Shuxue spat out his drink, spraying cold water all over the sleeping Zhujiao. “What! I thought you were just joking when about a week ago you said there would be planar war within a year. Now, it’s not a year, but actually 6 months?”

Fengshui solemnly nodded. “Yes, and we must have our own Spirits by then. The Infinity Spiral is a Spiritseed, and it seems you have befriended a Nascent Spirit as well. Only, where is the Spiritseed this Nascent Spirit should be tied to?”

Shuxue rolled his eyes. “In Zhujiao’s forehead, obviously. Why else do you think Zhujiao’s at this meeting? The Sphinx dragged Zhujiao here so he could attend the meeting.”

“I will have to see where to place the Spiritseed later. More importantly, we must proceed on the other preparations for the planar war! Shibing, you will have to finish forming your corp. As for me, I am continuing to establish formations. Later, we will supercharge the 2 Spiritseeds with pearls so that the Spirits can be Severed!” Fengshui said matter-of-factly.

Shuxue began thinking. He had no interest in taking part in this planar war. Actually, the whole point of the Infinity Sector’s rampant formation establishment was so he could make a planar war that he wouldn’t participate in!

After all, the whole point of starting wars was to make other people fight in it.

“Let’s not worry about planar wars.” Shuxue waved his hands in the air. “The eight great sectors are more than amply prepared to fight. Besides, it’s just the Trash plane.”

“The distance between us and Trash is like the distance between Heaven and Earth.” Fengshui said darkly. Then, her eyelid twitched. “I mean, the distance between Trash and us is like the distance between Heaven and Earth.”

Shuxue waved his hands. “I’ll go reassign Dong Feiliao to head the Planar War preparation committee. He’ll definitely get the job done. You don’t need to overburden your mind with this matter, Fengshui. All right, that concludes the meeting, let’s go.”

The ministers filed out of the room, leaving only Shuxue, the Sphinx, and Zhujiao.

The Sphinx scratched a line into the table, causing some wood shavings to gather in his fingernail. After staring at it for a moment, he sniffed it.

“Excellent!” He shouted, standing up. “What’s the price for this ingredient, Shuxue? I’ve just gotten inspiration for a new pill!”

Shuxue peered at the table, before nodding solemnly. “That’s incredibly valuable wood powder obtained from the winter and summer tree, which only grows on top of the stormclouds at the bottom of Ocean 2! It should cost you arou-”

Zhujiao, who had been groggily awakening, instantly shot up. “There are stormclouds at the bottom of Ocean 2?”

Shuxue hesitated for a moment, before resuming his solemn nodding. “Of course there are. It’s also ruled by the number one Severed Spirit, the bluish-green snake-dragon with brilliant red bird wings, white tiger legs, and the black shell of a turtle.”

Shuxue didn’t know anything about winter and summer trees, but the 4-in-1 Severed Spirit was not a lie.

Originally, he had just been trying to get the Sphinx to buy overpriced wood shavings, forcing him into a debt cycle where he would pay more to make pills than he would get for selling them. Then, the Sphinx would stop talking about social justice because he would be too busy making pills to pay off his debts. Sadly, Zhujiao had interrupted him and changed the subject to bluish-green snake-dragon Spirits.

“Wow, that’s so cool!” Zhujiao shouted. “But why would it have legs and wings? Doesn’t it have to swim?”

“Don’t ask me such profound questions.” Shuxue shrugged. “When the mathematical laws decided to make up the 4-in-1 Spirit, they decided to give the snake-dragon legs.”

“But that seems so dumb!” Zhujiao yelled. “Giving a snake-dragon legs is so not needed!”

The Sphinx had finished shredding the table into powder at this time, and he began storing it all in Zhujiao’s interspatial forehead.

“Don’t worry about this dumb kid.” The Sphinx snorted as he stuffed some more powder into Zhujiao’s forehead. “Explaining things to him is like playing music to a cow, a completely meaningless endeavour.”

Shuxue pointed at the Sphinx. “This guy is actually a winged lion with a woman’s head. Daoli said her Spirit is a house whose roof is made out of 3 donuts. How am I supposed to make sense of that? Surely, there must be something inherently mathematical and profound about a house whose roof is made out of 3 donuts. It’s best not to question the creations of the mathematical laws, and just accept them as is. Otherwise, you would look like a close-minded, ignorant fool.”

Zhujiao’s eyes were shining. “Shuxue, let’s go on an adventure!”

“What!” Shuxue blanched. “Where?”

“Ocean 2!”

“Absolutely not!” Beads of sweat were trickling down Shuxue’s forehead. They had just gone on an adventure. How could they go on another one? Shuxue could not lose sight of his end goal: to reach the pinnacle of mathematical knowledge and become one with the laws!

How could he possibly improve upon his training and make breakthroughs when all he did was go around mass murdering people and fighting over restaurant tables? What he needed to do right now was to go into secluded meditation for 6 months, at least!

Shuxue began making up completely fictional things to try dissuading Zhujiao. “We can’t go to Ocean 2! Under the water, people travel inside rainbows. Rainbows are homosexual!”

“Oh my god!” Zhujiao gasped. “That’s horrible!”

“EXCUSE ME?!” The Sphinx shrieked. Before he could start his tirade, Shuxue pushed the Sphinx into Zhujiao’s forehead.

“I’m telling you, Zhujiao! You can’t go to Ocean 2! There, they fight by slapping their bags and biting their tongues!” Shuxue continued to make things up. “You don’t want to bite your tongue, Zhujiao. That’s literally killing yourself. If you go to Ocean 2, you’ll have to fight by biting your tongue and spitting out your own blood, and slapping your bags. I assure you, you don’t want to slap your bags.”

Shuxue gingerly pointed at his groin as he spoke. “Not only that, they even fight with scroll paintings, treasured fans, and fishing nets! They build their cities on the top of giant turtles hundreds of thousands of kilometers long. In Ocean 2, dead bodies tell you to fuck off, and ancestral tombs lie inside a giant chamber pot filled with lightning!” Shuxue said, his voice chopping his fingernail in half and slicing the pig iron that someone had randomly put on the ground.

“What!” Zhujiao gasped. “That’s even more crazy than people who fight with Algebra dragons and derivative artifacts, and train by doing math problems!”

“Yeah, no kidding.” The Sphinx popped out of Zhujiao’s forehead and waved another bag of pills at Shuxue. “You should give me some of what you’re having.”

“Indeed, you two! Everyone in Ocean 2 is crazy!” Shuxue’s voice chopped his fingernail in half again, and the pig iron was sliced again. “If you go there, you’ll become crazy!”

Zhujiao doubled over, vomiting as the Sphinx clambered out.

“Anyway, where was I? ...You fucking shitlords! Did you actually say homosexual rainbows are horrible? Why can’t rainbows be homosexual? Rainbows don’t need to subscribe to your heteronormative-” Shuxue pushed the Sphinx back into the forehead.

“Man, that Sphinx needs to stop talking about social justice. I’m trying to do great things here.” Shuxue wiped his forehead. “When I’m the patriarch of the Tesseract and the historians are recording the legend of Shux-, er, Zhujiao, I’ll need to have them edit out any mention of that unnecessary stuff.”

“Right!” Zhujiao put his hands on his forehead. “But I still want to go to Ocean 2!”

“Why?” Shuxue groaned. “Our Sector needs to take it nice and easy, and slowly expand to conquer this entire plane, one continent at a time. This way, we can safely strengthen ourselves. Zhujiao, if we attract the ire of somebody we can’t possibly beat, the only way we can kill him is through a nonsensical powerup that would absolutely never happen! Do you really want to put us into that ridiculous position by going to Ocean 2, home of the snake-dragon Spirit and the number one mathematical beast clan?”

“Yes, because Plot wants to go!”

“Fuck Plot!” Shuxue sighed. “Why can’t we just do the sensible thing and sit back for a little while, then just roll over the entire plane after the planar war? I’ve never met this Plot you always talk about. Just what does Plot want, anyway?”

Zhujiao paused for a moment, as if he was thinking about something. Shuxue wondered what he was doing, because Zhujiao couldn’t possibly be thinking.

“Plot wants to be excited!” Zhujiao shouted. “Plot likes being twisted, and Plot likes to move forward! Plot hates moving backward, being generic, and being bored!”

“Plot likes… being twisted? Moving forward?” Shuxue’s palm rubbed his face. “That makes absolutely no sense. What a weird guy.”

“If we just don’t do anything, then that’s boring!” Zhujiao yelled. “Plot refuses to be bored! Let’s go to Ocean 2!”

Before Shuxue could protest, they had instantly teleported into the Infinity Treasury. In the blink of an eye, half the pearls in the treasury disappeared, and they teleported onto a beach, next to the walls of a bustling city. A few meters away, the waters of a bluish-green ocean lapped gently on the beach, creating a serene atmosphere that sharply contrasted with the hubbub of the city next to it.

“Fuck you, Zhujiao!”