A predicament with no solution

Chen Lin sighed inwardly. Just as he had suspected, the other man had noticed him from the very beginning.

He had ended up in this situation because he had not been cautious enough.

But by now, he had calmed down. "I can try refining it for you, but you must swear an Inner Demon Oath. As long as I produce the pill, you must not harm me. You must also protect me and take me away from here!"

When the other man did not answer immediately, Chen Lin thrust his chin out and said defiantly, "If you won't agree, then go ahead and kill me. Whether I die sooner or later, I'll still be dead. Another day or two won't make any difference."

The old man fell silent for a moment, then suddenly smiled. "Very well. You shall have your wish. I hope you can give me a pleasant surprise."

With that, the old man pointed toward the heavens and swore an Inner Demon Oath.

Chen Lin finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Of course, even so, he could not truly entrust his safety to the other man. If he found an opportunity, he would still flee. Everything he was doing now was merely a stalling tactic.

"Time is short, and I've prepared plenty of materials. Fellow Daoist Chen, please begin!"

The old man slapped his Storage Bag, and a heap of pill-refining ingredients appeared on the table.

Chen Lin glanced over them. There were probably enough for fifteen or twenty attempts.

It seemed the old man had told the truth. He really had made ample preparations to obtain a Blood Demon Pill.

Chen Lin's eyes flickered, and he suddenly said, "Fellow Daoist Yu, as an Alchemist, you should know that distractions are the greatest taboo in pill refining. I need to return to my own room to do this. Otherwise, don't blame me if I fail to produce the pill."

The way his Ten Attempts One Hit ability forced an item's creation to succeed was far too conspicuous. He needed to conceal it as much as possible.

Otherwise, it would be difficult to explain.

Unexpectedly, the other man agreed without hesitation.

"Very well. Please do as you wish, Fellow Daoist Chen. All I want is the Blood Demon Pill. I won't interfere with how you refine it."

With that, he took out a bag and packed all the ingredients into it along with the Pill Cauldron, then gestured for Chen Lin to leave.

Chen Lin nodded, silently picked up the bag, and headed toward the door.

Suddenly, he sensed a ripple of mana behind him. A faint sting pricked his shoulder, as though something had bitten him.

He was just about to demand an explanation when the other man spoke.

"An honest man does nothing in secret. I've left a mark on you, Fellow Daoist. It won't harm you, and I'll remove it once you finish refining the pill. Also, please don't leave this courtyard in the meantime, or unpleasantness may be unavoidable."

Chen Lin's expression shifted, but he said nothing and silently walked out.

Back in his room, he threw the bag to the floor with a dark expression, clenching his fists until the veins bulged on his hands.

Slowly, however, he regained his composure.

Impotent rage was meaningless. If he wanted to break out of this predicament, he could only endure.

What troubled him now was whether he should actually refine the Blood Demon Pill.

Once the other man used the Blood Demon Pill, he could cultivate the Blood Demon Technique. Given that technique's sinister nature, his chances of reaching foundation establishment would be extremely high.

Once the man became a foundation establishment expert, Chen Lin's hope of escaping his demonic clutches would become even slimmer.

Moreover, to keep his cultivation of the Blood Demon Technique a secret, the man might well kill him to silence him.

The Inner Demon Oath was indeed binding, but Chen Lin could not stake his life on an oath alone.

Yet if he failed to produce the pill, the man would certainly kill him to vent his fury amid his crushing disappointment.

After pondering for a long time without finding a good solution, Chen Lin could only take his time refining the pill and drag things out for a few days.

The Blood Demon Pill required many ingredients, but it had only one principal ingredient: the blood essence of a demonic beast.

Neither the original owner of this body nor Chen Lin himself had ever seen a demonic beast. They had only heard of them.

According to the pill formula, the blood essence required for this pill had to come from a demonic beast of the second rank or higher, and it had to be extracted while the creature was alive.

There were no restrictions on the species, but pills refined from the blood essence of different demonic beasts would have somewhat different effects when used.

As he understood it, this pill could be considered an unconventional Foundation Establishment Pill. After taking it and refining it with the Blood Demon Technique, the user would effectively have altered his own fundamental nature. Whether he could still be considered human was difficult to say.

It was precisely for this reason that the technique could ignore bottlenecks and allow cultivation to advance at astonishing speed.

Of course, the price was steep as well. It amounted to exchanging lifespan for cultivation.

As for whether there were other drawbacks, that was beyond his knowledge. Everything he knew about this subject came from the original owner's memories, and the original owner had not known much either.

A night passed.

Chen Lin did not refine any pills. He simply did some preliminary processing of the ingredients, then rested.

Early the next morning, he washed up and cooked a pot of Spirit Rice Porridge. Only after eating and drinking his fill did he set out the Pill Cauldron, load it with fuel, and prepare to light it.

During that time, he peered through a gap in the window several times to check Yu Yuehai's room. Every time, he saw the man standing outside his door, staring in his direction with a gloomy expression.

It seemed he had not slept all night.

That was also why Chen Lin did not dare delay any longer.

Before lighting the fire, Chen Lin carefully inspected the Pill Cauldron.

This was a proper Pill Cauldron, with an inscribed formation on its surface. Not only did it maintain a stable temperature and allow the refinement of more advanced pills, but it also improved the success rate to some extent.

Among magical tools, Pill Cauldrons were the most expensive.

Pill Cauldrons were also divided into grades, but even the poorest Low-grade Pill Cauldron would probably cost several hundred medium-grade spirit stones.

For a foundation establishment lineage, it could serve as a family heirloom.

Running his fingers over the array patterns engraved on the Pill Cauldron, Chen Lin felt his heart burn with desire. If he had a cauldron like this, he could try refining more advanced pills.

Suppressing his greed, he returned to the window and looked outside again. Yu Yuehai was still standing there with a gloomy expression, a cold gleam flashing in his eyes.

Chen Lin drew a breath, returned to sit before the Pill Cauldron, and lit the fuel.

The Blood Demon Pill required quite a few ingredients, and the process was complicated. On top of that, this was his first time using a genuine Pill Cauldron, and he failed to control the mana he fed into it. He had barely begun when a bang rang out, and all the ingredients he had put inside were reduced to nothing.

Chen Lin grimaced but did not take it to heart. Instead, he rose unhurriedly to clean the Pill Cauldron.

In any case, he would stall for as long as he could.

Outside.

Standing at the door to his own room, Yu Yuehai heard the sound from Chen Lin's room, and the corners of his mouth involuntarily twitched twice.

"Senior Brother, are you certain this man can refine a Blood Demon Pill?"

A woman's voice came from inside the room. Then a figure emerged-it was the female proprietor of the Shuiyue Pavilion.

"I'm not certain, but there's no other choice. You know perfectly well what the Blood Demon Pill is like. The success rate is too low; it depends entirely on luck. I refined it dozens of times myself without succeeding once. There are only twenty-odd portions of the demonic beast blood essence I collected left. I know I have no hope, so I can only let him try."

At the thought of all the ingredients he had wasted, even someone as wealthy as he was could not help frowning.

"But from the look of it, he's never even used a magical-tool-grade Pill Cauldron before. He ruined a whole batch of ingredients before he even activated the cauldron's formation. Did this man really refine your modified Chuyuan Pill and Enlightenment Pill?"

The woman's face was filled with doubt.