Blame him for being unlucky!

The shattered black token was a magical artifact known as a Life Token.

Once the owner of a Life Token died, the token would shatter.

Sects and elders of certain clans relied on them to determine whether the token's owner was dead or alive.

Now that this Life Token had shattered, it meant Lin Miao was dead.

Before Lin Zhi Shan stood a specially made bronze pill furnace, slightly taller than a person.

"Master, what's wrong? When can I come out?"

Ge Lao Si was inside the pill furnace.

The furnace was like a standing cage. Ge Lao Si's neck was caught in the round hole at the center of the lid, while his entire body remained inside, enduring the searing flames.

His flesh was bright red, like a boiled shrimp.

Yet Ge Lao Si had no idea what he looked like at the moment.

Though the flames roasted him, he felt no pain. His entire body merely felt warm and cozy, incomparably comfortable.

Master had said that he was using more than a hundred medicinal ingredients to temper his physique, reforging his foundation!

"It's nothing. Focus on circulating your qi and absorbing the medicinal power. Don't ask questions!"

Lin Zhi Shan forcibly suppressed his rage.

Lin Miao was his nephew.

In this generation of the Lin family, only Lin Miao possessed even the tiniest bit of aptitude for cultivation, so the family had sent him to the Golden Light Sect.

For the sake of familial affection, Lin Zhi Shan had not immediately regarded his nephew as cultivation material.

As a blood relative of the Lin family, Lin Miao shared his bloodline and possessed cultivation aptitude.

There was a better way to turn him into the finest Medicine Slave.

It would merely take longer and had different requirements: Lin Miao needed to reach Qi Refining Level 8 and cultivate a genuine wood-element cultivation technique alongside it.

From the very beginning, Lin Zhi Shan had planned that if he completed the Hundred Profound Gang Body before Lin Miao reached Qi Refining Level 8, then he would have no need for Lin Miao and would treat the boy as a true disciple.

But now that Lin Miao was dead, Lin Zhi Shan's final retreat was gone!

"Fortunately, luck was good this time. Out of a batch of thirty, two Medicine Slaves appeared.

"At the current rate of progress, at most one more Medicine Slave will be enough to completely complete the Hundred Profound Gang Body."

Lin Zhi Shan wished he could immediately emerge from seclusion and tear the murderer to pieces!

But he could not do that now. He simply could not leave!

"Every Outer Sect Disciple knows that Lin Miao is my disciple. Whoever could kill—and dared to kill—Lin Miao must have something to rely on."

Elsewhere.

Su Hao remained in his room for three days.

Over those three days, he suffered terribly.

The seven Origin Blood Pills were highly toxic.

If an ordinary cultivator swallowed seven Origin Blood Pills at once, the pill poison would accumulate too violently. It would not be as simple as losing seven years of lifespan.

On the first day, he vomited and had diarrhea.

Fortunately, the Medicine Spirit talent did not disappoint him. His body adapted quickly, and his absorption rate of the medicinal power was extremely high.

Over the following two days, he completely digested the seven Origin Blood Pills and the many Heart Nurturing Pills.

All the pills were thoroughly converted into spiritual power.

Spiritual power surged within his Dantian, and he broke through two minor realms in succession.

Su Hao had reached Qi Refining Level 4!

"Lin Zhi Shan has served the Golden Light Sect for twenty or thirty years and is also an alchemist. His foundation must run deep.

"How could he have lived this long without some ability?

"Even Lin Miao had protective talismans. Lin Zhi Shan surely has even more powerful talismans, perhaps even magical artifacts, not to mention his attainments in spells.

"Those methods are simply beyond what a minor cultivator who has cultivated for only a few days like me can match."

Su Hao was happy for only a moment before his face fell again.

Lin Miao cultivated the Spirit Wood Scripture. This cultivation technique had three paths: high, middle, and low. The high-grade path tempered thirty-six spiritual apertures in the human body, the middle-grade path twenty-four, and the low-grade path twelve.

Lin Miao had entered through the method of twelve spiritual apertures. Its advantage was rapid advancement in realm, but the quality of his spiritual power was feeble. In truth, among cultivators of the same level, his strength ranked at the very bottom.

Lin Zhi Shan absolutely could not be such a weakling.

"The odds of killing Lin Zhi Shan at Qi Refining Level 7 are far too low."

"Either find a more powerful backer... but with that method, I might still encounter scum like Lin Zhi Shan. It would be even harder to deal with then."

"Or find a way to escape the Golden Light Sect."

Su Hao pondered for a long time. The third option had the highest chance of success!

He slapped his hand down and quickly dug out Lin Miao's identity jade token.

Several of those black-clad disciples wore identical jade tokens. They were, in fact, sect identity badges!

It was not a magic artifact, nor did it record any personal information.

Most likely, sect personnel only checked the token and would not investigate further.

Besides, a mere Qi Refining cultivator hardly seemed worth noticing, did he?

Su Hao clung to a sliver of luck.

But this alone was nowhere near enough.

When he had first come to the Golden Light Sect, he had ridden aboard an enormous Flying Ship artifact.

Now, he probably no longer had the conditions to ride a flying artifact.

If he had to walk down the mountain, figuring out how to leave the sect and avoid dangerous areas would be crucial.

It would be best if he could get hold of a map.

Therefore, Su Hao had to find a sect disciple.

For example, Zhao Bai Jiang, the old man at the Bamboo Grove Library.

The man was advanced in years and of poor aptitude. He no longer had any hope of cultivating immortality.

Precisely because of that, Zhao Bai Jiang had accepted his fate. Unlike the other disciples, he was not violent or bloodthirsty, so he was not particularly dangerous.

Even taking the worst-case scenario into account, Su Hao was at Qi Refining Level 4. If he could not beat Lin Zhi Shan, could he not beat an old man at Qi Refining Level 4 whose body had already weakened?

The library was cold and deserted.

Under normal circumstances, no one came here at all. Even Lin Zhi Shan, the true owner of the library, might not visit once in a year or half a year.

Only an old man in a plain white Daoist robe sat leisurely reading on a wicker recliner.

"Senior." Su Hao strode over, cupped his hands in salute, and carried over a jar of wine and some beef.

The wine had been dug out from Lin Miao's residence. It should have come from somewhere.

"Hm?" Zhao Bai Jiang gave him a lazy glance. "You brat are still alive?"

"My days are numbered, so I specially brought some wine and meat to show you filial respect." Su Hao placed the things on the small table beside him.

"Where did you get this wine? Five Flower Medicinal Wine brewed by Lin Zhi Shan—ordinary people can't get their hands on it."

Once Zhao Bai Jiang saw the black paper seal on the wine jar, he abruptly sat up. In two or three steps, he snatched up a jar, pulled out the stopper, took a deep sniff, then impatiently gulped down a mouthful. "Top-grade stuff! Lin Zhi Shan's Five Flower Medicinal Wine sells for three spirit stones a jar in the sect! You brat have some nerve..."

"It's that expensive? Whatever. Even if I hadn't stolen the wine, he still wouldn't have spared me."

Su Hao smiled.

With that jar of wine, Zhao Bai Jiang was visibly more amiable.

"Ah, Senior, I truly don't understand. The Golden Light Sect is a Righteous Sect..."

Su Hao sat on a small stool beside him and let out a long sigh, just about to broach the subject.

"Who told you the Golden Light Sect is a Righteous Sect?" Zhao Bai Jiang cut him off directly, his hand pausing as he shot Su Hao a sidelong glare.

"The name sounds so majestic and grand. Just hearing it, anyone would think it was a Righteous Sect. Would a demonic sect choose such a vast and righteous, domineering name?" Su Hao said helplessly.

"Heh heh. Would bad people call themselves bad people? Our Golden Light Sacred Sect bears this name because our founding patriarch's nickname was the Golden Light Demon Lord.

Our Golden Light Sacred Sect ranks fifth among the demonic path."

Zhao Bai Jiang sneered.

A helpless look appeared on Su Hao's face. He completely resigned himself and cast aside his fantasies. He had hoped that only a few people below were deceiving those above and acting recklessly, and that justice and fairness still existed within the sect.

"We untalented ones can die if we must, but a brother who came in with me was said to possess the talent of a Fire Elemental Sword Physique. He seemed to have shocked quite a few disciples at the time, yet in the blink of an eye, an old man in red robes killed him.

Even a demonic sect should understand how precious talent is and cherish it, shouldn't it?"

Su Hao tried to get to the bottom of it. Perhaps he could find another way to stay alive.

"Fire Elemental Sword Physique? Oh, I heard about that unlucky fellow. He was already smelted into one of the support beams of the Myriad Souls Pagoda as the primary material.

The sect master was so pleased that he directly rewarded that elder with a top-grade magic artifact."

Zhao Bai Jiang sighed with deep feeling. "If anyone is to blame, it is your bad luck. Of all people, it had to be the Hall of Worthy Talents that brought you back. If he had entered through normal methods like the entrance examination, a letter of recommendation, or master-disciple inheritance, he most likely would not have died so miserably. Our sect still has the tiniest bit of rules—those at the top cannot casually kill talented disciples."

"Could you point me toward a path to survival?"

Su Hao's brows knitted tightly.