The Qi Pouch was a flesh-and-blood artifact that worked by storing spiritual power to boost a cultivator’s total reserves. The Ninefold Golden Lock Art functioned on a similar principle. It refined "golden locks" to trap the cultivator’s essence energy, increasing its total amount and reducing the difficulty of breakthroughs.

Cultivators possessed the Three Treasures—essence, qi, and spirit.

Qi referred to spiritual power. In ancient times, cultivators were often called Qi Refiners for this reason.

Spirit referred to the soul and divine sense.

The final treasure—essence—referred to the physical body, and more specifically, to essence energy, which was the vital energy within the body. A cultivator’s blood vitality was one type of essence energy.

That said, generally speaking—

Unless one practiced body cultivation or inherited a complete body-refining lineage, it was very difficult to extract and utilize essence energy from the physical body.

The Ninefold Golden Lock Art was not just a body cultivation secret art—it also contained the core methods to help cultivators extract their own essence energy.

This was the true foundation of a faction’s body-refining inheritance—the secret not taught to outsiders.

It was the entry threshold for rogue body cultivators.

Such untaught secrets couldn’t be bought with spirit stones alone—they required rare opportunities and connections.

That’s why, although there were plenty of body cultivators in the world, the strongest ones almost always came from powerful sects, and were rarely seen among rogue cultivators.

The reason was simple—

There were very few publicly available body-refining treasures.

Without the methods to extract essence energy, a rogue body cultivator would need to pay many times the cost to reach the Golden Core stage compared to a sect-trained one.

The body cultivation arts Wei Tu had encountered before—including the third-tier True Demonic Refinement Art—were all missing this core component. Or rather, they lacked the Arid Mountain Sect’s untaught secret at their heart.

Once Wei Tu had fully digested these insights—

He began practicing the Ninefold Golden Lock Art.

…

Time passed quietly.

In the blink of an eye—

Four years had gone by.

Unlike twenty years ago, when the righteous sects had been crushed in their war with the demonic path and lost an entire kingdom, the situation had shifted. After the two great sects withdrew from Jing Kingdom and relocated to Zheng Kingdom, the Righteous Alliance not only stabilized their defenses but also scored multiple localized victories.

There were signs that the tide was turning.

The Cicada Cry Cliff was one example.

No one noticed that the name Wei Tu appeared again and again on the list of cultivators credited with these victories.

After all, a mere mid-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator couldn't possibly play a decisive role in battles at that level.

During this period—

Wei Tu successfully cultivated the Ninefold Golden Lock Art, refining three golden locks in his meridians.

"Three golden locks… that should be enough to break through to the seventh layer of the Hundred Veins Blood Tempering Art," Wei Tu thought to himself.

The Hundred Veins Blood Tempering Art was a peak-tier second-rank body cultivation technique, with nine layers in total. Every three layers, one Blood Pellet could be condensed.

If a cultivator successfully condensed three Blood Pellets, they’d increase their chances of forming a Golden Core by ten percent.

But body cultivation was slow and grueling.

Over ten years ago, he’d used a box of Earth Dragon Flesh and the Cold Crystal Flower from the Qi Clan to break through to the sixth layer and form his second Blood Pellet, reaching the mid-second-rank level.

However, ever since then, lacking body cultivation treasures, his progress had slowed to a crawl.

This Ninefold Golden Lock Art, although inferior to using body-refining treasures when it came to efficiency, still increased his cultivation speed by three to four times compared to before.

Years of accumulation, combined with the new art, gave Wei Tu confidence he could push past the bottleneck of the seventh layer.

But—

Just as he was preparing to enter seclusion—

A sharp eagle cry suddenly rang out from the beast chamber next to his training room.

At the same time, a wave of powerful demonic energy pressure burst forth from the chamber.

"Late second-rank peak?" Wei Tu raised an eyebrow, visibly surprised.

Eight years ago, the Wind-Cleaving Eagle had just broken through to mid-second-rank.

Now, in just eight short years—

It had advanced to the peak of mid-second-rank.

This growth rate was incredible—even for a human cultivator. Let alone a mere Xuan-rank bloodline spirit beast.

"The Myriad Spirits Demon Infant… just what is that thing?" Wei Tu furrowed his brows as his gaze turned toward the altar in his training room.

Atop the altar—

Sat a wooden-green infant figurine, about the size of a fist. It sat cross-legged, eyes shut, hands forming a strange seal.

The mouth of the wooden infant sculpture held a slim pill bottle, about the length of a finger.

This was precisely the Myriad Spirits Demon Infant Wei Tu had obtained from the “Xuanhou Qi Clan.”

After acquiring it, he’d been wary of the Heavenly Spirit Water that oozed from its mouth and chose to avoid using it on himself. Instead, he used the Heavenly Spirit Water solely to cultivate the Seven-Colored Phantom Moth and Wind-Cleaving Eagle.

After all, he was well-off. There was no need to gamble with his Foundation Establishment by testing whether the Heavenly Spirit Water had hidden side effects like the Xuanhou Qi Clan patriarchs once had.

More than ten years had passed since then.

Thanks to the effects of the Heavenly Spirit Water, the Seven-Colored Phantom Moth had successfully matured. Some of the older spirit insects even showed signs of breaking through to the second-tier.

The Wind-Cleaving Eagle, too, experienced a massive leap in strength from the miraculous effects of the Heavenly Spirit Water. Over the years, its cultivation surged forward, now just one step away from breaking into the late-stage of the second tier.

However—

Despite his joy, Wei Tu also felt a rising unease. The effects of the Heavenly Spirit Water were simply too overwhelming—almost unrealistically so.

If it worked this well across all cultivation realms, then in today's cultivation world, the Myriad Spirits Sect would already reign supreme over the entire Cang region, rather than merely standing among the Five Great Demonic Sects.

After all, the Myriad Spirits Demon Infant originated from the Myriad Spirits Sect.

Even if he took a step back—

And assumed the Heavenly Spirit Water only had effects below the Golden Core realm—even just that much would still be enough to make the Myriad Spirits Sect’s power unmatched among their peers.

“There are three possibilities.”

“One, the Myriad Spirits Demon Infant is extremely rare even within the sect, and difficult to produce.”

“Two, the Myriad Spirits Sect is aware of the hidden dangers of this item and thus abandons its use.”

“Three, strengthening too many Foundation Establishment cultivators could disrupt the sect’s interests, so they intentionally limit the number of battle-ready Foundation Establishment cultivators.”

Wei Tu analyzed it one by one.

Given his limited cultivation and access to intelligence, he figured all three possibilities were equally likely.

“But no matter how I analyze it, I still can’t just discard the Heavenly Spirit Water,” Wei Tu muttered with a shake of his head.

Abandoning food for fear of choking was not the choice of a wise man.

Without the Heavenly Spirit Water’s help, the Wind-Cleaving Eagle would eventually fall behind him in strength and be discarded.

That much was inevitable.

…

Two months later.

Wei Tu emerged from seclusion.

Just as he expected, his body cultivation had advanced significantly under the assistance of the Ninefold Golden Lock Art. From mid-stage tier-two Minor Accomplishment, he’d leapt straight into mid-stage tier-two Major Accomplishment.

Though not as rapid as the Wind-Cleaving Eagle’s pace—

It was still a steady breakthrough.

He had already surpassed most cultivators of the same level.

“Fellow Daoist Wei, during your battle with the demonic cultivator Xing Sen, did you summon an eagle-type Foundation Establishment spirit beast?”

“In the past half year, Zuo Kui may have been investigating you over this matter. It’s just that, because of your background connections, he hasn’t dared to act openly and is instead investigating in secret.”

Not long after Wei Tu left seclusion, Li Daoyuan came to him and delivered this troubling news.

“Zuo Kui’s investigating me in secret?” Wei Tu frowned, his expression darkening.

After all, being secretly investigated wasn’t something that pleased anyone.

What’s more, the origin of the Wind-Cleaving Eagle wasn’t exactly “clean”—it had likely been seized by Blood Elder Mo through robbery and murder.

As for whether the original beast master, the one killed by Blood Elder Mo, was a Beastmaster Sect disciple—who could say?

“How did Zuo Kui learn that I had the Wind-Cleaving Eagle?” Wei Tu looked at Li Daoyuan with confusion.

At this point, he didn’t mind revealing the Wind-Cleaving Eagle’s true name to Li Daoyuan. After all, Zuo Kui, a disciple of the Beastmaster Sect, had already started investigating him.

The Wind-Cleaving Eagle was part of Wei Tu’s strength.

Still, to avoid unnecessary trouble, he had never once used the Wind-Cleaving Eagle in front of Zuo Kui or any other Beastmaster Sect disciple.

Moreover—

When he killed Xing Sen that time—

There wasn’t a single cultivator from Cicada Cry Cliff with him.

So, when Wei Tu heard this revelation from Li Daoyuan, he couldn’t help but feel puzzled.

“I’m not entirely sure either,” Li Daoyuan shook his head.

“But… I do have a guess.” Just as Wei Tu was about to give up on finding an answer, Li Daoyuan suddenly added.

“What’s your guess?”

Wei Tu perked up, clearly intrigued.

He invited Li Daoyuan into his cave dwelling and poured him a cup of spirit tea.

Li Daoyuan took a sip, moistened his throat, and said, “Fellow Daoist Wei, when you killed Xing Sen, you made sure everything was done discreetly. No one should have known about it… and yet, somehow word spread that you had a Beastmaster Sect spirit beast…”

Although Wei Tu never stated outright that his Wind-Cleaving Eagle came from the Beastmaster Sect, Li Daoyuan, being a veteran rogue cultivator from the Jing Kingdom, had seen plenty of such cases.

In the past, within the cultivation world of the Jing Kingdom, it was common for rogue cultivators to be investigated or hunted down by the Beastmaster Sect for possessing their spirit beasts.

“But just because righteous cultivators don’t know… doesn’t mean the demonic cultivators don’t,” Li Daoyuan muttered. “To my knowledge, several Foundation Establishment cultivators from the Blood God Sect also possess Wind-Cleaving Eagles, just like Fellow Daoist Wei.”

“This time, it’s very likely the demonic cultivators leaked this matter—trying to stir up trouble.”

Li Daoyuan’s tone was slow and deliberate.

Wei Tu fell silent.

Although in the eyes of demonic cultivators he was just a minor figure, schemes and plots were never reserved solely for the big players.

Quantity breeds transformation.

Even the dissatisfaction of grassroots cultivators could influence decisions made at the top.

At present, the tensions between cultivators from the Jing and Zheng Kingdoms were already at a boiling point.

If not for the high-level suppression from the major sects, the two sides would’ve been at open war long ago.

The cultivators from the Jing Kingdom were forced to flee to the Zheng Kingdom’s cultivation territory after their homeland was lost. That, in itself, was understandable and excusable.

But a nation’s resources are limited—they can’t support the cultivators of two kingdoms.

One major reason why the three great sects of the Zheng Kingdom had been so ruthless in extracting resources from rogue cultivators was precisely because they needed to allocate massive resources to satisfy the demands of the two great sects from the Jing Kingdom.

And if they couldn’t cut from their own flesh, they could only extract it from the rogues.

If not—

Then the Jing Kingdom cultivators wouldn’t be viewed as “helpful neighbors” aiding in the defense against demonic invasion but as “thieving neighbors” waiting to plunder Zheng’s cultivation lands.

So, demonic cultivators targeting someone like him—just a minor figure—was likely an attempt to use many such minor figures to inflame the underlying resentment and make the growing rift between the two sides impossible to ignore.

“Three more years… and I can leave Cicada Cry Cliff,” Wei Tu said with a bitter smile on his lips.

From the bottom of his heart, he didn’t want to get caught up in this storm and let it derail his cultivation path.

He had been stationed at Cicada Cry Cliff for seven years now.

Just three more years, and he would have fulfilled his conscription contract.

“Fellow Daoist Wei, this is the fate of rogue cultivators like us,” Li Daoyuan sighed. “Some cultivators envy our freedom, but the truth is, that freedom only belongs to those with true power.”

“For the rest of us… we can only drift with the tides, always at the mercy of the currents.”

At this point, Wei Tu noticed the obvious color difference between Li Daoyuan’s right and left arms.

Clearly, his left arm had been lost during the war in the past few years.

He’d been forced to replace it with a prosthetic.

Hearing Li Daoyuan’s words, Wei Tu deeply resonated with them. He nodded and said, “Although I have some connection to True Lord Qin, he is a Zheng Kingdom cultivator. It wouldn’t be appropriate for him to interfere with the Beastmaster Sect…”

“Does Fellow Daoist Li have any suggestions?”

Wei Tu didn’t believe that Li Daoyuan had come merely to deliver news, with no plan to offer help.

From beginning to end—

Wei Tu never asked how Li Daoyuan found out that Zuo Kui from the Beastmaster Sect was secretly investigating him.

Because he trusted that Li Daoyuan’s visit had been authorized by the Rogue Cultivator Alliance.

After all, he and Li Daoyuan were no more than acquaintances.

Logically, Li Daoyuan wouldn’t risk offending Zuo Kui just to secretly tip him off.

Wei Tu had indeed joined the Rogue Cultivator Alliance.

But compared to Li Daoyuan, Wei Tu was still just a peripheral member and hadn’t yet earned real trust within the organization.

“Although Supreme Elder Hu Yanpeng of the Beastmaster Sect died in the righteous-demonic war in the Jing Kingdom, weakening their power, the sect is still not something the Rogue Cultivator Alliance can oppose…” Li Daoyuan understood the implication behind Wei Tu’s words and, admiring Wei Tu’s intelligence, explained the situation’s difficulty.

“But the Beastmaster Sect and the Rogue Cultivator Alliance aren’t completely at odds either. There is cooperation between the two factions.”

He added, “One of the Beastmaster Sect’s Golden Core elders has ties to our Alliance’s ‘True Lord Che.’”

“This matter might seem huge to you and me.”

“But to True Lord Che, it’s nothing more than a small favor.”

At that, Li Daoyuan finally revealed his intention.

“I’m willing to help introduce Fellow Daoist Wei to True Lord Che.”