Carrying a how to cultivate

Chapter 42: Three in one

It was warm and silent inside the winter gourd with the sweetness of vegetables. Just when Xia Yi stood himself up, the door of the winter gourd closed seamlessly, not letting any light through.

In the dark, Xia Yi asked System, “179. What do we do now? Is there any control system?”

“You need to use your mind to control it. Try. Let it fly.” 179 said.

Xia Yi forced himself not to be too excited. After calming down, he thought, “Fly.”

He felt that he was floating. The bottom of his feet shook a little. It must have been the winter gourd cart flying.

“I am so cool. 179.” Xia Yi’s heart was pounding. A person who had never passed a subject in his high school was now directly driving a plane.

His excited mood kept climbing for around twenty meters until Xia Yi realised a huge problem.

It was pitch black around here. How do I drive without looking outside?

Drive blindly? And arrived at somewhere that it leads?

“179. How can I fly without knowing what’s happening outside?” Xia Yi panicked, so the winter gourd cart started to vibrate, shaking left and right as well.

Xia Yi’s balance inclined on one side, panicking even more, wanting to grab onto something as a support to stand steadily.

With him moving inside, the winter gourd cart flew up and down in the air uncontrollably and rushed towards the ground on the left leaning sideways.

“Ahhh. Host. Make it turn right. It is crashing onto the hill.” With the ability to sense the outside, 179 screamed.

“Go up, go up. There is a tree branch in front of you!” 179’s robot voice went out of tone.

“Stop going up. You are entering the clouds. Down. Down. Don’t fall. Stop stop stop stop.”

179 witnessed the winter gourd magical item performing a stunt show with all kinds of techniques, his soul was already drained, “Host. Don’t panic. Stop first. Float steadily in the air. Steady.”

Xia Yi had already fallen onto the ground in the winter gourd cart, rolling left and right. Not only did this winter gourd look like jade, it also felt like it. Xia Yi was dizzy and his whole body was in pain from all the bumping. He heard 179 shouting. He tried to calm down and stop panicking. Soothing himself, he murmured, “Don’t panic, I am not panicking. The couch is sitting beside me with his foot on the break.”

At last, the winter gourd stopped flying everywhere and floated in midair with a little up-and-down movement. Xia Yi and 179 both exhaled in relief.

“What do we do now? I can’t see outside.” Xia Yi kept calm and asked 179 with a lowered voice.

As if he was afraid that the winter gourd would be disturbed by louder sounds, making it mad.

“Host. That’s why I was telling you using bamboo is better. This is what happens when you contain yourself inside.” 179 wanted to cry, “You can see everything clearly around you 360 degrees on top of a bamboo.”

“Bamboo is not possible. I prefer to crash into a mountain and die in the winter gourd cart instead of stepping on a sleek bamboo flying.” Xia Yi rubbed off the sweat on his forehead, “You don’t even know about the pain of acrophobia.”

“Host. You can use your mind to open a window on the magical item.” 179 suddenly recalled, “I told you so. The magical item knows what you are thinking. You can open a window anywhere.”

“Like this? Let me try.” Xia Yi focused in the dark.

Some light broke into the darkness of the inside of the winter gourd from sideways. And now he could see the blurry figures of the mountains from the peel.

Bit by bit, half of the winter gourd had become transparent glass.

“I can open a window.” Xia Yi exhaled, “Now I can see outside.”

The only problem was that the window was slightly too big. This was French window. With a slight acrophobia problem, XIa Yi peeked outside, then he quickly made the window smaller. He had even made a bay window. To increase the feeling of security in his heart, he added a few guardrail bars to it.

Hm. Not bad. I am satisfied. It is high tech.

“It is quite nice. It is just like the pumpkin ride in Cinderella. No, this is better.” Xia Yi laid his upper body on the windowsill and looked outside, satisfied.

Due to the fact that he was now in the middle level of the foundation phase, although it was nighttime, he could still see clearly.

He saw Kirin crouching on the stairs looking at him in his Wang Zhu Yard, then he smiled and waved at it, “Good boy. Papa will fly with you next time.”

Kirin shook its tail as if it could see him. This must be the telepathy between father and son.

“Host. When are you going to see Liu Si Qian?” 179 reminded Xia Yi.

“Don’t rush. Let’s go after flying a few more rounds.” Then, Xia Yi controlled the winter gourd to fly upwards, “I need to get familiar with my flying equipment. I am going to master all the flying techniques.”

“Up, up, up.” Xia Yi controlled the winter gourd plane with his mind.

The oval green winter gourd went through the clouds among the mountains and halted above layers of clouds.

The gentle sky was silent above him with the stars so close as if he could take them with his hands. With a flash of light, a shooting star slid down beside him like a silver little fish swimming into the sea.

The beautiful floating island afar seemed as if it was born in the starry sky.

Xia Yi lied on the windowsill dazed, thinking, it would be splendid if Zhu was here. I would fly with him into the sky and watch the night sky together. I want to share all the pretty things that I have seen with him.

Then he watched silently for a moment. Xia Yi then said to System, “Let’s go. Let’s go to find Liu Si Qian after flying a few more rounds.”

After saying so, he controlled the winter gourd flying cart to travel freely above the clouds.

“179. This feels too good.” Xia Yi flew in the highest speed, through the clouds, passing the mountains, “I finally understand why superman loves to fly around the earth when he has nothing to do.”

Quick. Quicker. Fly towards the floating island forward.

Hahahahaha. Yes. This is it. Then stop instantly.

Step by step, Xia Yi had learned the skills to fly a car. He could now control it with ease.

“Dash to the cloud in the front, then stop inside, and dashed downwards, U-turn.”

The winter gourd received Xia Yi’s commands and dashed towards the cloud in front of it. Xia Yi lay on the bay window to send commands to the winter gourd cozily. Suddenly, he felt a few shakes of the body of the cart. It glowed with a soft layer of light at the same time.

What is happening? Is there a strong wind?

Xia Yi could not ask 179 in time. Then he felt nothing under his feet. He was not stepping on anything. The walls around him vanished in thin air as well. He was beginning to breathe in breezes of cold wind. There were the howling sounds of the wind beside his ear as well. Then he saw the clouds quickly passing in front of him.

“Ah.” With a frightening scream from his heart, Xia Yi’s spirit had been defeated, “179. What is going on?”

The huge winter gourd cart disappeared all of a sudden and turned back into its original form. It had become a normal winter gourd again. And Xia Yi was riding on that round green winter gourd.

“Host. You have only coated it with one layer of medicine. It is not enough!” 179 screamed with him. “When it reached the time limit, the winter gourd would turn back to its original form.”

Xia Yi’s tears were coming out. As he intended to scream with his opened mouth, a breeze of freezing wind went right in.

With the winter gourd turned back into its original form, it was still doing according to Xia Yi’s order just now. It flew quickly into the clouds and halted suddenly.

“Host. Hold on with your thighs!” 179 saw Xia Yi shake and nearly fell, he shouted uncontrollably, “It only changed its form. It can still fly. Don’t panic!”

“I, I am holding on.” Xia Yi focused all his strength to his thighs to make himself stick onto the winter gourd.

After the winter gourd had finished halting, it began to run its next command, diving.

“I am dying. I am really dying. I am dying in the hands of this crazy winter gourd. Zhu. I will see you in my next life.” Xia Yi closed his eyes. He felt hopeless with the feeling of dropping hit him.

“Host. Hold on.” 179 was still screaming. He wished that he could dash out from Xia Yi’s mind to help him to hold those two thighs.

“All my strength is in the lower part of my body. How do I push even harder?” Xia Yi’s tears were floating in the air.

He was riding on the winter gourd and diving towards the ground just like an atomic bomb. Seeing himself growing closer to the ground, he felt as if his soul had flown to the heavens. His mind was completely blank.

When he closed his eyes and prepared to crash into the ground, the winter gourd stopped.

Feeling everything halted and the expected crash did not hit him, Xia Yi opened his eyes slightly.

Looking around him, he found himself hanging ten feet above the ground. Surrounding him was a bamboo forest. He was obviously back at the Wang Zhu Yard.

“Host. You are alive.” 179 sobbed, with the joy of surviving after a disaster.

Xia Yi’s face was as pale as a sheet of paper right now. His eyes were without a soul. Only a drop of tear slid down from the end of his eye. He moved his legs which he was not feeling. Xia Yi intended to jump onto the ground.

At that instant, the winter gourd moved. It moved again! It was speeding up without any delay, turning right, following the road to quickly flying just above the ground.

“Host. There was still a command of turning right in your orders…” 179 wanted to cry again. “Hold on…”

Xia Yi could not make a screaming sound by now, he closed his lips tight and rode the winter gourd with a pale face.

The winter gourd travelled around at high speed among the mountains in Qi Shan. Through the bamboo forest, through the sea of flowers, passing the clear lake of water and the koi fish.

A few servants were cleaning in the yard. They felt that something passed in front of them at lightning speed without a sound, making all the tidied leaves everywhere again.

“Did somebody fly past just now?” A servant stopped his movements with the broom in his hands, looking at the other servant in confusion.

“I thought that I saw it wrong. So you saw it too.” The other servant followed the direction and looked, “I think he was riding a ball.”

The other servants added comments to the pot, “These apprentices are very inventive. Their magical items were such eye-openers.”

They agreed in their heart, nodding.

After this crazy winter gourd had calmed down finally, Xia Yi did not even know how he got back to the Wang Zhu Yard.

The apprentices of Qi Shan greeted him on the way, he could only nod mechanically and walked back as if his spirit had been lost.

When he was back in the yard, Kirin merrily came up. Xia Yi only extended his arm to pat its head, then he went into the room and fell onto the bed.

“Is Xia here?” Someone shouted in the yard.

“Yes.” Would Liu Si Qian know that he is here and send someone to fetch him? Xia Yi gathered the strength to reply with a hoarse voice, “Come in.”

After knocking on the door twice, Qing Xiu, who was huge, walked in. He was holding a tray, “Xia. I see that you did not go to have dinner. I have brought it here to you.”

While he was talking, he put the tray onto the table, “There is a new rule in the sect recently. All of us have to have three meals a day.”

Xia Yi knew about this, so he nodded and thanked Qing Xiu.

Qing Xiu waved and told him it was nothing. He turned to go away. Xia Yi forced his shaking legs to move to walk him out the door.

Seeing the figure of Qing Ziu disappear in the bamboo forest, Xia Yi turned to close the door.

Then, something came to his mind, “179. He didn’t see Kirin, right?”

“No. Kirin is very good. It hid itself before Qing Xiu came in.” System said.

“Such a considerate good boy.” Xia Yi sighed, then he called Kirin, “Come. Son. Time to eat.”

Kirin jumped out from nowhere and stood in front of Xia Yi, scaring him.

“Don’t pop up like this without a sound again. Alright? Papa cannot be stimulated anymore.” Xia Yi scouted.

Kirin licked Xia Yi’s hand.

When they were back in the room, Xia Yi looked at the dishes in the tray and his stomach turned in an instant. Braised Pork Ribs with winter gourd. Winter gourd braised in soy sauce. Winter gourd pie.

I don’t want to eat these.

Even seeing these makes me feel sick.

Let’s give these all to Kirin.

“Host. After the winter gourd has restored its magical powers, we will go and see Liu Si Qian.” In view of Xia Yi’s lazy look, 179 reminded him.

“I am not riding it. I am not riding it.” Xia Yi shook his head like crazy, “I am not riding it even if there is a power bank attached to it.”

“But you can’t be like this. Look outside. You can’t move an inch without a magical item.” 179 reminded Xia Yi of his existence on a floating island.

“I will just stay in the house, not going anywhere.” Xia Yi lied right back into the bed, ‘I am going to stay in the house until I transmigrated back.“

“Xia. Xia.” At this moment, a few callings echoed from the yard, sounded like Liu Si Qian. Xia Yi hurried outside.

“Aiya, Xia. Why didn’t you find me after you arrived?” Liu Si Qian just put back his gourd into his clothes and saw Xia Yi, so he said with a warm smile, “I heard my apprentices tell me about you, so I decided to come and see. It is really you.”

“I was making a magical item.” Xia Yi pointed at the winter gourd on the table. “I had a test drive. I am still familiarizing myself with it.”

Liu Si Qian glanced at the winter gourd, just when he was about to speak, his eyes fixed on the corner of the yard.

Following his stare, Xia Yi saw Kirin standing there and licking its glowing hoofs without minding a bit.

Crap. Xia Yi was in shock. Kirin looking like this had been seen. Would they want to eliminate it as some mountain spirits or monsters?

Didn’t these cultivators do these killing evil spirits business for a living?

He was thinking of ideas in his mind, but Liu Si Qian pointed at Kirin and said merrily, “You brought Kirin over? Good. Good. Hahahahaha, now we have a kirin in Qi Shan Sect too.”

Then he walked towards Kirin, he circled it to observe it carefully, and said in astonishment, “Mythical creatures are spectacular. Even if it has been fed by leftovers, it still grows handsomely.”

He turned to face Xia Yi, “We heard that the Evil leader Jie Shang had a kirin, but we have no luck seeing it.”

After thinking for a while, he sighed, “But we have also heard that his kirin had been fed by miraculous fruits and cultivation cores. It had not been fed with any food from the mortal world before.”

Xia Yi was stupefied, what did that mean?

Wait. Is the kirin he is mentioning not the same as my Kirin? It is not a name but a species?

“Wait. Did you see it like this when you were at my place?” Xia Yi asked Liu Si Qian.

“Yes. It was just like this.”

“With a horn and four glowing hoofs?” Xia Yi was finding it hard to believe.

“What would it look like if not so? Would it look like a dog?” Liu Si Qian asked in confusion.

A moment later, he felt that his answer was funny and laughed.

Xia Yi was stunned, “179. What did Kirin look like in the farming world from your point of view?”

“A dog.” 179 answered without hesitation.

With a long exhale, Xia Yi thought, “So it seems that these cultivators did not think Kirin was just a dog.”

“A dog looking like this is absolutely normal. Kirin grew better than the other dogs. It has four glowing hoofs and a horn on its forehead. Even when all the dogs in the village run together, I can spot him out.” 179 sounded proud and honored.

“Right. I came here to ask you something.” Liu Si Qian stopped Xia Yi’s thoughts. He turned into a stern look and continued, “It’s Tian Quan, Cheng Ming. After he came back from the utopia, he told us that he met the immortal honourable leader at your place. Is that true?”

Xia Yi immediately waved, “It was a misunderstanding. Zhu just looked like your leader. They are not the same person. Mingie, Cheng Ming has mistaken.”

“I see. I thought so. After all these years, Tian Quan could not tell the difference between me and Tian Xian.” Liu Si Qian nodded understandingly, “Come to think about it, it has already been over twenty years since the leader had been missing. Therefore, when I heard Tian Quan mentioning this, although I felt there was something off, I had to confirm it.”

“However, an apprentice reported seeing the house of Ciang Yi the leader on the main island Mount Yu Shu. We did not know the exact situation, but according to the apprentice’s description, we were ninety percent sure of it. We just don’t know if the area was enchanted by the leader or if it was just an illusion left by the leader when he went travelling.” Liu Si Qian sounded hopeless and exhausted.

“Now that our leader and some apprentices had been kidnapped by the fallen devils, we had attacked the demonic world a few times with some other cultivating sects, but we still were unable to rescue them. It was only an act of undermining ourselves, deteriorating our strength. I am afraid that we might need some time to recover from that. Now we could only hope that the leader could be found to lead us.”

Xia Yi thought for a while, then he told him about the incident of him bumping into Ciang Yi.

Your leader knew about you. However, judging by his egoistic look, I am not sure if he would rescue his apprentices. Just don’t be too hopeful.

Liu Si Qian was shocked upon hearing the news, “So the information from that apprentice is true. You met the leader that night. But why didn’t he show up after all these days?”

Xia Yi shook his head, “That, I don’t know.”

“Right. Is Meng well at that side?” Liu Si Qian recalled about Meng Wan Zi, he could not help but frowned, “I would not worry as much if it was another person, but him and his apprentice had always been seeing themselves above everyone, they may not be able to get familiar with the mortal life in the utopia. They may seem left out.”

“They are doing quite well. Old Meng tidied a house up himself. The decorations were quite nice. And he had blended in well.” Xia Yi answered.

It was a pity that he did not have a camera to take photos of Meng Wan Zi wearing a big cotton coat, hiding his hands in the coat and crouching with Mr. Wang in the ridges to talk about the harvest.

He was good at picking up the cow feces with a bamboo basket on his back.

“Then I am relieved.” Liu Si Qian sighed in relief.

Then he greeted Xia Yi thankfully, “Speaking of this, we survived in the utopia all because of you. As long as this magical circle had not been demolished, our apprentices could be sent there. They lose their powers in the utopia. And we cannot bring anything valuable with us. Last time Tian Quan had prepared well, but he was sent there with one stick and one bowl only, leaving a lot of jewels on the ground. Ai…”

Xia Yi quickly replied, “It was nothing. I am half an apprentice of Qi Shan too. I was just doing what I could.”

“Then you should live here in Qi Shan in ease. This Wang Zhu Yard belongs to you. You can do whatever you want to. I will tell a few more servants to come here to serve you.” Liu Si Qian said.

“There is no need. I only need them to clean the yard from time to time. I don’t need people to serve me.” Xia Yi waved his hand quickly, not accepting the offer.

Lying around eating melon seeds, ordering those teens who were around eleven to twelve made him uncomfortable.

It was late at night. Liu Si Qian did not stay any longer. He said his goodbye to Xia Yi and went away riding his gourd. Xia Yi again fell into the bed heavily, sighing.

How is Zhu now? Is he panicking and calling everyone in the village to search for him?

Maybe he won’t? He had told him about this before. And he watched him disappear.

It is just that he may have worried and searched all over anyways.

We were having a great wedding night. But the groom just vanished like that, leaving my wife behind.

Xia Yi rolled around in bed with a lot on his mind. Kirin was lying in a dog house made of mattress beside the bed, looking at him obediently with a pair of half-opened golden eyes.

“Sleep. Stop thinking about it. It is useless to think about it. We don’t know when we are going back.” Xia Yi stretched out to pat Kirin’s head and cover himself with the blanket.

When he was up, it was daytime. Xia Yi looked around him the moment he opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was that creature with a horn on his bedside.

“Ai. We are not back.” Xia Yi felt sad and closed his eyes.

“Host. You are free anyway. Let’s figure out how to use that magical item.” 179 was planning something.

“I don’t wanna move.” Xia Yi kept lying in bed.

“You can’t see the rainbow if there is no rain. No one succeeds casually.”

“Do you not have to attend the morning meeting? Don’t be late.” Xia Yi only wanted System to shut up.

“We haven’t been meeting in the morning for a few days.” After some time, 179’s voice rang slowly, “The technical system went somewhere to learn again. Then we lost contact.”

“How long has it been?”

“Right after Cheng Ming transmigrated.”

Xia Yi rolled over absentmindedly, “Don’t rush. After a few of those MLM points had been demolished, the technical system would come back.”

“This is not MLM. We really lost connection.” 179 explained, “We can find the technical system anywhere with a network, electrical appliances or electricity, but we can’t catch his signal.”

“Stop worrying. He has been through a lot. It’s alright.”

“Hope so.” 179 sounded gloomy.

Sensing that the system was depressed, Xia Yi sat up in bed, “Go. Let’s look into the magical item.”

“I am turning it big. Record the time. See how long it can keep its shape.” Xia Yi took the winter gourd and placed it in the middle of the yard, thinking of the commands in his mind.

The winter gourd glowed with green light and grew huge instantly, looking like a green-painted house in the middle of the yard.

Xia Yi touched his chin, “179. Record the time for me. Let’s see how long it begins to change back into its original form.” After saying so, he went to the lavatory to clean himself up.

When he came out from the lavatory, he glanced at the yard and found that the gigantic winter gourd was still standing there.

“179. Keep staring at it. I am going to have breakfast.” Then, he went to the dining room and removed the yarn cover on top of the table.

Nice. There were seven or eight dishes of dimsum and a bowl of steaming porridge.

These were sent by a servant in the morning. They must have used some magic to keep it from turning cold.

Xia Yi sluggishly enjoyed the sumptuous breakfast. Then he took a handkerchief to clean his mouth and came to the yard.

“179. What is going on with this winter gourd? It is not turning back.” Xia Yi was shocked.

You are fine when I place you in the middle of the yard. And you just go crazy when you are in the sky?

“I think it is similar to a smartphone. Placing it there would be in its standby mode, not much power is drained. However, when it is in the air, it is like a phone with all these programmes running and the power consumption grows dramatically.” 179 explained after analysing.

“Host. Do you want to try in the sky?”

Try? How would he dare to try? He would only use this winter gourd as a tent from now on.

Xia Yi thought in his mind. He transformed the winter gourd into a peanut-sized jade item and put it into his sleeve.

“Then, host. As we are in the cultivation world now, let’s begin to cultivate.” This was truly a system that loved his job. He did not seem to be able to live a day in his life without working.

“What should I do to cultivate? You do not expect me to stay here forever, do you? I am not cultivating. I am going home.” Xia Yi hugged Kirin on his side, using his hands to pat its big head. Sadness hit him, “I am going back to my wedding night.”

“I am not going anywhere. I am not doing anything. I am waiting to get back home.”

System did not speak for a while, “If that is so, host, why don’t we walk around to see some beautiful sceneries and some special mountains and waters? Just like taking a walk. Locking yourself in the yard is not good for you.”

“I don’t wanna see those.”

“Then let’s go and feed the cranes and play with the koi fish.”

“How about watching the little apprentices cultivating? Right. There are a lot of female apprentices. They are all on Mount Teng Xiu. They grow more beautiful as they cultivate. Their figures were curvy as well.” 179 spoke in a way intending to tempt Xia Yi.

“What do you mean?” Xia Yi sounded alarmed and condemned System, “Now that Zhu is not here, you are trying to get me to see the girls?”

179 felt ashamed instantly. Upon hearing his condemnation, he felt as if he was really those wicked friends who like to tell people to mess around.

“But because you have already suggested that, I will unwillingly go and have a look.” Then Xia Yi swiftly went to the front door.

“Yi!” Just when he reached the door, a person coming this way shouted with a surprised tone, “Hahahaha. It’s really you.”

It was Cheng Ming.

“Mingie.” Xia Yi felt excited when he saw someone he knew in this world.

“I missed you so much. I had no idea that you would be transferred here. I am so excited about this.” Cheng Ming walked up happily, “I came as soon as I knew you were here last night.”

“You were here last night? I must have been sleeping and didn’t hear you.” Xia Yi imagined the scene of Cheng Ming visiting but could not get in, feeling bad about it.

A hint of embarrassment arose on Cheng Ming’s face, “It’s not like that. I had been walking around to search for the road to the Wang Zhu Yard. Then I somehow went back. I had a servant leading me here this morning to get here.”

He almost forgot that he was bad at recognising paths.

Cheng Ming then enthusiastically hugged him, “It must not be easy for you to get here. Let me show you around to see the stunning views of Qi Shan. Right. Where do you intend to go just now?”

Xia Yi was too embarrassed to tell him about going to see the female apprentices on Mount

Teng Xiu, and so he said, “I was just going to wander around casually.”

“You can’t just wander around. Let me take you to a great place.” He looked to the left and to the right, then lowered his voice to talk to Xia Yi, “Mount Teng Xiu has great views. You will know when you are there.”

Then he waved his hand to summon his magical item, but recalled something, “I heard that Kirin is here too?” Then he looked around.

Kirin was sneaking in the yard, peeking with half of its head sticking out. As it saw it was its apprentice, it growled.

“So Kirin is really here.” In excitement, Cheng Ming yelled, “Kirin. Come. Let’s play.”

Xia Yi was worried about people seeing Kirin as a monster, but seeing Liu Si Qian and Cheng Ming react, he could finally feel relieved. He also called out, “Son. Come. Let’s go together.”

Kirin went out jogging a little, it excitedly shook its tail which had been pointing down, creating a few deep indentations on the stone pavement with a few sparks. With a few cracking sounds, the stone pavement started to break apart.

“Right right. Don’t shake your tail. You are damaging public properties.” Xia Yi immediately stopped it.

Cheng Ming opened his arms. There was a piece of square metal in his palm with a metal spoon on it. He swung his hand and it instantly grew bigger in the air. It was like a Simmons mattress.

“This is your magical item?” Xia Yi stared at that mattress with glowing light in his eyes.

“Yes, this is a compass.” Cheng Ming did a light jump, his slightly bigger body seemed light, and he stood right on it.

“This magical item is good.” Xia Yi used his hand to touch it, then he thought of something and asked in doubt, “It is not flying vertically, right?”

“No. Only the young ones like to travel with vertical magical items. I am old. I can’t take those simulations.”

Fine then fine then. Xia Yi happily climbed up the Simmons mattress, “Let’s go. Let’s look around here. I can remember the paths well no matter where you are bringing me. I have a good sense of direction.”

Then he called upon Kirin after climbing up the mattress, “Son. Son. Come.”

“Kirin would follow us itself.” Cheng Ming said. Right after saying so, the mattress flew steadily.

“You are not expecting it to run underneath–” Xia Yi swallowed his unsaid words back in.

Those neon hoofs of Kirin suddenly glowed with a stronger light, as if a few clouds of silver cold fire, and it just flew after that and silently followed the mattress.

“179. Am I seeing it wrong? Kirin can fly. It is flying.” Xia Yi murmured.

“Host. This is the first time I’ve seen a flying dog as well.” 179 sounded as shocked as he was.

My Kirin is a kirin. It is a shame that we don’t have Baidu here. If I could, I would search about my son’s noble identity.

“The ones that could eat a lot are not kirins, right?”

“Those which we blew up with crackers during new year– Those are not. It was New Year’s Eve.”

Xia Yi breathed out in relief. He felt proud somehow after thinking about it. He was only feeding a dog and it turned into a mythical creature. How special am I? Hoho.

This magical item of Cheng Ming is good. It is far better than those other weird flying items. And with Cheng Ming’s direction changing, the big spoon in the middle also turned slightly.

“This compass pointed South always, right?” Xia Yi asked.

“Correct.” Cheng Ming stood steadily in the very front with his hands behind him, his sleeves swaying in the wind, his eyes were wise and focusing on the front. No one should be able to tell that he was bad at recognizing paths.

“Then why do you still get lost?”

“That is because I did not know which way to go from the very beginning.” Cheng Ming answered straightforwardly.

Xia Yi was about to say something, then he saw Cheng Ming said to him in a hurry, “Lower your head.” He sounded nervous.

“Not good. Are we bumping into enemies? The fallen devils?” A fear hit Xia Yi, and so he obediently lowered his head.

Then Cheng Ming’s voice rang again, “Take two steps back and raise your head again.” Xia Yi immediately moved back two steps and raised his head, swiftly looking around.

There was nothing weird. Up, around, down, nothing. There were only clouds.

“I was taking a turn just now. The base spinned and I was afraid that the spoon would hit your head. Hoho.” Right after Cheng Ming finished his sentence, he shouted again, “Lower your head.”

The metal board spinned at high speed. A shadow passed through and it was that gigantic spoon handle.

Xia Yi instantly leaned down with the spoon handle just passed on top of his head.

I knew it. How is Cheng Ming standing on the side with the mattress this big?

“Hm? Where am I?” Cheng Ming asked in confusion, “Yi, do you remember the way back?”

I am lying on this board and cannot look up. How am I supposed to recognise the path?

Xia Yi tried to raise his head, “Don’t turn. Let me stand up first.” Then, he slowly stood up, unsteadily.

“Right. You can stand. When the spoon handle comes at you, you can jump to avoid that. But you must look clearly at the road, or else we will not be able to get back.”

Xia Yi looked at the area outside of the metal board and felt light-headed.

It is already very good for me to stand. Now you want me to jump back and forth ten thousand meters above ground?

“Kirin. Son. Come and let Papa hold onto you.”

Kirin flew towards Xia Yi obediently and stood on the board to let him hold onto its neck.

“Attention. I am turning.” Cheng Ming alerted them loudly.

You are bad at recognising paths, why are you still turning as if you know the way? Can you not just walk straight?

“One, two, three. Son. Jump.”

Kirin jumped with Xia Yi.

It was lucky to see a green and beautiful mountain in front of them after a little while. The mountain was so tall that it reached into the clouds. Cheng Ming merrily said, “We have arrived at Mount Teng Xiu.”

The metal board slowly descended and stopped at the foot of the mountain.

“I can’t remember other places but I remember how to get here well.” After he finished his sentence, Cheng Ming realized that he was not speaking appropriately. He peeked at Xia Yi to see that he did not look awkward, then he explained, “The scenery is so nice around here, so I come over often.”

Hoho, you do not need to explain, I understand.

Following a small path, Cheng Ming introduced in detail to Xia Yi, telling him what kind of tree this was, what kind of fruit that was.

Then he stopped and said disappointedly, “It is such a pity that I did not have the opportunity to taste the fruit of the heavens and was sent back here before I could do so.”

Xia Yi felt pity about it.

He saw Cheng Ming looking after those radishes carefully with all his attention.

He could say that he looked as if he was taking care of a woman after giving birth to a child instead of taking care of the farmland.

At the end, right when the radishes could be harvested, he was transmigrated.

“Right. 179. Didn’t I tell you to put those radishes into the system storage space? Let’s see if we can take it out.”

“Affirmative. Host. I am a cultivation system in the first place.” 179 said.

“Then take a few out and make Mingie happy for now. We can let him take those to braise pork ribs.” Xia Yi said.

After 179 spoke, Xia Yi felt a weight in his hands. A few items appeared in his hands.

Is this my radish? Xia Yi looked down to observe.

That thing looked like a radish, but it was much smaller, it looked more like ginseng. The outside of it was red in color, it was sleek and transparent, and glowed under the sunlight just like a gem.

Cheng Ming looked this way at this moment. His eyes fixed on the radishes and screamed excitedly, “The fruit of the heavens! Yi, you have brought them here!”

This is truly magical. In their eyes, Kirin is not a dog, and it turned into a real kirin. This radish has changed as well and has become the fruit of the heavens according to Cheng Ming.

Xia Yi wanted to ask 179 about it, but he figured that he would not be satisfied with the answer.

As expected, after hearing his question, 179 asked him in return, confused, “Do radishes not look like this? Red with glowing light. Although the other radishes did not look the same, our radishes were growing great.”

Cheng Ming took the fruits of the heavens from Xia Yi and held them as if those were his treasure. He smiled so hard that his eyes were narrowed into two lines. He praised repeatedly, “My baby, my baby.”

Seeing him this way, he would not make braised pork ribs with those, so Xia Yi asked, “How do you plan to eat these fruits of the heavens?”

“How? Of course I am going to slide a thin layer, keep it in my mouth and eat it. I will put the others in a jade box and use magic to store them.” Cheng Ming waved his hand and the fruits disappeared from his hands. They must have been kept in some space of some ring or something.

There were a lot of those in cultivation novels. Didn’t every normal-looking ring either have a space or an old man contained in them?

“Mingie. If you all of a sudden have a few hundred catties of fruits of the heavens, how would you plan to eat them?” Xia Yi asked.

Cheng Ming eyed him with condemnation, “These are fruits of the heavens and not just radishes, how can we count them in catties?” After thinking for a moment, he sadly said, “However, in your farmland in the utopia, you must have around a hundred of them, then there should be catties of it.”

A hundred of them? You just did not see my 3 acres land of harvest.

“Mingie. From now on, you can eat as much as you like. You can eat the fruits of the heavens every meal. You can make soup or roast them if you like.” Xia Yi waved just like the others in this world, and told 179 to talk the fruits out at the same time.

Instantly, a pile of fruits of the heavens appeared in front of Cheng Ming. They glowed with red light, almost blinding his round widened eyes.

“You had put a lot of effort in planting these fruits of the heavens as well. These are your share.” Xia Yi said loudly with pride, as if he was a rich guy asking if others could see the yacht that he was in. He had that type of good feeling he had when he was spending a lot of money.

Then, he took one and gave it to Kirin, “Son, you eat too.” Kirin made a happy howl and started to chew it in its mouth.

A few swallowing sounds could be heard from Cheng Ming’s throat, then he fell with rolled eyes.

Chapter 53: I cannot see through this world

Xia Yi tried to remember, to remember when the ultraman was last seen. Some fragments of memories passed through his mind. However, despite how hard he tried to grab those fragments, those memories just slipped away from him. Suddenly, he remembered something that happened a long time ago.

That was so long ago, making him unable to judge if it had really happened or if it was only a dream. But at this precise moment, connected with all the things around him, he thought that it might have actually happened before.

When he was a child, one night, he awoke because he wanted to go to the potty. With an unclear mind, he held the ultraman beside his bed and went to the loo with eyes half-closed. When he pushed the door open to walk from his bedroom to the dining room, stretching his hand to search for the light switch on the wall, he couldn’t find anything. He only felt as if a slightest breeze of wind brush passed him, and he heard the rustling of the trees and the sounds of the bugs in the night which should not be there.

His sleepiness was blown away at once. He opened his eyes abruptly, only to find that he was not in the dining room of his house, but in a silent garden. There were trees and bushes half a man tall around him. A rockery with rough outline laid on the ground not far from him, looking horrific under the moonlight.

Xia Yi stood there wearing his teddy bear pajamas, his ultraman in his arms. He widened his pair of round eyes, observing his surroundings in shock. The shadows of the trees were all over the place, shaking under the pale white moonlight, looking like monsters ready to pound onto someone, waving their claws and showing their fangs.

The sound of the cat meowing echoed from a corner. A black cat jumped onto the top of the rockery gracefully. Its eyes were sparkling. Those eyes were fixed on Xia Yi.

Xia Yi took a few steps back, then he screamed uncontrollably. He was crying for his mother while running frantically in the garden in fear, searching for an exit. He ran past a long corridor with a wooden floor. He could hear his flippers hitting onto the wood, making tapping sounds. At the end of the road, there was a pool with an arch bridge on it. He cried out loud in the garden and ran on the curvy road. And he did not notice his ultraman, which had been in his arms all along, had already been lost somewhere.

Some footfalls rang behind him. Someone was chasing him in a hurry.

He could not recognize any of these people. They were all in gowns that he had seen in dramas.

Firstly, they looked at him in shock. Then, they pulled and checked his teddy bear pajamas. They kept calling him “young master” and picked him up to walk backwards even though he was resisting, kicking and hitting.

A sense of panic rose in him. Where were these people taking him to? He began to struggle desperately. He kicked and hit the person around him with closed eyes, calling his mom with a screeching voice.

Not until the sound of the switch clicking and the room lit up, did he hear his mother’s voice rang at the same moment anxiously, “Yi. What’s going on? Yi.” And he had been pulled into a warm hug.

He felt the blinding light, and he heard the familiar voice of his mother. He stopped crying immediately and grabbed his mother’s arm tightly, opening his eyes again. It was as if a curse had been lifted. There were no more garden, rockery, corridors and people around him. He was standing in the middle of the lit dining room.

His father walked out as well. He asked tensely as he was wearing his clothes, “What’s going on? Yi.”

“I, I wanted to go to the bathroom. And then I couldn’t turn on the light. I was standing in an unknown place. You weren’t there. Some bad people in long dresses wanted to take me away and sell me.” Xia Yi was crying and telling his story.

“Bad people in long dresses?” His father asked him, confused, stretching his arm to feel the temperature of his forehead.

“They were wearing those dresses that the people in the drama mommy watched, and they called me young master.” Xia Yi sobbed.

His parents had a quick glance at each other. Then, they held him up, “That was just a nightmare. Yi. You are at home now. Yi is such a good boy, no one would want to sell you.”

His mother patted him on the back while she was walking, “Come and sleep with mommy tonight. Alright?”

Xia Yi nodded and laid his head on his mother’s chest.

So that was a dream. There was no black cat nor bad people, and there was certainly no terrifying long corridor.

When his mind was running through his memories, Xia Yi suddenly realized that the very first time he transmigrated here when he was picking mushrooms with Zhu, he was standing on an arch bridge feeding fish. That arch bridge looked just like the one he saw when he was running in the long corridor.

There was, too, a wooden-floored corridor painted red beside the pool.

What he had seen when he was little, was the yard of the magistrate’s house.

So, the ultraman was lost on that night when he was running. It was then picked up by the Xia Yi on this side and served as his toy ever since. They had even made clothes for it.

Why would his parents lie to him and tell him that his ultraman had been stolen? What really did they know to make them hide the truth from him? His parents on either side looked exactly the same. Is this because of the fact they were parallel worlds, or… are they really his parents?

But it was not right. If they were his parents, why did they pretend to not know him? Also, they did not seem like they were faking it. With the ultraman in his hand, he stood on the spot, flabbergasted. Questions came up one by one in his mind.

Gu Wen Zhu’s hand waved in front of him all of a sudden, “Yi. What are you thinking about? You have been dazed for a long time.”

“Zhu. I think I have discovered something huge.” Xia Yi said, stupefied, his hands grabbing that ultraman tightly.

“What thing? Can you tell me?” Seeing Xia Yi’s stunned expression turned into a terrified one, Gu Wen Zhu’s face also became stern.

After some thoughts, Xia Yi pulled Gu Wen Zhu to sit on the bed together. He said, wearing a serious expression on his face, “Zhu. I just found that, I feel like, I had transmigrated to this place before when I was little. This toy is proof. And maybe, I am saying maybe, that my parents on this side are the same as my actual parents. And the Xia Yi on this side, is me myself. If the Xia Yi on this side is me myself, what happens if I transmigrate here from the farming world?”

“What happens?” Gu Wen Zhu, looking confused, having understood none of the content that Xia Yi was speaking of.

“I know what will happen.” 179’s sharp voice rang, with a hint of excitement, “Gu Wen Zhu will have two wives.”

“If this was a parallel world, there would be two Xia Yis. But ever since I arrived here, it was as if the other Xia Yi had evaporated. As for me, I just live his life in replacement of him. Say, maybe I and that Xia Yi were the same person. And when I came over, he just vanished? Or, he may have merged with me.”

Gu Wen Zhu was still looking at Xia Yi with a confused expression.

On the contrary, Xia Yi was not paying attention to him at all. He was immersed in his hypothesis. His eyes lit. He looked sure and excited.

“I am now going to ask my mother about this toy.”

After saying so, Xia Yi took the ultraman, opened the door, and dashed towards his parents’ house.

“Young master is here. Madam is still resting.” His mother was about to go to the lavatory when a loud greeting echoed from outside the door.

Then the door was pushed open. Xia Yi walked in, panting.

His father was very upset, but as soon as he saw Xia Yi this way, he could no longer be mad with him, “Do you have no manners now? You just barge into your parents’ house without informing us? I see you have been acting without manners. No wonder why you have yourself married to a man.”

When he mentioned this, he felt a pain in his heart.

Xia Yi did not do much thinking, he showed that ultraman and looked at his mother with his eyes shining, “Mother. Look at this. Do you know this? Do you remember how we get it?” His mother took the ultraman and observed it in confusion, “Isn’t this what you picked up in the yard when you were small? I wanted to throw this weird thing away, but the servants said that it was yours. So I kept it and made clothes for it.”

“Then… mother, do you remember how I was as a kid?” Xia Yi continued to ask.

“How you were as a kid? Just like that, naughty, not listening to your parents. Every time your father got so angry that he intended to beat you up, before that broom could hit you, you would cry like no tomorrow and hide in the closet. Especially there was this once you failed your exam, your teachers called your father…” Speaking of this, his mother stopped talking. She stood there with her open mouth, puzzled.

“Mother. Keep going, keep talking.” Xia Yi said with trembling lips. His voice was extremely soft, as if he was afraid his voice would interrupt his mother’s remembrance, as if he was scared that he would wake up from this beautiful dream.

Mother Xia stood blankly, with a confused and puzzled expression, “Why can’t I remember? Why can’t I remember about your childhood?”

Father Xia was mad, but he could not help but turned his head to ask in an unfriendly manner, “What are you talking about?”

“Father. Think, think about my childhood.” Xia Yi saw that his mother was still looking half-awaken, and he hurriedly asked his father.

“You still dare to ask about your childhood. You could drive people mad. Like, like…” Father Xia’s words got stuck as well, just like Mother Xia’s did. He froze. “Why am I not able to recall my son’s childhood?” After a while, Father Xia turned to his wife, asking blankly, “Do I have hysteria?”

Gu Wen Zhu sat in the room and waited for a long time. Then he heard footfalls coming from under the roof. As the door had been pushed open, Xia Yi went in with a soulless expression. He looked straight in front of him with that ultraman in his hand.

“Yi. What happened?” Gu Wen Zhu waved his hand in front of him.

Xia Yi grabbed Gu Wen Zhu’s hand, looking at him with a blank expression, “Zhu. I cannot see through this world.”

Gu Wen Zhu pulled his arm and walked towards the bed, “Didn’t you go to ask your parents? What did they say?”

Xia Yi just let Gu Wen Zhu push him down to sit on the bed like a puppet. He murmured, “Zhu. I think my parents haven’t died. No, they did die, I buried them. But, their souls came over here? And their memories have been erased? This makes no sense. Who would do such a thing?”

“179. You heard the whole thing. Can you analyze it for me?” Xia Yi seeked help from the system.

“This… Um… um…” 179 could not answer.

Xia Yi lied onto the bed heavily facing up, he said loudly with closed eyes, “Zhu. Are my parents on this side my real parents?”

Gu Wen Zhu took the ultraman from his hand and put the petite gowns on it, “Real parents or not, they are still your parents.”

Upon hearing this, Xia Yi was flabbergasted. He then stared at the head board of the bed.

After some time, he looked like he had something figured out. He opened his eyes to look at Gu Wen Zhu, satisfied, “Zhu. You are right. I don’t want to think about this anymore. No matter if they are real or not, I have parents again.”

“Yes.” Gu Wen Zhu patted his face affectionately, “You have parents again.”

Taking the ultraman with clothes on, Xia Yi put it beside the pillow, just like the old times. Then he turned, burying his face into Gu Wen Zhu’s arms, hearing his heart pounding steadily and powerfully, falling asleep in peace.

[BL] Carrying a Hoe to Cultivate

Carrying a Hoe to Cultivate
扛起锄头去修仙[穿书]

Status in COO
69 Chapters (Completed)

Description
Xia Yi had transmigrated, with a cultivation system into a farming novel. Orz

Mission: Becoming an apprentice in the Qi Shan Sect to obtain a mythical beast.

With his hoe on his shoulder, Xia Yi gazed at the large area of farmland in front of him, he almost blacked out: How am I going to complete cultivation missions in a farming novel?

System: It’s fine. There is always a fix to a problem.

And so, Xia Yi was forced to go between the two worlds, farmed a bit here, cultivated a bit there.

Although the rubbish missions were torturing him to death, there was always a loyal doggie beside him.

Xia Yi: Cultivating is so hard.

Gu Wen Zhu: I’ll teach you.

Xia Yi: Farming is so exhausting.

Gu Wen Zhu: I’ll help.

Xia Yi: I don’t want to have a child.

Gu Wen Zhu: Yes, you want to.

As the worlds mixed up, the characters in the cultivation novel frequently appeared beside him.

The whole thing was a mess, traveling between two worlds. Claiming to be relatives with people, arranging a marriage, becoming sworn brothers with others.

Why not let his dog at home join the party too!

Breaking Through the Clouds 2: Swallow the Sea

SummaryWu Yu, a newcomer of the Public Security Bureau, is gentle and frail. He doesn’t care about the difficulties posed by Bu ZhongHua, his strict boss, and only wants to stay in the background to be paid on time with enough for food. However, no one knows that this young man’s head is targeted by top drug traffickers for a large bounty or that this courageous young man has once slaughtered the dragon of the abyss. With a chain of interlocking cases, a series of troubles come one after another. Can the two people work together to survive through the difficulties?Adapted to Manhua from the Novel.…

សង្សារពាល

Across the Universe: A BFDI Oneshot Collection

i’ll take the chance

an epistolary●｡｡●●where cole estrañero hasbeen simping for their taekwondoathlete and the highest sectionof stem; vice president, kaiara alcaraz for three years.he has been contented watchingher from afar, until he accidentallyhit her of a baseball.not knowing ‘that’ incident willlead to them to more coincidences.now that their paths had crossed,will cole grab the chance to get toknow his ‘happy crush’?will he take his chance on her?…

random ass things

Just some random stuff like memes, vents, etc..…

Cultivating

Learn the Cultivating skill at the capital city of your realm. The «Cultivator» NPC will teach you the specialization. Pair this with the trade skill Apothecary.

Contents

Cultivating

Cultivating is a time-based Gathering Profession within Return of Reckoning that allows players to grow seeds and ingredients.

Almost all ingredients created by Cultivating can be used by the Apothecary Crafting profession, so it’s convenient to pair both these skills onto the same character.

Cultivating is one of the cheapest and easiest Gathering professions to use, but is limited by a time-based waiting system per craft, so it’s perfect if you’re doing something else in the background, like watching a show or slaughtering your enemies on the battlefield.

How to Cultivate

Before we get started, you’re going to want an add-on for this Skill. (Trust us!) The vanilla (default) interface for Cultivating is rough, and requires constant interaction.

1. Picking a Seed

First, you’re going to need to some seeds! The Craft Supply Merchant in your capital city will have a lot to choose from, and each will provide a different effect. Read the short description for the seed to see what it will grant.

Plant the seed (left click the first box if using Miracle Grow) and it will begin to grow. The more powerful the seed, the longer this will take.

2. Soil, Water, and Nutrients

You can add Soil, Water, and Nutrients to both reduce the grow time and add other benefits, like increased chance of a Critical craft, a Special Moment, or a reduced fail chance.

These are entirely optional, and many players actually skip using them entirely to save on cost. In some cases, like if you’re having bad luck getting a Special Moment, certain items like the Watering Cans may come in handy. (More on this below.)

You can only add these at a specific time during the grow cycle, but thankfully, the MGRemix add-on can remember your preferences and do this for you.

3. A perfect Cycle

Now you’ve waited, and your seed has finished growing. It’s time to harvest! Harvesting your grown plant will result in one of a few options:

Next, you’ll be able to turn your fully grown plant back into a seed to allow yourself to keep leveling. Ctrl + Right Click the fully grown plant and you’ll gain both a seed and an Arboreal Resin, which are used by the Apothecary Profession to stabilize their potions.

Leveling up

Every 25 levels, you’ll want to increase the strength of the seeds you’re growing in order to level up.

For example: at level 25-49, use level 25 seeds. From level 50 onwards, use level 50 seeds. The fastest way to level is to keep using seeds of the tier you’re currently in.

But what if you don’t have stronger seeds yet? The solution lies just below:

Climbing to the next Tier

You’ll rely on Special Moments (also known as Super-Criticals) to get a plant of the next tier, which you can then convert to a seed. The real pain comes when your single next-tier seed fails while growing, which will happen sometimes.

Low level seeds have a higher chance of Special Moments, and a lower chance of failure. Stronger seeds have higher failure rates and rarer Special Moments. If you’re having trouble, you can use Soil, Water, and Nutrients to combat this.

If you have gold to spare, or friends with cultivating, you can also just use the Auction House or trade the plants of the level you want to grow, and then convert them down into seeds.

Growing multiple Seeds at once

Every 50 levels you gain in Cultivating will grant you an additional growth plot, up to a maximum of four. You’ll gain additional plots at:

The benefit of Miracle Grow

Miracle Grow is a useful add-on from the start, but it really shines once you have multiple plots unlocked.

The Miracle Grow add-on will remember which soil, water, or nutrients you used per plot, and you can repeat that exact setup per plot with just one click.

If you log out or restart the game, you’ll need to manually place the items back in one time so the add-on can refresh your preferences.

What should I grow?

Some ingredients are much more sought-after than others, and this usually comes down to what Apothecary crafters need to create potions that players want to use.

For example, Extenders, like Gobswort, are required to create long-lasting potions, and are exclusive to Cultivating, making them a must-have. Many stat-boosting ingredients, like Strength, Ballistic Skill, Intelligence, etc, are also useful as players can benefit most from potions with these.

Ingredients for potions that boost Corporeal Resistance or Spirit Resistance, for example, are largely avoided as many classes already grant these buffs, and they do not stack.

Helpful Cultivating Resources

For convenience, you can find a full list of Crafting Materials, Seeds, Extenders, and more below!

Crafting Materials:

Plants:

Full list of Cultivating Seeds:

Created on the Live version of WAR by player Irinia

Pigments

When you successfully harvest a seed/spore, you have a small chance to get pigment according the level. At the time of publishing this page, creating dyes is not currently enabled on RoR.

How to Cultivate Relationships for Effective Teamwork

A bench full of star players does not automatically produce a winning team. Use these exercises to build a sense of membership on your team.

Once a year, about a hundred miles outside of Reno, the Burning Man festival descends upon the desert for a weeklong social experiment in community, art, transcendence, and bacchanalia. Seventy thousand people supported by two thousand volunteers appear out of nowhere and stand up a self-contained society founded on ten principles: radical inclusion, self-reliance, self-expression, community cooperation, civic responsibility, gifting, decommodification, participation, immediacy, and leaving no trace. Simply by being there, by stepping into the space, you’re making a commitment to those values. And if you’re more than just a tourist, if you truly embody them, you’re a “Burner.” You’re a member of the tribe.

Burning Man is a classic example of membership done well. When it comes to membership, it’s helpful to think of an organization as a set of membranes—cells within cells within cells. Each membrane, or team boundary, is made up of requirements and agreements, both spoken and unspoken. Honor them and you’re in. Dishonor them, and you’re out. The most traditional boundary and the one we talk about most is employment status. But there are other boundaries both within and beyond that. They exist around teams, functions, divisions, locations, social groups, interest groups, shareholders, customers, and even fans. Each one creates a communal space and identity for its members.

Legacy Organizations think about membership as binary—as a legal status or something that’s conferred upon you. But membership isn’t binary. Not every employee feels the same level of loyalty, or inclusion, or participation. No, membership is really a social status. It’s an identity. It’s a living agreement.

Boundaries can be clearly defined or purposefully blurry. Agreements within teams can be explicit or informal. Enforcement can be lenient or strict. What matters is that we are intentional. Evolutionary Organizations play with these continuums in an increasingly nonbinary way. Burning Man blurs the lines between attendee and host, customer and volunteer, and in so doing creates a richer and more participatory experience. Airbnb does the same. A host in one city is often a guest in another. Wikipedia does the same, as do countless open-source projects and peer-to-peer platforms. The future of membership may end up looking like many ways to play, clearly defined and held simultaneously.

As you may recall, in a complex system, the interactions matter more than the parts. A bench full of star players does not automatically produce a winning team. Relationships define our collective potential. And our approach to membership creates the foundation for relationships to flourish or flounder. Everything we do, from the moment we meet prospective candidates to the moment they depart as alumni, shapes their membership experience, and with it the very fabric of our network.

A member who is brought on board properly feels a sense of belonging and has a keen sense of how to move in and out of different membership spaces within the organization. A member who is thrust into a team or a role without that context may feel unwelcome and unclear. Do they belong? Are they safe? How should they navigate this system? Until resolved, a portion of their attention will always be dedicated to these questions. Recruiting, hiring, joining, onboarding, teaming, transitioning, disbanding, and departing — these are the domains of membership. These are mission critical. They are not the property of some faceless HR department on another floor in another building. Honoring and supporting these thresholds is our collective responsibility.

Thought Starters

In or Out

One of the reasons organizations end up rigid and risk-averse is fear. Employees worry that if they don’t perform well in their current role, they’ll lose their job. And they’re right: In the vast majority of cases, if your boss fires you from your role, you’re also fired from your company. Your membership in the team and your membership in the organization are one and the same. But this makes sense only when we view the organization as a machine and our people as cogs. In that view, we have a fixed number of roles that require a fixed set of skills. If you’re no longer the associate marketing manager, what the hell are you doing here? But if we view the organization as a living system and our people as multidimensional participants, then we can uncouple membership in teams from membership in the company. A member can hold one role, hold many roles, go find an open role, or even create a role. You can use an advice process or even elections to ensure that the people filling roles are competent. If the business enters a downturn, the organization might have to let people go. If a member’s reputation severely impedes their ability to join teams or make and keep commitments, they may have to go. But for the majority, who are sought after and have lots to give, the organization can be a jungle gym.

Teams Rule

W. L. Gore founder Bill Gore coined the notion of a “lattice organization” in which “each person in the Lattice interacts directly with every other person with no intermediary.” In his view, “every successful organization has a lattice organization that underlies the façade of authoritarian hierarchy.” In practice, this means that teams at Gore have to figure it out when it comes to teaming, and they attribute a lot of their success to the creativity and fluidity this enables. If you accept that each individual in your organization should choose their projects and their colleagues, something interesting happens. Teams become sovereign spaces and microenterprises. They have to generate their own resources, either through a budgeting process or through “charging” for their services. They have to cultivate their own membership, recruiting and removing members as needed. They have to develop their own norms and patterns of behavior. They have to create feedback loops, individually and collectively. They have to perform and add value to the broader ecosystem. This is the inherent tension between freedom and responsibility. Individuals and teams are free from hierarchical command but not free from constraints and accountability. They are in the roundabout, and everyone is counting on them.

Careful with Culture Fit

Organizational psychologist Adam Grant has some counterintuitive advice for those of us who hire for culture fit. While hiring for culture fit (even over skills or star potential) is a predictor of success early in a firm’s history, later on it actually causes firms to underperform. In his research, he came across IDEO’s approach to this issue. Instead of fit, IDEO hires for cultural contribution. It asks, What’s missing from our culture? and then goes and looks for that. Early on, we may need a handful of colleagues who see the world the same way in order to bring something new and disruptive into existence. But soon after, we’ll need to focus on increasing the cognitive and general diversity of the group in order to achieve our full potential. We want our organizations to get more interesting over time. That’s the kind of cultural complexity that helps us see around corners. In fact, a recent McKinsey study showed that companies in the top quartile for gender and ethnic diversity were 15 percent and 35 percent more likely to outperform those in the bottom quartile respectively.

Ritual

One way that we recognize membership is through ritual. Rituals help us mark important thresholds and changes in our lives, in ways large and small. The martial artist bowing as she enters and exits the dojo, the surgeon scrubbing up before entering the operating theater, the coming-of-age ceremonies present in so many cultures—these are all rituals that honor and mark transition. Research shows that rituals can reduce anxiety or increase confidence and even help us assume contextual identities (think: soldier or firefighter). In the world of sports, LeBron James welcomes each of his teammates onto the basketball court with an elaborate personalized handshake just for them. The level of memorization and coordination involved is baffling, but the meaning behind it is not. As team captain, he is recognizing each of his teammates and marking the threshold of the game. We practice a wide variety of rituals at The Ready, but one of my favorites is how we recognize team members who are leaving the firm for a new chapter in their career. We gather our team to mark the occasion, and anyone who feels compelled can share their gratitude for their departing colleague. A week later, our alumnus receives a globe selected just for them—a token of our appreciation and a reminder that we hope they’ll change the way the world works wherever they go.

No Handcuffs

Membership in Action

Team Charter

In our rush to deliver, we often forget to do the foundational work of standing up a new team. Management puts eight people in a room and calls one of them the leader, and we’re off to the races. This is a missed opportunity. By tackling a few important topics early on, we can avoid a lot of confusion and conflict later. That’s why I like to make the agreements that define a team explicit before we get started, by creating a team charter. Think of this a little bit like an OS for the team. A team charter forces the team to answer critical questions about why it exists and how its members want to show up for one another. To get started, gather a new (or existing) team and answer the following questions. Keep in mind, these are just a starting point. Real charters can go significantly deeper if the team is willing to do the work. When you’re done, use a consent process (see page 70) to ensure that what you produced is safe to try. Revisit it at any time, particularly when there’s disagreement or disruptive change that may impact the team.

User Manual to Me

While chartering creates clarity about a team’s overall purpose and context, it doesn’t do a ton to nurture deeper and more functional relationships within the group. That’s where the User Manual to Me, first introduced by Ivar Kroghrud in an interview with the New York Times, comes in and takes things to the next level. The idea is genius: what if we each wrote a user manual about how to work with us and shared it with our teams? Suddenly they’d know why we always seem skeptical or prefer to give feedback in person or get so excited about a good pun. How much time and confusion could we save? Adam Bryant, the former editor of Corner Office, who first interviewed Kroghrud, shared a list of questions that form the basis of a user manual at the New Work Summit in 2016. Ask your team to answer these questions in an easily accessible document that can be shared across your organization. Then bring everyone together, over drinks if you’re in the mood for real candor, and have them each share their unfiltered answers. If you’re the leader, go first. You’ll be able to hear a pin drop because you’re about to share the secret code that everyone in the room has been trying to crack for months or even years: what makes you tick.

Questions About You

Questions About How You Relate to Others

Gratitude

One of the simplest ways to improve relationships within your community or team is to show appreciation for one another. Research shows that making time and space for gratitude improves well-being, reduces impatience, and boosts brain function. Here’s an easy way to get started: At the beginning or end of your next meeting, ask everyone to stop what they’re doing and think for a moment about something or someone they’re grateful for and wish to recognize within the team. Then go around one by one and share. No fanfare, just an honest acknowledgment that says, “Hey, I love the energy you bring” or “You were there for me when I needed support” or “You’re the best designer in the building and we’re lucky to have you.” A little touchy-feely? Sure. But you won’t believe the effect it has on morale. We forget to do this. We avoid it because it’s uncomfortable. Don’t let us. Make it happen.

Membership in Change

One of the most important steps The Ready takes in coaching teams through transformation is to define the boundary around who is actively working in new ways. This is critical because we are changing the requirements and agreements of that space in real time. That’s why, as you’ll see in the pages ahead, we focus on inviting (rather than forcing) people into a new way of working. We’re telling them, if you step into this space, you’re committing to try new things. That’s what it means to be ready. Our membership is a coalition of the willing, of the zealous, of those eager to reclaim their way of working.

Questions on Membership

The following questions can be applied to the organization as a whole or the teams within it. Use them to provoke a conversation about what is present and what is possible.