Chapter 109 – Locals Concerned as Florida Man Sponsors Female-Only Orphanage to Adopt a Daughter and Recruit Underaged Employees
Although Leo hadn't mastered the flying sword maneuver techniques yet, he managed to direct it east. He jetted toward the pagoda town as he planned to scout Xu Nuan and Yao Qiqi to work for him.
While flying, Leo looked behind him.
A transparent wooden mannequin with Leo's face followed after its master. It was Leo's first official dao avatar.
Leo wasn't well-informed about the dao avatar and cultivation techniques. However, he learned a thing or two after he interacted with Gao Yan and Wu Buyi.
"So that is my dao avatar?"
He smirked at the mannequin and waved his hand, calling him to come closer.
"Hey, bro. Can you talk? What are you?"
"…"
The mannequin dao avatar dully stared at Leo before it vanished into his alien ring.
Seeing its behavior, Leo was disappointed.
"I guess you're sentient, too. Too bad you're quite a rebellious one."
Leo shrugged and ignored his dao avatar. He focused on his feet and pressed more weight on the flying sword, descending and preparing to land.
A few minutes later, Leo could see the pagoda town again. Unfortunately, it wasn't as beautiful as a few days ago because of the carnage, which Situ Nantian and Leo had caused.
Seeing the town, Leo jumped off the flying sword as it had no brake pedal to stomp on. It headed toward one of the buildings in the town.
BOOM
Because the flying sword carried Leo's Qi, it punctured a hole in a 20-story pagoda and the building behind it. Fortunately, it crash-landed on the street and stopped there.
Leo safely landed in front of the city. He broke a sweat when the 20-story pagoda collapsed because of the flying sword.
"Whoops. That wasn't me!"
After denying the responsibility, Leo proceeded to the half-broken 400-story tall pagoda. As the 10 top floors got blasted during the fight between Taxi and the cultivators, it still emitted white smoke.
Entering the building, Leo found the disciples of the Life Sword Sect and Amazonian Sanctuary again. However, most of their elders were not there.
When the young disciples from both organizations saw Leo, they immediately stood up to greet him. A couple of them had met Leo once, and they told their friends to be respectful.
"Greetings, elder!" A male disciple lowered his head and cupped his fist.
"S-Senior… G-Greetings, sir." Qi Niu, who once tempted Leo, tried not to be too obvious. She pretended to not recognize him.
Leo nodded at the crowd, "At ease, boys and girls. Continue what you've been doing. I'll be on my way to visit your elders."
"Y-Yes, sir."
After parting with the disciples, Leo climbed the tower. As there was nothing to stop him, he started running up the stairs.
.
On the 50th floor, Leo found the group of elders there. Xu Nuan, Yao Qiqi, Han Hao, Han Meng, Tiger Swordsman, and the elders from the sanctuary gathered and inspected a pile of white dust on the ground.
When Leo approached them, Han Hao noticed him first. He poked his colleagues with his elbow to get their attention. Then, he bowed 90 degrees.
"Senior Florida Man, it's good to see you here with us, sir!"
Han Meng gave his father a weird look. He lowered his head and saluted, "Senior, we meet again."
Xu Nuan, Tiger Swordsman, and the other female elders cupped their fists and gave Leo face. As for Yao Qiqi, she boldly grabbed Leo's hand and jumped around.
"Senior Angel! Do you remember me? It's me, Qiqi!"
Leo lowered his sight and found the little toddler. He glanced at his hand for a moment as he was worried that Yao Qiqi might be infected by his radiation aura.
Fortunately, Yao Qiqi seemed to develop immunity. She didn't mutate like the others.
After making sure, Leo patted her head, "Of course, I remember you. Sorry that I made you drink that tea. Your physical age has regressed by a lot."
"Thank you for saving my life, Mister Angel! I'm working hard to become an angel like you!" Yao Qiqi laughed.
Looking at the adorable little girl, Leo couldn't help but smile. Although he had the urge to hug her and carried her around, he suppressed his desire. He then complained.
"I wish I had a granddaughter as cute as you."
"Hmm?!"
As soon as Leo mentioned it, Xu Nuan's eyes gleamed. She walked toward Leo and seized the opportunity to propose an idea.
"Senior. Yao Qiqi is a talented girl. She's only six, but she has already reached the nascent soul stage. However, our sanctuary is incapable of guiding her to a higher path."
Leo flinched for a moment as Xu Nuan's tone implied that the sanctuary wanted to disown her. He frowned.
"So, you're saying that you can't raise the girl?"
"N-No! That's not what I'm saying!" Xu Nuan waved her hands and shook her head, "I'm trying to say that she deserves a better mentor. I… no, the elders of our sect believe that her talent would be a waste if she keeps staying with us. We were hoping… if you can take her under your wings, senior?"
Leo's eyes reddened in anger, "You want to shove your responsible on me?"
"NO! Of course not!" Again, Xu Nuan sweated profusely. She looked at Yao Qiqi, "I mean, we think she deserves a better parent than us, old women, sir!"
"…"
Leo's frown deepened. He was still angry.
A female-only sanctuary or organization was the best place for Yao Qiqi to find female friends and sisters. She could grow up normally and be happy in the right environment. However, Xu Nuan's action was intolerable as she simply wanted to kick her out and hand her to Leo.
"You know what?" Leo patted Yao Qiqi's head. "I'm not taking in any disciple unless the person is agreed to it. Let the girl decide where she wants to stay. If she likes staying with you and your sanctuary, she will stay there. But if she wants to be with me, I'll take her in since you old hags are irresponsible!"
"S-Senior. That wasn't our intention!"
Xu Nuan wanted to cry as Leo misunderstood her. She wished for Yao Qiqi to have a better mentor and growing environment as their sanctuary couldn't provide enough resources to raise her.
Preventing the misunderstanding, Xu Nuan confessed, "It's not like that, senior. We… Our sanctuary doesn't have enough cultivation resources to nurture her. In fact, we lack daily grain pills and cultivation resources for our disciples."
"But haven't many cultivators been donating spirit stones to your sanctuary?" Han Hao added while he raised his eyebrows.
"Most of those donations came from the imperial court and the Ouyang Clan, Elder Han. They added a condition that we had to provide them virgin maidens for their clans in return. Since we don't support prostitution, we returned their money."
Leo heard some disturbing inside news. His anger was shifted toward the imperial court and the Ouyang Clan as they reminded him of the pedophile ring in his homeworld, which was always on the news.
He gave Xu Nuan and the female elders a meaningful look. He asked them again.
"Are you sure that you have never sold your girls to old men like me before?"
Xu Nuan and everybody shook their heads, "No, senior. Never!"
Leo slowly nodded. Then, he looked at Yao Qiqi for a moment before he came up with an idea.
"You know what? I have a better idea. Tell me, how many members your organization has?"
"Umm, about… 250 disciples and a dozen elders?"
"And you lack cultivation resources, right?"
"…Yes."
"I'm hiring all of you. My store lacks clerks, cashiers, and employees. I'll pay you essence stones if you move your goddamn sect whatsoever to my territory and settle down there."
"WHAT?!"
Xu Nuan and the old women couldn't believe their ears as Leo suddenly offered them a job. Moreover, the pay was essence stones, which they couldn't get their hands on as they weren't a member of the imperial court.
Han Hao and others were also stunned as they didn't expect Leo to solicit the entire sanctuary to work for his store. They looked at each other and secretly contacted Hua Jiashan via telepathy.
While everybody was shocked, Leo began listing the employee welfare and working conditions.
"I'll provide a dorm for you to stay, but you will still need to build your own houses later. Of course, you will have to move in and live in my territory. Even so, everybody only needs to clock eight hours a day or 40 hours a week! Working overtime will be rewarded accordingly. You get free healthcare, aka free medical pills from me if you are sick or injured. Also, the pay is one essence stone per month."
"ONE ESSENCE STONE PER MONTH?!" Xu Nuan's eyes were round. The other elders also drooled.
Leo smirked as he didn't tell them that he paid Gao Yan and Wu Buyi more than that. As he didn't know how good Xu Nuan and the others were, he offered them minimum wage.
Meanwhile, Han Hao and the male elders had a wry smile on their faces. They recently purchased Leo's essence stones for one YOL per stone. Hearing that the women had a chance to earn one stone per month, they didn't know if they should be jealous of them or not.
As the old said, "Money is King", the sanctuary elders readily agreed. Even Xu Nuan shed a tear of happiness as they couldn't get a better offer elsewhere.
"As long as you don't force us to do something immoral, we will gladly work for you. However… there's a problem," Xu Nuan gulped as she looked around.
"What?" Leo was annoyed as Xu Nuan still dared to give him a condition.
"Umm, our sanctuary possesses a portal to a mystic realm. If we abandon the portal to work for you, I'm afraid that our elders and disciples won't be able to challenge any mystic realm anymore. T-This offer might be impossible for us after all."
Xu Nuan was worried that the girls wouldn't be able to enter any mystic realm if they joined Leo. The others also had the same thought, and they were reluctant to abandon their precious territory to join him.
Leo rolled his eyes. He deeply sighed and told them a secret.
"What if I tell you that I'm the owner of this world, and I might be able to open a PERMANENT portal?"
"EH?!"
"I mean exactly when I said PERMANENT PORTAL. It's fixed to this world, though. Anything you find here, you can keep them. Any monster you kill, you can keep them. Well, this world is kinda dangerous, though, since there're gators and those pink mushrooms-"
Suddenly, Han Hao pushed Xu Nuan aside, interrupting Leo mid-conversation, "We'll join you! WE WILL JOIN YOU! LET LIFE SWORD SECT MERGE WITH YOUR DOMAIN, SIR!"
Xu Nuan: "…"
Leo: "…"
Everybody stared at Han Hao. They all had the same question in their minds.
'Who asked you?'
.
While the adults talking, Yao Qiqi looked back and forth between Xu Nuan and Leo. She didn't understand a thing.
As Yao Qiqi was bored, she looked at Leo's big hand. Then, she noticed a ring pattern around his middle finger.
"A ring?"
Curious, Yao Qiqi touched the ring tattoo. But as soon as she touched it, she heard a young man's voice.
'Who goes there? Who are you? How do you have the same aura as my master?'
The owner of the voice peeked out the ring. A transparent wooden mannequin head came out from the ring and looked at Yao Qiqi.
'You, who are you?'
Yao Qiqi was surprised. She laughed at the mannequin as he had the same face as Leo, except it looked younger.
