Immortal Longevity Pill, the Reason Behind It (Please Subscribe!)

"Ling Leng?"

Luo Fanchen's pupils contracted as he murmured soundlessly.

The Water Marsh Gang had ten chiefs, ranked by cultivation. Chang Hao stood eighth.

Quick-witted and descended from a fallen great household's lesser branch, he cultivated a high-grade Mystic Method. His combat strength slightly surpassed others at his level, so the gang valued him highly.

Chang Hao had signed a Master-Servant Blood Contract with the Water Marsh Gang's chief and knew nearly all its secrets.

The Water Marsh Gang appeared to be a band of marauding robbers, but its leaders had deep ties to the Yi Wood Sect.

The chief was named He Chun. At the ninth level of Qi Refining, he had once been an inner disciple of the Yi Wood Sect. The art he cultivated, the Withered Wood Pure Life Art, was a high-grade Mystic Method.

After failing to comprehend the method needed for Foundation Establishment, He Chun had requested an assignment within the Clear River Sect's territory. There, he organized bandits to harass immortal markets while working with allies inside to carry out a grand scheme.

"A grand scheme. The Yi Wood Sect. Damn it."

Luo Fanchen's brow furrowed as he paced. As the primary soul, Qiu Yun had also seen the images in Chang Hao's soul.

That grand scheme was the Yi Wood Sect's hidden realm, which its grand elder, True Person Withered Wood, had opened the year before.

True Person Withered Wood had reached Core Formation and was over seven hundred years old. His lifespan was nearly spent.

He had spent recent years desperately seeking a way to prolong his life. Ostensibly, he had opened the hidden realm to invite cultivators from ten thousand miles around to share its opportunities.

In truth, he harbored sinister designs. He knew the Clear River Sect's cultivators would come to disrupt the event and seize its treasures.

He had deliberately bought off two disgraced inner disciples in advance, inviting his prey into the trap.

Through those traitors, he then sparked a bloody conflict. Nearly half the Clear River Sect's disciples and a third of the Yi Wood Sect's disciples died. Their blood essence was combined with that of almost a thousand Rogue Cultivators killed in their own infighting and used to refine a pill.

If the Clear River Sect had not come with schemes of its own, sending three Foundation Establishment elders to deal the Yi Wood Sect a devastating blow, even the surviving half of its disciples might not have escaped.

That day, blood mist had blotted out the sky. In the end, it produced a second-tier, high-grade precious pill named Immortal Longevity.

Refined from cultivators' blood essence and souls after death, the pill stole their lifespans and fortunes. It could extend a life by a hundred years.

The Water Marsh Gang had played a crucial role. If its members had not spread word of the hidden realm through the immortal markets, then used the presence of elite Clear River Sect cultivators as a lure, they could never have drawn in nearly a thousand Rogue Cultivators.

Ling Leng, the second chief, had been responsible for Flying Cloud Market.

"That bastard."

Luo Fanchen's fists tightened. Remembering how Ling Leng had invited him to the hidden realm time and again, he ground his teeth with hatred.

The wretch had been capable indeed, luring away nearly half the Rogue Cultivators in Flying Cloud Market. Fortunately, Luo Fanchen had been too timid at the time and escaped the calamity.

And that shameless scoundrel had dared ask him to look after his orphaned daughter?

Luo Fanchen almost laughed in fury. Yet it had been a blessing born of disaster. If Ling Leng had not been so shameless, Luo Fanchen would never have met Mo Xue and Qiu Yun. He might still have been shut away in his old thatched cottage, cultivating alone.

"Uncle Luo... Ling Leng was Sister Mo Xue's birth father, wasn't he?"

"Yes. He certainly had some ability."

Luo Fanchen sneered. For all his contempt, he could not help feeling a measure of admiration.

His earlier guess had been right. Though the journey into the hidden realm had dealt the Clear River Sect a heavy blow, the Yi Wood Sect had not achieved its goal either.

Nearly half the Clear River Sect's disciples had escaped. The Immortal Longevity Pill lacked the blood essence it needed and could not condense.

In the end, the Essence split into five portions. Rumor held that True Person Withered Wood had obtained only two, while the Clear River Sect had seized one. The other two had vanished.

Ling Leng deserved much of the credit for that outcome. The scoundrel had turned on his own accomplices.

He had engineered a clash between the Water Marsh Gang and the Clear River Sect's traitors, then stolen the Water Dragonwood that True Person Withered Wood had set aside as payment.

Enraged, the Clear River Sect's traitors had withdrawn at once. The Water Marsh Gang had also suffered heavy losses and could no longer stop the Rogue Cultivators. The Yi Wood Sect lost track of the remaining Clear River Sect disciples, allowing the last small group to escape.

"Five portions of the Immortal Longevity Pill... Fellow Daoist Ling, don't tell me you left me a surprise?"

Luo Fanchen swallowed. Ling Leng had been bold and ruthless. After stealing the Water Dragonwood, taking a little something else along the way would have been entirely in character.

Fellow Daoist Ling had left behind a brocade box, but he had never said it contained only Water Dragonwood.

I'm overthinking it. Surely Fellow Daoist Ling wasn't bold enough to snatch food from the jaws of a Core Formation True Person.

Luo Fanchen shook his head ruefully. His hatred of Ling Leng flared again, and he resolved to dig up the scoundrel's ashes and feed them to the fish when he returned to Flying Cloud Market.

Unfortunately, Fellow Daoist Ling's soul had already dispersed. Otherwise, Luo Fanchen would have given the wretch a proper welcome in the Soul Banner.

"Uncle Luo, did the Clear River Sect's traitors refine this Baleful Pill?"

"Yes. True Person Withered Wood promised them two opportunities for Foundation Establishment. One was the Water Dragonwood; the other was the method for making Baleful Pills."

Luo Fanchen nodded, a little wistful.

Fellow Daoist Ling had plotted painstakingly and acted with ruthless daring. The Clear River Sect's traitors had betrayed their sect and cast aside everything they had built their lives upon. Yet the two Foundation Establishment opportunities they had coveted had both landed in the hands of Luo Fanchen, an outsider to the whole affair.

"A pity Chang Hao's human soul was missing. The Clear River Sect's traitors must have taken it."

Luo Fanchen ended his technique with a sigh. In Chang Hao's memories, everything concerning the Clear River Sect's traitors was blank.

Someone had clearly stripped those memories away by a vicious method. No wonder Chang Hao had been the one sent to retrieve the Baleful Pill.

It seemed the Clear River Sect's traitors were no easy prey either. They had already begun infiltrating the Water Marsh Gang, intending to uproot it completely.

"With both Foundation Establishment opportunities lost, will those traitors lash out like cornered dogs?"

After thinking it over for a long while, Luo Fanchen decided to wait until a Treasure Pavilion caravan passed through again, then travel with it back to Flying Cloud Market.

There were two traitors, though they were not in the same place. One held a senior position in Flying Cloud Market.

If Luo Fanchen reported the matter rashly, that person would intercept his message, follow the trail back to him, and kill him. Only by using the Treasure Pavilion to contact the Clear River Sect's leaders directly could he strike back.

"The Clear River Sect's traitors and the Water Marsh Gang are at each other's throats, yet both are under the Yi Wood Sect's thumb."

"Unless the five portions of the Immortal Longevity Pill are condensed into a pill, they won't prolong anyone's life. True Person Withered Wood has paid a terrible price. He won't give up."

Luo Fanchen kept weighing the matter. During the refinement of the Immortal Longevity Pill, True Person Withered Wood had not personally slaughtered cultivators for the furnace.

He had let the cultivators in the hidden realm kill one another, then gathered the blood essence saturating the realm to form the pill. It offended heaven and reason, but it did not quite count as the work of a Demonic Cultivator.

It fell exactly on the line of what Luo Shen Pavilion would tolerate. Even so, the Yi Wood Sect had overstepped, and the other subordinate sects were sure to join forces to suppress it.

In refining the Immortal Longevity Pill, True Person Withered Wood had all but cost the Yi Wood Sect its standing within Luo Shen Pavilion.

And after all that, he had obtained only two useless portions of Essence?

"The Water Marsh Gang has been roaming Flying Cloud Market and Soaring Firmament and Second Market to search for clues to the missing Essence."

At last, Luo Fanchen understood why the Water Marsh Gang had been running rampant.

Flying Cloud Market and Soaring Firmament and Second Market lay deep within the Clear River Sect's territory. Though they harbored traitors, those traitors had broken with the robbers, and Foundation Establishment cultivators guarded the markets. Compared with the three chaotic outer markets, they were unquestionably safe.

The Water Marsh Gang knew it could not breach either market. Its members could only establish bandit lairs near the surrounding passes and harass travelers.

Their aim was to cut off or delay aid from the two markets when the next conflict came.

They also suspected that one portion of Essence was in the hands of a Clear River Sect traitor.

As for Ling Leng, his sabotage had earned him pursuit by all three sides. The Water Marsh Gang and True Person Withered Wood were almost certain he held a portion of Essence.

"What a fine fellow daoist you were."

Luo Fanchen felt somewhat reassured.

The Yi Wood Sect appeared powerful, but pressure from the other subordinate sects would soon send it into decline.

True Person Withered Wood had little lifespan left. Though his cultivation slightly surpassed the Clear River Sect patriarch's, he could do nothing to him. Unless the Yi Wood Sect swallowed the Clear River Sect soon, it and the Water Marsh Gang faced only ruin.

"Once the Treasure Pavilion master returns, two Foundation Establishment cultivators will be guarding Flying Cloud Market. There'll be nowhere safer."

Luo Fanchen did not fear the traitors. The Treasure Pavilion would certainly stand with him for now.

Besides, the traitors did not know who he was. Even if they found traces of what had happened, they would assume an orthodox Demonic Cultivator wielding a Soul Banner had turned on the Water Marsh Gang and taken its spoils.

However bold the traitors were, they would not dare provoke an orthodox Demonic Cultivator.

"All mine for nothing. Who would've thought I'd be blessed with good fortune too?"

A faint smile touched Luo Fanchen's lips. The Baleful Pill's side effects chiefly took the form of karmic debt, which would trigger a heart-demon tribulation.

Karmic debt had no effect on him. That meant that, after pledging the Water Dragonwood as collateral for the Heavenly Heart Art, he once again possessed a treasure that could aid his Foundation Establishment.

A Baleful Pill offered a thirty-percent chance of Foundation Establishment. Even an embryonic pill would offer fifteen percent.

Combined with the Lesser Yang Wood-Transforming Art's auxiliary method for Foundation Establishment, that would bring his chances to thirty percent.

"It'll be some time before the Treasure Pavilion sends another caravan. I may as well clear out the nearby bandits."

Luo Fanchen stretched. Though he knew the bandit lairs posed no immediate threat to Flying Cloud Market, he remained wary.

The reason was simple: the lairs were so numerous that, like a vast net, they occupied nearly forty percent of the main routes into the market.

Put kindly, they were there to delay aid from Flying Cloud Market. But with three times as many cultivators, the gang could turn the market into a deathtrap.

"Ah... Qiu Yun, come with me. Let's see our Clear River Sect fellow daoists off."

Having finished examining the memories, Luo Fanchen called Qiu Yun over and sped toward the second and third fortified villages.

Two elite Clear River Sect cultivators had once guarded those villages. Unfortunately, the traitors had found a way to take their souls, allowing subverted Water Marsh Gang robbers to seize their bodies. That was how they had deceived the Treasure Pavilion's watchers.

The Treasure Pavilion cultivators stationed there had not been spared either. Every one of them had suffered body seizure.

If a few of the robbers had not grown impatient and plundered several shipments, the Treasure Pavilion might never have noticed anything amiss on its trade route.

After all, these were troubled times. The Treasure Pavilion was short of people, so it had been slow to rotate its guards and had relied largely on support from the Clear River Sect.

No one had expected a traitor with real authority to emerge within the Clear River Sect.