Adam Brooks simply sat down cross-legged and began to cultivate with focus. Tribulation immortals are not unable to cultivate, but no matter how much immortal spiritual energy they absorb, it’s hard for any of it to settle in the body; cultivation is basically pointless. So Adam Brooks couldn’t even remember how long it had been since he last cultivated.

After ascending, there are many sects in the Immortal Realm. As long as your aptitude isn’t too poor, you can join any sect and obtain their cultivation techniques. But Adam Brooks’s cultivation technique was bought with money.

Drawing immortal spiritual energy into his body, it was continuously sucked away by that omnipresent yet elusive loophole. Ryan Brooks’s body was just a medium, inhaling and exhaling; but now, Adam Brooks only inhaled and didn’t exhale—energy came in but didn’t go out. Like this, who knows how much time passed, but the loophole’s absorption gradually slowed, finally calming down and no longer absorbing immortal spiritual energy.

Adam Brooks opened his eyes and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead—he’d really been frightened this time. Becoming a tribulation immortal was unlucky enough; if he couldn’t even use the one compensatory immortal art for tribulation immortals, he’d definitely be the unluckiest of them all!

Taking a deep breath, he forcefully held it in his body, and that passageway was pushed open. With a “bang,” Ryan Brooks disappeared.

……

In the human world, Adam Brooks had more than a dozen types of bird food laid out in front of him. He sat in a garden plaza, where some plump plaza pigeons fluttered around the center. Adam Brooks scattered handfuls of bird food, watching to see which kind the pigeons liked best—whichever they preferred must be the most “delicious.”

In the end, he settled on one type, picked up the package and looked at it: “As expected, it’s the most expensive one…”

After buying the bird food, Adam Brooks went to the post office and mailed the ballot to the address Ethan Foster had given him. Then he went to an electronics mall in the city and bought the latest Category III film from a sleazy guy with black-rimmed glasses.

Then, at the newsstand outside the electronics mall, he bought the latest issue of a magazine for Ethan Foster.

Flipping through the magazine casually, he easily found the color page for the beauty contest. This was the main commercial project of this famous domestic gaming magazine for nearly half a year, and it had been running for five months, now nearing its end. Besides publishing ballots in the magazine, there was also online and SMS voting.

To prevent duplicate votes, online voting required entering a verification code, which came in two parts per set, with each magazine containing one set. So to vote online, you needed the magazine. SMS voting was much more convenient, but each vote cost one yuan.

Honestly, it was just a promotional money-making scheme.

The entire contest lasted half a year, and in the end, a grand champion would be chosen. The prize was an endorsement contract with a well-known gaming company. Additionally, twenty lucky voters would be randomly selected by computer to win a ten-day tour of Europe.

Adam Brooks flipped through and found the girl Ethan Foster liked, contestant number 35. After makeup, she looked very cool and glamorous. Indigo eyeshadow accentuated her phoenix eyes, her eyebrows were thin and sharply defined, and her neat bangs formed a blade-like arc across her forehead. Her pointed chin tilted up slightly, making her gaze even colder. She wore a purple-blue dress, with wide sleeves edged in a three-finger-width band of white fabric. One hand rested on her snowy thigh, the other gripped the hilt of a long sword behind her.

“This guy, is this really his taste?” Adam Brooks shook his head repeatedly. He wasn’t like Ethan Foster, a rich young master of the Immortal Realm—he’d been through the mortal world countless times. Nowadays, you can’t judge girls by their makeup; even a prehistoric creature could become a fashion beauty with the right makeup.

Flipping further, since this was the first issue of the last month, the magazine published the total vote rankings from the previous five months to encourage readers to support their favorite contestants. The girl Ethan Foster liked, number 35, didn’t have a high vote count—she was only in fifth place. The top-ranked contestant struck a seductive pose, arching her body on the ground, raising her round buttocks, glancing back with a smile, and holding a short knife in her mouth, the blade painted with red ink to look like blood.

Adam Brooks nodded: People these days really like this type—round hips, slim waist, and a chest big enough to suffocate the Pope. No wonder she firmly held first place, leading the second place by over ten thousand votes.

Adam Brooks tucked the magazine under his arm, found a secluded spot, and returned to the Immortal Realm.

……

“Smack!” The magazine was slammed down in front of Adam Brooks. Ethan Foster clenched his fists and roared, “Old Brooks, you just sat by and watched this unfair beauty contest without doing anything?” Adam Brooks frowned, a bit displeased: “Young Foster, what do you mean by that?” Ethan Foster, for some reason, began to earnestly lecture Adam Brooks: “Old Brooks, we are immortals! What are immortals? In the eyes of those suffering in the mortal world, we are the upholders of justice. Haven’t you heard people always say: ‘Immortals bless us, immortals bless us’? This election is unfair—are you really just going to sit back and do nothing?”