nChapter 43 – Old Friend

nThe centipede before him was one hundred feet long. The poison it contained must have reached an unimaginable level. Wang Lin wasn’t unfamiliar with centipedes. Many of the children caught centipedes to play with, and many used them to feed their chickens.

nSometimes, they would accidentally be bitten by the centipede, but all they needed to do was wash the wound with a lot of water, then at most lay in bed for a few days and they would be fine.

nThere was even a time where he collected centipedes for their poison. The doctor at the village said that if the centipedes’ poison was used properly, it could be used to cure illnesses. In the early days, his father couldn’t afford to buy wood for his work, so he went up to the mountains to chop wood and let the cold air enter his body. This caused him to almost lose his life.

nAt that time, the prescription made by the doctor contained centipede poison.

nAlthough his father’s illness was cured, the illness left its roots in his father’s body. Every time it rained, his father would be in a lot of pain. The prescription the doctor gave to help with the pain contained centipede poison as well, so Wang Lin had caught a lot of centipedes for his father.

nUntil now, Wang Lin still remembered what happened back then.

nLooking at the hundred foot centipede, Wang Lin stroke his chin. If the small centipedes’ poison could help his dad’s illness, then the poison from this centipede might just remove the root of the problem once and for all.

nBut the centipede before him was simply too large, and Wang Lin was just too small compared to it. He was afraid that he wouldn’t be able to get any poison and hurt himself in the process.

nSuddenly, Wang Lin remembered a method for obtaining centipede poison. This method was passed down through the generations. It was to make a pill to feed to the centipede. Once the centipede consumed said pill, it would spit out poison.

nThinking about it, he stared at the centipede and walked toward the pill house. The pill house contained the most materials in the sect. He also hadn’t seen Wang Hao in 4 years, so it would be good to check up on him.

nIt was already getting dark when Wang Lin arrived at the pill house and saw Wang Hao carefully exiting from the side door. Wang Hao saw Wang Lin and gestured him to be silent. He motioned him to go outside.

nWang Lin was stunned. He sent out his divine sense and found the 3rd elder staring at the pill furnace with a serious expression on his face.

nAfter walking away for a while, Wang Hao saw that Wang Lin had silently followed him out. He grabbed Wang Lin and quickly ran. After running away for a while, he finally let out a breath.

nWang Hao was short of breath. He warily looked toward the pill house and quickly asked, with a glint of hope, “Wang Lin, I heard you went to the intense training four years ago. What layer are you at now?”

n“The 3rd layer…what is this?” Wang Lin scanned Wang Hao with his divine sense and found that Wang Hao was already at the first layer, but the spiritual energy in his body was very strange. The spiritual energy wasn’t flowing properly, but moving in an odd path.

nEvery time the flow circulated through Wang Hao’s body, it would take away a bit of Wang Hao’s life essence from his organs and absorb it.

nIn this state, Wang Lin was afraid that it wouldn’t be long before Wang Hao ran out of life essence and died.

nWang Hao bitterly smiled and said, “You saw through it?”

nWang Lin nodded and said, “Wang Hao, tell me what this is about.”

nWang Hao tightened his fist and said, while grinding his teeth, “Back when we went to the exchange, I always regretted not being able to get the Foundation Establishment pill. Later, master, bah, Lu Yunie gave me a Foundation Establishment pill to repay me for being his helper. I was very surprised at the time. He also gave me a cultivation method and told me that it was better than the one the sect gives. I didn’t think too much about it and cultivated with it.”

nWang Lin took a deep breath and asked, “What? Let me see!”

nWang Hao took out a thread bound book and threw it to Wang Lin. He continued, “But after I practiced it for 2 years, my body became weaker. Although I can manage to condense spirit power in my body, I can’t use it. Later, I secretly bribed a disciple to look it up for me and found that the cultivation method Lu Yunjie gave me is called Fire Furnace Trial.”

nWang Lin opened the book and looked through it. The more he read, the more shocked he became. What was in the book was completely different from what was inside The Three Layers of Qi Condensation. Instead of using the spiritual energy to refine the body, it gathered spiritual energy into a swirl. This swirl would expand as one gathered spirit power, and it would soon be able to absorb the spiritual energy of the heavens and earth to refine the body from the outside, achieving something similar to Qi Condensation.

nIn simple terms, Qi Condensation was to slowly refine the body from the inside.

nAnd the latter was a high handed method. If one was lucky, the swirl would expand outside the body before the body collapsed and achieve Qi Condensation, and if not, then the body would be destroyed before the swirl expanded to outside the body.

nWang Hao said, with his teeth grinding, “This Fire Furnace Trail cultivation method, the archives in the sect held some copies of this. It is said to have been obtained from the extinct country of Lu. Only 2 out of 10 cultivators would survive using this method. It’s all based on luck.”

nWang Lin asked the important question, “What benefit would Lu Yunjie gain from all this?”

nWang Hao’s eyes grew cold. He darkly said, “He wants to use me as a pill furnace. When the disciple of the archives gave me the information, it was recorded that the moment someone dies from cultivating the Fire Furnace Trial, if a certain method is used, a pill that extends one’s life for 3 years can be created.”

nWang Lin took in a cold breath and thought that this 3rd elder Lu Yunjie was too cruel.

nWang Hao’s expression was bitter. He harshly said, “I don’t dare to talk about this with the other elders and the sect head, after all, I’m Lu Yunjie’s helper. Under the sect rules, my life is no longer mine, but Lu Yunjie’s. If I knew this would happen, I wouldn’t have agreed to be his helper. Ah, it is too late to regret it now. Lu Yunjie found out that I know the secret and threatened me with my parents. Now, I have no control over my life. Every day I must take several Qi Gathering pills and the swirl in my body grows larger by the day. Based on my calculations, I only have about a year left to live.”

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