The Xiao Household Was Completely Fooled! Medicine Elder's Evaluation: This Boy's Scheming Was Terrifying!

Noticing the change in Xiao Yan's mindset, Medicine Elder smiled approvingly. "Your mindset has adjusted quite well, kid. It seems those three years of living as trash were a highly valuable trial for you."

Xiao Yan gave a bitter laugh. "But that is still a full three-year gap. Teacher, with your guidance... do you think I can still catch up to him?"

Medicine Elder fell silent for a moment. "...I don't know."

Xiao Yan's eye twitched wildly. "Teacher, shouldn't you be giving me some domineering encouragement at a time like this and building up my invincible confidence?!"

"I would like to give you confidence, but that kid is simply too bizarre!" Medicine Elder sighed helplessly. "Even with my personal guidance, your chances of catching up to his strength in a short time are still slim."

"Bizarre? Other than cultivating quickly, what else is so strange about him?" Xiao Yan asked, thoroughly confused.

Medicine Elder asked in return, "Are you, like those blind fools in the Xiao Household, under the impression that he runs outside the city every day just to play in the mud and catch wild game?"

"Isn't that the case?"

"Completely wrong!"

Medicine Elder's voice rose, carrying deep apprehension. "Although I do not know what exactly he does when he leaves the city alone, his body contains a terrifying vitality and blood energy that has been tempered to the utmost limit, yet reveals not the slightest trace! Even with this old man's experience, I find it inconceivable!"

"If I am not mistaken, he is not merely cultivating Dou Qi. Since childhood, he has also practiced some brutal method of body cultivation. He cultivates both body and technique, a rare dual cultivator! More frightening still, deep within his bloodline seems to lie dormant an ancient aura that even makes my heart tremble slightly."

"An ancient aura? Could there also be the remnant soul of a sleeping expert inside him, like you?" Xiao Yan asked in shock.

"No, that is not soul power, but pure bloodline pressure," Medicine Elder denied. "He most likely fused with the essence blood of some ancient exotic beast by chance. Such an opportunity is something one can only hope to encounter."

Xiao Yan was completely dumbfounded.

A shocking cultivation level, dual cultivation of body and technique, an ancient bloodline... Wasn't that setup far too extravagant?

He asked in confusion, "Since he possesses such terrifying talent and trump cards, why would he deliberately hide himself and willingly endure being cursed as trash?"

Upon hearing this question, Medicine Elder let out a long sigh. His tone carried an extremely admiring sort of wariness.

"Little Yan, this is precisely his most frightening trait, and why I say his scheming runs so deep."

"I have been attached to you these past few years, so I have seen his circumstances clearly as well. His parents died early. Though he is your father's adopted son, in this Xiao Household, where factions stand everywhere, no one truly considers him one of their own. Even your father's attitude toward him is neither warm nor cold."

"If an orphan with no backing revealed talent comparable to a monster's, do you think those Xiao Household elders would pour resources into nurturing him, or secretly eliminate this outside threat who might endanger the status of their descendants?"

"To protect himself, he wrapped himself in a perfect disguise—a mediocrely gifted, mischievous rogue who flirted around everywhere."

"If he appeared too steady and outstanding, the elders would fear him. If he appeared too weak, he would be trampled at will, perhaps even used as a political bargaining chip to attack your father."

"But with his current irritating image, everyone may look down on him verbally, yet no faction would truly regard him as a mortal enemy that needed to be eliminated. After all, he might anger you today, then go disgust the people you dislike tomorrow."

Medicine Elder's voice was filled with emotion. "He appears arrogant and shameless, but is actually incomparably smooth and calculating. He hides every edge beneath that carefree smile... For such cunning and depth to appear in a fifteen-year-old boy is truly frightening."

Meanwhile, An Yi, who had just swiped a plump roast chicken from the kitchen, swaggered back to his little courtyard.

Compared to Xiao Xun'er's quiet, elegant private residence, refined in every detail, An Yi's territory was far too primitive.

It was not that the Xiao Household deliberately mistreated him to the point of denying him a place to live. Mainly, he was an orphan with no one to rely on, no elders to support him, and he himself could not be bothered with such trouble.

The courtyards of the other Xiao Household juniors were repaired and renovated by servants every few days, with exotic flowers and plants added here and there. An Yi's place, meanwhile, specialized in "natural decay."

The paint on the courtyard walls had long peeled away into a mottled mess, and a clump of foxtail grass even grew arrogantly in one corner.

A conspicuous crack split the stone table in the center, while several fallen leaves spun through the courtyard in the wind.

The entire little courtyard carried the desolate air of a place whose owner was about to flee at any moment.

However, An Yi did not care about such trivial matters at all.

Let alone a slightly rundown place like this, with his current physique, he could sleep soundly on any crooked tree.

If he ever wanted to sleep in a soft, comfortable bed, he could either head to the Mittel Auction House and mooch off Ya Fei's fragrant boudoir, or simply spend money on a top-tier room at the finest inn in the city.

To him, this shabby courtyard was merely a "check-in spot" he occasionally needed to visit to prove he had not gone missing.

An Yi sat before the cracked stone table, tore off a golden, grease-dripping drumstick, and stuffed it into his mouth. As he chewed, he calculated his next cultivation plan in his mind.

Five high-quality, second-tier gold-element Magic Cores lay inside his Storage Ring, but he could not simply swallow all of these "hard goods" in one go.

Although the Heaven-Devouring Art was tyrannical and could directly devour the energy within Magic Cores, he was not one of those high-tier Magic Beasts that could tear through prey and swallow it whole by instinct.

The violent energy drawn into his body needed time to be slowly digested.

If he recklessly consumed too much at once, allowing the violent Magic Core energy to rampage through his body, then no matter how monstrous his physique was, he would still suffer damaged muscles and bones.

He had learned that lesson through blood.

More importantly:

Although the violent gold-element Magic Core energy he absorbed would be transformed into his own Dou Qi by the Heaven-Devouring Art, that Dou Qi could not be used directly. He still needed to temper it himself before it could become genuine Gengjin Dou Qi!

The ultimate sharpness and tyranny of Gengjin Dou Qi meant it was like raw iron freshly refined in a furnace. Only after being hammered and forged a thousand times could it transform into a peerless divine weapon capable of slicing through iron like mud.

If it was not tempered sufficiently, Gengjin Dou Qi would remain unstable and insubstantial, unable to unleash its true destructive power.

"At the Dou Practitioner stage, I could still passively temper my body by resisting the pressure of a waterfall and smashing stone walls with my bare hands. But now that I have broken through to Dou Master, continuing to pound that Water-Curtain Cave obviously will not have much training effect anymore."

An Yi spat out a chicken bone, his eyes narrowing slightly.

He needed a more intense method of training—high-intensity, life-and-death combat!

Those thick-skinned Magic Beasts in the Magic Beast Mountain Range were the best "hammers" for him at this stage.

And ordinary first-tier Magic Beasts were no longer enough. At minimum, he needed second-tier ones, perhaps even third-tier Magic Beasts!

That meant he had to venture deep into the Magic Beast Mountain Range.

"Looks like it is time to leave the Xiao Household for a while." An Yi rubbed his chin.

It was not as though he had anything he could not bear to leave behind, but officially, he was still underage and still Xiao Zhan's adopted son.

For the sake of its public image, the Xiao Household would never easily allow the orphaned child of a martyr to leave the city alone for training.

If he ran off without even giving notice, it would easily cause unnecessary trouble.

"What perfect excuse can I find to slip out openly and honestly?"