To settle things once and for all, you planned to obtain a pill recipe for the internal spirit pills.

Relying on the memories from your last simulation,

you knew there was a sect by the East Sea coast specializing in pill refining called the Danxia Sect.

Their sect was capable of producing internal spirit pills.

You intended to sneak in secretly and get a hold of the internal spirit pill recipe.

You headed east all the way.

On the eighth day, you were about to leave Danzhou.

You noticed that Duan Qian had issued more than a dozen wanted posters.

They were targeting more than ten people from the Golden Saber Martial Arts School.

At the forefront of the wanted criminals were the father and son Wang Kun and Wang Yuanyi.

From a distance, you glanced at the content of the wanted posters.

You found that your name and jade photo were not on them.

You knew Duan Qian hadn’t suspected you yet.

He only thought that the father and son from the Wang family had fled with the rest of the martial arts school members.

You breathed a sigh of relief.

At the same time, a sense of urgency arose.

Since Duan Qian was taking this matter so seriously, it was very likely he would investigate everyone from the Golden Saber Martial Arts School and sooner or later would trace it back to you.

That night, you left the city and exited the jurisdiction of Danzhou.

You proceeded cautiously, not continuing directly toward the Danxia Sect.

Instead, you found a remote mountain to lay low.

You lived in the mountains for more than half a year.

You did not waste a single moment.

During this half year, you completed your first true qi condensation.

The true qi condensation at the Marrow Washing stage gave you added confidence.

After more than half a year, the heat of the manhunt gradually subsided.

You continued to head east.

The next year, you arrived at the Danxia Sect.

You bought a small courtyard in a nearby village.

During your spare time outside of cultivation, you wandered around near the Danxia Sect.

In your line of work, you always have to scout the place before making a move.

After a month, you had basically figured out the situation of the Danxia Sect.

Although the Danxia Sect wasn’t one of the Five Great Sects, its scale was not small either.

The sect’s leader had the cultivation of a Grandmaster.

The overall strength of the Danxia Sect was not weak.

For over a month, you had been unable to find an opportunity to sneak inside.

Several times while scouting, you were nearly discovered.

Fortunately, you had a large reserve of internal spirit pills.

You could continue your cultivation as usual.

In the second month, an opportunity finally came.

The Danxia Sect’s annual disciple recruitment began.

Anyone sixteen years old or younger could participate in the entry exam.

Passing the exam would allow one to become a disciple of the Danxia Sect.

“A great chance!” you were very excited.

You had just turned sixteen this year.

You planned to enter the enemy’s inner circle through this exam.

Once inside the Danxia Sect, you were sure you could find a chance to steal the pill recipe.

You created a new identity with the name Zhao Tiezhu.

Using the Art of Hidden Breath, you only revealed your cultivation to mid-stage Skin Refining.

You pretended you had never refined any pills before, so as not to arouse suspicion.

Your Art of Hidden Breath was already perfected.

Only an Ultimate Grandmaster could see through your true cultivation.

Even the sect leader with the highest cultivation in the Danxia Sect couldn’t detect your true level.

You were not worried about revealing your cultivation inside the Danxia Sect.

The sect’s entry only required a pill refining exam.

You competed alongside more than fifty other youths.

The examiner asked you all to refine an unfamiliar ordinary healing pill.

Relying on your experience refining Blood Qi Pills, you finished first.

Your yield rate was also the highest, reaching seventy percent.

Achieving such a high success rate on a pill you had never refined before, calling you a pill refining prodigy was no exaggeration.

When the examiner came to inspect your product, his eyes lit up.

He looked at you more happily than if he had seen his own father.

The examiner immediately terminated the other candidates’ exams.

He announced on the spot that the other youths had failed.

The other youths left dejectedly.

As they left, they glared resentfully at you.

Usually, the Danxia Sect only recruited three disciples each year.

But because your performance was so stunning this year, the others’ talent and skill were completely insignificant by comparison.

You easily created a gap that placed you first by far.

It’s not about lacking recognition but about comparing worth to worth.

This caused the examiner to directly cut two recruitment slots, and this year only you were accepted.

You sincerely said to those eliminated: “Youngsters, don’t envy my height; one day, you’ll jump high enough to reach my knees.”

You smoothly entered the Danxia Sect.

You were assigned as the disciple of Elder Xie Huide, the Seventh Elder.

Xie Huide was seventy-five years old, looking middle-aged, with cultivation at the peak of Essence Refining.

Xie Huide was carefree by nature and disliked managing affairs.

Besides teaching you pill refining, he never came looking for you.

You were happy about this; it meant you could go scouting whenever you wanted.

You could also cultivate freely in your own residence.

There was no need to worry about exposing your cultivation.

Usually, Xie Huide would explain the basic framework of pill refining to you.

Your proficiency in refining Blood Qi Pills was entirely a rough method forged through spending money and time recklessly.

Now, after listening to Xie Huide’s explanations, you gained a systematic understanding of pill refining.

You realized that pills were actually divided into grades.

From grade one to grade nine, with grade nine being the highest.

When a pill refiner’s proficiency in the highest grade pill they can refine reaches completion, that refiner is considered to be of that corresponding grade.

As for you,

Blood Qi Pills are actually grade two pills.

Your proficiency in refining Blood Qi Pills was already complete.

You were effectively a grade two pill refiner.

Xie Huide was a grade seven pill refiner, which was quite impressive.

He gave you the recipes for three grade one pills.

These three pills were among the more difficult grade one pills.

He told you that once your proficiency in refining these three grade one pills all reached completion, he would teach you to refine Blood Qi Pills.

When your proficiency in Blood Qi Pills reached completion again, he would teach you to refine grade four internal spirit pills.

That also meant that at that time, you would obtain the internal spirit pill recipe.

Since your technique for refining Blood Qi Pills was already perfected,

you only needed to raise your proficiency in these three grade one pills to completion.

Then the internal spirit pill recipe would be well within reach.

You estimated it would take less than a year for your proficiency in these three grade one pills to reach completion.

But you couldn’t suddenly reveal full mastery of Blood Qi Pills.

Otherwise, your identity would surely be suspected.

You had to play dumb and slowly show progress.

Given your pill refining prodigy persona, four years to reach completion seemed more reasonable.

But you felt four years was too long.

You decided to study pill refining seriously while looking for chances to steal the recipe.

You learned that the Danxia Sect’s pill recipes and cultivation methods were stored in the Transmission Pavilion.

You spent half a month figuring out the guard shift changes at the Transmission Pavilion.

One day, you quietly slipped into the Transmission Pavilion during the guard change.

But you were immediately caught by a guard returning to duty.

This guard was at the early stage of Essence Refining; you could handle him.

You planned to kill him and escape the Danxia Sect.

However, the guard recognized you and asked, “Are you Zhao Tiezhu, the disciple of the Seventh Elder?”

You answered, “Yes.”

“I thought I’d seen you before,” the guard muttered and then walked away.

He completely ignored you afterward.

You were somewhat stunned.

Later, you learned that disciples of the sect elders could come and go freely in the Transmission Pavilion.

You had been overly cautious before and hadn’t dared to ask anything about the Transmission Pavilion.

This time, you had been too cautious.

You hurriedly searched inside the Transmission Pavilion but found no internal spirit pill recipe.

It turned out that recipes of grade four and above were not stored there.

They were kept by the sect leader and elders.

You had made a wasted trip.

You had no choice but to obediently raise your proficiency in the three grade one pills first.

Although your plan to steal the pill recipe was ruined,

you found staying in the Danxia Sect was only beneficial to you.

Every day, you only needed to study pill refining.

Then complete the pill refining tasks assigned by Xie Huide.

These tasks were as easy as breathing for you.

They didn’t hinder your cultivation at all.

Although the Danxia Sect’s overall combat power was far weaker than the Five Great Sects,

its status in the martial world was second only to the Five Great Sects and the Three Great Demon Cults.

It was highly respected in the martial world.

Simply put, if you didn’t respect the Danxia Sect,

they wouldn’t sell you their pills.

Want to cause a scene and get angry?

They would just call a few Ultimate Grandmaster brothers who need their pills to come and deal with you.

You wouldn’t stand a chance.

So no sect wanted to make an enemy of the Danxia Sect.

Danxia Sect disciples basically didn’t need to go out fighting.

Unlike the rogues from other sects who needed to wield watermelon knives and cut people everywhere.

That was dangerous and could cause deaths.

You hated fighting and killing the most and had no idea what it felt like to wipe out someone’s entire family.

So staying in the Danxia Sect was actually safer than wandering outside.

Moreover, the Danxia Sect was very wealthy.

When disciples practiced pill refining, the consumables used could be reimbursed half by the sect.

Each disciple also had their own independent courtyard residence.

You had your own large courtyard.

Life was quite comfortable.

Other sects definitely didn’t have such favorable conditions.

Some poorly managed small sects starved three days and ate nine meals, and got beaten by small steel rods for no reason.

Life there was really miserable.