Everyone was puzzled. The Pill Treasure Pavilion stood above such matters. Why would it interfere in their conflict?
A lineage's long-term development depended on a supply of pills. The four great lineages purchased large quantities of pills from the Pill Treasure Pavilion every year. It held a near monopoly over Canglan City's pill industry, and this was its greatest foundation.
Only Liu Wuxie understood perfectly well: if he died, Master Huo would die too.
They would prosper or perish together. It was not that Master Huo cherished talent. On the contrary, he wished Liu Wuxie would hurry up and die, leaving the Heavenly Spirit Pill formula in his hands alone.
Until the affliction in his body was eradicated, he had to protect Liu Wuxie by every means possible.
"Master Huo, give me an explanation!"
Wan Rongzhe drew a deep breath. Liu Wuxie had slain twelve Wan Household disciples right before his eyes, including his own nephew. This enmity was one that could not coexist beneath the same sky.
Master Huo looked troubled. Some things were impossible to say. He could hardly tell them that he had a hidden ailment only Liu Wuxie could treat.
Yet he had no choice but to step forward, leaving him in an awkward position.
"Patriarch Wan, I cannot disclose the specifics. Do not touch him for one month. After that, whether your two households live or die, I will not interfere."
A gleam of cunning flashed through Master Huo's eyes. Liu Wuxie had sworn to slaughter the entire Wan Household within a month. Whether that was true or false, the answer would be clear a month from now.
The affliction within his body would be essentially healed within a month. By then, he would no longer care whether Liu Wuxie lived or died. He had avoided completely offending the Wan Household while also protecting Liu Wuxie, and the Xu Household would be grateful to him as well. Three gains in one stroke.
All he had to do was keep Liu Wuxie alive for a month. The agreed time for the Heavenly Spirit Pill's refining method was also one month.
At present, he only had the pill formula. Liu Wuxie would not tell him the complete refining method until a month later.
Wan Rongzhe drew a deep breath, calming the killing intent in his heart. Offending the Pill Treasure Pavilion would do the Wan Household no good. If its supply was cut off, the lineage would decline within a few years.
"Fine. I will give Master Huo face today. One month from now, I will come to his door myself and twist his head off."
As expected of a ruthless leader, he knew when to take hold and when to let go. He would let Liu Wuxie live another month.
Under countless watching eyes, Liu Wuxie and Xu Lingxue left the beast-fighting arena and disappeared into the streets.
Only after they were ten li from the arena did the tension on Xu Lingxue's face slowly fade. Her right hand had remained pressed against her sword hilt the entire time.
"Just how many things are you still hiding from me?"
They sat inside the carriage, and Xu Lingxue spoke first. Even she could not have delivered that world-shaking saber strike. He had slaughtered Eighth Layer of the Acquired Realm cultivators as easily as pigs and dogs.
"What do you want to know?"
Liu Wuxie took out a spirit stone and placed it in his palm. Pure Spiritual Qi poured into his body, and his cultivation climbed steadily, showing faint signs of breaking through to the Seventh Layer of Postnatal.
"Why did Master Huo help us?"
Xu Lingxue did not ask why his cultivation had advanced so rapidly. The Pill Treasure Pavilion stood high above them, yet the moment Master Huo appeared, he had slapped Tian Yequan and Wan Butong repeatedly, then stepped forward to protect them for a month. It was rather inconceivable.
"A secret!"
There were things he was not deliberately trying to hide, but they still needed to remain secret for now. In a month, the answer would reveal itself.
"Then what is going on with your cultivation?"
She could only change the subject. A few days ago, he had still been a piece of trash. In just a few short days, he had improved so quickly.
"A secret!"
Once again, those words were his answer. Xu Lingxue was so angry she wanted to go wild. Her delicate fists clenched, and she wished she could go over and give him a thorough beating.
A brief silence settled over the carriage. An hour later, they returned safely to the Xu Household. The Wan Household had not ambushed them along the way. After they left, Master Huo had sternly warned the Wan Household that if anything happened to Liu Wuxie, its pill supply would be cut off from then on.
Xu Yilin had yet to return. The Tian Household had not targeted just one weapons workshop with its scheme. Several other workshops had encountered incidents like the one involving Scarred Tiger.
Fortunately, the Xu Household had prepared countermeasures in advance. Not only had the schemes failed, but the Xu Household had struck back fiercely, killing dozens of troublemakers.
In a single day, Canglan City was so tense that even the wind and the cries of cranes stirred alarm.
By the time Xu Yilin hurried back to the lineage, news from the beast-fighting arena had already arrived. He immediately sought out Liu Wuxie and Xu Lingxue to ask what had happened.
They could only recount everything in full. The Wan Household and Tian Household had joined forces to kill his daughter and son-in-law. Xu Yilin slammed his hand hard on the table.
"Outrageous! Those two households are far too arrogant. Do they really think I, Xu Yilin, am so easy to bully?"
Dense killing intent filled the entire hall. All the Xu Household's stewards hurried back. Matters had become urgently pressing.
The events at the arena that day had already spread like wildfire. Everyone in the Xu Household knew about them. In particular, that stunning saber strike had already been described as a feat of divine skill.
"We still have a month. We must prepare properly."
Xu Yilin calmed the anger in his heart. In a month, the Wan Household and Tian Household would surely join forces to sweep down upon the Xu Household. They had to use this month to improve the Xu Household's fighting strength.
Night fell, and all was quiet!
Liu Wuxie returned to his courtyard and immediately took out the spirit stones. He gave Xu Lingxue fifty and his father-in-law fifty, hoping his father-in-law could break through to the Half-Step Marrow Cleansing Realm as soon as possible.
Only when the Xu Household had a Marrow Cleansing Realm expert could its troubles truly be settled once and for all.
Of the hundred remaining stones, he took out thirty to set up a Spirit Gathering Formation.
Time waited for no one. Before refining the Meridian-Restoring Pill, he had to reach the peak of the Ninth Layer of the Houtian Realm.
He spent an hour setting up a simplified Spirit Gathering Formation, sufficient for his current needs.
The moment the formation activated, the air fluctuated violently. Vast quantities of Spiritual Qi rushed in from every direction and gathered in his little courtyard. The dense Spiritual Qi resembled liquid, and the flowers and grasses in the courtyard grew rapidly.
Nourished by Spiritual Qi, ordinary leaves gave off a pale green sheen. A small tree with a trunk as thick as a bowl's mouth grew more than a meter taller in just half an hour.
There were still plenty of medicinal ingredients delivered by the Pill Treasure Pavilion. He continued extracting Body-Tempering Liquid.
He dared not rest for even a moment. The steward personally delivered his three daily meals, and he ate, drank, relieved himself, and slept entirely within the courtyard.
He refined a basin of Body-Tempering Liquid, poured it into a barrel, stripped naked, and sat inside.
The Grand Desolation Heaven-Devouring Instruction circulated. The Spiritual Qi in the courtyard entered his body through his pores, while the Heaven-Devouring Divine Cauldron absorbed it frantically like the divine beast Taotie.
"So comfortable!"
As the purity of the Spiritual Qi increased, droplets of liquid appeared inside the Heaven-Devouring Divine Cauldron, condensing much faster than before.
The liquid's color was also changing, turning dark brown and giving off exceedingly powerful fluctuations.
The Spiritual Qi above the Xu Household was stripped away completely, and the drain gradually spread to other areas. Like a faint veil of mist, Spiritual Qi hung over Liu Wuxie's courtyard.
Fortunately, it was the middle of the night. Had it been daytime, everyone would surely have been shocked.
"What is going on? The Spiritual Qi seems thinner."
A Song Household disciple opened his eyes, a trace of confusion appearing on his face.
It was not just the Song Household. Similar puzzled voices arose elsewhere. Canglan City's Spiritual Qi seemed to have mysteriously disappeared.
Nourished by the Body-Tempering Liquid, his physical body grew stronger and stronger.
Spirit stones appeared in his hands. He used the power within them to widen his meridians. Liu Wuxie intended not only to temper his body's strength, but also to expand his Dantian.
No one possessed more cultivation knowledge than he did. He avoided many detours, using the pure Spiritual Qi within the spirit stones to regulate his meridians and make them more resilient.
After three hours, his meridians had more than doubled in width.
They could hold more than twice as much True Qi as during the day. His cultivation realm had not changed, but his fighting strength had increased severalfold.
He poured out three Heavenly Spirit Pills, intending to break through to the Seventh Layer of Postnatal in one push.
The liquid inside the Heaven-Devouring Divine Cauldron flowed out. Each drop seemed to weigh ten thousand jin. The moment it appeared, Liu Wuxie's face filled with shock.
"These liquids contain Innate Spirit."
He did not fully understand the mysteries of the Heaven-Devouring Divine Cauldron either and was still exploring them. The stronger the Innate Spirit, the greater the chance of breaking through to the Xiantian Realm.
There were only six drops, not many.
The moment his Dantian came into contact with the mysterious liquid, it shook violently. His entire body seemed to experience an earthquake. The six drops charged about wildly, each collision making Liu Wuxie's eardrums ache.
This continued for the time it took to drink a cup of tea before the six drops finally settled down. His Divine Sense entered his body.
"This... hiss..."
He sucked a cold breath through his nose. The moment his Divine Sense entered his Dantian, his body felt as though it had been struck by lightning.
"It actually transformed my Dantian, making it more ancient, weathered, and vast, filled with a primordial desolation presence."
The size of a person's Dantian was essentially fixed, though there was no shortage of exceptionally talented people whose Dantians differed from the norm.
Methods for expanding the Dantian were exceedingly rare in this world. Only as one's cultivation continued to rise would the Dantian grow along with it, storing more True Qi, primal force, and so on.
Within his ancient, weathered Dantian, the ground resembled massive mountain ranges. Every strand of True Qi brimmed with the Power of Primordial Desolation. It was simply inconceivable.
"What terrifying True Qi. It is more than ten times stronger than ordinary True Qi."
After a simple assessment, he found that the quality of Primordial Desolation True Qi far surpassed ordinary True Qi.
At that moment!
His imposing presence climbed steadily. He swallowed three Heavenly Spirit Pills in one mouthful, and they transformed into Spirit Essence, assaulting his acupoints.
He would draw upon every bit of power to break through. A gale suddenly rose in his Dantian. The Heaven-Devouring Divine Cauldron stirred abruptly, sucking in all the Spiritual Qi within the courtyard.
Seventh Layer of Postnatal!
It had taken only a single breath, and he continued pushing onward. The strength of his physical body was comparable to the First Layer of Innate.
Another three Heavenly Spirit Pills appeared. He swallowed them, then took out two spirit stones and held them in his palms.
The Spiritual Qi above the courtyard had dried up. He could only rely on spirit stones to sustain his cultivation.
His Dantian continued to roar like a dragon. The Heaven-Devouring Divine Cauldron had long since fused with his Dantian, becoming an inseparable part of his body.
Primordial Desolation True Qi surged into his meridians like a rushing river, coating everything in its path with a thick layer of the Power of Primordial Desolation.
He pressed straight toward the Eighth Layer of the Acquired Realm. Over the past few days, he had accumulated sufficient foundations, and that deep accumulation was now bursting forth.
An ordinary person would need several days or even more than ten days to refine a single Heavenly Spirit Pill. He swallowed three at a time, relying on his understanding of pills and his powerful physical body.
"Break through!"
Without hesitation, he chose to continue breaking through. The six drops of liquid vanished completely, transforming into the Power of Primordial Desolation and merging into his body, remodeling his Dantian. Innate Spirit entered his limbs and every bone, and a faint spirituality suffused his entire body.
The Eighth Layer of the Acquired Realm was attained!