly felt someone at the doorway staring at him.

Zheng Jingshan?!

Pei Ling’s heart lurched violently.

But he quickly realized something was wrong, because the gaze from behind him seemed to come from more than one person.

And if Zheng Jingshan really were inside, with that Nether Abyss Sect prodigy’s temperament and cultivation, Pei Ling would probably have been dead on the spot the moment he kicked the door open.

After all, ever since he had crossed over from a prosperous, democratic, civilized, and harmonious society into this world, he had relied on sheer willpower to cultivate the Bone-Tempering Art to the level of half-body iron bones. Though the idiot system had caught him off guard, in a crisis like this he instead calmed down very quickly. “System, pay attention to what’s behind me.”

The system did not react to his reminder at all. It controlled his body and quickly walked toward a corner, then went straight to one of several boxes scattered on the floor, opened it, took out a porcelain bottle, and efficiently tipped out ten gray-white pills.

Clearly, these were Bone-Quenching Pills.

“Ding-dong! Ten Bone-Quenching Pills delivered, delivery complete! The intelligent system will continue cultivating for you..."

You call that delivering Bone-Quenching Pills?!

That’s not a gift, that’s a one-thousand-meter death run!!

Pei Ling was nearly vomiting blood.

Then something even more terrifying happened. His body showed no intention of leaving at all; it simply turned around, walked over to a meditation cushion not far away, assumed a cultivation posture, swallowed all ten Bone-Quenching Pills, and began circulating the Bone-Tempering Art.

This position happened to let Pei Ling see the doorway. The damn system hadn’t even closed the door!

Pei Ling: “..."

Fuck! Fuck! System, did you hear me? Fuck!!!

But soon he had no time to care about the door, because he found the source of the many gazes fixed on him: the screen at the entrance.

On the semi-transparent screen, like the gauzy silk of a mortal-world mermaid’s robe, were embroidered more than a hundred graceful, lifelike beauties. Some were plump, some slender, each one exquisite to the extreme. Some held fans, some chased butterflies, some cradled pipa lutes, some idly plucked at strings, some teased a civet with a broken branch... each posed differently.

No matter what they were doing, though, their eyes were all locked on Pei Ling.

Under normal circumstances, being watched by beauties, especially beauties where you could pluck out any random one and still get a national-level stunner, the kind of face that could topple a city or even a kingdom, was a blessing any straight man would never refuse.

The problem was that these beauties were not normal.

Though they were figures embroidered onto cloth, the feeling of being stared at by living people was utterly real.

Even though Pei Ling could not control his body right now, he still felt a chill crawl up his spine from the bottom of his heart.

Nether Abyss Sect... Pei Ling’s heart sank. A demonic sect really was strange and secretive.

Though he did not know exactly what was wrong with this screen, it was clearly no good.

If it were him, he would already have turned and left, putting as much distance between himself and it as possible.

No, if he had known about this idiot system’s idea of “delivering,” he would never have given it the chance to control him into coming to Zheng Jingshan’s room in the first place.

Right now, all he could hope for was that however vicious Zheng Jingshan might be, since he had accepted Pei Hongnian’s invitation to visit, he would at least give a little face to a junior disciple and leave some means behind to restrain this screen while he was away, so it wouldn’t injure anyone from the Pei family by mistake.

Thinking of that, Pei Ling shifted his attention back to his own body.

He discovered that after taking the Bone-Quenching Pills, the Bone-Tempering Art was circulating more than ten times faster than before.

And the guest rooms the Pei family used to entertain honored guests were all set with specialized formations, far richer in spiritual qi than Pei Ling’s own courtyard. He could clearly sense his cultivation surging forward at an unprecedented pace!

Time passed drop by drop... Pei Ling gradually sank into the pleasure of his strength continuously rising. Especially when a burst of clanging metal rang out, his muscles and bones trembled, every pore opened wide, and a layer of dark-red grime like grease was expelled from his body. In the next instant, Pei Ling felt as though he had suddenly broken through a barrier, his whole body free of some invisible restraint, with strength to spare.

It seemed that so long as he wanted to, one punch could smash a big hole through the stone wall of the room.

“Ding-dong!” At the same time, Pei Ling regained control of his body, and the system’s prompt sounded by his ear. “This cultivation session is complete. Thank you for using the Smart Cultivation System. One-click stewardship, worry-free ascent! We look forward to your review of the cultivation experience. If you’re satisfied, please give us five stars!”

A panel appeared, and the familiar five stars waited for the host to choose.

“Qi Refining, third layer, and iron bones achieved!” Pei Ling was shocked, so stunned that he even forgot he was not in his own room.

He had begun tempering his body at age five. At eight, after an elder of the clan tested his aptitude, he had been taught the Bone-Tempering Art and soon opened his meridians with qi, becoming a Qi Refining first-layer cultivator.

In terms of talent, he counted as one of the most outstanding members of the Pei family’s generation, no worse than Pei Hongnian.

It was just that branch-line disciples had few resources and were suppressed by his stepmother. On top of that, the Bone-Tempering Art was brutally vicious to cultivate, and he still had to save up spirit stones to activate the system. Through the whole process, he had not even been willing to use nourishing medicinal materials, relying entirely on his own recovery ability to tough it out.

So it had taken him a full ten years to reach Qi Refining second layer two months ago.

Among people his age in Luquan City, that already counted as upper-middle level.

And now, after only a few hours of cultivation by this system, it had forged his half-body iron bones into full iron bones and pushed him into Qi Refining third layer?!

No wonder the ancients said that cheating felt good for a moment, and cheating all the time felt even better.

At that moment Pei Ling clenched his fist lightly, feeling the surging power throughout his body, and suddenly thought that the system didn’t seem quite so revolting anymore.

But soon the gaze lingering on the screen made him snap back to reality.

Pei Ling frowned. He had no time to think further and quickly got up to leave.

On the way out, passing beside the screen, he did his best to keep his distance, but from the corner of his eye he still saw several beauties in the screen reaching out their hands, seeming to want to grab his robe.

Fortunately, their arms had only extended a foot beyond the screen before they struck an invisible barrier. They let out delicate cries as if hurt, and with extreme reluctance drew their hands back.

Though they could not lay a hand on Pei Ling, all the beauties’ gazes still never left him.

Even after Pei Ling vaulted the wall and left Biwu Courtyard, he could still feel more than a hundred people silently, intently watching his back.

For some reason, although that sensation of being watched gradually faded as Pei Ling moved farther away, he still had a vague premonition that he had somehow stirred up a huge problem...

“I can’t stay in the Pei Manor. I have to leave at once!” Pei Ling’s heart sank. He no longer had time to worry about the screen. The system’s delivery method was far too life-threatening. Although he had not been caught in the act by Zheng Jingshan, that man was a high-ranking disciple of the demonic path. Who knew what methods he might have to detect Pei Ling’s intrusion and theft?

If he kept staying in the Pei Manor, once Zheng Jingshan made a move, Pei Ling would have no power to resist at all.

Right now, he had to get as far away as possible, immediately, to avoid the coming threat to his life.

Silently reciting the survival mantra, Pei Ling casually gave the system a one-star bad review and decided to hurry back, pack his things, and run.

However, just as he returned to his own courtyard and finished packing as fast as he could, before he even had time to leave the Pei Manor, a servant caught up and called out to him, “Seventh Young Master, the family head says all the young masters and misses should go to the main hall right now.”