I'll make you the furnace and the cauldron, so you can refine Yin and Yang and prove the Great

On the wasteland, two streaks of light sped past each other like lightning. The purple-gold light leaped and flashed in front, while the gray shadow followed closely behind, maintaining a distance of about a thousand feet between them, neither getting closer nor farther.

Granny Yin grew increasingly frustrated as she chased after him. She had initially thought that with her second-level Nascent Soul cultivation, catching a ninth-level Nascent Soul cultivator would be a piece of cake. However, the old man's speed was far greater than she had anticipated. Every time she tried to accelerate and close the distance, he would suddenly speed up, causing her gray escape light to miss its mark just as it touched the edge of his robes. What was even more infuriating was that the old man would occasionally glance back at her, his gaze as calm as if he were watching a play that had nothing to do with him.

"This kid is clearly walking a dog." Granny Yin gritted her teeth, her withered fingers forming an even more complex hand seal within her sleeve. Her aura suddenly surged, and the gray escape light, like a flaming tail, violently expanded, increasing its speed by nearly thirty percent. The distance of a thousand feet shrank to five hundred feet, three hundred feet, and a hundred feet in just a few breaths—her five fingers formed claws, and the Yin energy condensed into five sharp gray rays at the tips of her claws, aiming straight for Li Hanshan's back.

This claw strike was incredibly fast and angled sharply, completely blocking his space to dodge left or right. Li Hanshan sensed the chilling aura behind him, but without turning around, he condensed a thin fire shield behind him with pure Yang fire. At the same time, flames exploded beneath his feet, and his body suddenly veered slightly to the right.

Granny Yin's claws grazed the edge of the fire shield, tearing a gash in the layer of purplish-gold flames, but failed to touch his body. Just as she was about to change her move, she saw the old man turn and simultaneously slash out with his sword—the broken sword slid from his sleeve into his palm, the dark sword light carrying a sharpness that made her heart tremble, precisely slashing at her wrist that she couldn't stop in time.

The sword strike came without warning. Granny Yin's pupils contracted slightly, and she abruptly withdrew her hand, the dark sword light grazing her fingertips and slicing off a piece of fabric from her sleeve. She glanced down at the clean cut, her expression finally turning completely grim.

"Such a fast sword." She squeezed out the words through gritted teeth, her gaze lingering for a moment on the broken sword. The quality of that sword far exceeded her expectations; to be able to deliver such a precise strike at that angle and speed meant that the old man wasn't using his full strength at all. He was maneuvering against her.

At the same time, she gained a clear understanding of the sharpness of the broken sword.

No wonder he was able to sever her half-step silver corpse.

Granny Yin held back, her hands forming hand seals. The silver corpse suddenly accelerated from behind her, turning into a blur to surround Li Hanshan, attempting to block his retreat. At the same time, she pressed forward from the front, her withered fingers forming an even more complex hand seal. A gray-black Yin Sha chain shot out from her palm, like a living snake, coiling towards Li Hanshan's ankle.

The two attacks arrived almost simultaneously. Li Hanshan dodged the silver corpse's claws by sidestepping, and as his broken sword severed the Yin Sha chain, he suddenly lowered his body, avoiding Granny Yin's attack. The entire sequence of movements was fluid and seamless, without the slightest unnecessary pause.

Granny Yin's attacks grew increasingly fierce. One after another, she unleashed a barrage of gray-black spells, which, combined with the silver corpse's pursuit and interception, forced Li Hanshan to constantly change direction across the wasteland. But no matter how fast she accelerated or how she changed the angle of her encirclement, the old man always managed to slip through the gaps in the encirclement at the last moment, like a fish swimming freely in a stream, slippery and unpredictable.

An hour passed. Two hours passed. Granny Yin's spiritual power had been depleted by nearly 30%, while the old man's speed did not decrease significantly. In fact, he ran more and more leisurely, occasionally even turning back to counterattack with a sword, forcing her to distract herself and parry.

She finally realized that if she continued chasing like this, she might not gain the upper hand. Although her cultivation at the second level of the Nascent Soul stage was far superior to that at the ninth level of the Core Formation stage, the old man's pure Yang fire naturally countered her Yin Sha techniques, and the sharpness of that broken sword could even threaten her protective spiritual light. If the fight continued, the consumption of energy would only increase.

Just as she was considering whether to change her strategy, the purplish-gold figure ahead suddenly accelerated. It wasn't the gradual acceleration of before, but a sudden burst of speed, like a meteor streaking across the desolate sky, so fast that even her divine sense couldn't track its trajectory.

Granny Yin abruptly stopped, her face ashen. It was a kind of escape technique she had never seen before, its speed beyond reason. She watched helplessly as the purple-gold light drew a long arc across the sky, disappearing into the horizon in just a few breaths, leaving not even a trace behind.

"Damn it!"

Her thin fingers gripped her sleeve tightly, and her cloudy eyes were filled with barely suppressed anger.

She chased him for over two hours, expending a great deal of spiritual energy, yet she barely managed to touch the old man's clothes. What frustrated her even more was that the old man's sudden burst of speed was clearly a technique he had been holding back, indicating that he had been conserving his strength throughout the chase.

She hovered in mid-air, gazing in the direction where the purplish-gold light had disappeared, gritting her teeth in silence for a long time. Finally, she let out a cold snort, turned, and flew towards the swamp.

On the other side, Li Hanshan gradually slowed down after flying for almost half an hour. After confirming there were no pursuers behind him, he took out the cyan jade talisman from his sleeve, infused it with spiritual energy, and a very thin cyan ray of light appeared on the talisman's surface, pointing in a certain direction. Without hesitation, he changed direction and, guided by that ray of light, turned back.

More than an hour later, Li Hanshan and Xiao An met in a dense forest.

Xiao An was resting in a tree when she saw Li Hanshan arrive. She came out of the tree and said, "Senior, I have absorbed all the essence of the Yin Meridians."

She opened her palm, and more than twenty gray beads, each the size of a fingernail, were quietly arranged in her palm. Each bead emitted a pure Yin energy, more than any she had ever gained before.

"Still not enough." Li Hanshan glanced at the number of Yin Qi beads and quickly estimated it in his mind. Although there were quite a few beads, they were still far from enough for Xiao An to break through from the peak of the Nascent Soul stage to the Divine Transformation stage. The accumulation required to reach the Divine Transformation stage far exceeded that required to break through the Nascent Soul stage; at least two or three Yin acupoints of similar size would be needed.

Xiao An understood this as well. She carefully put away the Yin Qi Bead and stood up: "Senior, shall we continue? Granny Yin is very likely nearby. If we encounter her again—"

"Don't be afraid," Li Hanshan interrupted her, his tone calm yet resolute. "She chased me for over two hours and couldn't stop me, so it won't matter if she tries again. Besides—she knows we'll be active in this area, which will actually lower her guard against other burial sites."

He said nothing more and turned to walk out of the passage. Xiao An followed behind him, her soul silently disappearing into the darkness, like a shadow blending into the night.

Ten days later, they found another yin cave. The location was even more remote than the previous ones, hidden underground in a dried-up river valley. The entrance was sealed by thick silt and gravel. If Xiao An hadn't been extremely sensitive to yin energy, he would never have found it.

Li Hanshan didn't rush to attack. Instead, he lay in ambush above the valley for half an hour, confirming that no Nascent Soul level cultivators were nearby before entering the underground passage. The guarding cultivators were quite strong, but they posed no problem for Li Hanshan, and the battle ended within a few dozen breaths. Xiao An sat cross-legged and began absorbing the Yin Meridian Essence; everything proceeded smoothly and quickly.

However, as Xiao An finished absorbing the energy and the two prepared to leave, Li Hanshan's expression changed. Above the mud layer at the exit of the passage, a dark red array pattern was slowly lighting up, like a sleeping giant beast being awakened and opening its eyes. The array pattern spread outwards at an astonishing speed, enveloping the entire valley and forming a semi-transparent dark red light curtain.

The light barrier was covered with dense patterns, each bearing the unique rune style of the Yinquan Sect. The dark red light barrier, like an inverted iron pot, completely sealed off their location, making even the air seem to stagnate.

Granny Yin slowly emerged from the darkness above the valley, her grey robes fluttering gently in the night breeze. She looked down at the figure trapped in the formation, a cold smile slowly spreading across her lips. Her cloudy eyes held a cat-like, confident composure, and her voice was hoarse and smug: "Boy, I knew you'd come back, so I prepared this trap especially for you."

Li Hanshan stood in the center of the formation, his gaze sweeping over the dark red light barrier. The array patterns were arranged with extreme precision, clearly requiring considerable effort and time to set up. He tentatively unleashed a palm strike with pure Yang fire; the fireball exploded into a bright burst of sparks on the light barrier, which only trembled slightly before returning to calm.

"I spent three days setting up this formation," Granny Yin's voice drifted from outside the formation, carrying a confident air. "With the spiritual power of a Nascent Soul cultivator, it's simply impossible for them to break it."

After she finished speaking, she turned her gaze to the figure standing at the edge of the dark red light barrier in the formation, and her smile deepened: "Kid, let's see how you escape this time."

Li Hanshan sheathed his broken sword and withdrew his hand. He turned to look at the shadows behind him, where Xiao An was slowly emerging from the darkness, the eerie blue light on her soul's surface even deeper than before. He spoke, his voice calm: "Xiao An, is the Yin energy here sufficient?"

Xiao An looked around—the residual Yin energy fluctuations below the valley were more intense than she had imagined. Combined with the Yin energy bead she had just absorbed and the Yin energy gathered by the array itself, the accumulation was already quite substantial. She nodded and said, "Enough."

"Then let's break through with all our might." Li Hanshan turned around, and pure Yang fire slowly rose around him, enveloping him in a purple-gold light. "I'll hold her off."

Granny Yin's smile froze for a moment, then turned into a deeper sneer: "Breakthrough? A ghost wants to break through to the Nascent Soul stage within my formation? Dream on."