Shuxue was still shaking his head in admiration, when an illusory grid expanded out of nothing. In a flash of light, Zhujiao appeared with a big smile on his face.

“I’m Zhujiao! And I’m back!”

Shuxue and Fengshui nodded to him. “How did the subjugation of the Jun Clan go?” Shuxue asked inquisitively. He had gotten accustomed to Zhujiao’s impossible abilities; according to what Zhujiao said, they were all because of a divine artifact called Plot!

Zhujiao beamed with happiness. “I killed them all, and took all their stuff!”

Shuxue nodded matter-of-factly. “Justice has been served. I need a combat report, Zhujiao. Let’s start with the most important matter. How many jade slips did you obtain?”

“0!” Zhujiao shouted. “They were all bad jade slips!”

Shuxue’s eyes bugged. “0 jade slips! Zero jade slips! Z-z-zero?! Why did you even go there, then? That’s the whole point of subjugating our enemies!”

“My Plot said the jade slips were bad for Plot!”

“Fuck your Plot!” Shuxue was enraged. “I’m Shuxue, and I want jade slips!”

“Okay then! Let’s go on an adventure and get jade slips!” Zhujiao jumped excitedly.

Shuxue stopped his tirade, staring at Zhujiao with beady eyes. “An adventure? With whom?”

“You!”

Shuxue took Zhujiao’s arm, leading him away from Fengshui. “Why me? I’m a busy man, you know. I have jade slips to proce- er, a Sector to run.”

“Because you’re my friend!” Zhujiao had on his face a smile so genuine, that Shuxue almost couldn’t resist slapping him.

“...” Shuxue coughed. “Well, you see, I’m tied down by my duties as the Patriarch. Zhujiao, do you know all the things I have to take care of?”

“Nope!”

Shuxue raised a fist up to the sky, a single, passionate tear trickling down his cheek. “All those disciples in the Infinity barracks have to be trained by me! I have to teach pill concocting to all the alchemist trainees in the Infinity pill furnace! I have to send our subordinates off on expeditions to the Mountain Range of Mathematical Beasts!

Heck, right before telling these idiots here to move the river 2.00359 centimeters to the left in order to maximize mathforce generation within our Sector, I was establishing the Infinity Restructuring Committee, which buys the territory of down-on-their-luck Sectors and develops their battle-ravaged land into valuable real estate!

Right now, I have to order the Infinity Restructuring Committee to go help out the poor Jun clan. They’ve been struck by a natural calamity earlier today, and their Sector territory needs rebuilding. You can see, Zhujiao, that I’m tied down by worldly affairs!”

Listening to Shuxue’s speech, Zhujiao had a horrified look in his eyes. “You have so much work, big bro Shuxue! You need a vacation! Let’s go to a dungeon!”

Shuxue shook his head solemnly. “My friend Zhujiao, do you see the layout of this Sector? It was all designed by me! I built that Infinity library with my own 2 hands! All this thick mathforce was generated by me! All the pills in the workshops were made by me! All the pearls in the treasury were gathered by me! I’m here to make you strong, Zhujiao. How can I take a rest from this heavenly endeavor?”

Zhujiao sighed disappointedly. “I get it. My Plot found a super cool Algebra dungeon that has stood for 50 years without anyone killing it. It said there’s a lot of hard things to get in there, and it would be big bro Shuxue’s kind of place. But if you’re too busy, I get it.”

Shuxue blinked. “Eh? Are you telling me there’s an Algebra dungeon that’s stood for an entire 50 years without anyone conquering it, that contains profound insights for anyone who would conquer it?”

“Duh!”

Shuxue began heartily laughing. “Ah, Zhujiao, it seems like I do indeed need a vacation! Let’s go at once!”

Zhujiao was shocked, but very pleased. “Awesome, big bro Shuxue! But what about all your work?”

“Haha, don’t worry about it, I can have my ministers do a little bit of work for me while I’m gone! A profound Algebra dungeon that’s stood for 50 years, hahaha…” Shuxue began cackling from excitement. His eyes glimmered, evaporating the water from the mud.

Zhujiao smiled. “Okay! But we gotta do stuff here first!”

He brought his hand up to his forehead, pulling out a sword and throwing it to the ground. His hands turned into a blur as they continuously pulled things out of his forehead. A giant pile of weapons formed, and then a mountain of carpets, tables, chairs, sofas, beds, and other furniture.

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Shuxue turned around, calling Fengshui over. As she watched chopsticks flooding out of Zhujiao’s forehead, falling into the muddy ground and making a haphazard mess, her eyelid began to twitch.

“You, you, and you, gather up all of these items and have them sorted out at the Infinity Treasury! You, you, and you, take all these weapons to the Infinity Armory!” Fengshui shouted. Then, a small hill of soil appeared. It was covered in strange plants. “Move each plant to the Infinity Spiral, as carefully as you can!”

A chipmunk flew out of nowhere, landing in a heap of baboons and cows. It seemed that the Jun clan had a large amount of tamed mathematical beasts, and an impressive collection of heavenly herbs and other plants.

Finally, Zhujiao pulled out a skyscraper about half as tall as the Infinity Spiral out of his forehead and threw it onto the ground. It landed with a booming thud onto the valley floor, and began sinking into the mud.

Seeing this new building, Fengshui snapped her fingers. Some cranes flew out of the Infinity Spiral. Grabbing hold of the building with their beaks, they used their mathivation to help them hoist the building up and move it to the designated area Fengshui had chosen.

Zhujiao pointed at the skyscraper floating away. “That’s where disciples will live! I got it because there are too many new people!”

Shuxue laughed with delight. “Zhujiao, you’re so great! If everyone had interspatial foreheads like you did, nobody would ever have to put their pearls into a treasury for people to ransack, because they could just keep it in their forehead! Merchants could just pretend to be poor old beggars and never need to hire an escort! Thieves could steal an entire city overnight! But since you have one, we can conveniently take everyone else’s treasuries with no need to worry about the logistics.”

Zhujiao nodded smugly. “That’s right! Plot gave me an interspatial forehead because it would be more good for Plot!”

Shuxue smiled cheerily. “Yes, this world would be a complete clusterfuck if anyone else had an interspatial forehead. Very well then, my boy Zhujiao. Let’s go collect the pearls and pills and get going!”

A grid shot out of Zhujiao’s body, and they instantly teleported to the Infinity Treasury, a giant hall inside the Infinity Palace. Heaps of tens of thousands of pearls lay scattered across the vast chamber, along with jars filled with pills that contained dense mathforce gathered from plants and mathematical beast cores.

Shuxue smiled cheerily. “These pearls and pills were the result of a day of my labors! Our Infinity Sector has gathered large amounts of capital to make this production speed possible. Haha, we complete 60 dungeons everyday and send 50 people everyday into weeklong forays into the Mountain Range of Mathematical Beasts! It’s no wonder our treasures pile up so fast!”

By the time he had finished talking, the entire treasury was empty. Zhujiao patted his forehead. “The Greentree Sector had a billion Arithmetic pearls, and a lot of everything else.”

Shuxue shrugged. “The Greentree Sector was the second largest Sector in the area, and had wealth built up over the course of thousands of years. How can I, a single person, compete with that?”

“You’re right! Let’s go!” Zhujiao shouted. The grid shot out, and the two of them appeared in a forest clearing.

Shuxue looked around. “Eh? Where’s the dungeon?”

“Over there!” Zhujiao pointed off into the distance. Thirty kilometers away, there was an oddly-shaped tower rising high into the sky.

Shuxue’s eyes bugged. “Why the hell are we so far away? Why didn’t you teleport us straight to the dungeon?”

Zhujiao folded his arms. “Because Plot said I had to teleport here!”

“Fuck your Plot!” Shuxue groaned, rubbing his eyes. “I thought Plot gave you this teleportation ability so we wouldn’t have to worry about the logistics of moving around! How does this make any sense?”

“Never question Plot!” Zhujiao began walking towards the dungeon.

All of a sudden, they heard screaming from not far away.

“No! It’s the Sword Mountain bandits!”

“Curse our luck! These bandits are absolute filth, and they never show any mercy!”

“Quick, take Lady Daoli (meaning: Reason) and run!”