Lu Xingzhou silently wheeled himself to the edge of the pond, watching the ripples spread and then disappear as Shen Tang dove underwater, his thoughts unknown.

That momentary impulse – how could only Shen Tang be in turmoil now, and he not?

He had always suppressed his desires, mainly because almost all his thoughts were on healing his leg, leaving no room for other moods.

But now his leg was well… perhaps he could consider other things…

Actually, for men, whether there is someone in their heart isn’t that important…

And the shadow of that person has also become increasingly faint these days.

Lu Xingzhou’s mind was a little blank for a while, but he finally shook his head, took out the Wan Hun Fan, and started to do proper business.

The person had left, what was the point of being in a daze here? The Wan Hun Fan was half-damaged, he had to repair it.

This kind of magic treasure, the Wan Hun Fan, focused on the soul, its material itself was relatively easy to damage, at least at this low level it was easy to damage, and damage over the years was a common occurrence. The damage this time was heavier than in the past, but repairing it wasn’t too difficult; just getting a strong main soul could lead to self-repair, at most it would be a bit slow.

This fan had never had a good main soul; Lu Xingzhou always used whichever Yin soul he received that was strongest as the temporary main soul, but this time he didn’t plan to use these fourth-grade cultivators like Jin Mingxiu or Bai Jingtian.

Because this time there was an interesting soul spirit… a Flame Demon.

Killing and taking souls meant the strength of the deceased person was fixed; it couldn’t be raised. And this Flame Demon itself was a soul body, residing in the essence of flame and fire to grow. This was a soul spirit that could continuously grow.

Only after being absorbed into the Wan Hun Fan and having its consciousness erased, its attributes would also change.

That blazing Yang fire couldn’t exist in the Wan Hun Fan; the fan itself would be burned… but it could turn into soul fire, or other similar Nether fire attributes.

Lu Xingzhou once again recognized the greatness of the Yin Yang Extreme Intent Skill; this kind of transformation from Yang to Yin was also within the skill’s scope. Just the day before, he fundamentally couldn’t perform this operation.

Now he could try it, and after breaking through to the sixth-grade, it would be even easier.

Lu Xingzhou stretched out a finger and pointed at the small Flame Demon between the eyebrows of the soul banner. The fierce flame aura that was originally incompatible with the soul banner slowly transformed, turning into a strange black flame.

A pattern of black flames faintly appeared on the white banner, looking quite cool.

The black flame turned into a ghost face, and its voice was respectful: “Master…”

Lu Xingzhou tested it a bit, somewhat surprised: “This isn’t soul fire, I seem to have never seen this kind… what fire is this?”

He only reversed Yin and Yang; he himself didn’t create any flames. What it could turn into completely depended on the Flame Demon itself.

The black flame answered honestly: “This is just black flame ah… the final form should be… Heavenless Black Flame.”

Lu Xingzhou pointed at the vine by the pond edge that had previously shattered his leg bone with a single slap: “Burn it and try.”

The black flame in the Wan Hun Fan silently and soundlessly spread over, and the vine quietly disappeared without a trace, as if it had never existed.

Lu Xingzhou himself even secretly took a breath of cool air.

To say this black flame was very strong was not necessarily true, but its attributes were extremely strange. It clearly felt like it had no temperature, yet it was extremely hot. Ordinary people caught off guard would be directly Yin-ed to death.

Once it evolved to what it claimed to be “Heavenless Black Flame”, what would it be like then?

Lu Xingzhou silently placed the Wan Hun Fan in the pond water and issued instructions to the Flame Demon: “Absorb spiritual energy and self-repair. How long will it take?”

The Flame Demon answered honestly: “Self-repair will take forty-nine days, with the assistance of this pond water, about ten days.”

Ten days… Lu Xingzhou sensed his leg, which was now numb and unbearably itchy. Besides still being unable to exert force, the discomfort of alternating between cold and hot still hadn’t been adapted to. He didn’t know what state it would recover to after ten days.

………..

For cultivators, ten days was just a blink of an eye.

The pills and talismans Lu Xingzhou had accumulated earlier had been mostly consumed in the battles of the past few days. Ten days was just enough time to refine pills and make talismans to replenish his reserves. He also needed to set aside time to refine the Xue Rong Hui Yuan Pill for the Tianxing Sword Sect to enter the high-end pill market.

After breaking through to the sixth-grade, Lu Xingzhou could refine even more pills.

The alchemy notes and pill formulas left by the original owner of the cave mansion were also very valuable materials, including many types of instant recovery medicines. Lu Xingzhou directly gave up the healing and Qi-benefiting pills he had always prepared, and switched to refining higher-grade instant recovery pills for backup.

And he had already started trying to refine divine soul pills.

This time, when his divine soul was injured, he had no medicine to heal it. Instead, the pills given by A Nuo barely had some effect. This reminded Lu Xingzhou that his future enemies would increasingly involve the divine soul, so it was better to be prepared.

Talismans were not urgent for the time being. After all, these could be directly bought from others at a higher grade and were still good to use.

In fact, after breaking through to the sixth-grade, Lu Xingzhou could already instantly cast lower third-grade techniques, so the reserves of those low-end talismans could also be reduced, only serving as energy-saving reserves.

Lu Xingzhou always felt that the threshold between the seventh-grade and sixth-grade was the one with a qualitative change. The previous three grades, seven, eight, and nine, didn’t have very obvious feelings of qualitative change. The Yin Yang Extreme Intent Skill simply didn’t mention any ninth-grade grading; instead, when mentioning this threshold, it repeatedly used a word called “Qin Xin”.

The meaning of this word was hard to explain. If you compared it to cultivation web novels he had read, this threshold seemed more like it corresponded to Foundation Establishment.

Then was it the upper three grades that counted as Gold Core? Only without a clear expression of forming a core, the concept gradually faded.

So, a large number of people like Shen Tang, Jin Mingxiu, Bai Jingtian, Wu Jiachen, Xuan He Zhenren, etc., were all stuck at the fourth-grade. It seemed very difficult to sprint to the upper three grades. Du Gu Qingli even needed to experience the world to seek the path to the upper three grades. This showed that this was a threshold that even holy lands had to treat cautiously.

The upper three grades were also the standard for entering the Da Qian group of heroes list. No matter what, the fourth-grade could only be called a newcomer; only when they got old could they be called an old guy still stuck at the fourth-grade.

If the upper three grades counted as Gold Core, these phenomena could be explained in the past. After all, that was a typical big threshold in any world view.

Why was a super-grade skill super-grade? One important manifestation was that it jumped out of this forcibly divided nine-grade system and pointed to a more correct cultivation core. In the perspective of a super-grade skill, the so-called sixth-grade was just barely entering the door.

“I’ve come to collect today’s share of Xue Rong Hui Yuan Pill, is it refined yet?” Du Gu Qingli’s voice came from afar.

Lu Xingzhou turned his head to look. Du Gu Qingli walked all the way, and the pond water around her automatically turned into lingering ice mist. Combined with her white hair and blue eyes, that scene was like an extremely 애니메이션 ACG screen, truly beautiful.

Shen Tang hadn’t come again these days, and he didn’t know if she was really busy with the sect or because of the little temper after being kissed that day. It was A Nuo who was responsible for delivering medicinal materials and taking finished pills. He didn’t know why Du Gu Qingli came to snatch A Nuo’s job today.

Lu Xingzhou turned back to look at the pill furnace: “You broke through?”

“Mm.” Du Gu Qingli stood by the side, her tone very flat: “I want to resign, Shen Tang is unwilling, she asked me to come and talk to you. I just conveniently helped her take the pills.”

Lu Xingzhou said: “Did Shen Tang tell you that there will be a conflict with the Fen Xiang Lou recently? The Fen Xiang Lou is a third-grade sect, and its connections are wide. Shen Tang is also lacking you, so she will lose almost without fighting.”

“She said.”

“Then you still want to leave?”

Du Gu Qingli was silent for a moment: “This kind of sect struggle will happen from time to time in the future. Even if the Tianxing Sword Sect rises, it will still continue to face other third-grade, second-grade, and even first-grade sects endlessly. When will it end?”

“Is it determined that this factor has nothing to do with me?”

“…It has nothing to do with you.”

“Since it has nothing to do with me, why did Shen Tang ask you to come and ask me, and you just came?”

Du Gu Qingli’s slender hand gripping the sword sheath tightened a bit.

She didn’t know either.

Originally, her task had nothing to do with Lu Xingzhou. It was fine to resign to Shen Tang; why care what Lu Xingzhou said?

But Shen Tang asked her to come and ask Lu Xingzhou, and she still came.

Lu Xingzhou was still looking at the pill fire, and said lightly: “Your master asked you to go out and experience, is it to experience worldly feelings?”

“Yes.”

“Then if you travel alone, what kind of worldly feelings can you experience? Just watching others’ enmities and affections from afar? Then you might as well find a storybook to read, the effect is almost the same.”

Du Gu Qingli was silent.

She originally didn’t understand why Master wanted her to experience worldly feelings. Anyway, in the past two months, she felt it was useless.

No, that’s not right… it was a little useful…

At least the scene of the wheelchair overturning that day and later being pressed down by him, these two scenes repeatedly flashed in her heart these days, almost causing her pure heart to be unstable even during the breakthrough.

Did this count?

You know, for someone like her who cultivated like a cold river, the most basic requirement was for her heart to be clear as ice with no ripples, even without deliberately operating any pure heart skill. Even if she had a great enmity from being stabbed by a sword, it wouldn’t affect her thoughts in daily life. The threshold from fifth-grade to fourth-grade was not a particularly big one, so by reason, her breakthrough originally didn’t require closed-door cultivation; she could break through just by sitting in meditation in her room.

But this time, she actually needed to find the Sword Sect’s secret chamber and use the assistance of the most biting sword intent to eliminate all distracting thoughts and shake off those messy pictures in her heart.

Lu Xingzhou turned his head to look at her dazed appearance and concluded: “So your experience is not here, then where is it?”

Du Gu Qingli opened her mouth, wanting to say something but didn’t.

Could it be that Master’s experience of worldly feelings meant finding a man? Where was such an interpretation!

Then why didn’t Master herself find one!