I'm in the Demonic Sect, but my cultivation techniques are being used for palace intrigue!

"Zhao Shigang, are you kidding me? How could the key to the Crimson Secret Realm be in your hands?" Wang Meng suddenly stood up, his face full of disbelief.

"Whether it's a joke or not, you'll see for yourselves when you see it."

Zhao Shigang was prepared. He took out a black wooden box from his pocket and slowly opened it.

Inside the wooden box lay a blood-red jade pendant, about the size of a thumb.

The jade pendant is entirely blood red, with intricate patterns carved on it, and it faintly exudes a chilling aura.

"This is... the Blood Jade Token!" Elder Liu, who was at the sixth level of Qi Refining, suddenly spoke, his voice hoarse and trembling slightly. "I once saw this item in the hands of a senior brother who had reached the peak of Qi Refining... I can tell you all with certainty that this is indeed one of the tokens for opening the Crimson Secret Realm!"

Old Liu's words undoubtedly added a great deal of credibility to the jade pendant, but... precisely because they were credible, the gazes of the crowd, which had been somewhat heated, couldn't help but reveal a sense of regret!

"Zhao Shigang, you've placed this item in the wrong spot for auction!"

"Most of us are cultivators at the mid-stage of Qi Refining. You simply won't get a bid for this item here!"

"Even if you were to take pity on this and auction it off cheaply, and someone here actually manages to snag it... then the Blood Jade Token in our hands would be nothing but a useless object!"

"After all, we're only at the mid-stage of Qi Refining; we don't have the strength to go to the 'Crimson Secret Realm'!"

"That's a stage for those in the late Qi Refining stage or even the Qi Refining Perfection stage. For us... it's still too early for us to step onto that stage!"

…………

Faced with the words of the crowd, Zhao Shigang couldn't help but reveal a bitter expression:

Do you think I don't know these things?

"When I obtained this item, I thought of giving it to a senior brother I knew who had reached the peak of Qi Refining, hoping to gain his favor, but..."

…………

"But what?" someone couldn't help but ask out of curiosity.

"But that senior brother seemed to have absolutely no interest in this item and returned it to me directly!" Zhao Shigang sighed softly, somewhat puzzled.

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"Completely uninterested? How is that possible? This is a Foundation Establishment Pill!" A cultivator couldn't help but exclaim in surprise. "Could it be... that the senior brother you're looking for already has a Foundation Establishment Pill? So he doesn't care about new clues about Foundation Establishment Pills?"

"How is that possible?" someone immediately retorted. "In this world, have you ever seen a Qi Refining cultivator complain about having too many Foundation Establishment Pills? If you have multiple Foundation Establishment Pills, then even if you fail to establish your foundation on the first try, you'll always have a second chance. Who can guarantee that they will succeed in establishing their foundation on the first try?"

"If that's the case, then why... does this senior brother not want this item? Is it because he doesn't want to protect Zhao Shigang? But... that doesn't make sense!"

The person who spoke first couldn't understand the logic behind this at all.

"Protection... in the end, it's just a matter of words!"

"Moreover, the protection is mostly limited to the mid-stage of Qi Refining, at most some late-stage Qi Refining cultivators will give it some face..."

"More importantly, even if Zhao Shigang gets into trouble while under his protection, that senior brother can simply ignore it... Such a costless thing, yet it provides another clue to a Foundation Establishment Pill. I simply cannot imagine why this senior brother would refuse!"

"Could it be... that there's something wrong with this Blood Jade Token?"

…………

Faced with this person's doubt, Zhao Shigang immediately spoke up:

"This Blood Jade Token is perfectly fine!"

"When that senior brother refused to provide protection, I also had my doubts. Therefore, I specifically asked him, and he told me that my Blood Jade Token was completely without any problems!"

…………

"Since there's no problem, why was that senior brother unwilling to provide shelter?" a cultivator asked Zhao Shigang, puzzled. "Did you ask that senior brother about the ins and outs?"

"Of course I asked, but... that senior brother said that when I reach his level, I'll know the reason!" Zhao Shigang looked even more helpless at this point. "I dared not ask any more questions, lest I offend this senior brother, so I took my leave!"

"This is just one case and doesn't prove anything... Senior Brother Zhao, have you asked other senior brothers who have reached the Qi Refining Perfection stage or the late Qi Refining stage about the reason?" someone else asked.

"Of course I asked, and the senior brothers who are at the Qi Refining Perfection stage and the Qi Refining Late stage all said that the Blood Jade Token is real, but they will not provide me with protection because of it!" Zhao Shigang said with some helplessness.

He simply didn't understand... this was a Foundation Establishment Pill!

When did those cultivators in the late stage of Qi Refining and the peak of Qi Refining become so indifferent to Foundation Establishment?

This makes absolutely no sense!

Of all those present, only Zhu Jingguang vaguely understood what was going on.

To confirm his suspicions, Zhu Jingguang immediately asked, "Brother Zhao, you mentioned earlier that you inquired with several cultivators at the peak of Qi Refining and the late stage of Qi Refining. Could I confirm which level of Qi Refining cultivators you inquired with? After all, the late stage of Qi Refining includes cultivators at the seventh, eighth, and ninth levels!"

"The late-stage Qi Refining cultivator I'm asking about is of course a ninth-level Qi Refining cultivator. After all, even a seventh or eighth-level Qi Refining cultivator wouldn't be able to protect me!" Zhao Shigang said in a matter-of-fact tone.

Upon hearing this, and combining it with the Foundation Establishment information he had previously obtained from the "Heart-Eating and Soul-Controlling Technique," Zhu Jingguang instantly understood what was going on!

Clearly, all the cultivators at the Qi Refining Perfection stage and the ninth level of Qi Refining in the Demonic Sect know one thing: that is, the Foundation Establishment Pill is not important if you want to successfully establish your foundation!

After all, the most important thing to successfully establish one's foundation is to enhance the "activity" of one's cultivation technique. Otherwise, even if one successfully establishes one's foundation by taking "Foundation Establishment Pills", one will only be a slightly stronger Qi Refining Perfection cultivator than an ordinary Qi Refining Perfection cultivator. In essence, one will still be a Qi Refining Perfection cultivator!

Moreover, and more importantly, if you take the Foundation Establishment Pill in advance and become a Qi Refining Perfection cultivator who is slightly stronger than a Qi Refining Perfection cultivator, then if you want to fully step into the Foundation Establishment realm, wouldn't the "activity" required by your cultivation technique be more than before?

It's already difficult enough to make a cultivation technique have the vitality to establish a foundation, and now you're going to make it even more difficult... Isn't that just rushing headlong into the point where you can't even establish a foundation?

Naturally, for them, the value of this Blood Jade Token was just so-so!