Chapter 257 – Florida Man Cosplaying as Game of Thrones's Character Blocked the Road and Kept Shouting "Winter is Coming". Investigation Found He Busted 90 Times Last Month Causing His Kidneys to Fail.
The next day, Filip and his friends finally came out from the hell hole where Hua Taixu was the demon king.
Their cultivation base broke through the bottleneck and reached the deity realm. Everybody learned how they could build stars in their dantian, and they already made several. Their sword mastery also improved. Although they were unhappy with the training regime, they were proud of themselves.
"Thank you very much, senior Hua!" Filip bowed to Hua Taixu before he left.
"Come again. You. Stronger!"
"…Yes."
Filip dragged his sorry shape to the tavern of heroes to rest. Along the way, they met another member of the ship.
"Huh?"
Something was wrong there. As only five of them could enter this place, another crewmate other than Andria shouldn't be able to enter.
Filip asked the crewmate, "Lieutenant! What are you doing here? Where is Major Andromeda?"
The lieutenant saluted and replied, "Major Andromeda Andria has returned to the ship and commanded me to purchase some books, sir!"
"…Books? Why do you want those ancient outdated information sources?"
"Sir, none of the books in the bookstore is nonsense. Every book is either a precious cultivation manual or a way of dao. It's highly detailed to the point that Major Andria has already awakened two new dao avatars."
Filip squinted his brows. Because of his curiosity, he forgot about the mental and physical exhaustion, "Where is that bookstore?"
"This way, sir."
The soldier guided Filip to the bookstore. When they arrived, they found a long queue of cultivators and commoners who had been waiting to enter the store.
Seeing the line and how busy the store was, Filip and the crew got interested.
"Is the bookstore that good?" Filip inquired.
"Yes, sir. Any book of the store is a precious manual."
"But am I seeing things correctly? The price tag is… 100 years of lifespan!?"
"It's worth the investment, sir. Oh, did you know that you can get your lifespan back if you eat food on the first floor?"
"WHAT?!"
"The cafeterias and the restaurants there are running a promotion, sir. Their blood wine and beef steak are superb! If you manage to finish the meal, you will get about 50-100 years of lifespan back at the price of 200 essence stones!"
"…"
Filip disagreed with the soldier because 200 essence stones were a lot for their living standard. As they had been relying on essence stones and soul stones to generate energy and Qi for them to cultivate or navigate their ship, the resources were invaluable. Spending them on food for personal interest was wasteful.
Still, Filip couldn't stop his men from spending their hard-earned money. He too also possessed a stash of essence stones for his retirement. As his subordinate bought books from the store, he might as well get one so that the soldier would not feel left out. He went to the back of the queue and waited for his turn to enter the store.
The store was full of customers. The interior alone was large enough to accommodate at least 1,000 customers at once. However, only two bookstore clerks were present. Thus, they only allowed 100 customers to access the store at a time.
30 minutes later, it was Filip's turn to enter. He strode with a long stride and beelined toward a cultivation manual section.
The cultivation manual section had four minor categories; Beginner, Intermediate, Advance, and Expert.
The beginner section featured simplified cultivation manuals, which made it easy for commoners and young cultivators to grasp the basics. The intermediate section shelves contained full cultivation methods with Leo's annotations. Similar to the beginner ones, Leo's extra comments in the books allowed readers to comprehend the techniques more easily.
The advance and expert categories, however, were dedicated to hardcore cultivators. Leo didn't comment on anything while the cultivation methods were complicated and complex for regular cultivators to understand. Practitioners were expected to spend at least years to fully master the methods.
The only difference between the advance section and the expert section was the quality of the cultivation method. A commoner could pick up an advanced book and cultivate all the way to the deity realm. On the other hand, no beginner could touch the expert section due to the pre-requirement of a deity realm; a practitioner needed a basic understanding of dantian stars, which only deities, sages, or stronger cultivators had.
As a deity, Filip checked the expert's zone first. He randomly picked the thickest book and scanned the table of contents.
At first, Filip snorted at the long list of topics. But as he kept on reading the table of contents, he realized the true value of the book in his hands.
The book was a precious cultivation method of an entity, whose cultivation base was two major realms higher than the deity realm. By practicing this method, Filip could potentially reach the entity realm and join the overlord ranks!
In astonishment and shock, Filip flipped the book to check the price tag.
100 YOL
As the lieutenant had said, it only cost 100 years of lifespan!
Such an investment was worth it!
Filip drooled and closed the book. He was about to bring it to the checkout cashier. As he took a step forward, the corner of his eyes saw a portrait of a black-winged angel on a book cover of the expert section's shelves.
"!?!"
Filip's feet stopped. He turned around and grabbed the book with a thick book cover.
"Overlord Mao Miaomiao!?"
Filip recognized the face of the man on the cover. The devil was an infamous villain that every textbook described as the traitor who sold mankind to the divine elves and destroyed Earth's ecosystem.
He hated this traitor with a passion even though he wasn't there when the calamity struck. Driven by his hatred, Filip picked the book and skimmed through it to mock the content.
One minute later…
Five minutes later…
Ten minutes later…
An hour later…
Three hours later, Filip stood there reading the book in earnest. He couldn't put it down as the book contained both the cultivation method and the dao of soul transfer, which enabled souls to change bodies.
The dao was the loophole in the karma river's system. As long as the body target was not naturally born, anybody could transfer their soul and steal the body. However, they would lose all cultivation base and progress from the discarded body.
Filip thought of a forbidden project in the past. In the textbooks that he had read, there were incidents about scientists experimenting with human creation. Most of them ended up in failure. Only Overlord Mao Miaomiao and Doctor Void Singe succeeded.
In Mao Miaomiao's case, he transferred his soul to one of the test subjects and became the first man who gain immortality through soul transfer. As for Doctor Void Singe, he completed the research 20,000 years after the first incident and published the information to the government.
Unfortunately, Overlord Xiaomao detected their movements and warned them not to improve their techniques due to the looming threat of the divine elves. The government officials cowered in fear and shut down the projects. All related documents were burnt and destroyed. Only the history books recorded the implications and events that led to the project's termination.
Filip acquiring the lost research was a double-edged sword. He was at a loss for what he should do.
'Publish it? Destroy it? Keep it to myself? What should I do?!'
Filip scanned the bookshelves and found multiple books on the same cover. He gulped and made an excuse in his mind.
'Yeah, there are too many books. None of them should notice that I have one right now. If anything happens, it's the bookstore's fault for releasing the techniques to the public!'
Filip made up his mind. He grabbed the book and walked to the checkout counter. He put two books down.
The cashier mindlessly scanned the barcodes with the scanner. She then pointed at the number on the cashier machine.
200 YOL
Filip paid the price in full. He put the books in his spatial ring and was about to head out. While he was leaving, a group of beautiful elves and molgs passed by. None of them even paid him a glance as they were busy.
The group of women cut the lines and entered the bookstore. However, nobody bothered to warn them as if they knew who they were.
Filip turned around and gazed at the women. He wondered who they were.
But as he looked at the blond elf's face, his face lost all color. The face of the elf looked similar to a common photo that every human was taught to be wary of – The Queen of Divine Elf, Eleanor.
Running for his life, Filip vanished and reappeared on the first floor. He kicked the ground and tried to leave the store. He didn't notice the four-armed statue behind him.
Qiang Qiang, aka the captive mutant, had lost all her memory. She served Leo and Meowmeow as a guardian statue of the shopping mall, and her job was to maintain order.
When Qiang Qiang noticed a strong guest running away from the shopping mall, she pursued him. Using her four arms, she embraced him and pulled him back to the center fountain.
Filip struggled to break free. Unfortunately, Qiang Qiang's current cultivation base was the same as Meowmeow – The Entity Realm.
A newborn deity was not an opponent of an entity. Filip got stuck in her arms and wailed in fear.
"Please spare me!"
Qiang Qiang didn't answer. She left him there until someone found him.
.
Leo entered the shopping mall 6 hours later. He found Filip getting a bear hug from the giant four-armed statue. He laughed.
"I didn't know that my dearest guest has a stone fetish. Would you like me to make you some sexy stone golems to take back home?"
Filip retorted, "INSTEAD OF TOYING WITH ME, CAN YOU FREE ME HERE?!"
.
.
Meanwhile, Esen, Ivy, and Beatrice were the ones who had visited the bookstore and met Filip. As none of them knew the guy, they ignored him like the others.
Esen rushed to a romance novel section and picked several books. Ivy took theory books and science manuals while Beatrice picked a sword technique scroll. Everybody had their own preference. However, Esen felt like their lives were too smooth lately.
She thought about her old playmates. She wondered where Cat and Yao Qiqi had gone as the duo rarely appeared in the domain.
Esen thought to herself.
'I understand that Cat sometimes hunts for food herself. But I don't understand Yao Qiqi. What has she been doing lately? I don't see her around anywhere.'
.
.
The girl in question was indeed in hiding. Yao Qiqi had recently received three cut golden retriever puppies, and she had brought them to the Magpie City.
The three werewolf puppies followed Yao Qiqi around like she was their mother. On the other hand, Yao Qiqi's aura and demeanor resembled adults.
Yao Qiqi visited a black market. She exchanged some essence stones for spirit stones. Then, she fed the puppies with the lowest-grade stones.
The puppies ate everything as if they were dog food. They licked their lips and begged Yao Qiqi to give them more.
Yao Qiqi ignored their pleas as she understood what they actually thought. She yelled at them.
"If you think you can fool me with those eyes, you're wrong! Behave yourself, doggies!"
"Woof!"
After feeding the dogs, Yao Qiqi marched home with the dogs following her as usual. Along the way, a merchant group offered her and her dogs a ride, which she accepted.
While sitting in a carriage, Yao Qiqi heard a rumor.
"Did you know? The winter this year comes very early. I heard the Cauliflower is already covered in snow!"
"Meh, you're crazy. I never snowed in Cauliflower City. Check your rumor's source!"
"But I'm telling you! The winter is coming! Can't you sense the cold wind from the north?!"
Yao Qiqi was interested in the topic since the weather affected the upcoming wedding ceremony between Esen and Leo. She wondered if they would continue to proceed with the ceremony.
'I should finish preparing a gift for Lord Florida Man soon. Should I bring my pets to explore the world first?'
