495: Chapter 495 The Spirit Bought with a Meal! Ascended Ones Have No Way Back!

The scene cuts back to West Qingyou Continent, Peng City, Yingxian Restaurant.

Inside the private room, the table was a mess of leftovers, with jade plates shrouded in Immortal Qi piled up like small mountains.

Wang Baobao held her eighth empty bowl—licked so clean it could reflect a person's image—as her tender little tongue circled the rim once more, ensuring not a single molecule of Law could escape.

Then she looked up, her large, dark eyes beginning to scan the other people's plates on the table with the precision of radar.

Qian Duoduo was slumped in a bulky immortal-wood chair, his entire being almost melting into a puddle of blissful grease.

With one hand, he rubbed his round belly, which was nearly bursting through his robes, while the other hand pressed firmly against his chest.

His face wore a distorted expression of pleasure and pain, of crying and laughing all at once.

His Soul was flying in the heavens, while his wallet was buried in the dirt.

Jian Buping and Monk Jiese also finally recovered from the self-isolation caused by the shock of the Immortal Realm's reality, and a hint of color returned to their faces.

This meal was an energy supplement, but even more so, it was spiritual opium.

Like a phone on the verge of shutting down finally being plugged into a power bank, the battery jumped from 1% to 10%.

Although the battery was still critically low, at least the screen was lit; it wasn't dead.

Su Chen looked at the bill on the table, made of Immortal Beast skin, which displayed a long string of numbers flickering with spiritual light.

His face remained calm and indifferent.

His demeanor suggested he wasn't looking at a bill, but rather an insignificant napkin.

But his inner mind was already a sea of comments, churning with stormy waves.

[Three hundred thousand!]

[A single meal, three hundred thousand Low Grade Immortal Stones!]

[I was still too damn naive. These aren't my teammates; they're clearly a pack of gold-devouring beasts in human skin!]

[Especially that girl Wang Baobao! She alone finished off a budget of two hundred and thirty thousand!]

[Is she the Reincarnation of a Taotie? Did she come here to eat or to perform a demolition?!]

[Back in the Lower Realm, with three hundred thousand Top-Grade Spirit Stones, I, Su Chen, could have booked everything from the brothels to the latrines in the whole capital, and still have a bunch of Saintesses singing tunes for me!]

[Now, it's only enough for one meal!]

[One meal!]

[No, I must make money!]

[Wait, that's not right!]

Alarm bells rang in Su Chen's mind.

[Before making money, I have to secure our lives!]

[In a hellhole like this, having ten million Immortal Stones in your pocket without the ability to flip the table is no different from streaking in the streets while holding a sign that says—'Stupidly rich, come get it'?!]

He set down the teacup in his hand.

The bottom of the cup tapped lightly against the jade tabletop.

"Click."

A faint, barely audible crisp sound.

However, all the noise in the private room came to an abrupt halt at that moment.

Wang Baobao's licking sounds, Qian Duoduo's satisfied burps, and the humming of Jian Buping wiping his sword were all cut off simultaneously.

Everyone's gaze, like iron filings drawn to a magnet, converged instantly on Su Chen.

The lazy expression Su Chen had worn all along the way had vanished.

His gaze was cold and sharp as it slowly swept over everyone present.

His eyes fell on Jian Buping.

A Fifth Heaven Quasi-Emperor, yet at this moment, he only knew to subconsciously tighten his grip on his sword hilt, as if it were his only reliance.

His eyes fell on Monk Jiese.

The Buddha's Son kept his eyes lowered submissively, his lips twitching, but he couldn't even utter a single 'amitabha'.

His eyes fell on Hua Nongying.

The newly advanced Great Emperor Second Heaven and former Sect Master of Hehuan Sect—the charm in her eyes had long been replaced by bewilderment.

Finally, his gaze landed on Wang Baobao.

The little girl had put down her bowl and was tilting her head, her large, dark eyes looking at him innocently, with a single grain of sparkling immortal rice still stuck to the corner of her mouth.

Su Chen cleared his throat.

"Are you all full?"

Everyone nodded in unison, like a group of scolded elementary school students.

"Good that you're full."

Su Chen's tone suddenly darkened.

That air of nonchalance was as if it had been forcefully snatched away by an invisible hand.

What remained was a solemnity heavy enough to break a person's spine.

The backs of everyone present instantly straightened.

"From now on."

"Forget your identities in the Lower Realm."

"Forget being a Prodigy, forget being a Sect Master, forget being a Saintess, forget being a True Disciple."

"Those things aren't worth a single Immortal Stone here."

"Here, we have only one identity."

He paused for a second, allowing enough time for these words to hammer into everyone's minds.

"Ascenders."

"The lowest level, the kind that could be slapped into a pulp at any moment... Ascenders."

As his voice fell, the warmth that had risen from the hearty meal was instantly drained away.

The temperature in the entire private room plummeted to freezing point.

Everyone fell silent.

No one refuted him.

Because that Sweeping Auntie who had swatted away their pride with a broom was the coldest reality.

"Our biggest problem right now isn't money."

Su Chen's voice lowered even further, like a curse whispered in everyone's ear.

"It's strength."

"In the Lower Realm, Quasi-Emperors and Great Emperors could make a whole province tremble."

"But here—"

He pointed out the window at the bustling street shrouded in Immortal Qi.

"Great Emperors are sweeping the streets."

"Earth Immortals are selling candied haws."

"And our level of cultivation?"

The corner of his mouth twitched, revealing a mocking smile.

"Forget walking with our heads held high."

"Even just walking normally, we have to check if there are ants on the ground first, lest we accidentally trample someone's relative to death."

Jian Buping's teeth ground together, and the scabbard of the starfall sword vibrated slightly—not with excitement, but with humiliation.

Qian Duoduo's fat face turned the color of pig liver as he recalled the scene of himself being swept away like a sack of trash; that shame gnawed at his heart more than losing a million Immortal Stones.

The monk Monk Jiese tightly gripped his prayer beads, his knuckles turning white as if he were about to crush the beads in his palm.

"So."

Su Chen withdrew his finger, his gaze like a knife, carving into each person's face one by one.

"We must raise our strength in the shortest time possible."

"Not to seek dominance, not to run rampant."

His voice was cold to the extreme.

"At the very least, we must..."

"Make it so that in this city, when someone wants to slap us again, we can stand our ground and take it!"

His words settled.

Dead silence filled the private room.

No one spoke, but the look in everyone's eyes had changed.

That bewilderment, loss, and self-doubt withered and dissipated rapidly, like weeds scorched by a raging fire.

What replaced it was not hollow confidence.

But a ferocity squeezed from the very marrow of their bones after being pushed to a dead end.

That was the instinct for survival.