The Heavenly Demon Sect had tens of thousands of disciples.
There were eight thousand inner sect disciples.
Among them were many female cultivators of extraordinary talent who were already half a step into Core Formation, and two of them were Chu Zixue’s biggest rivals.
Although Ye Bufan’s yang spiritual root was not all that impressive, that kind of spiritual root was extremely rare in the cultivation world and was of great help to female cultivators.
Those two bitches might come and snatch him away.
If word got out, the ones coming to snatch him would not be limited to just those two.
“By the way, during this period you are responsible for checking his cultivation. If you dare slack off, you know what to do.”
“Yes, Eldest Senior Sister.”
Lu Luo lowered her head. Only after the other party left did she finally raise it.
She looked at her senior sister’s back, her little face twisted in conflict. In the end, she gritted her teeth and quietly took a yellow talisman from her storage bag.
“Eldest Senior Sister, I do not want to betray you either, but I have been stuck at the early Foundation Establishment stage for a long time, and Senior Sister Qing Yao gave me too much.”
She clenched the yellow talisman and planned to send the message later, lest the other side grow suspicious.
The Eldest Senior Sister was the daughter of the peak master of Demonic Sword Peak, where she lived. If she had not been forced to, she truly would not have wanted to betray her.
Then she glanced at the small courtyard again and withdrew the pity from her eyes.
That old man was destined to die no matter what, and if he could bring her some benefits before dying, that would be pretty good.
Not bad at all.
Over the next period of time, Lu Luo served as Ye Bufan’s butler.
She was responsible for delivering cultivation pills and Bigu Pills on time.
She also urged Ye Bufan to cultivate.
She had thought this old fellow would slack off, become lazy, and avoid cultivating Blood Spirit Art.
She had even prepared threats and intimidation.
The result surprised her.
This old man cultivated with great enthusiasm.
“Did he really think becoming a cultivation cauldron was a good thing?”
Lu Luo looked at Ye Bufan, who was diligently cultivating under a large tree in the courtyard, and her pretty face looked very strange.
Indeed.
The Eldest Senior Sister looked like a celestial fairy, and she had an exceptional water spiritual root. Before the age of twenty-six, she had already reached Foundation Establishment great completion.
There were countless people in the Heavenly Demon Sect who wanted to get close to her.
But those people all wanted to become dual cultivation partners, not cultivation cauldrons.
“Being a little stupid is good; it saves me a lot of trouble.”
Lu Luo secretly let out a breath of relief, but at the same time she gained a new understanding of Ye Bufan.
They say old people become crafty, but he did not seem all that crafty.
Aside from supervising him, Lu Luo also had to constantly prevent Ye Bufan from suddenly dying of old age, because cultivating Blood Spirit Art consumed lifespan, and the other party did not have many years left to begin with.
But what she did not know was this:
Even Blood Spirit Art, which demonic cultivators avoided at all costs, brought Ye Bufan no harm whatsoever. Instead, it benefited him greatly.
His bodily functions were changing quietly, and his lifespan was skyrocketing.
By the fifth day, he broke through again.
While Lu Luo went out to fetch pills, Ye Bufan’s cultivation broke through once more.
A vortex condensed above his head, and wisps of spiritual qi entered his body.
The qi vortex in his dantian expanded again by a full half, like a mass of mist.
Qi Refining level eleven!
Ye Bufan opened his eyes. The murkiness of an old man had disappeared; instead, his eyes were clear and bright.
“Good thing I have this demonic art, otherwise breaking through to the eleventh level would have taken more than ten years.”
Ye Bufan formed hand seals and opened his mouth to spit out a qi blade, carving a deep pit into the ground.
He could not help sighing.
Then he took out a bronze mirror and looked at himself in it.
During the first five days the changes had not been very obvious, but after the breakthrough, the roots of his white hair had already turned completely black, and his appearance was no longer aged. Instead, he was beginning to look middle-aged.
The wrinkles were growing fewer and fewer, and he looked more and more energetic.
“After five days of cultivation, I increased my lifespan by twenty years.”
“Ha! As a Qi Refining stage cultivator, I have lived a second life!”
Ye Bufan almost laughed out loud.
After calming himself down, he formed hand seals and cast a spell.
This spell was one he had spent years looking for after entering the cultivation world, and it was called Divine Concealment Art.
It could alter appearance and conceal aura, and even someone one realm higher would not be able to see through it.
If not for this art, he would have been captured by some female cultivator from the Joyous Union Sect decades ago.
And then drained into human jerky.
As for Chu Zixue, that was another matter.
She was far above his cultivation level.
A moment later, the concealment was complete.
Ye Bufan’s cultivation was hidden, and his appearance aged once more, as if he might crawl into a coffin and die at any moment.
“I need to step into the Foundation Establishment stage as soon as possible. Right now I can hide it from the gatekeeper, Lu Luo, but I cannot hide it from Chu Zixue.”
After entering the Foundation Establishment stage, Ye Bufan planned to control Lu Luo first, and then seize an opportunity to pack up and run.
“There are so many demonic arts in the Heavenly Demon Sect. If I cultivated one, I could soar to the heavens in a single step just by relying on the side effects of the demonic art.”
“That’s a little regrettable. Still, staying alive is what matters. This demonic-path sect kills people at the drop of a hat. It’s too dangerous. I can’t stay here for long.”
The Heavenly Demon Sect was like raising gu. Survival of the fittest ruled, and large-scale death matches were the norm.
As for life-and-death killings between individuals, the higher-ups did not care at all.
Ye Bufan had a remarkably steady temperament.
He knew very well that if you lived too high-profile a life, you would not live long.
Staying away from danger and developing quietly was the real path.
When Lu Luo returned, Ye Bufan ate the pills with complete peace of mind and then continued cultivating.
These pills were the kind he had never dared to dream of before.
In the past, Ye Bufan could save up spirit stones for a whole month and still only buy a few of them.
Now, they were supplied without limit.
It was simply too satisfying.
But Lu Luo, looking at Ye Bufan, who seemed even older, furrowed her brows.
“At this rate, he probably will not live for a few more days before meeting the King of Hell.”
Lu Luo was very worried.
Just then, a voice came from outside the door.
“Lu Luo, I know you’re inside. Come out quickly. I just refined a top-grade Copper Armored Corpse, and I was planning to give it to you so you can command it.”
Lu Luo’s little face turned ugly, and she grew utterly sick of the fly-like pest outside.
But right now she could not let outsiders know Ye Bufan was here, so she had no choice but to go out and make a show of dealing with him.
Ye Bufan, meanwhile, seemed not to hear a thing and continued to immerse himself in cultivation.
Lu Luo looked sweet, and she had quite a few suitors in the inner sect as well. The sycophant outside was one of them, and since this was Lu Luo’s residence, Ye Bufan had long since grown used to it.
After Lu Luo sent the outsider away, she returned to the courtyard and kept watching Ye Bufan.
She became more and more worried that this old man would suddenly drop dead.
Ten days later.
“What a long-lived old man. He has been cultivating Blood Spirit Art for half a month and still has not died?”
Lu Luo was shocked. As the days passed, the old man became older and older.
But he simply would not die.
It was truly bizarre.
If Ye Bufan had not broken through to Qi Refining level twelve, she would have suspected Blood Spirit Art was fake.
“Whether he lives or dies, I still have to report this to Senior Sister Qing Yao.”
Lu Luo’s eyes flickered. She left the small courtyard and planned to move farther away before crushing the yellow talisman.
And after Lu Luo left, Ye Bufan finally got his chance.
He put away Divine Concealment Art, and the aura around him spread out completely.
The aura from before had only been for show. This one was the real thing.
Qi Refining level thirteen, peak!
Even his bearing changed drastically. He now had black hair, a middle-aged appearance, and vigorous qi and blood, making him look quite heroic.
In these ten days, he had naturally reached Qi Refining stage great completion.
His lifespan had also increased by forty years.
He had completely broken through the lifespan limit of the Qi Refining stage.
If word got out, it would shock half of the cultivation world.
“I’m ready to break through to Foundation Establishment. After that, I’ll make a plan and leave!”
Ye Bufan murmured. The commotion caused by Foundation Establishment would be a little too big, so he had to hurry.
Then he took out a Foundation Establishment Pill.
This had long been prepared by Chu Zixue, who had been hoping for him to reach Foundation Establishment.
Only then would the cultivation cauldron effect be at its best.
As for this kind of pill, Ye Bufan had not even dared to imagine it before. Even in the five great immortal sects of the Zhao Kingdom, Foundation Establishment Pills were quite rare and impossible to buy at any price.
“Foundation Establishment, huh. I wonder whether my pathetic aptitude can even succeed, even if it is only a low-grade dao foundation.”
Ye Bufan looked at the Foundation Establishment Pill and hesitated, feeling extremely uneasy.
Foundation Establishment was a major hurdle, and over the years he had heard of too many Qi Refining cultivators failing to break through.
Even with a Foundation Establishment Pill, the success rate was not very high.
The lower the aptitude, the lower the success rate.
『Ding! Detected a Demonic Foundation-Building Pill!』
『Demonic Foundation-Building Pill: There is a 60 percent chance of breaking through to Foundation Establishment; side effect: medicinal poison content is as high as 200 percent, severely damaging the foundation. It can only condense the lowest-grade Foundation Establishment dao platform, and after Foundation Establishment cultivation speed drops dramatically.』
『Negative reversal: no medicinal poison will remain, the foundation will become extremely solid, it can only condense the highest-grade Foundation Establishment dao platform, and after Foundation Establishment cultivation speed will greatly increase.』