“I hope you didn’t come over here just to spout nonsense.” Wenling told the two.

“Shut your mouth, whore.” Song, one of the three Roses of the Fearsome Garden, retorted.

“You all had quite the lucky break.” Chaun, one of Leng Huan’s closest men, said while greedily staring at their loot.

“What about it?” Wenling responded, ignoring Song.

“Nothing, I was just stating an observation.” Wenling could already see him dreaming about wearing their loot.

“Don’t get too big of a head, Cow. You dirty bandits won’t live long enough to enjoy your magical treasures anyway.” Song spat.

“Does someone hear a crying child somewhere?” Wenling dug in her ears while avoiding direct eye contact with Song. Some of the bandits laughed.

“Just wait till we get on the first floor. I’ll shatter you to pieces!” Song angrily huffed away while her squad followed behind her in silence.

“I suppose I should be going as well. Be careful Bandits.” He flashed a fake smile and left with his clan following behind him.

  Wenling turned around to face them.

“I don’t think I need to tell you all that everyone is going to come after us.” She told them.

“That’s right!”

“Any son of bitch trying to take my loot is getting a fucking sword through his gut!”

“I’ll kill anyone that tries to touch my shit!”

“That’s what I like to hear. Look out only for ourselves and kill anyone wanting to steal our well-earned treasures!” Wenling shouted.

  Jing didn’t get caught up in the Wolfeng Gang’s morale booster. Instead she was taking note of all the participants that’s going on the first floor with them. Checking out who was the most dangerous, who would bring the most benefit to her, and who could be an obstacle to them. It didn’t need to be said that Jing would ensure the safety of the Wolfeng Gang member’s magical treasures. One of her missions from the system was to strengthen the gang until they matched the Huan clan in power.

  This would be difficult as the highest staged cultivator in the Wolfeng Gang was at the 9th stage and the highest staged cultivator in the Huan clan was at the 4th stage of the Qi Consolidation realm. But it wasn’t impossible. Thankfully, there wasn’t a time limit to the mission saying that she had to make them strong enough to match the Huan clan before the Plains ended. If it did, then she’d have to resort to drastic measures with SCP-914.

  Jing didn’t want to rely on SCP-914 in that way. Increasing someone’s power directly wouldn’t be helpful in the long run. This was one of the reasons why she gifted her followers martial art techniques and weapons mainly. Her followers would need to learn about their gifts and train with them. Even Jing herself practices her martial arts daily, knowing that she couldn’t rely on the SCP’s to do everything for her. She didn’t want that type of strength anyway, relying on someone or something else to do things for her? No, she’d rather get involved and take control of the situation for herself.

‘Oh yeah, I do have some unused tickets don’t I?’ Jing suddenly remembered.

  She finished two missions before meeting that monkey. Killing 100 beings with SCP-109 and letting 100 cultivators witness SCP-109 infinite generation of water. It looks like the system counted the peering eyes of the elders for the second mission. Jing guessed that it wasn’t without some benefits of having the elders watch her.

  The first mission rewarded her with 5 rare tickets, 1 high-ranked spirit stone, and a purifying qi pill. The second one gave Jing 5 more rare tickets and a body strengthening pill. They were all stored in her inventory since they came from the system and not herself. Jing wasn’t able to store anything in her inventory that wasn’t gained from the system first. It wasn’t explained why she wasn’t able to place things in her inventory but Jing wasn’t too bothered by it. Her refined storage ring could carry anything she wanted it to.

  As Jing was about to place her tickets into the system’s gacha wheel, the door to the first floor opened up.

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“Hello? Earth to Jing?” Wenling waved her hand in her face, slightly irritating Li Li. Jing’s attention was redirected to Wenling’s violet eyes.

“Let’s move.” Jing moved ahead and walked towards the white door.

  She decided to use the tickets later. She would have to focus on keeping these bandits alive for a while. It wouldn’t be easy to split her focus on the system and all the other cultivators around them. Jing led the gang forward as Wenling walked to the side of her with Ears behind them. They were among the first ones to enter inside.

  Jing sensed something in the sky above them and it seems everyone else did as well since they looked up in the sky with her. The clouds were shaped into words telling them how to clear this floor. Jing read the simple objective within seconds and began to think about what her strategy should be for clearing this task. As she was thinking, she threw four talismans around Wenling’s squad and activated a movement formation that immediately teleported them on top of the front wall.

“Whoa!” The sudden movement spell surprised them all.

“Holy shit!”

“I think I'm falling! Someone grab me!” Scars was tipping over the edge of the wall.

“Save yourself idiot! Hahaha.” A few bandits laughed at his pathetic expression while others calmed their stomachs from the sudden spatial change.

  Scars fell over the edge and in his panic channeled all the qi within his body. The small green colored lotus on his head rapidly grew and mutated into some sort of monster plant and latched onto the edge of the wall with its plant jaws. Scars frantically reached for the edge and hoisted himself back up only to meet the surprised looks of his fellow bandits.

“How the fuck did you just do that?”

“Thanks for the help assholes! Really appreciate it! Don’t count on me helping you guys for anything.” Scars angrily replied.

“We were obviously gonna save ya you pissy little girl.”

“Shove it up your ass!” His transformed lotus snarled at them.

“Oi, you stupid fucker. How did you make your lotus change into that thing?!”

“What are you shitty pricks talking about?” Scars took out his sword and used the sword’s shiny exterior to see what was on his head.

“Whoa! What the fucking fuck!?” He jumped in fright.

“Yeah! That’s what we’re saying!”

“Tch, what a lucky bastard...” Ears cursed.

“Vice Commander, do you know what’s going on?” Du Zihao, the lightning blade bandit, asked.

“Yeah, I do. And I wished I could’ve kept this secret to myself for a bit longer. But thanks to this stupidly lucky bastard, I guess I'll tell you bastards what I found out.” Ears spoke up.

  Jing and Wenling were also interested. Jing had no idea how or why the lotus changed. She only thought it was capable of taking over bodies and strengthening them. It looks like there was more it could do that it didn’t do with the rabbit they killed before. Everyone watched as Ears flared his qi outward.

  From his body, numerous leaves flew out and began to swirl around him. Ears seemed to be able to control them with just his qi alone. They flew around in the way that he wanted, ignoring the wind blowing around them. These leaves were made out of his qi and controlled by his qi. Ears swiped his hands through the twirling leaves and fashioned two daggers out of them, showing that his control over them wasn’t limited to just what he showed earlier.

“The lotus doesn’t only make you physically stronger. With enough time and practice, eventually it will gift you a specific cultivation technique. It isn’t something that you’ll be able to read though. The plant feeds it to you like a mama bird would to its chicks but through your brain instead of your mouth. The cultivation technique my lotus gave me, allowed me to do what I just showed you all.” Ears told them only the basics.

“How the hell do we practice?” Someone asked.

“Cultivate, shit for brains. The lotus makes you more sensitive to nature qi. The more you understand about nature qi, the closer you’ll be to getting the cultivation technique. My understanding came from watching the leaves during our way to the Great Tower. I guess that lucky bastard got his from some man-eating plant.”

“I almost got ate by an Emerald Pitcher Plant.” Scars informed.

“That’ll do it.” Ears understood instantly.

“Emerald Pitcher Plant?” Jing asked.

‘It’s a big green plant thing that wants to eat beasts and tastes disgusting.’ Li Li explained through their soul link.

  Li Li has seen them eating beasts of various sizes when looking for breakfast. He was too smart to be tricked by their delicious smelling inner juices though. He only knew they tasted nasty because he tried to find out if they tasted as good as they smelled, not because he was tricked and almost got eaten by one or two. Definitely not. He also found out that no Emerald Pitcher Plants had the same aroma.

“A shitty plant that smells so delicious that you’ll want to crawl inside it and get digested by it on purpose.” Zian explained.

“It’s rumored that Emerald Pitcher Plants use a special type of qi that muddles the brain and makes it easier for their prey to get eaten by them.” Wenling shared happily.

“Hmm, interesting. I’ll need to learn more about the plants and animals.” Jing said, thinking of the pitcher plants with a sharp glint in her eyes.

“Alright boys! Get to building some defenses for this wall! We won’t survive with just our strength alone!” Wenling ordered.

“I’ll handle it. You all just make sure you don’t die in the meantime.” Jing hopped off the front wall all the way down.

  She landed perfectly on her feet this time with little internal injuries and began setting up various formations to protect their wall.

‘This should be a cakewalk.’ Jing thought.