The Best Reward for a Triumphant Return

Wu Ming stayed at the residence of the Luohuang Mountain group until nightfall.

Beyond discussing the various details of their upcoming actions, Yi Yi and the others taught Wu Ming several practical techniques for exploring the Moli Immortal Mansion within the limits of their authority. At the same time, they helped him circulate the Guili Art to digest the day's bountiful gains—seven Li Yao Echoes had brought him just one step away from breaking through to the fourth stage of Qi Refining.

Once the miscellaneous matters were settled, Wu Ming returned to the adjacent courtyard to relay the conclusions he had reached with Yi Yi and the others to Liu Sanlang, who was just about to turn in for the night.

The young master of the noble family woke up on the spot, leaping out of bed to let out a heartfelt exclamation.

"Hiccup!?"

Shortly after, Zhang Miao hurried over upon hearing the news, only to be similarly shaken by Wu Ming's grand ambition, letting out her own heartfelt exclamation.

"Mmm-unh..."

Wu Ming was speechless: "You can get a nosebleed from this too?!"

Zhang Miao hurriedly explained: "I had just taken a pill to replenish my blood and Qi and was in the middle of circulating my energy when I rushed over. I must have misdirected my internal flow... It is definitely not because I was letting my imagination run wild about you, Yi Yi, Han Gang, and the others..."

"Alright, no need to say more." Wu Ming coldly interrupted. "In any case, my thoughts are exactly as I just stated. Naturally, this matter cannot be decided by me alone; it requires the unanimous consent of all of us to proceed. If you have any concerns or difficulties..."

Before he could finish, Liu Sanlang said decisively, "Why would Brother Wu say such a thing? When I handed the token to you, I placed absolute trust in all your judgments... Furthermore, Brother Wu, you are well aware of what the Moli Immortal Mansion means to me. If there is a chance to break the centuries-long deadlock of the Moli Immortal Mansion, I am prepared to spare no cost!"

Wu Ming then looked at Zhang Miao.

The young woman looked a bit shy and whispered, "I, I don't want to leave the two of you to fend for yourselves..."

The corner of Wu Ming's eye twitched slightly: "I'll take that as a compliment."

And so, the matter was settled. Liu and Zhang went to sleep, each tossing and turning with their own thoughts. Wu Ming seized the time to finish his evening studies, rested briefly, and then woke up promptly at four o'clock the next morning, refreshed and ready to welcome a brand-new daily routine.

Following that, for several days in a row, everything proceeded in an orderly fashion.

The group of eight would assemble at dawn to head out, gathering at the edge of Qingjing Lake to taunt and lure monsters. The five from Luohuang Mountain would then deploy their life-burning formation to slaughter them, leaving the key finishing blows to the three juniors. When the situation threatened to become dangerous, they would shift the formation into the Divine Wind Formation and retreat to the Gray Plains in one breath.

By this time, it was usually only just past noon. After a simple rest in the town, the group would enter the Immortal Mansion again in the afternoon. This time, they would usually avoid large-scale battles, instead using blood to lure enemies in the mist for random hunting.

They would stay busy until dusk, returning exhausted, and then each would digest the fruits of their labor.

They would strip memories from the echoes, categorize them into records, and then cross-reference them with publicly available information on Lost Qi Refiners to verify their identities. Once all extractable information was exhausted, they would use the Guili Art to refine the echoes, rapidly increasing their cultivation.

Three days later, Wu Ming advanced to the fourth stage of Qi Refining without a hitch, and the fifth stage no longer seemed so distant. On the fourth and fifth days, Liu Sanlang and Zhang Miao followed suit, each making their own breakthroughs.

At this point, the three of them had only been cultivating for a few months, a pace that could truly be called shocking. However, people were constantly coming and going in the Gray Plains town, and there was no shortage of talented and eccentric individuals. Especially with the Zhuoquan Immortal Fate approaching, the Gray Plains were a melting pot of people, so for a time, not many noticed them.

It wasn't until the tenth day that someone finally sensed something was wrong.

These people... aren't they being a bit too diligent?! They have been heading out for ten consecutive days without a single break. The Immortal Guiding Envoys are one thing—they have unique secret methods and don't fear the Tribulation of Lost Li—but what is going on with those youngsters? Are they throwing their lives away just for a bit of experience?

Then, under the astonished and puzzled gazes of a few onlookers, Wu Ming and his companions stepped into the Moli Immortal Mansion once again.

This time, their target was no longer the banks of Qingjing Lake, but the Peach Blossom Spring hidden behind layers of thick fog.

The Tribulation of Lost Li was approaching, and strange phenomena had begun to manifest on the three juniors. Even with He Lu exhausting her repertoire of Spirit Talismans, she could not purge them; it was clear they could no longer safely grind for experience. Therefore, although their preparations were not entirely sufficient, this journey into the deeper layers was imperative.

According to the past experiences of Yi Yi and the others, the idyllic paradise seen from the second layer onward was, in reality, a place of extreme danger. The villagers were hospitable; the moment they spotted outsiders, they would curiously beckon them over.

And then, the person being beckoned would be torn apart on the spot.

For hundreds of years, the methods used by Qi Refiners to delve deeper had been limited to two. The first was to try their best to avoid the villagers' attention, seeking a safe path to pass through the flowers without a single petal touching their clothes.

The second, naturally, was to draw their blades and carve a path, slaughtering the village before the inhabitants could even make a sound.

Neither plan was easy, for the people of Peach Blossom Spring, while appearing harmless, each possessed formidable cultivation! It was not uncommon to find those at the Foundation Establishment stage or higher.

But now, under the preparation and command of Wu Ming, Yi Yi and the others had prepared a third path.

Standing at the edge of the dense fog, Wu Ming narrowed his eyes, gazing toward the distant village.

Above his head, three snow-white Spirit Talismans firmly anchored his consciousness. Beside him, Yi Yi and Han Gang gripped his arms tightly, as if ready to sacrifice their own lives for his at any moment.

Wu Ming himself unleashed all his divine abilities, straining to maintain his perception and rationality... and finally, within the Peach Blossom Spring village, he found his target.

A white-haired old scholar was standing by a small stream at the edge of the village, staring blankly at the fish swimming in the water. Though the scholar appeared unremarkable, he possessed the cultivation of an early Foundation Establishment stage practitioner.

"That is the scholar."

The next moment, Wu Ming felt his vision go black. Black blood seeped from his right eye, the pain piercing his heart. Along with the pain came a violent distortion of his memories, as if that single glance had caused him to take a giant stride into the abyss!

Fortunately, the anchor points locked onto him by the Luohuang Mountain cultivators were strong enough to keep his mind steady, preventing him from becoming lost.

"Eat this." He Lu shoved a healing and detoxifying pill into Wu Ming's mouth, rapidly neutralizing his injuries, and then...

At the same time, Yi Yi and Han Gang pushed their mana, blood essence, and divine sense to their limits, like roaring, expanding alchemy furnaces.

Once He Lu had stabilized Wu Ming's condition, she stepped forward, naturally integrating with them to form a classic Tri-Origin Formation of Luohuang Mountain.

The next instant, the figures of the three vanished.

Two masked men in black stepped forward, taking over the task of guarding Wu Ming.

About half a minute later, Yi Yi and the others reappeared before Wu Ming as if they had descended from the sky.

However, in that short half-minute, the three of them had become disheveled and wretched. Their mana was chaotic and tainted, their blood essence depleted... Yi Yi's entire face was swollen, his eyes bulging, looking like a bloated corpse that had died once before.

Yet, such a tragic price had yielded results. The white-haired Foundation Establishment scholar was now held in Han Gang's hand, unconscious.

"Do it." A low, urgent voice emanated from Wu Ming's Art-Sealed Wax Pill. Without hesitation, Wu Ming summoned the Yan Mountain Sword Head from his back and thrust the sword forward.

In an instant, flames erupted from the blade, the blinding light intensifying the power of this Luohuang Mountain outer sect sword technique... allowing it to pierce, with great difficulty, into the center of the scholar's forehead.

The next moment, a tidal wave of sound surged through the mind of Wu Ming!

Compared to the formless Li Yao Echo on the outer perimeter, the sheer volume of information contained within the Taoyuan people of the second layer was on an entirely different level. In particular, this old scholar was clearly an important figure in the village; the echo within his body was like a storm.

At this moment, everyone's heart was in their throat.

This was the most dangerous part. According to Wu Ming's plan, the simplest and most effective way to truly penetrate the second layer was to find someone familiar with the area, kill them, and seize their echo.

But this path was a perilous one, with nine deaths for every life.

Unlike the Li Yao Echo on the outermost edge, once one entered the second layer, the weight and pressure of a living being's echo increased more than tenfold. Over the past few hundred years, there had been no shortage of tragic cases where those who killed someone in the second layer were mentally corrupted by the resulting echo and lost their minds on the spot.

The Guili Art of Luohuang Mountain had actually come into existence by chance specifically to cope with this corruption.

Killing the locals was easy, but digesting their echoes was as difficult as ascending to heaven. For hundreds of years, almost no one had been able to extract any useful information from the echoes of the second layer's inhabitants.

However, Wu Ming believed that as long as one established a sufficiently proper cognitive system in advance, the more massive the information, the more it would help eliminate the estrangement between them! It would break the barrier known as "strangeness."

Just because no one had done it in the past did not mean he couldn't. Every first-clear record of an Immortal Mansion was built upon the foundation of countless things that "predecessors could not do," eventually being achieved.

And now, Wu Ming was going to do what his predecessors could not!

"Kid, you must hold on." Han Gang, while circulating his energy to heal his wounds, gritted his teeth and channeled a portion of his power into Wu Ming's body.

At the same time, Yi Yi, who was the most severely injured, also placed a hand on Wu Ming's shoulder.

"Wu Ming, don't let our hard work go to waste..."

He Lu shook her head with a bitter smile and stepped forward as well.

"We've already risked our lives for this; don't you dare waste it."

As if the voices of the three had truly reached Wu Ming's mind... the next moment, the youth opened his bloodshot eyes, his gaze filled with joy.

"I was right. I understand now... this Qinghe Village is no longer a strange place!"

The moment the words "Qinghe Village" passed through the Star Conch in Wu Ming's throat and reached the ears of the others...

Everyone felt as if the scenery before their eyes blurred. Regardless of their cultivation level, they all experienced a brief moment of trance.

It was as if some invisible barrier—a barrier that no one had attempted to break for hundreds of years—had shattered.

At the same time, the gray mist that had been faintly emerging from the bodies of Wu Ming, Liu Qi, and Zhang Miao naturally dissipated.

The Tribulation of Lost Li, which had been nearing its expiration, had vanished into thin air!

Following this, Yi Yi, while covering his bleeding right eye, transmitted his voice through the Star Conch.

"Good, all hypotheses have been verified... let's retreat for now."

Not long after, when the group saw the Blazing Feather Flag behind the thick fog once more, they truly felt as if a lifetime had passed... along with a surging, indescribable passion brewing in their chests!

This Heavenly Absolute Immortal Mansion was truly within their reach!

Then, as they crossed the boundary between the Immortal Mansion and the gray plains, stepping back onto the small hill...

Wu Ming opened his eyes wide in disbelief.

Below the hill, by the side of the dirt path, a young girl in plain clothes stood prettily with a small travel pack on her back, looking like a stubborn little sapling. On her jade-like face, there was a hint of the awkwardness of a country girl arriving in a bustling town, mixed with worry for her junior brother's long journey.

...Senior Sister?

Senior Sister!?