Blood Soul Spirit Body

As the saying went, good news never left the house, but bad news traveled a thousand miles.

Nearly ten of the sect's Qi Refining disciples had been killed or injured, and the incident had even involved Devil Cultivators.

When such explosive news broke, it sent tremors through the Purple Profound Sect from top to bottom.

For a time, voice transmission talismans flew wildly through the air. Within a day or two, most of the sect's disciples had heard the news.

Amid it all, Cai Shiwei, who had fought his way out of the encirclement and returned gravely injured, was undoubtedly at the center of the storm.

Even though he had been the one to report the whole affair.

That very day, several of the sect's Foundation Establishment deacons and the sect master "invited" him over and questioned him in painstaking detail about the entire encounter with the Devil Cultivators, going over it several times.

Even Tang Xiaohan, who had fallen unconscious, was revived with precious pills the sect had expended and questioned separately.

They compared the two accounts and spent a long time going through all this trouble.

Later, several sect elders joined forces and took Cai Shiwei to the ancient cultivator's cave abode to investigate in person.

They found that it had indeed been left behind by a cultivator of the past and had been looted clean. There were even the remains of the sect's own cultivators and traces of a Devil Cultivation Method's Method Formula.

Only then did the sect finally trust Cai Shiwei's account and confirm that a force of Devil Cultivators of unknown size had infiltrated the area.

In the end.

Cai Shiwei, who had awakened a Blood Soul Spirit Body during the fighting, was personally taken as a disciple by a Foundation Establishment Late Stage elder with hopes of reaching Core Formation.

There were even rumors that, if the sect's Core Formation patriarch, High Person Purple Profound, had not been in seclusion, the sect master had intended to recommend this young man as a disciple to the venerable elder.

By that account, having the Foundation Establishment Late Stage elder take him as a disciple was merely a fallback choice made for lack of alternatives!

Now, Cai Shiwei's star shone brighter than anyone else's in the Purple Profound Sect!

And in the glare of his fame, Li Ye was dragged into the spotlight once again.

Back then, he had decisively refused the invitation from the companion Cai Shiwei had sent and had been mocked as a spineless coward, a turtle hiding in its shell.

But now, every last cultivator who had ridiculed Li Ye for refusing had died on the expedition.

Li Ye, meanwhile, though his reputation was less than flattering, was still living carefree among the sect's spirit fields.

With such a contrast.

Even the low-level disciples who had once laughed at Li Ye in their gossip could not help but reflect a little...

"Damn it all, didn't I say so? What's wrong with being a little cautious?"

"Those few looked so overbearing back then, but look at them now! They didn't even leave a whole corpse behind!"

Zhang Liangfu cursed up a storm, but he had been grinning nonstop.

He remembered the sharp-mouthed cultivator's manner all too clearly.

Relying on the fact that their cultivation was one layer higher than his, he and the fat man had not even let him finish speaking before bearing down on him with their presence and ordering him to shut up.

They had gone too far!

Now they had died without leaving whole corpses. It was immensely satisfying!

"Senior Brother Zhang!"

"Hey, hey, hey! You'd better watch your mouth!"

Li Ye and Hu Zhiquan interrupted Zhang Liangfu almost simultaneously.

The latter also glanced pointedly at their surroundings.

Those two were indeed dead as dead could be, but Cai Shiwei was still alive and well!

No matter how detestable the fat-and-thin duo had been, they had been that man's loyal followers.

Leaving aside the influence his new master gave him.

With his already decent Spirit Root aptitude and his newly awakened Blood Soul Spirit Body, breaking through to Foundation Establishment in the future would be no difficult feat for him.

Even Core Formation was far from impossible!

Within the Purple Profound Sect, he could be called a favored son of heaven!

And their group of spirit farmers, who had come together by mere chance, were hardly an ironclad united front.

If someone wanted to curry favor with Cai Shiwei and reported what Zhang Liangfu had said today to him.

Given Cai Shiwei's current influence, he probably would not even need to do anything himself before someone took it upon himself to teach Zhang Liangfu the price of speaking out of turn!

Suddenly realizing this, Zhang Liangfu swept his gaze over the disciples in the nearby spirit fields, from whom occasional glances drifted over, and fell silent at once.

The dark-skinned, burly man instinctively drew in his neck, his expression somewhat ugly.

Cautious and apprehensive, he was like a completely different person from his usual self!

After catching his breath, Zhang Liangfu cupped his hands and bowed to Li Ye and Hu Zhiquan.

"I, Old Zhang, spoke without thinking for a moment. Thank you both for the reminder, or I'd probably have landed myself in serious trouble!"

"I'm still counting on you, old fellow, to help look after my spirit field when I go home to visit my wife and children... I can't let you act like a fool here and get yourself into trouble!"

Hu Zhiquan looked unconcerned as he patted Zhang Liangfu on the shoulder and spoke with a grin.

Li Ye, however, wore a serious expression.

"I still rely on you to bring a few things back for me when you go out on errands, Senior Brother. How could I not look out for you?"

"All right, all right, all right!"

Looking at the two men before him, Zhang Liangfu did not know whether to laugh or cry. He immediately thumped his chest and said,

"Then if either of you ever needs anything, just say the word. I, Old Zhang, will take care of it!"

At those words, Li Ye and Hu Zhiquan's eyes immediately lit up.

"Then, Senior Brother/Junior Brother, could you lend me a few Spirit Stones to tide me over..."

"Absolutely not!"

At the mention of Spirit Stones, Zhang Liangfu immediately clutched his Storage Bag and backed away a little, as if guarding against thieves.

Li Ye and Hu Zhiquan could not help shaking their heads in disappointment.

After that exchange, the atmosphere among the three finally lightened a little.

But perhaps the earlier incident had put Zhang Liangfu on alert, for he suddenly grew worried.

"But Junior Brother has refused invitations several times before. Wouldn't that also have caused that man to lose face?"

"If that man decides to pursue the matter, how could Junior Brother withstand him, given our cultivation and standing?"

He thought highly of Li Ye and had been counting on him to lend him a hand in the future!

If Li Ye fell at that Cai fellow's hands, then someone like him, whose talent for farming was only average, might not find another such opportunity in the future!

And if even he could think of this, Li Ye and Hu Zhiquan naturally would not have overlooked it.

But when Zhang Liangfu suddenly brought it up, Hu Zhiquan did not join in, looking for all the world as though his thoughts were elsewhere.

Without a sound, the middle-aged man even shifted his feet and moved a little farther away before saying apologetically,

"Sorry, you two. There seems to be some unusual activity in the spirit field. I need to take a look!"

With that, he turned and left without the slightest pause.

Unlike Old Zhang, who was alone, Hu Zhiquan had a wife and children and elders behind him, as well as the hopes of his Lineage resting on him.

He could warn Zhang Liangfu before he said the wrong thing, but get involved in a possible conflict between Li Ye and Cai Shiwei?

Sorry, but they really were not that close!

"Senior Brother Hu, this..."

Zhang Liangfu stared after him, at a loss for words.

"There's no need to worry, Senior Brother Zhang."

Li Ye, however, smiled without concern. "I don't think Senior Brother Cai would be so narrow-minded as to hold a grudge against an insignificant figure like me..."

"For me, having a spirit field that lets me maintain my cultivation progress is enough to satisfy me."

"But if someone really wants to use me as a stepping stone to advancement and shatter that little aspiration of mine... then my past record in life-and-death battles wasn't earned for nothing!"

He spoke calmly, his gaze sweeping over the spirit-farming disciples one by one.

Watching them all hurriedly avert their eyes under his gaze, he gave a cold laugh.

"Let those people know... if anyone really tries to drive me into a dead end, even if blood splashes five paces and jade and stone burn together, I swear I won't let it rest!"

As his words fell, Li Ye abruptly raised a hand and slashed through the air.

Swish-

Without so much as forming Hand Seals, he sent a sharp, concentrated streak of pale cyan Sword Qi sweeping out. In an instant, it cut a skink that had quietly slipped into the field clean in two!

He had actually brought out such power from the Geng Metal Grass-Cutting Sword...

Zhang Liangfu stared at the two writhing halves of the skink by the field, his eyes widening.

"Junior Brother Li..."

"Has your cultivation recovered to the Qi Refining Fourth Layer?"