My Ability Pool is Superior

“Please forgive our slack, Heavenly Venerate.”

Two Heavenly Venerate’s Emissaries hurriedly apologized in panic.

Although it was Lu Bai who did not issue the decree in advance, which caused them to be unable to arrange reception matters in time.

But in front of Lu Bai, these two rogue cultivators absolutely did not have the guts to say anything wrong about him, and they didn’t even dare to think about it in their hearts.

On the contrary, the civilians around the shop, after confirming Lu Bai’s identity, fell into an extremely fanatical state.

Without anyone leading, they shouted “loyalty” while neatly kneeling toward Lu Bai.

Just like in the feudal era, common people, no matter how hard their lives were, would not think the emperor was bad, at most believing the officials below were causing trouble.

From the perspective of human nature, this kind of fantasy about the top level has, to some extent, approached the scope of faith.

Only by believing this can one harbor hope and have the courage to continue living.

And Lu Bai’s image in the minds of these mortals now was even more exaggerated than this kind of faith in imperial power.

Truly, in the sense of the world, the unparalleled sage, eternal and everlasting.

Lu Bai raised his hand and pressed down, signaling everyone to quiet down first.

Once the scene had calmed a bit, he released his magic power, in a gentle yet irrefutable way, helping up all the mortals and cultivators kneeling on the ground.

“Those with evil intentions, burning incense brings no benefit. Those who hold themselves upright, what harm is there in not bowing to me?”

Lu Bai had a kind smile on his face, full of affinity: “Seeing that everyone is doing well, I can rest assured.”

With that, a beam of light condensed from magic power appeared under his feet. He stepped on the light and moved, like shrinking the ground into inches; in just a few steps, his figure vanished into the clouds.

“Respectfully seeing off the Heavenly Venerate!”

“Respectfully seeing off the Heavenly Venerate!”

“Loyal! Ty!”

The shouts from the civilians and cultivators below mixed together, sounding quite noisy and lively. Under Lu Bai’s reminder, no one knelt again.

……

Wind blew through the street, carrying a pungent smell of coal slag.

To avoid being choked by this smell, many pedestrians couldn’t help but cover their mouths and noses.

With industrialization at any cost, different degrees of pollution had appeared in many cities.

In severely polluted places, after going out for a turn and coming back, wiping with a tissue could rub off black impurities.

“Cough cough!”

The owner of a general store covered his mouth and coughed for a while, shrank his neck, adjusted the collar of his new-style shirt, and roughly covered his mouth and nose.

He staggered out of the shop and posted the newly written recruitment information on one side of the shop door.

A familiar owner from the neighboring shop saw this and teased: “Boss Zhou, with such good treatment, you still can’t recruit anyone?”

Hearing this, Boss Zhou sighed helplessly: “Sigh, no way around it. The Heavenly Venerate is too good to those mud-legged folks. In the old days, having food to eat was good enough. With my package of food, lodging, and wages, people would go crazy for it. But now no one even looks at it. What a mess this is.”

“Exactly. I advise you not to recruit anymore. In the end, that little profit won’t even cover the workers’ wages.”

“This labor law.” Boss Zhou clicked his tongue twice, his tone carrying a bit of self-mockery: “It sounds like opening a street-facing shop, but when you calculate it, the money earned is not as good as working in a factory.”

“How does that saying go? If you don’t open the shop, someone else will.”

“If the Heavenly Venerate could pity us bosses a little and change the labor law… Eh? Daoist priest, come in quickly. What would you like to buy?”

Boss Zhou was speaking halfway when he inadvertently saw Lu Bai standing still on the spot. He didn’t care about chatting with the familiar person anymore and immediately enthusiastically recruited him.

Lu Bai chuckled and waved his hand: “I’m not buying. You guys chat.”

Without waiting for Boss Zhou to respond, Lu Bai turned and left.

At the moment he turned, the smile on his face suddenly faded a bit.

As the reform deepens and advances, the drawbacks in various aspects of the law begin to appear, which is inevitable.

In fact, under the spontaneous adjustment mechanism of the market economy, the Pareto principle, also known as the 80/20 rule, will naturally emerge.

And everyone is equal, strictly speaking, is also against human nature.

The harsher it is suppressed, the more fiercely it will rebound after Lu Bai leaves.

Even though he had foreseen it early, when truly feeling it personally, it still produces a strong sense of frustration, inevitably making one suspect what the meaning of change really is.

Especially in this world where greatness belongs to oneself, even ideological liberation and enlightening the civilians don’t mean much.

After all, the weapon of criticism cannot replace the criticism of weapons. Cultivators may not be able to refute the thoughts of mortals, but they can eliminate opposing opinions from the physical level.

Eliminate thoughts, enslave the physical body.

It doesn’t take too long; after a few generations of mortals, mortals will return to that state worse than pigs and dogs, perhaps even worse than before.

One must know, a few generations of mortals is at most one to two hundred years, which is not as long as the lifespan of a Foundation Establishment Stage cultivator.

Lu Bai sighed lightly. There are no eternal experts, nor immortal thoughts.

Even if he is willing and can stay in this world forever, he doesn’t dare guarantee that his ideas will remain unchanged.

……

Back to Qingwang Sect.

He landed on the Dao Seeking Stone in the Palace Front Plaza and sat down cross-legged.

Lu Bai took out a jade slip and sent his divine sense into it.

This jade slip recorded a divine ability called Great Evolution Immortal Art.

As the sect-guarding divine ability of Tianji Pavilion, normally only true disciples of Tianji Pavilion have the qualification to cultivate it.

However, for Lu Bai to get it, it wasn’t that troublesome.

After all, the biggest fist decides. Compared to cutting off the inheritance, letting others see the sect-guarding divine ability is nothing.

After all, cultivating this kind of divine ability requires high aptitude; ninety-nine percent of cultivators find it hard to even get started.

Of course, for Lu Bai, this is not a problem.

“The Great Dao is fifty, heavenly evolution forty-nine, man escapes one…”

This divine ability’s full text is thousands of words. Lu Bai quickly finished reading it and, following the records, simply explored for a while, and could already roughly perform it.

From the name, one can somewhat guess that this Great Evolution Immortal Art is not for attack and killing, but a divine ability for deducing the future and avoiding disasters.

The reason he cultivated this divine ability is that he does not plan to stay long in this deathmatch arena.

To confirm the result of this large-scale social experiment, using deduction is the most time-saving way.

“Let’s try it first.”

Lu Bai formed hand seals with both hands, calmed his mind, and slowly closed his eyes.

In an instant, magic power surged around him, immortal qi steaming outside his body, flowing with misty radiance.

For the first time performing deduction, Lu Bai didn’t quite know how much effort was needed. To avoid failure, he simply poured most of his magic power into it.

In a daze, time seemed to accelerate, a moment becoming a millennium.

In a half-dreaming, half-awake state, a scene of desolation appeared in Lu Bai’s mind.

Barren, broken, devoid of people; he could vaguely smell the rotten odor from this screen.