I, a cultivator, have ended up in the world of tomb raiding.

After the alchemy furnace was stored in the storage space, its condition became apparent.

Below is a dark blue stone slab, with relief carvings on the surface depicting two disheveled, fierce ghosts.

The patterns have become slightly blurred due to the erosion of time, but their ferocious appearance can still be seen, resembling a demon or yaksha.

Strangely, however, these two ghosts had empty eyes, without any pupils.

His dark eye sockets were deep and sinister, exuding an air of malevolence.

"Fortunately, the entrance really is hidden here, otherwise I would have had to put all these coffin remains into my storage space and check them one by one."

Li Yue's gaze lingered briefly on the eerie relief before turning to the location of the stone slab lock.

The outside of the manhole cover is sealed with several copper locks.

The items here are Song Dynasty-style dog-head locks, with interlocking teeth like canine teeth, ingeniously constructed, and requiring a special key to open.

However, these mundane mechanical constraints are not obstacles at all for cultivators who possess the ability to cultivate immortality.

If you try to hit it with brute force, you'll waste time and energy damaging the lock.

Li Yue directly condensed a wisp of Yin energy, probed into the gap of the lock cylinder, and used his magic power instead of a key to gently move it along the grooves of the lock teeth.

After trying for a while, a slight sound of the copper spring was heard, and the locking dog teeth snapped open.

The heavy stone slab shifted under the force, revealing a dark hole underneath.

The cave was completely dark, so dark you couldn't see your hand in front of your face, and wisps of eerie wind kept escaping from its depths.

The howling air currents indicated that this underground cave was extremely vast and must have other ventilation shafts connecting it to other places.

Li Yue silently recited the incantation, his fingertips brushing across his eyes as he focused his gaze downwards.

He is now a mid-stage Qi Refining cultivator, and his magical power is no longer as shallow as it was in the early stages. He can do things conveniently and no longer needs to be frugal in everything.

At this moment, he used the Bright Eyes Technique to investigate and saw that the dark underground was shrouded in thick, dark mist, like black ink mixed with water.

In the center of the mist, a single ancient tree stood out.

Its branches and leaves are lush and intertwined, spreading green shade and covering a large area, making it difficult to estimate the extent of its root system.

Judging from the wellhead that the drop wasn't too steep, Li Yue jumped down directly.

As expected, he lightly touched the ground with his toes and landed directly on the lush canopy of trees.

Its branches are intertwined and dense, its trunk is flexible and sturdy, and its layers intertwine to support its shape.

Li Yue moved nimbly, using his agility to move and land unhurriedly among the thick branches.

With a leisurely pace, taking advantage of the rise and fall, I followed the tree canopy all the way to the edge.

Then he leaped again, heading straight down.

He looked up and examined the ancient tree.

The tree is a cassia tree, which grows at the bottom of the mountain by drawing on the corpse energy from the cinnabar well. Its lush canopy exudes a chilling aura.

He had just walked on the branches and could feel the cool air penetrating his bones.

It felt like a cool breeze blowing in the face during the sweltering heat, making the whole body feel comfortable and relaxed, with every pore on the body opening up.

With a sense of inquiry in his heart, he stepped into the dense canopy, intending to examine it closely and find out why this old tree could accumulate such a strong Yin energy.

Although the osmanthus tree at the bottom of the Dan Well is extremely large with its branches spreading wide, it is not tall or upright.

The main trunk is unusually thick, and the surface bark is old, wrinkled, and clumpy with a rough texture.

He touched the tree trunk with his palm and felt something strange, so he stared intently at the main trunk.

They then discovered that the raised areas of the tree bark had formed the outlines of human faces, with all the features clearly visible.

Every face was twisted in pain, as if wailing silently, their features grotesque and terrifying, exuding an indescribable eeriness.

The spot where his palm was pressing was a face with crooked eyes and a distorted mouth, with the muscles of the nose and lips even twitching slightly.

What caught Li Yue's attention was that a layer of hazy, gloomy mist floated on the surface of the protruding bark, forming a similarly shaped, murky, and dark shadow that lingered around the tree for a long time.

The illusory human face had a resentful and gloomy expression, shifting back and forth, constantly stretching its neck outwards.

Li Yue: "..."

His expression froze slightly, then he released his hand, ending the study, and took two steps back to create distance.

He then realized that since there were no magical cultivation objects in this world that could condense such a dense amount of yin energy, the reason was obvious.

The osmanthus tree itself has a yin nature, making it most suitable for absorbing death energy.

The fact that this enormous osmanthus tree could grow so impressively in the ground must mean it was built from piles of corpses.

The countless ancient corpses buried in the underground soil had their corpse energy absorbed by the tree roots.

The coffin above piled with corpses, and the earth below buried bones; the two yin energies complemented each other, creating this ominous place.

Li Yue moved to the base of the tree and reached out to part the dense, drooping branches and leaves.

Looking around, one can see that the tree roots have all penetrated into the rocks.

There was no dampness in the cave, only a bone-chilling coolness.

The entire osmanthus tree survives not from rain or sunlight, but solely from the aura of death; its branches grow extremely long, drooping almost to the ground.

This should be a "corpse cassia," which, like the "ghost elm," is a rare and ominous plant.

Legend has it that this tree can connect the realms of Yin and Yang.

Whether it's true or not is still unknown, but the noise he made just now clearly startled the ancient tree.

The bark faces on the tree trunk all twisted and turned, now facing him.

The countless human faces clinging to the tree trunk came to life, their expressions twisted and groaning.

Everywhere you look, there are countless vengeful spirits, as if trapped within, all staring at you, making one's heart tremble with unease.

In the blink of an eye, two or three gray phantoms broke free from the tree bark and rushed straight towards them at extremely high speed.

Seeing this, Li Yue reacted quickly, grabbing the necks of two illusory figures with both hands.

These shadows writhed and struggled silently, their chilling aura surging everywhere, but they were suppressed by the magic power in his hands and could not break free at all.

These things are far inferior to the corpse puppet that attacked him from the well wall earlier.

Because it is not yet fully formed, it cannot even be called a corpse puppet.

It had no physical body, only a blurry human face trailing a wisp of transparent mist, like the central nervous system of a human, light and airy, posing little threat.

Li Yue felt a chill at the metaphor that had just popped into his head and frowned slightly.

He also noticed that there were many "lumps" on the trunk of this lush osmanthus tree.

They were also the size of round spheres, with faintly visible protruding facial features, only more blurred.

"This isn't a cassia tree at all; it's practically a tree parasitized by a corpse puppet."

Li Yue was secretly amazed. Even though he had seen a lot of things, he rarely saw such a strangely emerging osmanthus tree.

At this moment, on this large osmanthus tree that had absorbed all the corpse energy, a large number of unformed corpse puppets began to detach and swarm towards him.

Corpse puppets generally do not possess people on their own initiative.

Having a human torso is actually a constraint for them.

The reason they are now trying to enter human bodies is actually to devour the souls of the inhabitants.

These kinds of evil spirits are different from monsters; they don't like flesh and blood, and they are born to devour people's souls.

Once it invades the body and devours a small portion of the soul's essence, the person will become listless, cold-sensitive, and physically weak, constantly tormented by resentment, and almost impossible to cure.

If the soul is completely devoured, the body's life force will be cut off, and eventually, death will accumulate within the body, leading to a sudden and violent death.

However, Li Yue switched to cultivating the evil Yin method, and his body was filled with thick Yin energy of the same origin.

The Yin Puppet Hunter also devours Yin energy; it's uncertain who will devour whom.