Recaps

Li Yan joined Yellow Qi Valley to seek the immortal herb that could help Bai Rou, while pursuing the sect’s alchemy ranks and hiding his abilities. After entering the core elite selection, he began its poison-antidote trial as Yan Qingchen became the first to pass.

• Dong Fuyi brought Li Yan into the Gui Water Immortal Sect, where Shi Ligu and Fairy Ning Ke introduced him to the sect’s successors and gave him gifts and guidance.
• Fairy Ning Ke treated Bai Rou and told Li Yan that a rare immortal herb might grow in Yellow Qi Valley’s Ancient Hall of Inheritance, so Shi Li Gui tested Li Yan before helping him enter the valley.
• Fairy Ning Ke escorted Li Yan to Yellow Qi Valley, where he passed the inner-valley entrance assessment alongside Ming Qi, Ming Yu, and Cheng Kuanghan.
• Li Yan settled into a remote residence, studied alchemy, and subdued Cheng Kuanghan and his companions with poison after they tried to extort him.
• After becoming a Yellow-rank alchemist, Li Yan received Martial Aunt Ning Ke’s arrangement to join Yellow Qi Valley’s internal selection for core elite disciples.
• Elder Liu announced that candidates would test a poisonous pill, make an antidote, and use it to cure a poisoned demon beast within one hundred breaths.
• Li Yan identified the pill’s hallucinogenic poison and submitted an ingredient list, then began refining an antidote while Ming Qi and other candidates completed their analyses.
• Yan Qingchen treated the Azureflame Earth Dragon with his three antidote pills, and the beast recovered after twelve breaths.

Li Yan qualified as a core elite disciple, gathered contribution points through dangerous missions, and survived an ambush on a pill escort alongside Ming Qi. After returning to Yellow Qi Valley, he uncovered the Subtle Thought technique in a captured blade and earned enough points to qualify for the Ancient Hall of Inheritance.

• Li Yan placed first in the poison test and second in the herb-identification round, then qualified as a core elite disciple despite placing twenty-third in the tree-growing assessment.
• Li Yan earned contribution points through the Pill Emperor Tower and dangerous missions, then joined Ming Qi and four other cultivators to escort pills to Leisure Crane Manor.
• Li Yan refused to enter the floating peaks, and he and Ming Qi were separated from the others when Night Eagle assassins trapped the group in a formation.
• Li Yan killed several assassins and escaped the formation, while Ming Qi escaped separately, and both reached Leisure Crane Manor and delivered the pills.
• Li Yan and Ming Qi returned to Yellow Qi Valley by a roundabout route, handed in the mission, and departed separately after questioning by the Mission Hall and an elder.
• Li Yan used the Heaven-Stealing Kerchief to uncover the Subtle Thought technique in the dark-red blade, named it the Cloud-Piercing Blade, and learned to set up a limited formation called Ghostly Traces.
• Li Yan spent two years taking dangerous missions until he had enough contribution points to qualify for the Ancient Hall of Inheritance, then began cultivating Subtle Thought.

Li Yan followed Yan Qingchen into a hidden realm beneath the river, where Yan betrayed his companions and clashed with the Ming sisters before escaping. Li Yan joined the sisters to enter a sealed cave residence, but they became trapped in a magical treasure and could not overcome its straw guardians.

• Li Yan entered the Ancient Hall of Inheritance, searched its chambers and hidden terrain, then followed Yan Qingchen and four cultivators into an abyss.
• Yan Qingchen lured his companions into helping him break the Hidden Reef Formation, then trapped them with his alms bowl, drained their power, and entered the concealed realm alone.
• Yan Qingchen ambushed Ming Qi and Ming Yu by the river, but Li Yan struck from hiding and helped the sisters force him to flee.
• Li Yan spared the Ming sisters and learned they sought an inheritance for their clan, then led them to the purple shell containing a hidden passage.
• Li Yan, Ming Qi, and Ming Yu made a blood contract, opened the formation, and entered a sunlit cave residence whose courtyard wall concealed a dangerous boundary.
• The trio encountered straw men whose powerful attacks drove them back, and Li Yan discovered that the courtyard was contained within a magical treasure.
• Li Yan and the sisters tried answering the straw guardian’s question and testing the courtyard walls, but every attempt brought another attack and no escape.
• After three days of failed attempts, Li Yan found Ming Yu still returning to answer the guardian and examined the southern wall, sensing darkness beyond it.

Li Yan escaped the scarecrow courtyard with Ming Qi and Ming Yu, uncovered the fate and inheritance of the Undying Nether Phoenix clan, and secured rare herbs and silver sand. Back in Huangqi Valley, the sisters exposed Yan Qingchen’s crimes and fled on a mission while Li Yan prepared to kill him.

• Li Yan solved the scarecrow’s riddle, freed Ming Qi and Ming Yu, and led them through the spirit fields toward a mountain cave.
• Li Yan and the sisters broke through the spatial barrier using their phoenix technique and found an isolated realm, where they gathered ancient herbs, including two Moon-Veiling Clear Immortal Grasses.
• Ming Qi and Ming Yu uncovered the buried power of a late-Fusion Realm clansman and opened a gate to Erya’s cave, where they learned how the Chaos Sect had destroyed their clan and how Erya preserved its inheritance.
• Li Yan learned that the silver sand could transform an Immortal Nether Phoenix’s bloodline, recognized its connection to his mysterious river of blood, and traded for fifty grains and the sisters’ inheritance methods.
• Li Yan returned to the second layer and told Ming Qi and Ming Yu that Yan Qingchen had sacrificed companions and captured Liu Siyu, after which the sisters left rather than confront him.
• Li Yan found Yan Qingchen with Liu Siyu in the inheritance hall and began planning to kill him, while Yan Qingchen persuaded Liu Siyu that he had spared her because he cared for her.
• The woman in white returned Li Yan, Yan Qingchen, and the other survivors to Huangqi Valley, where Li Yan estimated his chances of killing Yan Qingchen at about sixty percent.
• The Enforcement Hall seized Yan Qingchen after someone accused him of blood-sacrificing fellow disciples, and Li Yan realized that Ming Qi and Ming Yu had spread the accusation before leaving on a sect mission.