In a general store in Tianxing City, Lin He stepped through the door, and a female disciple hurried forward. "Elder Lin, you're here!"
Lin He paused in surprise. He remembered never having met this female disciple, so how had she recognized him at first sight?
The female disciple led Lin He upstairs to a private room, and he soon understood. A portrait of him was hanging on the second floor, clearly identifying him as the sect's guest elder.
Only then did realization dawn on Lin He. Zhou Yuan hurried over, dismissed the female disciple, and led him into a room equipped with an isolation formation.
As soon as they entered, Zhou Yuan hastened to apologize. "Protector Lin, I'm truly sorry. To protect ourselves, our sect had no choice but to borrow your prestige."
Lin He was not angry. After all, he had agreed to serve publicly as the Miaoyin Sect's guest elder. Presumably, this was also Deputy Sect Master Zhou's way of reassuring her people. With another Core Formation elder in the sect, its disciples could feel more at ease.
Twenty years had passed, yet Deputy Sect Master Zhou's appearance had barely changed. She was still a beautiful woman; evidently, she had also practiced some youth-preserving cultivation technique.
Zhou Yuan, however, was greatly startled. An instinctive sweep of her spiritual sense had just revealed that Lin He had already reached the Core Formation middle stage. She had achieved Core Formation before he did, yet he had come from behind and surpassed her. The discovery left her somewhat dejected.
Still, Zhou Yuan was a Core Formation cultivator, and she quickly extinguished those thoughts. Without waiting for Lin He to ask, she took out two storage bags. One held various rare materials for preparing Stellar Spirit Liquid, lacking only a single medicinal