Chapter 126: Pandas Shall Never Be Enslaved, Unless Provided With Room and Board

Li Yunfei pondered for a moment and then stated decisively, "When breaking through during combat, the mirror's ability should be fixed at the state the challenger was in when the mirror was copied. If the challenger breaks through during the fight but the mirror does not, then naturally, the challenger can defeat it."

Ziwei replied with delight, "You are very clever; that is indeed correct. The current primary purpose of this Pisces Jade Pendant is to allow Zixiao members to overcome themselves and break through their own limits; it has no other significant use."

Li Yunfei asked in confusion, "How can it have no other use? If one were to carry the Pisces Jade Pendant during a battle and copy a mirror image of oneself, wouldn't that be equivalent to having two of oneself joining forces to fight the enemy?"

Ziwei gave a bitter smile. "How could others not think of what you have thought of? But it is too dangerous. Unless it is a last resort, no one dares to use it that way."

"Because once the mirror image dies unexpectedly, the original body can only survive for at most seven hours. Even if there are no injuries on the body, it will inevitably die after seven hours, and there is no way to prevent it. This is a result obtained after multiple experiments."

"Therefore, when fighting a mirror image, the original body must never kill it. Of course, since the mirror image has the exact same strength as the original, it usually cannot be killed anyway."

"When the person controlling the Pisces Jade Pendant discovers that the challenger's original body has already broken through, they will activate the pendant to retract the mirror image to avoid the situation where the challenger might accidentally kill the mirror image after the breakthrough."

Li Yunfei suddenly realized. He remembered that when the country first obtained the Pisces Jade Pendant, it had inadvertently copied a fish.

To test the relationship between the two fish, the researchers injected poison into the mirror-image fish, killing it. The original fish seemed fine at the time, but it died seven hours later, the cause of death being the exact same poisoning.

What a pity; this pendant is somewhat of a white elephant. Unless one is absolutely certain that summoning the mirror image will ensure victory, or if one is trapped in a desperate situation where one must risk everything or face certain death, no one dares to take this risk.

Ziwei looked at Li Yunfei with interest and said, "But your ability seems different from the Pisces Jade Pendant; it sounds more useful."

Li Yunfei said, "Indeed, put that way, my ability is more practical."

"I cannot copy living things because my internal space cannot store them. However, any inanimate object—whether it be rare treasures or magical weapons—can be copied as long as my cultivation level is sufficient."

"And these copied items are truly real; they are not mirror images or anything of that sort."

Abao suddenly raised his hand and said, "I can prove this. Big Brother just helped me copy a few spiritual bamboo shoots. The taste was exactly the same as the ones Uncle Hippo gave me, and the cultivation gained after eating them was real and tangible."

Li Yunfei glanced at him and said with amusement, "You brat are essentially eating my cultivation, so of course it is real."

Abao looked at Li Yunfei with hopeful eyes and asked, "Then, with your current cultivation level, how many spiritual bamboo shoots can you copy at most each time?"

Li Yunfei thought for a moment and said, "Based on the spiritual energy consumption for copying spiritual bamboo shoots, consuming ninety percent of my spiritual energy each time, I could probably copy about twenty thousand."

"Hiss..."

Abao and Xiaobei both gasped in unison, their mouths almost drooling.

Abao giggled happily, "From the time I gained sentience until now, I have only eaten less than ten thousand bamboo shoots in total. Twenty thousand... hehe..."

Ziwei secretly estimated that from the moment he discovered Abao and Xiaobei had gained sentience, he had been feeding them spiritual bamboo and shoots until they transformed during the Yin Spirit stage, totaling about seven thousand shoots.

After their transformation, he passed down cultivation techniques to them. Although they were too lazy and never proactive in their practice, they had been forced by him to train for some time. During this period, the bulk of their cultivation came from spiritual stones.

So far, each of them had consumed nearly ten thousand spiritual bamboo shoots, and combined with the large supply of spiritual stones, their cultivation had reached the late Yin Spirit stage, putting them on par with Li Yunfei.

It seemed Li Yunfei was not lying; the spiritual energy contained in twenty thousand bamboo shoots was almost enough to nurture a late Yin Spirit stage practitioner.

In reality, Li Yunfei had estimated this based on the prices in the System Store.

By using the spiritual energy contained in monster meat and spiritual stones as a benchmark, he could roughly calculate how many bamboo shoots were needed to reach his current level of cultivation.

Just as Ziwei was secretly calculating, Xiaobei looked at him with green-eyed intensity and exclaimed, "Uncle Ziwei, we have decided! From now on, we will follow Big Brother and be his sidekicks. You shouldn't have any objections, right?"

Ziwei’s forehead was covered in black lines. He pulled a long face and said, "You don't want to be elders, but you want to be sidekicks? What are you thinking? Just to have bamboo shoots to eat?"

Abao puffed out his chest—though he actually wanted to hold his head high, his round, chubby belly was too attention-grabbing.

He said righteously, "Pandas will never be slaves, unless they provide room and board."

"Pfft!"

Li Yunfei, Zhang Ziying, Yan Hexiang, and Guo Qilin burst out laughing. Honghong, on the other hand, held her forehead and sighed; she always felt it was embarrassing to have such a pair of foodies around her.

Ziwei was both angry and amused, scolding with a smile, "You gluttons, haven't I been providing you with room and board?"

Xiaobei lowered his head, tapping his index fingers together in front of him, and said aggrievedly, "But your spiritual bamboo shoots are limited, and we don't have enough to eat."

Abao echoed, "Exactly! You even force us to cultivate. If your supply of bamboo shoots wasn't limited, even if we didn't train proactively, we would have already condensed our inner elixir."

Ziwei was so angry he felt like vomiting blood; he didn't even know what to say.

He Ming glared at the siblings and said, "You two are being ungrateful! How many spiritual bamboo shoots does Great Xia produce in a year? Sixty percent of them have gone into your stomachs! How much do An'an and Lele get? And you're still not satisfied?"

Even with Abao's thick skin, he realized he was in the wrong. He said weakly, "In that case, the fact that there aren't enough bamboo shoots isn't your fault; it's just that the heavens aren't providing enough food."

"But the problem now is that following Big Brother means we can eat our fill. This way, the country can save our share of rations for An'an and Lele, and others can get a share too. Isn't that better?"

An'an and Lele were another pair of giant pandas that had gained sentience after them; they had not yet transformed and were being kept at the Zixiao headquarters.

Ziwei was stunned by this and exchanged a look with He Ming.

It seemed... there was some logic to it. Sending these two gluttons away would indeed save a large amount of cultivation resources.

Moreover, Li Yunfei had already joined Zixiao; they were all on the same side, so who was feeding them didn't matter.

These two gluttons wouldn't be of much use if they didn't reach the Inner Elixir stage, and having Li Yunfei look after them would save him a lot of worry!

Thinking of this, Ziwei looked at Li Yunfei hesitantly. "Yunfei, what do you think?"

Li Yunfei said with feigned caution, "Raising them is not a problem, but copying twenty thousand bamboo shoots at once takes a lot of time, and recovering my cultivation after copying them also takes a lot of time."

"I'm afraid the organization might need me to help copy other things, and I can't do nothing but copy bamboo shoots for them every day. However, if I only copy a few hundred a day, it shouldn't have much of an impact."

When Abao and Xiaobei heard this, they shouted excitedly, "That's enough, that's enough! A hundred each per day is plenty; we won't delay Big Brother's important business."

Ziwei also hurriedly said, "Don't worry. We might need your help to copy things in the future, but it won't be too frequent, so as not to delay your cultivation."

"Although you can quickly improve your cultivation through combat, Ziying doesn't have this ability; you need to bring her along as soon as possible."

Seeing this, Li Yunfei finally relented and nodded. "Alright then, I'll take over raising them on behalf of the country."

Ziwei breathed a sigh of relief and said with satisfaction, "Thank you for your hard work. But there is one thing: although they are content to degenerate, you must not spoil them too much."

Li Yunfei replied nonchalantly, "Don't worry. If they don't cultivate properly, I'll deduct their rations."

Abao and Xiaobei wilted immediately upon hearing this, but Ziwei and He Ming laughed. This method was actually quite good.

In the past, because the number of spiritual bamboo shoots was limited, they couldn't reward them even if they performed well, so their enthusiasm was never very high, and they had to be forced to cultivate.

But with Li Yunfei doing this, if they want to eat their fill, they have to cultivate hard, and after working hard, they can get more bamboo shoots. This is a virtuous cycle, and their cultivation will be able to grow more rapidly.