The remains of the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace were incredibly vast. Even in his previous life, after over a decade of continuous exploration by cultivators from the Cong Yun Sea, the complete layout had not been fully revealed.
Not to mention the current situation, where the entire Cloud Water Heavenly Palace was shrouded in dense mist.
The cultivators who awakened from the stone statue of Qin Tang soon split into several different factions.
Some felt that the interior of the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace was extremely perilous. To survive under Qin Tang’s subordinates was already a great stroke of luck. If they continued to explore, they would undoubtedly face certain death.
On the other hand, some believed that with just a stone statue at the entrance of this palace, they had already gained such an opportunity. What kind of great fortune might await inside the rumored alchemy rooms, teaching halls, and treasure vaults?
Once greed arose, it rapidly expanded in their hearts and could no longer be suppressed.
Thus, these people, as if possessed, disappeared one after another into the mist.
So, when Li Fan caught up from behind, he found that he had lost the trace of all the cultivators. If it weren’t for the fact that the killing intent had already locked onto Sikong Yi and the others in advance, he would likely have lost them.
However, strangely, Sikong Yi and Baili Chen seemed to be very familiar with the layout of the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace.
They could always find a way through the seemingly impassable mist. Their objectives were clear, constantly bypassing buildings shrouded in mist, moving deeper inside.
Was this the reason why Sikong Yi managed to obtain the “Cloud Water Map” in the previous life? After all, Li Fan had knowledge of the simulated experiences from his previous life, so he could understand the various secrets within the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace.
But how did Sikong Yi know all this?
Li Fan’s interest was suddenly piqued.
At the same time, he became increasingly vigilant. These two individuals obviously had significant secrets!
He concealed his presence even more, closely trailing behind them.
Suddenly, the actions of the two came to a halt.
They stopped in their tracks, and Sikong Yi and Bai Lichen separated, each heading in an opposite direction.
“Splitting up? Have they discovered me?” Li Fan squinted, hesitated for a moment, and then followed the direction in which Sikong Yi had left.
Entering deeper into the mist, he arrived at a tower-like structure.
Sikong Yi suddenly stopped at the base of the tower, turned back toward the direction where Li Fan was, and showed a provocative smile.
Then he promptly entered the tower.
“Quite interesting. Are you trying to kill me using the peril of the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace?” Li Fan looked at the eerie tower in front of him, shrouded in white mist, and the memories from his previous life involuntarily surged in his mind.
The Demon Refining Tower, one of the most dangerous areas in the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace.
In the first ten years of the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace’s opening, no cultivator had ever returned alive from the Demon Refining Tower. It was once regarded as a forbidden zone within the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace by cultivators from the Cong Yun Sea.
In the previous life, it was finally cracked only after anchoring it for 21 years. A master alchemist risked his life to enter and eventually deciphered its bizarre rules.
“If this is your plan, I’m afraid I’ll disappoint you,” Li Fan sneered and also entered the Demon Refining Tower.
Upon entering, he felt gusts of cold wind, accompanied by a foul and putrid smell that assaulted him.
The bottom of the tower consisted of prison cells.
However, it seemed that much time had passed, and the prison cells were now filled only with peculiar and monstrous skeletal remains.
Li Fan continued upwards, and the second floor was similar.
He reached the top of the tower.
In the distance, he could hear a murmuring voice.
“All the senior brothers and sisters are fighting at the front line, and I can’t help much.”
“I must refine more pills so that I can enhance their strength as much as possible.”
“For every extra pill I refine, the possibility of senior brothers and sisters surviving increases.”
“But the monsters and demons inside this Demon Refining Tower are all dead, and without the alchemy materials, what should I do?”
A disheveled man wearing a loose blue robe was lamenting and seemed at a loss.
Beside him, suspended in mid-air, were three figures bound by invisible ropes.
One of them was Sikong Yi.
The other two were cultivators who had entered the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace together this time, but for some reason had ended up here.
These two had pale faces, and their lips were moving, but no sound came out.
Li Fan hadn’t made any moves yet, and he suddenly felt as if his hands and feet were bound by ropes, unable to move.
He was then drawn into the air and fixed in place, just like the other three.
Having anticipated this encounter, Li Fan remained unfazed.
It was at this moment that he clearly heard the self-talk of the man.
“Oh my, it’s time to refine the pills!” At this moment, the man in the blue robe suddenly woke up from his murmuring.
“Refining pills, refining pills…” The man reached into his loose, wide robe and moved around. In no time, he took out two black pills.
“The pills are ready, just don’t know how effective they’ll be this time.” The man scratched his head, seemingly troubled.
Then, he slapped his thigh, “Right, I just captured a few bugs. It’s perfect to use them for the experiment!”
Saying this, he looked towards Li Fan and the others, who were suspended in the air, his gaze constantly shifting, “Which bug should I choose?”
Seeing that the man had fixed his gaze on them, a strange chill ran through them.
They all became still, not daring to move, and held their breath, maintaining silence.
“Let’s choose this one,” said the man in the blue robe after looking at them for a while, and he reached out to grab one.
Seeing this, the person couldn’t maintain their calm anymore.
But their struggles were obviously in vain, and they could no longer make any sound.
Their bodies flew towards the man in the blue robe, gradually shrinking in the process.
In the end, they truly turned into a small flying insect and fell into the man’s palm.
The head of the flying insect still faintly resembled a human face, with an expression of extreme fear.
Gently pinched by the man in the blue robe, the human-faced insect emitted a buzzing sound from its trembling wings.
However, it was all in vain. The man in the blue robe held the insect in one hand and a black pill in the other.
The pill was many times larger than the flying insect, yet it was forcibly stuffed inside the insect.
The human-faced insect struggled in pain, forcefully swallowing the pill.
Its belly swelled many times over, becoming a giant round ball.
The insect’s breath gradually weakened, but the suffering had only just begun.
After the pill entered its belly, it seemed to be digested, and its size began to decrease.
However, a buzzing sound, like a swarm of mosquitoes, suddenly resounded.
The body of the human-faced insect began to convulse uncontrollably.
Tiny black dots emerged one after another from its abdomen.
Looking closely, these black dots were newly born insects.
After emerging from the body, the insects didn’t fly around randomly but stopped on the human-faced insect and greedily began to gnaw.
Soon, the human-faced insect was devoured completely.
The man in the blue robe shook his head, looking regretful.
“It seems the test failed. The potency of the medicine was probably too strong.”
Saying this, he opened his mouth and sucked the black mist of the insect into his stomach.
Even though Li Fan had heard about the events in the Demon Refining Tower beforehand and was mentally prepared, he still couldn’t help but feel a jolt in his eyelids.
The scene was too horrifying.
The man in the blue robe looked at the remaining black pill in his hand, seemingly a bit distressed.
“Should I try this pill again?”
He glanced at Li Fan and the others.
All three of them held their breath, immobilized.
After a while, the man in the blue robe sighed, “Forget it, it should be close enough, considering it was refined in a furnace.”
With that, the man opened his mouth and casually threw the black pill inside his mouth.
After swallowing the pill, the man in the blue robe remained unaffected.
However, he became even more deranged.
He started muttering again, ignoring the three people bound in the air and talking about not having enough alchemy materials.
Among the three survivors, Li Fan remained silent.
Sikong Yi showed no expression.
The remaining person was already in a state of collapse.
“I should have died in Qin Tang’s hands earlier. At least I could have died quickly.”
Time in the Demon Refining Tower seemed to lose its meaning.
The lives of everyone depended entirely on the actions of the man in the blue robe.
After an unknown amount of time, the man regained consciousness from his deranged state.
Once again, he pulled out two pills from under his wide robe, but this time they were eerie green.
“Which insect should I choose for the experiment?”
The man hesitated this time, but his gaze landed on Sikong Yi.
“Let’s choose this one!”
Li Fan suddenly became alert. He wanted to see what Sikong Yi was relying on to dare lead him into this perilous place.
To Li Fan’s surprise, Sikong Yi didn’t put up any resistance.
After being forced to transform into an insect and swallow the green pill, Sikong Yi turned into a puddle of green water immediately.
Sikong Yi was dead!
“What’s going on? Was there an unexpected change? Could it be that, in this life, because of my tracking, the development of events is different from the previous life?”
“No, Sikong Yi clearly enticed me into this Demon Refining Tower. How could he die so easily?”
“Did he bring me into this death trap just to exchange life for a life?”
While Li Fan was immersed in endless doubts, he suddenly sensed something and looked up.
Outside the Demon Refining Tower, Bai Lichen, who was targeted by the formless killing intent, was slowly approaching.
Beside him, Li Fan felt that the previously lost lock-ons of the formless killing intent had once again captured the target: Sikong Yi.
Sikong Yi, who was supposed to be dead, had reappeared outside the Demon Refining Tower.
“A puppet? An external incarnation? It doesn’t feel like either.”
Li Fan stared at the puddle of green water on the ground, unable to help but laugh.
“It seems that the secrets these two hold are even bigger than I imagined.”
“However, once I lock onto them, these secrets will no longer be secrets.”
In Li Fan’s senses, Sikong Yi and Baili Chen continued to advance towards the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace.
“There’s the lock-on with the formless killing intent; I’m not afraid they’ll escape. I just need to extricate myself from this Demon Refining Tower as soon as possible.”
However, the actions of the man in the blue robe followed their own patterns, and Li Fan couldn’t control them. All he could do was wait patiently.
Soon, the third round of drug testing arrived.
This time, Li Fan still wasn’t chosen. This left him somewhat bemused, not knowing whether it was lucky or unlucky.
The man in the blue robe took out two pink pills and fed them to the human-faced insect.
With a bang, the insect exploded into pink smoke.
In the smoke, painful faces kept appearing.
As the pink mist drifted, the faces contorted and twisted, appearing even more grotesque and terrifying.
Li Fan, witnessing this scene, couldn’t help but shiver with goosebumps.
In the end, it was the man in the blue robe who, muttering to himself, inhaled the smoke, finally ending this eternal agony.
The man in the blue robe fell into mumbling again.
The fourth round of drug testing finally arrived.
At this point, only Li Fan remained inside the Demon Refining Tower.
The man in the blue robe was about to pick Li Fan for the test, but Li Fan suddenly spoke up.
“Junior Brother, I heard you don’t have enough alchemy materials.”
The Gu Daoist [1], upon hearing this, instinctively stopped his reaching hand and nodded, somewhat guilty. “Yes, I don’t have enough alchemy materials. I haven’t been able to produce new pills for a long time.”
He said with a hint of remorse, “I can’t make good pills, and my progress in cultivation has been slow. I’ve been a burden to everyone.”
The Gu Daoist’s words faltered, and he looked at Li Fan for a while, realizing what he was wearing. He became a bit flustered. “Oh, it’s Senior Brother! I thought it was just another insect!”
“Senior Brother, I’m really sorry! I’ll release you right away.”
With the Gu Daoist’s words, Li Fan felt the restraints loosen, regaining control of his body.
The Gu Daoist held his head, lowering it as if unable to face this senior brother.
He said in self-blame, “I messed up again. Every time it’s like this. I can’t make good pills, and my cultivation progress has been slow. I’ve been a burden to everyone.”
Li Fan approached and held the Gu Daoist’s shoulder, saying gently, “Don’t say that, Junior Brother. The pills you make have great effects, and everyone likes them.”
Upon hearing this, the Gu Daoist suddenly lifted his head, eyes filled with joy. “Really, Senior Brother? Everyone likes the pills I make?”
“Why, don’t you believe your senior brother?” Li Fan put on a stern face.
The Gu Daoist hurriedly shook his head. “I believe everything Senior Brother says.”
Then he dejectedly said, “But I don’t have any more alchemy materials. I can’t make the pills everyone likes.”
Li Fan patted the Gu Daoist’s head and said softly, “It’s okay, I’m still here.”
“Turn me into a pill, and everyone will have pills to eat again.”
“Senior Brother, you…” The Gu Daoist seemed shocked by Li Fan’s words, staring at him wide-eyed.
Li Fan sighed deeply and continued, “Although I joined the sect early, my talent isn’t enough, and my cultivation has always been low. Senior brothers and senior sisters are fighting on the front lines, and I can’t help much.”
“Every time I think about this, my heart aches, hating my own incompetence.”
“So, turn me into a pill. That way, I can still help a little.”
Li Fan grabbed the Gu Daoist’s hand, excitedly saying.
The Gu Daoist stared at Li Fan, seemingly deeply moved.
“So, Senior Brother is just like me.”
“But Senior Brother is much greater than me. He’d rather sacrifice himself to help the senior brothers and sisters on the front lines.”
“And me, I just keep avoiding my problems. Hiding in this tower.”
The Gu Daoist twisted his hair in distress.
“No, I can’t just watch Senior Brother sacrifice himself.”
He seemed to suddenly realize something, and excitedly said to Li Fan, “Senior Brother, I can refine pills for you! As long as you eat the pills I refine, your strength will definitely not be low, and you can help on the front lines!”
The Gu Daoist seemed to have found a goal to strive for. “Pill refining, I want to refine pills!”
He reached into his wide robe and started fumbling.
Not long after, he took out two golden pills.
“Senior Brother, here are the pills for you.”
The Gu Daoist held them in his hands, his face beaming with a smile, offering the pills to Li Fan.
Li Fan didn’t accept the pills but instead untied the Gu Daoist’s robe.
Under the wide robe, only an empty skeleton remained.
On the skeleton, there were only a few traces of barely visible flesh and blood.
The Gu Daoist used his own flesh and blood to refine pills.
*****
TL Note: Gu = Chinese poisonous insect refining