Seeking immortality begins with daily intelligence reports.

After leaving the inner courtyard, Li Shen went directly back to Zhang Hong's courtyard.

With his worries gone, he felt much better.

He methodically drew talismans and refined elixirs until the sun began to set, at which point he got up again and went to the inner courtyard.

Before leaving, he left a letter for Zhang Hong because Zhang Hong had not yet returned.

He made up a pretext to explain that he needed to stay in the inner courtyard for a while and thanked Zhang Hong for taking him in.

"Storage bags are so convenient; I don't even have to worry about moving."

Li Shen murmured to himself as Zhao Qian arranged for him to stay in an empty room on the west side of the courtyard.

Opening the window, you can see Zhao Ying's room.

Although the furnishings inside were simple, the spiritual energy was much stronger than in Zhang Hong's courtyard.

It's even comparable to a medium-sized training room with a Qi-gathering array.

He sat cross-legged, and as soon as he began to circulate the "Evergreen Technique," he felt that the process of absorbing spiritual energy was quite smooth and effortless.

Li Shen was overjoyed. He swallowed a Mind-Concentrating Pill and began to cultivate with focused concentration, waiting for midnight.

Qi flows through the meridians and converges in the dantian.

"call--"

Li Shen exhaled a long breath of stale air, slowly opened his eyes, and the blue light vanished in an instant.

His eyes suddenly lit up!

Lines of text appeared as promised.

Chen Liangdao, a Golden Core cultivator of the Yunhe Sect, was furious at the loss of a promising Blood Puppet and ordered his disciple Zhou Ren, whose cultivation had reached the early Foundation Establishment stage, to eliminate the Zhao family's talisman master.

A master of offering sacrifices?

That's me.

Li Shen frowned slightly, staring at the line of words, his mind racing.

Blood puppet... that word doesn't sound quite right.

"That old bastard Chen Liangdao is ruthless."

He clicked his tongue and muttered to himself:

"That Han Yuanhua was just a material he raised to refine blood puppets? I thought his murderous intent that day was to avenge his disciple, but it turns out he was heartbroken that the material he had carefully nurtured was destroyed. Zhou Ren was probably also one of Chen Liangdao's reserves."

Zhou Ren...

Li Shen pondered the name for a moment, then thought of another Foundation Establishment family in the market, the Zhou family.

Suddenly, a past event came to mind.

After Zhou Wei was killed, intelligence revealed that Zhou's family had investigated and found that Zhou Wei had gone to Laoshan with members of the Wild Wolf Gang.

Zhou Wei's father, Zhou Mao, a Foundation Establishment Elder of the Zhou family, immediately suspected that his son was killed by the Wild Wolf Gang because of an unequal distribution of treasures.

However, after causing trouble for the Wild Wolf Gang several times, they discovered that this was not the case.

Liu Feng, a member of the Wild Wolf Gang who was traveling with Zhou Wei, also disappeared.

Both sides kept the matter very secret, so the matter had to be dropped.

Based on the intelligence previously provided and the information currently available, Li Shen deduced that the Zhou family, a Foundation Establishment clan, had most likely secretly sided with the demonic path.

However, Li Shen did not intend to tell anyone about this idea, for the simple reason that the source of the information was extremely difficult to explain.

With a thought, Li Shen caused the words to flicker and disappear.

Upon further reflection, another crucial point about this intelligence is that Chen Liangdao never intended to take action himself in the first place.

Since that's the case, once the Jade Sword Sect takes action, the problem of the Golden Core will be completely resolved.

Although Zhou Ren, who was sent there, was only at the early stage of Foundation Establishment and possessed formidable strength, Li Shen believed that as long as he patiently stayed in the Zhao residence, the other party would have no way to deal with him.

As he analyzed the situation step by step, Li Shen felt much better.

"I've also refined some Qi Gathering Pills. Tomorrow morning, I'll go into seclusion to break through to the eighth level of Qi Refining!"

Li Shen whispered something, then lay down and fell asleep.

The next day, early in the morning.

Li Shen got dressed early in the morning and went to the training room in the Zhao residence.

Just as the disciple on duty yawned and stretched to relieve his fatigue, he caught a glimpse of Li Shen walking over out of the corner of his eye.

He quickly composed himself, cupped his hands respectfully, and said:

"Good morning, Mr. Li!"

Li Shen nodded slightly, raised his hand and waved, and several spirit stones were piled up in front of the table.

"Are there any advanced training rooms available?"

"Yes, yes, Mr. Li, the usual place."

The disciple on duty had no intention of checking or verifying the tokens; he simply put them away, then handed the token for entering the training room to Li Shen and turned to point to the west side.

Li Shen nodded, put away the wooden plaque, and walked straight inside.

Suddenly, ten low-grade spirit stones were piled up on the disciple's table.

The disciple's eyes lit up, and he immediately understood. He smiled and cupped his hands towards Li Shen's retreating figure, saying:

"Thank you for your generosity, Mr. Li!"

I had heard that this new retainer was very generous; as long as you reserved a high-level training room in advance, you would receive extra money.

Today was my first time working the early shift and I ran into this situation; I was really lucky.

He deftly put the spirit stones into his storage bag, pondering in his mind:

"From now on, everyone will be scrambling to do the morning shift. Ten bucks today, ten bucks tomorrow, wow, that sounds pretty good."

-

As Li Shen walked deeper into the training room, he opened the familiar stone door, and a rich spiritual energy immediately rushed towards him.

As I stepped inside, the stone door slammed shut behind me, instantly isolating me from all the disturbances of the outside world.

Li Shen sat cross-legged, not in a hurry to enter meditation, but first took out jade bottles from his storage bag and arranged them neatly beside him.

These are all elixirs needed for cultivation.

There are ten high-grade Qi-gathering pills and twenty medium-grade Qi-gathering pills.

"I should be able to break through to the eighth level of Qi Refining this time."

Li Shen paused for a moment, picked up a Qi-gathering pill the size of a longan, and it melted instantly in his mouth.

It slid down the throat and into the abdomen, and the medicinal power immediately spread throughout the body.

Li Shen dared not delay and quickly formed hand seals, allowing the Evergreen Technique to slowly circulate within his body.

With the support of the Qi Gathering Pill and the Qi Gathering Array, the conversion of spiritual energy became very smooth. It traveled along the meridians, and a cool sensation seeped into each acupoint it passed through, eventually converging in the dantian.

One grain.

Two.

Time slipped away silently.

The spiritual energy within my dantian is becoming increasingly abundant, and I feel a sense of fullness.

This feeling was familiar to him; it was a sign that a breakthrough was imminent.

However, the closer they got to that critical point, the more cautious Li Shen became.

He stopped taking the pill and closed his eyes to look inward.

Within the dantian, the originally thin, mist-like spiritual energy has now condensed into a thick, azure vortex, which is slowly rotating. With each rotation, a weak suction force is generated, drawing the spiritual energy circulating in the meridians into it.

"Almost there."

Li Shen opened his eyes and quickly swallowed the last high-grade Qi Gathering Pill.

He mobilized all the spiritual energy in his body and pressed it down hard on the vortex of energy in his dantian.

boom--

A buzzing sound seemed to emanate from within his body, and in that instant, Li Shen felt a lightness throughout his body.

Within the dantian, the volume of the four-colored qi sea, which was predominantly cyan, shrank by nearly one-third, but its color became more intense and deep, and its flow speed increased.

Eighth level of Qi Refining! Success!

Li Shen opened his eyes, a fleeting blue light flashing within them.

Instead of getting up immediately, he turned to circulate the Condensing Yuan Technique, stabilizing his realm while continuously compressing and purifying it, allowing the quality of his spiritual energy to rise accordingly.

After an unknown amount of time, until the size of his internal energy center returned to normal, he finally exhaled a long breath.

At this moment, not only has his cultivation level broken through, but the quality of his spiritual energy has also been improved.

With a thought, he activated the Azure Light Technique by pinching his fingers.

The cyan ball of light that had gathered at the fingertip had shrunk to only an inch in size.

The speed at which it condensed was several breaths faster than the seventh level of Qi Refining.

However, since he was still in the training room, he had no intention of using his skills.

The azure light dissipated with his thoughts, and then Li Shen tried to condense another killing move—the Blood Soul Nail.