Devour: Can you also draw entries from clone projection worlds?

The snow fell on the Cliff of Contemplation all night long.

You sit next to Linghu Chong, listening to your senior brother's even breathing, but your mind is wandering to other things.

"Knowing People's Hearts • Initial Understanding" is a white entry that can be upgraded.

It would be a lie to say you weren't disappointed at all. You thought that even though it was only the sixth year, you should at least get a green one, since you had already saved up nine white ones. According to the logic of most games, a "ten-pull" should at least have a pity system.

But reality is not a game; the system's item extraction has no guaranteed drop mechanism, at least not yet.

All you can do is keep playing defensively, try to draw more times, and try to be in a sufficiently important scenario each time you draw. Leave the rest to time and luck.

However, if you think about it again, the white entry "Knowing People's Hearts • Initial Understanding" might be useless for others, but it might not be so for you.

What is your biggest advantage in the world of Swordsman? It's knowing the plot and the fate of each character.

But "knowing" and "perceiving" are two different things. You know that Yue Buqun is a hypocrite, but when Yue Buqun pats you on the shoulder with a smile, can you remain expressionless?

"Knowing People's Hearts • Initial Understanding" can help you perceive the true emotions behind Yue Buqun's smile—whether it's hypocrisy, a test, or genuine indifference.

This kind of perception is more important than any martial art.

Thinking about this, your disappointment dissipated. White it is, you already have ten, a few more won't hurt.

Just as dawn was breaking, Linghu Chong turned over, mumbled something in his sleep, and then fell into a deep sleep again.

You didn't wake him. You stood up, brushed the snow off your clothes, and quietly walked down the mountain.

The phrase "breath control" came in handy at this moment; your footsteps were so light they were almost inaudible as you walked through the snow, and even the snow didn't crunch.

Back in your room, you changed into dry clothes and sat on the bed, sorting through the year's achievements.

With the "Insightful Insight • Initial" from the Songshan Sect Alliance Conference and the "Knowledgeable Mind • Initial" from the Cliff of Contemplation, plus the eight white entries you accumulated before, you now have ten white entries and one green entry, "Body Refining Genius".

If all ten white entries could be stacked together, the effect would be far better than expected.

Unfortunately, you can only prepare three, so you don't plan to change the entry for the time being.

Linghu Chong was still inevitable... Things happened very suddenly, but you weren't surprised at all.

After Yue Buqun won the position of leader of the Five Mountains Alliance at the Songshan Conference, he returned to Mount Hua and became a completely different person.

He used to at least pretend, but now he's too lazy to even bother. His gaze towards Linghu Chong grows colder, and his tone of voice becomes increasingly distant. Even Ning Zhongze senses something is wrong.

Finally, one day, Yue Buqun announced to all his disciples: "Linghu Chong has associated with demonic cult members, disgracing the Huashan Sect. From this day forward, he is expelled from the sect!"

Linghu Chong knelt on the ground, kowtowed three times, then stood up and left without looking back.

You stand in the crowd, watching Linghu Chong's figure disappear at the end of the Huashan mountain path.

No one spoke. Yue Lingshan covered her face and cried. Lin Pingzhi stood beside her, expressionless. Lao Denuo lowered his head, seemingly lost in thought.

Some of your disciples looked reluctant, some were secretly pleased, and most were at a loss.

You showed no expression. You knew that Linghu Chong's expulsion from the sect was inevitable, and you also knew that this was the beginning of Linghu Chong's new life.

Only after being expelled from Mount Hua will Linghu Chong truly become the carefree and unrestrained Linghu Chong he once was.

That night, you lay in bed and activated "Knowing People's Hearts • Initial Understanding," replaying in your mind the scene of Yue Buqun announcing the expulsion of his disciples during the day.

You were standing in the crowd, about a dozen steps away from Yue Buqun. You couldn't see his expression clearly, but you could sense that when he said those words, his emotion wasn't anger, disappointment, or even feigned sadness. Instead, it was a sense of relief, as if he had thrown away a burden he had carried for a long time.

In the mind of Yue Buqun, his nominal master, Linghu Chong was no longer a disciple, but a threat.

A threat who knows too much, is out of control, and is growing stronger—expelling him from the sect is not punishment, but elimination.

You turned over, closed your eyes, and realized this was the world of martial arts—not just about swift retribution or chivalrous deeds, but about the human heart.

After Linghu Chong was expelled from Mount Hua, news about him was interrupted for a period of time.

You can only hear some scattered fragments from the occasional passerby in the martial arts world.

"Linghu Chong went to Luoyang..."

"Linghu Chong was learning the zither in Green Bamboo Lane..."

"Linghu Chong was with an old woman..."

You know that the "old woman" is Ren Yingying, and you also know that Ren Yingying was willing to be imprisoned in Shaolin Temple for Linghu Chong.

You also know that Linghu Chong will lead a group of martial arts figures to Shaolin Temple to rescue people, will meet Xiang Wentian on the way, and will be tricked into going to the bottom of West Lake to rescue Ren Woxing.

You didn't participate in any of these things, not because you didn't want to, but because you couldn't.

There was some danger in those situations. Ren Woxing was imprisoned for twelve years and was about to kill someone as soon as he was released. Xiang Wentian was the Left Guardian of the Demonic Sect and was terrifyingly deep in thought.

The people around Linghu Chong came from all walks of life, from all sorts of backgrounds.

If you were to rashly appear in such a place, forget about participating in any plot; it's really hard to say whether you could even evade their schemes and precautions.

So you continue to stay in the back of Mount Hua, practicing your sword and accumulating your vocabulary entries.

Your strength has been growing slowly all along, not like the kind of sudden upgrade, but a gradual and silent change.

You find that the flaws in your swordsmanship are becoming fewer and fewer, and you can sense something inexplicable in your surroundings.

It feels good; it's inconspicuous, but I'm making progress every day.

Soon another message reached Mount Hua, and not only Mount Hua, but the entire martial arts world was shaken.

How long has it been since Ren Woxing returned to the martial arts world? Half a year? A year?

He had just regained control of the Sun Moon Sect, had just wiped out all those who refused to submit to him, and was just preparing to unify the martial arts world when he died.

He died on Chaoyang Peak, just as his ambition began to swell.

Some say he died suddenly from an illness, some say it was a relapse of an old injury, some say he was poisoned by Xiang Wentian, and others say he was killed by Linghu Chong and Ren Yingying working together.

You seem to know the truth: Ren Woxing was overjoyed on Chaoyang Peak, laughed three times, and then he died.

A master swordsman died because of excessive joy.

When you heard the news, he was chopping wood on the back mountain. He put down his axe, sat on a tree stump, and thought for a while.

Ren Woxing's weakness was not his martial arts skills, but his arrogance. He thought he was invincible and could unify the martial arts world, but in the end, he couldn't even support his own body.

Dongfang Bubai's weakness was Yang Lianting; Yue Buqun's weakness was ambition; Zuo Lengchan's weakness was arrogance; Linghu Chong's weakness was loyalty; and Ren Woxing's weakness was conceit.