Chapter Forty-One: Zhu Ziqiu

Leaving the Myriad Demon Pavilion, Cao Yun returned to his cave dwelling and soon received the breath-concealing technique sent by Dai Wuya. After just one night of study, he mastered it completely. The next day, the middle-aged scholar he had met once at the Myriad Demon Pavilion paid him a visit, bringing a magical artifact. The artifact resembled a bracelet woven from withered wood vines and was said to possess the miraculous ability to suppress one's aura.

Cao Yun gently slid the bracelet onto his wrist and immediately felt his aura become much more restrained. He then asked the scholar to relay a message to Dai Wuya: as soon as he finished refining the Essence Pills, he would depart for the State of Qin.

After the scholar took his leave, Cao Yun turned back to his meditation room and began the refinement process.

This time, he consumed three Essence Pills at once. Each pill melted upon contact with his tongue, turning into a surging torrent of spiritual energy that rushed directly toward his dantian.

After a full day and night of refining, Cao Yun had completely absorbed the entire bottle of Essence Pills. His cultivation had broken through to the tenth level of Qi Refining, one minor realm higher than Dai Wuya had anticipated. Perhaps it was due to the time spent cultivating in the mysterious space, or perhaps it was the result of his own diligent practice over the past year; in any case, Cao Yun now stood firmly at the tenth level of Qi Refining, only a single step away from the Foundation Establishment stage.

At dawn on the second day, the rising sun painted the clouds in poetic, magnificent hues. A young man of about seventeen or eighteen, dressed in a cyan robe with a cold, composed expression, was flying on his sword toward the borders of the State of Qin. This was Cao Yun, who had left the Heavenly Star Wolf Sect to embark on his journey to the State of Qin.

After a long and dusty journey, as he neared the Green Mountain Sect, Cao Yun slowly put away his artifact and chose to proceed on foot.

Cao Yun felt a strange sense of familiarity with the Green Mountain Sect. Having inherited Zhang Jin's memories, he knew almost everything about the sect, save for the Golden Core ancestor he had never met.

Using Zhang Jin's memories, Cao Yun skillfully bribed his way through the gates with two spirit stones, becoming a servant disciple.

The daily life of a servant disciple involved feeding spirit beasts, tending to herb fields, assisting blacksmiths in dismantling materials, or guarding alchemy furnaces. Additionally, they were responsible for patrolling and guarding the sect's checkpoints. For Cao Yun, these tasks were handled with ease.

Time passed like a white horse galloping past a crack in a wall, and a year vanished in the blink of an eye. Cao Yun diligently performed his duties day after day, meditating on his techniques during his spare time, and occasionally discussing the path of cultivation or sparring with his fellow disciples.

He seemed to be nothing more than an ordinary servant disciple in the Green Mountain Sect, living a mundane life, seemingly having forgotten the task entrusted to him by Dai Wuya.

***

It was not until this day that Cao Yun was assigned to the Weapon Refining Hall.

Although the Green Mountain Sect could not be compared to a super-sect like the Heavenly Star Wolf Sect, its overall strength was perhaps comparable to one of the Heavenly Star Wolf Sect's pavilions, albeit slightly inferior. Nevertheless, to the outside world, the Green Mountain Sect remained a force of the righteous path that could not be underestimated, having dominated the Qingmin Mountain Range in the State of Qin for many years with a widely celebrated reputation.

The head of the Weapon Refining Hall was a cultivator in the early Foundation Establishment stage. Because he was obsessed with weapon refining and array formations, his cultivation was a notch weaker than the other branch masters. It just so happened that today, the hall master had gone to the marketplace to oversee affairs, leaving the management of the hall entirely to his personal disciple, Zhu Ziqiu.

While Zhu Ziqiu did not possess shocking talent in the path of cultivation, his attainments in weapon refining and array formations were rare. Despite his youth, his refining techniques were not at all inferior to his master, Liu Yunqing, and he even showed signs of surpassing him in the study of arrays. He had long since made a name for himself within the sect, but his personality was extremely reclusive; he rarely socialized, and aside from weapon refining, almost no one had ever had a deep conversation with him.

While dismantling materials, Cao Yun secretly observed this personal disciple of Master Liu with his spiritual sense.

Why did Cao Yun act this way?

It was an instinctive behavior. Ever since he first saw this refining genius, he had felt a sense of alarm, sensing that this person was extremely dangerous. Although the man usually showed no signs of abnormality, the feeling of danger would arise spontaneously whenever Cao Yun drew near. Having survived countless life-and-death trials, Cao Yun trusted his intuition implicitly.

"Is Senior Brother Zhu here?" a crisp, pleasant voice rang out from the entrance of the Weapon Refining Hall.

Cao Yun glanced at Senior Brother Zhu, who was still tinkering with a compass and ignoring the intrusion, and seeing no reaction, he continued to dismantle his materials.

At this moment, an outer disciple who had been recording array patterns immediately stopped his work and ran over eagerly, saying, "Two senior sisters, Senior Brother Zhu is busy. If there is a problem, I can help."

"You? Sigh, you won't do. I had better find Senior Brother Zhu," said the tall, adorable-looking woman, shaking her head at the eager outer disciple.

Behind her followed a woman with a cold, icy beauty, whose ethereal temperament made her seem like a fairy untouched by the dust of the mortal world.

The rejected male disciple took one glance at the cold beauty behind the first woman and stood frozen on the spot, unable to move.

Tang Ling looked at the pathetic state of the male disciple, tapped her own head, and laughed, "Senior Sister Zhang, it seems you may need to cover up that delicious face of yours in the sect, or else the Green Mountain Sect will soon be flooded with the drool of our junior brothers."

Zhang Xiu'er frowned slightly and said, "Junior Sister Tang, let's just find Senior Brother Zhu to repair this Five Elements Convergence Array disk. You know we don't have much time."

"Alright, alright, my beautiful Senior Sister Zhang Xiu'er." Tang Ling then turned to the dazed, soul-lost outer disciple and said, "Hey, have you seen enough? If you have, take us to see Senior Brother Zhu."

The male disciple jolted, his heart thumping wildly as if several small deer were colliding against his chest. His face turned bright red as he stammered, "I... I will take you two senior sisters to find Senior Brother Zhu right away."

As the man led Tang Ling and Zhang Xiu'er past Cao Yun, he was still blushing furiously. Cao Yun looked at Senior Brother Fang—who was usually accustomed to being arrogant and domineering—suddenly reduced to this state, and could only suppress a laugh.

Cao Yun did not understand how a perfectly normal person could suddenly turn into such a state. He had grown up in the Imperial Secret Service and had been trained in the techniques of killing since he could remember. Faced only with the binary choices of life and death every day, he knew very little about the affairs between men and women.

"Senior Brother Zhu, two senior sisters from the inner sect are here to see you," Fang Yuan said, leading Tang Ling and Zhang Xiu'er to Zhu Ziqiu's side.