Tiger Soul Training Room.
On this day, Feng Qi was surprised to see Xiao You looking unusually serious.
This was a rare sight in over a hundred years of knowing her.
She was sitting on the sofa, hands waving through the air, threads of energy dancing between her fingers. Under her guidance, they were slowly woven into a tangible energy construct.
But all this effort from Xiao You was for one reason—to better slack off in the future.
After working on it all morning, the flying mask had started to take shape.
The speed at which she wove energy mainly depended on how much of her special internal energy she had left. Xiao You's technique with weaving spells was already highly refined.
After all, this was her bread and butter.
With over a hundred years of trial and growth, even just improving a little each day had made her incredibly skilled.
But limited by her low energy reserves, she could only weave for a bit before draining her special energy, forcing her to flop down and rest until she recharged.
That was why her pace in weaving energy constructs was so slow.
As for why she could only weave spells after awakening inherited knowledge—that had everything to do with her lazy personality.
Normally, even without the inherited knowledge, she could've memorized a lot just from memory.
Just like Feng Qi's progress on the Sacrifice Line.
Every time he learned a new skill, the main timeline benefited, instantly acquiring the same new skill.
But Xiao You was different.
Her weaving technique was indeed sharp, but being skilled and truly mastering something were two different things.
Her technique was more about mimicry.
She followed the detailed framework laid out in the inherited knowledge, retracing the described structure.
That's why, without inherited knowledge, she couldn't use her internal energy even if it was available.
That's also why Feng Qi wanted to unlock her inherited memories as soon as possible.
Without them, the highly refined skill set she developed on the Sacrifice Line had nowhere to go.
Watching Xiao You's serious face as she kept weaving the flying mask, Feng Qi decided that once she finished crafting her three-piece Lazy Survival Kit, he'd ask her to help mass-produce spatial tools.
Right now, Old Mist had already started training the Blood Refinement Warriors.
Once the three thousand warriors completed their training, they'd become a key part of the resource expedition plan.
Feng Qi's idea was to equip the team with two hundred spatial wristbands.
That would significantly boost the efficiency of their resource collection and reduce how often they had to travel through the spatial tunnels—saving Star City resources by limiting portal use.
It was all connected, and Xiao You played an important role in the plan.
But clearly, she had no idea about the "mission" she was carrying.
She just kept weaving that flying mask with a serious face, occasionally grinning like a fool.
Feng Qi knew her too well. He could tell just from the way she shifted her butt whether she needed the bathroom or was just hungry.
Right now, she was clearly imagining the carefree life she'd enjoy once the three-piece Lazy Survival Kit was done.
But Feng Qi broke into a cold sweat thinking about the two hundred spatial wristbands she'd have to make.
On the last Sacrifice Line, Xiao You had never dealt with such a massive workload in over a hundred years.
Not because she couldn't—she just didn't want to.
Feng Qi had calculated it before. If Xiao You worked seriously, it would only take fifteen days to make one wristband, assuming her internal energy was full.
So giving her over ten years to make this batch of wristbands was more than enough.
That thought conjured an image in his head of Xiao You sobbing in despair under a 996-style work schedule.
Now the real challenge was getting her to accept the task.
With her personality, she never refused him.
The hard part was getting her to follow through after saying yes.
He could already picture it—she'd pat her chest, full of confidence, saying, "No problem, leave it to me."
But when it came time to act, she'd be totally half-hearted, slacking off like usual.
Because when it came to slacking, Xiao You was truly a master.
The next month went exactly as Feng Qi had expected.
Once she finished her Lazy Survival Kit, she went right back to her usual slacker routine.
When he handed her the task, she accepted it with the utmost sincerity, saying she wanted to ease his burden. She righteously took on the heavy responsibility of making the spatial tools and told him to just relax and leave it all to her.
When he looked doubtful, Xiao You tried to prove her resolve.
That night, she borrowed a pencil from Zhang Daowen and scribbled out a crooked pledge letter, making a formal promise to show her determination.
That moment genuinely moved Feng Qi.
It even made him feel like Xiao You had finally grown up and become responsible.
But deep down, Feng Qi still doubted how committed Xiao You really was.
The next few days proved he wasn't wrong.
Each time Feng Qi glanced at Xiao You during his breaks from cultivation, he would see her dangling in midair like a limp noodle. Now and then she'd smack her lips, looking like she had completely forgotten about the task of making spatial tools.
She'd also forgotten all about the pledge taped to the training room wall.
Only when he stepped forward to call her name would she jolt awake and continue working with effort.
But after a short while, her expression would visibly droop, and her eyelids would start to battle each other.
It was as if some invisible sleep demon was draining her energy and pulling her down into a pit of slumber.
Every time Feng Qi woke her up, it was only enough to drag her out of that pit for a moment.
With Xiao You's chronic slacker nature, she could only be pushed forward one step at a time—just barely.
Feng Qi had no choice but to hand over the task of supervising Xiao You to Zhang Daowen.
After all, he needed to focus on his cultivation, doing everything he could to achieve spiritual transcendence and become a spiritual guide.
Only then could the path of belief and growth begin.
Meditative cultivation differed from physical cultivation. It took time to enter the state. Just to begin, he had to spend about half an hour sensing and settling his mind.
If he kept getting interrupted, the efficiency of his training would drop sharply.
Handing this responsibility to Zhang Daowen was a good decision.
Zhang Daowen even gave him a serious promise, vowing to teach Xiao You the value of hard work.
Feng Qi didn't hold out much hope.
But at the very least, with Zhang Daowen supervising, Xiao You's progress on the spatial wristbands might speed up a little.
...
Two years later.
After intense cultivation, Feng Qi could clearly feel his spiritual consciousness had grown much stronger.
His body constantly felt sore and tense, like his spiritual self was about to break free from the physical shell at any moment.
A lot had happened over the past two years.
First, the construction of Breaking Dawn Academy was well underway.
Right now, Star City had multiple major plans moving at once, and Breaking Dawn Academy was the top priority. It always came first during resource allocation.
Because Breaking Dawn Academy was the cradle for the seeds of the future.
In time, countless human geniuses would graduate from there and become the backbone of humanity.
To support that, the Tiger Soul Research Institute had already begun recruiting related talents ahead of time.
What mattered most for the academy wasn't its name, but its faculty. That was the real core of any institution.
Breaking Dawn Academy focused on the tech side, and humanity actually had plenty of talent in this area.
Most of them were in Future City.
Recruiting these people wasn't hard for Tiger Soul Research Institute.
They already had experience from previous timelines. The first batch of recruits came straight from a list of human talents provided by Li Xingchen.
They also planned to borrow talent from the Star City academies.
In the future, others like Lü Yue would join too. With experience from previous timelines, the academy would only grow better and better.
Besides Breaking Dawn Academy, the construction of Silver Moon City had also begun.
According to the plan, the initial build would be finished in about fifteen years, just in time to welcome the arrival of the Silver Moon Clan.
At the same time, work on the Alliance Code had also started.
Thanks to the method provided by Yin Ling, Feng Qi had already spoken once with the Silver Moon Clan's chief.
After their discussion, they agreed that the humans would first draft the Alliance Code. Then, when the Silver Moon Clan arrived, they'd revise it together—working out any conflicting clauses before finalizing and implementing it.
This code would be key to future racial harmony. For now, a newly formed drafting department had taken on the task, with Feng Qi occasionally checking in.
Next came the Winterfell City investigation.
Dismantling the entrenched Sword Clan and Shield Scale Clan in Winterfell wasn't hard.
The real challenge was removing them without stalling the city's growth or harming innocent citizens.
This mission couldn't be finished quickly.
To tackle it, the Star City Military Department had created a dedicated investigation team. Their plan was to infiltrate Winterfell to gather intel.
The investigation had three main goals.
First, infiltrate key authority departments inside Winterfell.
Second, identify all Sword Clan and Shield Scale Clan members in the city and assess their control over it.
Third, take action to fully dismantle both clans.
Once that was done, Winterfell City would return fully to human control.
Later, when Breaking Dawn City was established, Winterfell's residents would move there along with Star City's population to become citizens of the new city.
As for the Winterfell Front, a stabilized spatial transmission array would be built there to retrieve resources from the frontline.
The progress of this plan was still very slow.
But Feng Qi wasn't in a rush.
After all, it really was difficult to achieve this in a short time.
Just like how the Silver Moon Clan had infiltrated Star City, everything had to move forward steadily for safety reasons—there was no room for recklessness.
As long as there was one successful operation and the Sword Clan and Shield Scale Clan's full layout could be understood, then they could be completely erased from the main timeline.
Feng Qi didn't pay much attention to this matter.
He trusted the military department to handle it well.
After all, the enemy was in the open, while Star City's military remained in the shadows.
Plus, with intelligence from the previous timeline, the Sword Clan and Shield Scale Clan were clearly in a weak position in both strength and influence.
Over the past two years, Feng Qi had thought about many things.
One of them was how to make better use of miracle items.
The Miracle Bracelet's ability could still be accessed from the sacrifice timeline through faith connection. But the Fortification Gem couldn't.
Miracles couldn't be separated from his self in the main timeline.
He had even considered, before starting the sacrifice line, taking off the Fortification Gem and giving it to human geniuses like Lü Yue to maximize the effect of miracles.
But reality proved this was impossible.
That meant the Fortification Gem was meaningless to the sacrifice line. And for the main timeline, it didn't offer much either.
No matter how strong its effect was, he wouldn't take risks in the main timeline by challenging powerful enemies.
After testing and confirming this, one of Feng Qi's planned strategies had to be scrapped ahead of schedule.
At the end of the last sacrifice line, he'd considered teaming up with Old Mist and Zhang Daowen to wipe out the Rift Heaven Divine Clan and steal the miracle item "Seal Talisman" from the Rift Heaven Divine Lord.
But thinking it through, gaining the Seal Talisman in the main timeline didn't serve any real purpose for now.
It wasn't like he could use it to go up against a powerful clan like the Psionic Race.
Not risking the main timeline was Feng Qi's top principle as the one trying to save the world. That meant miracle items tied to combat power weren't necessarily useful in the main timeline.
Still, that didn't mean they were completely useless.
At the very least, if the problem was something he could solve, his main timeline self could use his strength to eliminate future threats in advance.
And the stronger his combat power in the future dream realm, the farther he could go.
If he had a bunch of miracles, maybe he could take on Little Black one-on-one and eliminate that clingy, hard-to-shake threat once and for all.
Another major event happened during these two years.
Mu Qing had officially set off for the Winterfell Frontline and decided to begin her career on the battlefield.
Feng Qi didn't stop her decision.
This sacrifice line no longer had the Jian Ji threat, and Mu Qing's growth wouldn't be restricted. The Sword Clan now posed no threat to her development.
In fact, he had thought about keeping Mu Qing in Star City.
But there was no point. He couldn't help her grow any further.
What mattered more was the task he gave her before she left.
To unite the Scavengers.
Scavengers were a major challenge humanity needed to address in the future.
Although they were part of the human race, they harbored prejudice against city dwellers. And the people in the city also looked down on the Scavengers.
As Old Wang once said, this stemmed from their environment. There wasn't a right or wrong in essence.
But not everyone had the ability to solve this problem.
Mu Qing was different.
She was born a Scavenger and naturally accepted by them.
Her personal strength allowed her to fit perfectly into a group that respected power above all. History had already proven her ability to lead.
Once Breaking Dawn City was built, the Scavengers could, through Mu Qing's arrangements, become new residents of that city.
But before that, the first step was uniting the Scavengers.
No one else could do it better than Mu Qing.
With the Jian Ji obstacle gone in this sacrifice line, Feng Qi was looking forward to what Mu Qing would achieve.
He even believed that once this sacrifice line ended, he would get to see Mu Qing again in the future with his own eyes.
Maybe Mu Qing wouldn't reach the level of the Mist Lord, but purely in terms of potential, she could definitely surpass him.
The previous sacrifice line had already proven that.
If humanity could support Mu Qing on a solo cultivation path, her future would be even brighter.
Feng Qi had no doubt Mu Qing could become one of the strongest future elites—standing at the peak, competing with top-tier races like the Psionic Race.
Even if she didn't go the solo route, as long as she had space to grow, her potential would still be limitless.
In the future, Zhang Daowen would no longer be humanity's only pillar.
With Mu Qing as a trump card, the development potential of humanity in this sacrifice line was enormous.
And the future would be full of more possibilities.