Professionals Remain Pure at Heart!

When Wu Ming announced his choice, Yi Yi and the others felt neither disappointment nor regret, but deep confusion.

Yi Yi furrowed his brows and kept gently patting his hands together. "You..."

Han Gang was just as incredulous, his eyes wide as his breathing grew heavier.

"You!"

Wu Ming smiled. "I've got thick eyebrows and big eyes. How did I end up playing it safe too?"

Han Gang immediately said, "Just say what you mean! I could tell ages ago that you've got ten times more going on in your head than Liu San!"

Wu Ming couldn't quite smile anymore. He was a bona fide first-clear expert, yet here he was, getting mistaken for a guy who overthought everything...

"All right, here's what happened. While absorbing the Li Yao Echoes by the lake today, I suddenly had an incredible inspiration. At the time, I thought it sounded a little absurd, but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed..."

"Quit beating around the bush!" Han Gang urged him again, unable to hold back.

Wu Ming finally revealed the answer. "I think I've figured out a way to conquer the Moli Immortal Mansion."

Han Gang fell silent for a while. "...Maybe you should go back to beating around the bush."

Yi Yi couldn't help leaning forward either. "If anyone else said that, I'd take it as a joke. But when someone who wrested the Zhuoquan Immortal Fate from another says it, I'll take anything he says seriously."

Wu Ming circled back to the beginning. "At the lake, I absorbed more than seven people's worth of Li Yao Echoes. And, by an incredible coincidence, one of them belonged to 'Qiu Heng.' The young woman in purple we ran into twice on the first day."

Yi Yi looked a little surprised. "You've met three times in two days. You two really are fated."

Wu Ming smiled. "I did get into the Gujian Sect with a single pull... So I'm actually surprised. You've all been working at the Moli Immortal Mansion for years. Have you never discovered anything from the Echoes?"

Yi Yi shook his head. "We can't absorb the Echoes. I can't explain why, either."

Wu Ming frowned. "All right, I won't press you. Let me ask something else, then: how many Li Yao are there in this Immortal Mansion?"

Yi Yi replied, "That's something I can answer, and people have studied it. Roughly speaking, over the past three hundred years, somewhere between fifteen hundred and two thousand Qi Refining cultivators must have gotten lost in the Immortal Mansion. That's actually not as many as most people imagine. But as you've seen, one person can give rise to an endless number of Li Yao..."

Wu Ming cut in. "So have you ever considered why?"

"..." Yi Yi was taken aback by the question. "Maybe you should just tell us your answer."

Wu Ming said, "I think it's to give people the chance to gradually understand the Li Yao... and turn them from strangers into people who aren't strangers anymore."

When he finished that last sentence, all five people around him were stunned!

Even the two black-clad, masked figures who had never uttered a word couldn't help breathing more heavily.

Wu Ming continued, "Actually, I started thinking about this the first time I saw the maxim. 'Don't speak to strangers.' Turn it around, and doesn't that mean you can speak freely with anyone who isn't a stranger? The Li Yao Echoes contain a great many memories from the dead. They're the best chance we have to get to know them."

"I killed Qiu Heng twice, and now I know her name and where she came from... But before, we treated the Echoes as nothing but noise, eager to refine them away with the Guili Art as soon as possible. Could that mean we were actually missing the immortals' original intention?"

"!?"

This time, Yi Yi was so stunned his pupils seemed to quake.

If anyone else had said these things, he would have dismissed them as delirious nonsense. There were far too many problems the theory couldn't explain.

First of all, what kind of sane person would think that killing someone and taking their Echoes was a way to "get to know them better"?!

Second, not all Li Yao were transformed from people who came later. When the Immortal Mansion appeared three hundred years ago, Li Yao were already wandering through the thick fog. And after entering the second level, the villagers in that paradise were even more terrifying than ordinary Li Yao. The bizarre horrors beyond the third level were even harder to describe.

But if they set aside those inexplicable problems and insisted on using this theory to explain the central mystery of the Moli Immortal Mansion, then, actually...

It wasn't impossible!

It was just that explaining one central mystery had no practical value by itself. Perhaps others had once tried embracing the Li Yao, tried turning enemies into friends and breaking down the barriers between them. But judging by the historical record, only those who stayed apart and protected themselves had survived to the end.

At that moment, Wu Ming spoke again. "Of course, I know my theory goes completely against conventional wisdom. But conventional wisdom has already proven one thing over the past several hundred years: it won't get anyone through the Moli Immortal Mansion."

Gulp.

A distinct swallowing sound rang out in the Spirit Pool Chamber.

Wu Ming smiled again. "So I've been thinking about something else, too. The Nine Provinces are vast, and they've never lacked talented, extraordinary people. Over the past two thousand years, people have conquered one Immortal Mansion after another, many of them more treacherous and perilous than the Moli Immortal Mansion. Why is it that the Moli Immortal Mansion has been explored to this extent, with even a labyrinth town built up into such a prosperous, thriving place, yet no one has managed to clear it?"

"Could it be because the rewards on the outer edges of this Immortal Mansion have grown so great that people have lost the will to advance? After all, the name of a Primordial Treasure is impressive, but it's only a legend. The rewards from Li Chen and Echoes, on the other hand, are tangible."

Hearing this, He Lu couldn't help objecting. "For a top-grade immortal sect, mere Li Chen and Echoes are nothing..."

Wu Ming replied, "Even the most prestigious immortal sects need the most inconspicuous Qi Refining cultivators to obtain a Primordial Treasure. So for a Qi Refining cultivator, what's the most sensible way to explore an Immortal Mansion no one has conquered in hundreds of years? Of course, you make full use of the experience left by those who came before. Otherwise, are you really so confident that you can outdo the accumulated wisdom of hundreds of years?"

At this point, Wu Ming smiled again, his smile shining with the brilliance of the sun.

"Fortunately, professionals are never short on confidence. I really do believe I can do better than anyone who came before me over the past several hundred years."

By now, Yi Yi and the others were too shocked to speak.

It had to be said: some people seemed born knowing how to persuade others. Even the most absurd notions gained an air of credibility when they came from their mouths. And Wu Ming's reasoning was anything but absurd!

This kid had only been in the Immortal Mansion for two days. How had he already thought of so much?!

In the end, Han Gang was the first to speak. "So you want to hunt as many Li Yao as possible, then find a way to digest their memories... and eventually turn them into friends instead of enemies? But how many Echoes would that take? And how long would it take?"

Wu Ming answered, "This is how I see it: the reason the Moli Immortal Mansion places no limits on the number of people who enter or how often they enter is to encourage future generations to work together. They're meant to divide into groups of cultivators, explore different parts of the Immortal Mansion, then pool their intelligence and gradually remove the 'strangeness' from within it."

Hearing this, even Han Gang's pupils seemed to quake.

That was right. If you followed that line of thought... the Immortal Mansion's lack of restrictions on outsiders meant that its mysteries were meant to be solved by everyone working together. Yet for hundreds of years, the hundreds or even thousands of Qi Refining cultivators trapped inside had mostly fought on their own.

That was because the more people in a group, the more likely they were to be corrupted by "Moli"... And so, a moment of caution had brought progress to a standstill for centuries.

Just as everyone's hearts began pounding like drums, Wu Ming spoke again.

"...In other words, exploring the Moli Immortal Mansion isn't something a handful of elite cultivators can accomplish. But I'm not one of the 'elite few.' I'm a first-clear expert. And I have a whole group of equally professional Immortal Guiding Envoys by my side!"

Looking at the young man's confident smile, even the strictest, most skeptical person could no longer suppress the stirring in their heart.

He was only a young Desolate Person who had been cultivating for a few months, nowhere near formidable. But somehow... it felt as if following him really could let them breach the heavens' final barrier and reach the deepest part of the Moli Immortal Mansion!

After a brief silence, Wu Ming smiled and steered the conversation back to practical matters.

"Now, back to the question we were discussing. As for how many Echoes we'll need, I don't think it matters. However many we need, we'll farm that many. As long as you can keep going, the more the better."

"Qi Refining and Foundation Establishment might make no difference to a first-grade immortal sect, but they make a difference to me—and an enormous one to clearing the Immortal Mansion first. Every bit stronger I get will make the rest of the challenge that much easier."

"As for the time limit of the Tribulation of Lost Li, I think the key is to understand how it works. Is it a semi-permanent shrinking-circle mechanism, a poisoning-and-antidote mechanism, or some other unusual mechanism?"

"In short, even though I chose the first option, that doesn't mean I'll stay out on the edges and try to clear the place by farming Li Yao endlessly. When there's somewhere I need to go deeper, I'll still go deeper... And when that time comes, I'll need all three of you to lend me your full support."

After that, silence settled over the Spirit Pool Chamber for a long time.

A very long time—so long that Wu Ming had already started wondering whether he should just begin his evening study session right there—before Yi Yi finally spoke.

"Wu Ming, today you were willing to speak openly with us and frankly share your conjectures about the Immortal Mansion's deepest secrets. That trust and integrity... We'll return it in kind. Whatever you want to do from now on, we'll support you as much as we can."

Wu Ming said, "Thank you..."

"Don't thank us just yet. There's one condition."

As he spoke, Yi Yi's expression turned utterly grave.

"Wu Ming, please do everything in your power to conquer this Moli Immortal Mansion!"

Wu Ming answered earnestly, "Rest assured, I won't let the title of first-clear expert go to waste!"