Lu Qingshan dragged the crystallized body of the female demonic cultivator into the clearing where the Seven Mysteries Gate resided. True to his ask, the crystal cicada had not yet finished her off. Instead, it had simply siphoned away her spiritual energy, keeping her moments from death while producing slow-growing crystal deposits.

  This didn't give him much time. He did want to try and recreate the hair centipede again, but with only a vague image of the procedure, doing so would likely provide him with nothing as the woman drew closer to death with each passing day. That type of gu refinement required more intact subjects.

  Instead, Liu Yingting would probably enjoy this gift. He'd always expressed his desire to have actual immortal cultivators as test subjects for his poisons. Qin Ye and Li Fanghua were out of the picture, but their enemies were not. And this might also end up revealing something about how the crystal cicada affected someone's body.

  Thus, Lu Qingshan went to hand off the demonic cultivator to him. Along the way, he gathered anyone important in the Seven Mysteries Gate. The An siblings and Song Lin trailed behind him like puppies. The large crowd of martial artists saw what was happening and decided to follow him too.

  "How is your martial arts practice?" he asked, entering the hut where Liu Yingting and Wu Ruoling were poring over a set of herbs. "Poisons going well? The new secret medicines?"

  "Sect master," Liu Yingting smiled. He held out his right hand, and then chopped down onto his arm with a knife. There was barely a scratch after he withdrew the weapon. "I've finished tempering all five of my organs. The next step is to reach the pseudo-Innate realm, or opening my lower aperture. I should be able to find some success with the poisonous herbs in this land."

  "Good, good!" Lu Qingshan smiled, ecstatic at the growth. Soon the sect would be joined by another Innate realm expert. "I've discovered a new poison that might help amplify your Hundred Poisons Body by another level. It's a new spiritual insect called the Eight Thorns Spider. But it might take some time before I can create a second one."

  All his elders snuck brief glances at one another. "You can create spiritual insects now?" Jin Teng asked. He looked a little flabbergasted.

  Lu Qingshan nodded. The crowd behind his elders began muttering to themselves. They seemed to still be in disbelief, occasionally peeking at the slowly crystallizing demonic cultivator lying on the floor.

  Controlling insects was one thing. There had been rumors of martial arts techniques that allowed it. But spiritual insects were on a completely different level. Even a Qi Refinement cultivator might not be able to do that.

  "I'm starting to begin tempering my liver," Wu Ruoling said, a small smile gracing her features after she'd heard what he said. "I've managed to create a new secret medicine thanks to the earthworm's help. For Viscera Tempering martial artists, they can quicken the tempering process, but they'll need a fraction of a wisp of elemental spiritual energy attuned to that organ."

  "Wonderful work," Lu Qingshan said with a grin. "Keep improving on that recipe. Try making the restrictions less painful. This will be one of the foundations of our sect in the future, a way to quickly get past the Mortal Shedding stage without sacrificing their future."

  She nodded. Lu Qingshan stopped speaking for a moment, thinking about how best to break the news to his sect.

  "Five demonic cultivators remain," he started. "Of those five, there is still one demonic cultivator of the Qi Refinement realm. I wasn't able to kill him." He eyed the crowd of martial artists, hoping to see ambition.

  But his gaze was met with blank stares all around, and a little fear. Lu Qingshan sighed. He supposed they still needed some more time.

  “This is an unprecedented period of growth,” he said. “From now on, I’m implementing a new policy. I am done with coddling you all now that most of the major threats have been removed. If you want your portion of secret medicine, you’ll have to go find them yourselves.”

  There was a brief silence. “Who gets to manage the herb garden?” someone asked.

  “The Seven Mysteries Gate,” Lu Qingshan said. “We need to protect the garden from the weaker demonic cultivators. Like this one.” He motioned towards the woman on the floor. “Unless you're an Innate realm martial artist, you don’t stand a chance.”

  “We can prove our strength to you,” the speaker said, standing up, along with seven other martial artists. “I don’t believe we’re any weaker than your men. As long as they’re not cultivators.”

  Lu Qingshan sighed. “Liu Yingting? Deal with them.”

  “Gladly.” A sickening grin on his face, Liu Yingting simply moved. And the ones who rose to battle immediately collapsed. There were no fancy tricks or long bouts of combat. Only the knowledge that they had come a hair’s thread away from death.

  “I hope you all realize who has earned you the right to stay inside this territory,” Lu Qingshan said. His eyes cast a disdainful gaze down at these still squabbling martial artists. He had believed them loyal enough, only for them to turn on him when they thought he was injured.

  Fortunately, these people were the minority. There were still fifteen out of the twenty three who were willing to listen to reason.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Lu Qingshan needed people with an incentive to go out and explore, saving his sect the time and energy to do so themselves. This would also increase the amount of steady resources his sect received while giving these stray martial artists a viable path to join them based on what they found. In addition, rarer herbs could be kept for themselves. All they had to do was take on most of the risk of encountering one of the stray demonic cultivators.

  But with less than half the demonic cultivators remaining — most of them individually weaker than the four cultivators on his side — they were hard pressed to mount a struggle. And with Lu Qingshan around, he was just as much a threat to them as the black flame demonic cultivator was a threat to an average martial artist. Whoever ran into the other stood little chance of surviving.

  So his sect could freely exploit the land. As long as they took careful precautions to defend themselves, the risk could be mitigated. If they were close enough to him, there was even a chance to kill their enemy, thereby guaranteeing them a spot in the herb garden.

  Lu Qingshan made all these terms known to the rogue martial artists. To most, they were acceptable. Though many didn’t like losing their relaxed positions, they begrudgingly agreed to his conditions.

  With that handled, Lu Qingshan dismissed his sect to return to their duties. Then he turned his attention to tracking down the demonic cultivators himself.

  It took a few days, but due to the Bloodsense Bug’s uncanny instincts, he had managed to uncover spots of blood. Following the lead, Lu Qingshan tracked down one of the demonic cultivators that had fled. The man was hiding inside a small tunnel embedded into the side of a large hill.

  Lu Qingshan brought over Qin Ye to burn them out. A man immediately leaped from the hole as soon as he heard them walking. But it was too late to run.

  Lu Qingshan crushed their skull underneath his heel. He quickly pilfered the body for anything useful. Unlike the other demonic cultivators, who only carried useless trinkets with him, this one surprisingly had a pair of talismans he never got to use.

  “Take them,” he said to Qin Ye, who looked at them curiously. Then the two of them continued to track down more blood spots.

  Another demonic cultivator fell to their hands within the next day. Unfortunately, this corpse didn’t have anything good on them. And the trail had come to an end — the demonic cultivators had done something to wash off the Bloodsense Bug’s tracking.

  Splitting up might’ve made them more vulnerable to detection initially, but it also made it much harder for Lu Qingshan to track them down one by one. He tried to continue looking for them manually for a few more days. But there was no way around the fact that some of the demonic cultivators had escaped.

  Lu Qingshan had to turn up his personal patrols, occupying some of his martial arts practice time, but it was offset by the sheer number of resources available in this place. Even while busy, his proficiency points soared.

  The demonic cultivators didn’t seem to care about their loss. They simply disappeared, and no other force came out to stop them this time. Whether or not they left through the sea of fog or stayed hidden, the Seven Mysteries Gate could not tell.

  Lu Qingshan ordered all the cultivators except Li Fanghua to patrol around the area where they entered. Yet no one came through there either. It was as if the martial world had simply forgotten about this place.

  Weeks turned into months, and there were still no signs of the black flame demonic cultivator or the two escaped demonic cultivators. Lu Qingshan continued taking slow doses of the blood-replenishing pills to maximize his healing efficiency. But he had just heard shocking news — enough to force him out of seclusion.

  Qin Ye, the youngest in the sect, was the first to reach the Jade Cleansing stage. The first to be able to compete against Grandmasters. No one expected it. Even the An siblings and Song Lin were shocked.

  After revealing his power, Qin Ye returned to his seclusion again. He swore to reach the sixth and final stage of Embryonic Breathing within two years.

  The entire sect worked harder in the wake of his breakthrough. Soon An Xin entered a seclusion of her own, declaring that she'd surpass Qin Ye during her retreat or she wouldn't come out. An Zichen and Song Lin turned their attention back from auxiliary tasks to focusing back on their cultivation again. Martial artists began roaming farther from the territory to try and find better medicinal herbs.

  There were a few more minor breakthroughs to the Marrow Tempering realm, but these no longer gave Lu Qingshan much pause. What surprised him again was Chen Niu, who took to this place like a fish in water. Surpassing even Meng Zhang’s martial arts cultivation speed, the simple and honest man reached Viscera Tempering in record times. The man was even fast approaching a tempered spleen with the help from Wu Ruoling's new secret medicine.

  All these visible improvements made Lu Qingshan smile. Though their lives were still at the mercy of the black flame demonic cultivator, at least it was a start.

  A few days after the commotion, Lu Qingshan finished the last blood-replenishing pill available, fully restoring his internal injuries. It was time to set out once again.

  He went over to see Qin Ye. After making sure the man was fine, Lu Qingshan took back the spiritual earthworm. There were a few subterranean areas where he failed to properly check previously.

  Especially of note was where the fetus silhouette had appeared and the mountain peak where Daoist Qingxu’s coffin lay. Lu Qingshan was also interested to see whether or not more of the spirit ore the worm ate could be uncovered near the patch of bloody-wood trees.

  Lu Qingshan let the earthworm settle into his pocket before he then walked over to the gu jar. Song Lin had ensured the artifact suffered no harm during his brief escape. The cultivator had seemingly become more attached to the jar afterwards, often huddling around it in order to study its inner workings.

  Lu Qingshan was happy to have someone interested in helping him rear gu. He willingly made time to attract demonized insect groups into the jar over the past few months.

  And Song Lin didn’t disappoint. He had been key to making sure the insects remained stable, priming the jar for another gu refinement session.

  Once Lu Qingshan took over, the transition was seamless. Lu Qingshan readied himself to create another Eight Thorns Spider.

  The last spider he’d deployed had perished in the battle with the demonic cultivator. This one would serve as a nice trump card. The black flame demonic cultivator shouldn’t have seen it in action, so they shouldn’t anticipate it the next time they met.

  It didn’t take long before the process was done. More leftover sludge was left behind this time and given to Liu Yingting to study, who was very interested in the properties of the mystical poison.

  Then, Lu Qingshan paused. A new wave of knowledge appeared in his mind. Enough to make his blood sing once again.

  The Giant Whale Breathing Method had just reached the sixth level. And with it came the method to reach the sixth stage of Mortal Shedding.