The ruins of the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace were vast beyond imagination. Even in the previous life, cultivators from the Congyun Sea had spent over a decade exploring it without ever fully uncovering its mysteries.
Not to mention now, as the entire Cloud Water Heavenly Palace was shrouded in thick mist.
The group of cultivators who had awakened from the statue of Qin Tang quickly divided into several different factions.
Some believed that the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace was fraught with peril. Surviving the hands of Qin Tang's subordinates was already a stroke of luck. Continuing to explore would surely lead to certain death.
They thought they had already memorized several cultivation techniques, and as long as they could return alive, it would be a tremendous gain. Thus, they decisively chose to leave the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace.
The majority chose to depart. The remaining individuals believed that if such opportunities existed at the entrance of the ruins, what treasures could be found within the legendary ancient sects’ alchemy rooms, scripture halls, and treasure vaults of the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace?
Once greed took hold, it quickly expanded within their hearts, becoming impossible to suppress.
Thus, this group of people vanished into the mist as if enchanted.
So, when Li Fan caught up from behind, he discovered that all the cultivators had already disappeared. If it weren’t for the formless killing intent having locked onto Sikong Yi and Bai Li Chen in advance, he might have lost track of them.
However, strangely, Sikong Yi and Bai Li Chen seemed extremely familiar with the layout of the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace.
They were always able to find paths through what appeared to be dead ends in the mist, navigating with clear objectives, continuously bypassing buildings cloaked in fog as they ventured deeper inside.
Was this the reason Sikong Yi was able to obtain the Cloud Water Scroll in the previous life?
Was it because of his simulated experiences from the last life that he could uncover the secrets of the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace?
But how did Sikong Yi know?
A strong curiosity surged within Li Fan.
At the same time, he grew increasingly vigilant. These two clearly had significant secrets!
Keeping his presence concealed, Li Fan closely followed behind them.
Suddenly, their movements halted.
After a brief pause, Sikong Yi and Bai Li Chen separated, each rushing off in opposite directions.
“A strategy of dividing forces? Have they discovered me?” Li Fan narrowed his eyes, hesitating for a moment before choosing to pursue the direction Sikong Yi had taken.
Delving deeper into the mist, he arrived at a tower-like structure.
Sikong Yi suddenly stopped at the base of the tower, turned back towards Li Fan’s direction, and revealed a provocative smile.
Then he dove into the tower.
“Interesting, are they planning to use the dangers within the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace to kill me?” Li Fan gazed at the tower, which appeared faintly amidst the white mist, exuding an eerie aura. Memories from his previous life surged in his mind.
The Demon Refining Tower was one of the most perilous areas within the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace.
In the first ten years after the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace opened, no cultivator had ever returned alive from the Demon Refining Tower. It was thus regarded by cultivators from the Congyun Sea as a forbidden area, one that should never be explored.
In the end, it was only after 21 years of anchoring that a master of alchemy, risking his life, entered and finally unraveled its bizarre rules.
“If this is your plan, you might be disappointed.” Li Fan sneered and followed him into the Demon Refining Tower.
Upon entering, he felt a chilling wind, and a stench of decay and rot assaulted his senses.
The bottom level of the tower was filled with cells.
However, it seemed that too much time had passed, as all that remained in the cells were heaps of bizarre and twisted bones.
Li Fan continued upward; the second level of the tower was the same.
He finally reached the top of the tower.
From a distance, he could hear a murmuring voice.
“Senior brothers and sisters are fighting on the front lines, and I’m here unable to help at all.”
“I must refine more pills so that I can enhance their strength as much as possible.”
“With each additional pill I refine, the chances of survival for my senior brothers increase.”
“But all the demons in the Demon Refining Tower are dead, and there are no materials left for refining pills. What should I do now?”
A disheveled man in a loose blue robe was sighing and looking utterly helpless.
In the air beside him, three figures were bound by invisible ropes.
One of them was Sikong Yi.
The other two were also cultivators who had entered the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace together, but it was unclear why they appeared here.
The two looked pale, their lips moving but no sound escaping.
Before Li Fan could take any action, he felt his hands and feet suddenly bound by ropes, rendering him immobile.
He was then pulled into the air and fixed in place, just like the other three.
Having anticipated this outcome, Li Fan did not panic.
At that moment, he could finally hear the mutterings of the two.
“How could this happen? I clearly chose to leave directly! Why did I suddenly get tied up here…?”
“My life is over, my life is over. I had already exited the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace, yet I was captured again…”
…
“Oh no, it’s time to refine pills!” At that moment, the man in the robe suddenly snapped out of his ramblings.
“Refining pills, refining pills…” The man reached into his loose robe, and after some movement, he pulled out two black pills.
“The pills are refined, but I wonder how effective they are this time.” The man scratched his head, seemingly troubled.
Then he suddenly slapped his thigh: “That’s right! I just caught a few bugs; I can use them to test the pills!”
With that, he glanced at Li Fan and the others, his gaze shifting: “Which bug should I choose?”
Feeling the man’s gaze upon them sent a chill down their spines.
They all dared not move, holding their breath in silence.
“Let’s go with this one.” After observing for a while, the robed man’s eyes landed on one of them, and he immediately reached out to grab.
Seeing this, the person could no longer maintain their composure.
But their struggles were clearly futile, and their voice was stifled.
Their body flew towards the robed man, gradually shrinking in the process.
In the end, they truly transformed into a small flying insect, landing in the robed man's palm.
The insect still faintly resembled a human face, its expression one of extreme terror.
The robed man gently squeezed it, and the human-faced insect buzzed desperately, flapping its wings.
But all was in vain; the robed man held the insect in one hand and the black pill in the other.
The pill was many times larger than the insect, yet it was forcefully stuffed inside.
The human-faced insect struggled in agony, forcibly swallowing the pill.
Its belly swelled to many times its size, becoming a giant sphere.
The insect's aura gradually diminished, but the suffering had only just begun.
After the pill entered its belly, it seemed to be digested, and its size began to shrink.
However, a buzzing sound akin to a swarm of mosquitoes suddenly erupted.
The human-faced insect's body began to convulse uncontrollably.
Tiny black dots began to emerge from its abdomen, one after another.
Upon closer inspection, those black dots were clearly newly hatched flying insects.
After emerging from its body, the flying insects did not fly around chaotically but instead landed on the human-faced insect, greedily devouring it.
Soon, the human-faced insect was consumed entirely, leaving not a trace behind.
The robed man shook his head, a look of regret on his face.
“It seems the drug test has failed; the potency must have been too strong.”
Saying this, he opened his mouth and inhaled the black mist of the insect into his belly.
Even though Li Fan had long heard of the happenings within the Demon Refining Tower and had prepared himself mentally, he still couldn't help but feel his eyelids twitch.
This scene was simply too horrifying.
The robed man looked at the remaining black pill in his hand, appearing somewhat troubled.
“Should I try this one as well?”
He glanced at Li Fan and the others.
All three held their breath in anticipation.
After a long moment, the robed man sighed: “Forget it, one batch should be enough.”
With that, he opened his mouth and casually tossed the black pill inside.
After swallowing the pill, the robed man seemed unaffected.
He merely fell back into his daze.
He began murmuring again about the lack of alchemy materials, completely ignoring the three bound in the air.
Among the surviving three, Li Fan remained silent.
Sikong Yi had a blank expression.
The remaining person looked utterly defeated.
“If I had known, I would have rather died at the hands of Qin Tang; at least that would have been a swift death.”
…
Time seemed to lose its meaning within the Demon Refining Tower.
The lives of the group depended entirely on the actions of the robed man.
It was unclear how long had passed when the man snapped out of his daze again.
Once more, he pulled out two peculiar green pills from his loose robe.
“Which bug should I test the pills on this time?”
The man hesitated for a moment, but his gaze fell on Sikong Yi.
“Let’s choose this one!”
Li Fan immediately perked up; he wanted to see what Sikong Yi relied on to dare bring him into this perilous place.
To Li Fan's astonishment, Sikong Yi did not put up any resistance.
After being turned into an insect and forced to swallow the green pill, he directly transformed into a puddle of green water.
Sikong Yi was dead!
“What’s going on? Where did things go wrong? Could it be that because of my tracking, the course of events has changed from the previous life?”
“No, Sikong Yi clearly lured me into this Demon Refining Tower. How could he die so easily?”
“He knew this was a deadly place and brought me here just to exchange one life for another?”
…
Just as Li Fan was engulfed in endless confusion, he suddenly sensed something and looked up.
Outside the Demon Refining Tower, the formless killing intent locked onto Bai Li Chen, slowly approaching.
And beside him, Li Fan sensed that the formless killing intent, which had seemingly lost its target, had once again captured a target: Sikong Yi.
Sikong Yi, who had clearly died, 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 and couldn’t help but laugh.
“It seems the secrets these two hold are even greater than I imagined.”
“However, once I have my sights set on them, secrets are no longer secrets.”
In Li Fan’s perception, Sikong Yi and Bai Li Chen continued to delve deeper into the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace.
“With the formless killing intent locked on, I need not worry about them escaping. I just need to extract myself from this Demon Refining Tower quickly.”
But the robed man’s actions followed a certain pattern, which Li Fan could not control, so he could only choose to wait patiently.
Soon, the third round of pill testing arrived.
This time, Li Fan was still not selected. This left him feeling both amused and perplexed, unsure whether it was luck or misfortune.
The robed man pulled out two pink pills and fed them to the human-faced insect.
With a bang, the insect exploded into a cloud of pink smoke.
Within the smoke, faces contorted in pain constantly emerged.
As the pink mist swirled, the faces were stretched and twisted, becoming even more grotesque and terrifying.
Li Fan watched this scene, goosebumps rising all over his body.
Eventually, it was still the robed man who inhaled the smoke into his body amidst his mumblings, ending this eternal suffering.
The robed man fell back into his ramblings.
The fourth round of pill testing finally arrived.
At this point, only Li Fan remained in the Demon Refining Tower.
The robed man was about to use Li Fan for pill testing when Li Fan suddenly spoke up.
“Insect Master, I heard you’re short on refining materials?”
Upon hearing this, the Insect Master abruptly halted his outstretched hand and instinctively nodded: “Yes, I’m indeed short on refining materials.”
He said somewhat apologetically: “I haven’t been able to refine new pills for a long time…”
The Insect Master paused, staring at Li Fan for a while. Upon recognizing the clothes he wore, he suddenly became flustered: “So it’s you, Senior Brother! I thought you were an insect!”
“Senior Brother, I’m so sorry! I’ll let you down right away.”
With the Insect Master’s words, Li Fan felt the bindings on him loosen, and he regained control of his body.
The Insect Master covered his head, lowering his gaze, seemingly too embarrassed to face his senior brother.
He self-reproachfully said: “I messed things up again. It’s always like this. I can’t refine pills well, and my cultivation progress is slow, dragging everyone down…”
Li Fan stepped forward, placing a hand on the Insect Master’s shoulder, gently saying: “Don’t say that, Insect Master. The pills you refine are very effective, and everyone loves them.”
Upon hearing this, the Insect Master’s eyes widened in surprise: “Really, Senior Brother? Everyone really likes the pills I refine?”
“Why, don’t you believe what your senior brother says?” Li Fan feigned a stern expression.
The Insect Master quickly shook his head: “Of course, I believe what Senior Brother says.”
Then he looked dejected: “But I don’t have any refining materials left. I can’t produce the pills everyone loves anymore.”
Li Fan ruffled the Insect Master’s hair, softly saying: “It’s alright, I’m still here.”
“Just refine me into a pill, and everyone will have pills to eat again.”
“Senior Brother, you…” The Insect Master seemed shocked by Li Fan’s words, his eyes wide with disbelief.
Li Fan sighed deeply and continued: “Although I entered the sect early, my talent isn’t enough, and my cultivation has always been low. My senior brothers and sisters are fighting on the front lines, and I can’t help at all.”
“Every time I think of this, my heart aches, and I hate my own incompetence.”
“So, refine me into a pill. That way, I can still be of some help.”
Li Fan grasped the Insect Master’s hand, speaking with fervor.
The Insect Master stared blankly at Li Fan, seemingly deeply moved.
“So Senior Brother is just like me.”
“But Senior Brother is much more magnificent, willing to sacrifice himself to help our senior brothers and sisters on the front lines.”
“And I, I can only evade. I can only hide in this tower.”
The Insect Master clutched his hair in agony.
“No, I absolutely cannot watch Senior Brother sacrifice himself.”
Suddenly, as if he had thought of something, he excitedly said to Li Fan: “Senior Brother, I can refine pills for you! As long as you take the pills I refine, your strength will definitely improve, and you can help on the front lines!”
The Insect Master seemed to have found a goal to strive for: “Refining pills, I want to refine pills!”
He reached into his wide robe, moving about.
Before long, he pulled out two golden pills.
“Senior Brother, these are for you.”
The Insect Master held them in both hands, beaming with a smile as he offered the pills to Li Fan.
Li Fan did not take the pills but instead unfastened the Insect Master’s robe.
Beneath the wide robe, there was nothing but a hollow skeleton.
On the skeleton, only a few barely visible remnants of flesh remained.
The Insect Master had been using his own flesh and blood to refine the pills.
(End of Chapter)