"Master, are you inside? This disciple has some confusion regarding cultivation and wishes to seek your guidance."

While calling out his inquiry, Song Wen took advantage of the second floor's higher vantage point to observe his surroundings.

The small building was built directly against the mountain. To the west was a sheer cliff several zhang high, completely bare of vegetation and extremely difficult to climb.

Above the cliff loomed a mountain peak a hundred zhang tall, covered in dense, lush vegetation and boasting steep terrain that made travel treacherous.

The other three sides were enclosed by zhang-high walls manned by guards. Even if he managed to breach the walls, the outside was still the territory of the Heavenly Fiend Gang, teeming with patrolling disciples. Escaping through any of those three directions would be far from easy.

As it stood, the only viable escape route was to cross the mountain and flee the Heavenly Fiend Gang.

Jiyin's deep voice suddenly rang out, interrupting Song Wen's observations. "Come in."

Song Wen pushed open the door to see Jiyin sitting cross-legged on a prayer mat, flipping through a book in his hands.

Not daring to let his eyes wander, Song Wen walked straight up to Jiyin and bowed deeply. "This disciple greets Master."

Jiyin nodded. "Mm. Sit."

After Song Wen sat down cross-legged, Jiyin continued, "If you have questions about your cultivation, ask them directly."

"Master, this disciple has recently noticed that my cultivation progress is slow, and I wish to ask if Master has any method to resolve this."

"Where exactly does the flow stagnate when you circulate your energy during cultivation?"

"After Spiritual Qi enters my Meridians and returns to my Dantian, only a small portion can be successfully refined. The vast majority of it slips away."

Song Wen had not made this problem up; it was his genuine experience during cultivation.

Jiyin did not answer directly. Instead, he asked, "How do you understand the phrase 'entering the Mud Pill Palace, descending to the Qi Cavity'?"

"This disciple believes..."

Fifteen minutes later, under Jiyin's explanation, Song Wen finally understood the errors in his cultivation.

He was about to stand and take his leave when his gaze fell upon the book in Jiyin's hands.

Because he was sitting directly opposite Jiyin, he could clearly read the title:

Detailed Explanation of Low-Rank Spirit Grass Planting!

The book appeared somewhat tattered and lacked extensive content, looking to be only a few dozen pages long.

Jiyin noticed Song Wen's gaze and spoke up.

"What, are you interested in this book?"

Song Wen instantly felt a jolt of fear, worried that Jiyin had realized he was deliberately snooping.

However, Jiyin's thoughts had not gone in that direction. He said dismissively,

"If you want to read it, then take a look."

As he spoke, Jiyin handed the book over.

Song Wen received the book. The very first page he saw contained the introduction and cultivation essentials for a Spirit Grass called the Crimson Blood Vine, complete with an illustration.

The Crimson Blood Vine was a creeping vine that favored warmth and sunlight, was drought-resistant, and abhorred water and cold...

A moment later, Jiyin asked, "What are your thoughts on planting the Crimson Blood Vine?"

In his previous life, Song Wen had worked as a salesman for a traditional Chinese medicine company, so he had a certain degree of understanding regarding herbal cultivation. He combined the knowledge from his past life to answer:

"This disciple believes that the Crimson Blood Vine should be planted on a sun-facing slope, far from water sources. The soil must be loose, preferably sandy, to facilitate drainage after the rain. Our Yancheng has cold winters, so it would require insulation during the winter months..."

Song Wen tried his best to make his answer sound competent. If he could demonstrate some special value, perhaps Jiyin wouldn't use him as a test subject for his pills.

Hearing Song Wen's response, a glint of joy flashed through Jiyin's eyes. He gave a slight nod.

"To think that while your cultivation aptitude is lacking, you actually possess some talent in planting spirit medicines."

Jiyin was also pondering in his heart. He had been trapped at the third layer of Qi Condensation for several years and had never found a way to break through.

The first three layers of Qi Condensation belonged to the early stage. Cultivators at this phase were fundamentally no different from mortals. However, the fourth layer belonged to the middle stage of Qi Condensation, where the divide between immortal and mortal finally began to show.

Jiyin had two techniques in his possession that strictly required the middle stage of Qi Condensation to practice.

And, most importantly.

According to the information Jiyin had gathered, although the spiritual power cultivated by the Everlasting Longevity Art was righteous and pure, it provided no elemental attribute bonuses and was poor for combat. Yet, the number of cultivators who practiced the Everlasting Longevity Art was not small, especially among Rogue Cultivators and those with poor aptitude.

The first reason was that the Everlasting Longevity Art was widely circulated and easy to obtain. The second was that it possessed an incredibly alluring characteristic: it extended one's lifespan.

It was said that a Rogue Cultivator who had practiced the Everlasting Longevity Art to the ninth layer of Qi Condensation had once lived to the age of one hundred and eighty.

One had to know that a mortal's lifespan rarely exceeded a century. During the Qi Condensation stage, a cultivator's physical body had not yet transcended the mortal realm, and their maximum lifespan generally would not exceed one hundred and twenty years.

Yet that person had lived to one hundred and eighty, extending his life by a full third. He was only a single jiazi-sixty years-short of the two hundred and forty or fifty-year lifespan of a Foundation Establishment cultivator.

This inevitably caused many cultivators who felt hopeless about reaching Foundation Establishment to flock to the technique like ducks to water.

However, according to the experiences of predecessors, the first three layers of the Everlasting Longevity Art offered no longevity-extending benefits. Only from the fourth layer onward did its life-prolonging effects gradually manifest.

This made Jiyin even more desperate to break through the bottleneck of the early Qi Condensation stage. He believed that as long as he reached the fourth layer, he would be able to advance to the sixth layer in his lifetime. At that point, daring to hope for the late stage of Qi Condensation would not be entirely impossible.

The Blood Qi Pill was a type of Pill that stimulated human potential and helped cultivators break through bottlenecks. It was a common breakthrough aid used by Qi Condensation Rogue Cultivators with poor aptitude.

Having spent two full years, Jiyin had painstakingly managed to refine the Blood Qi Pill through his own blind experimentation.

But he did not dare to take it lightly. Originally just a lowly herbalist, he had gone up the mountain one day to gather medicine and accidentally stumbled into the cave dwelling of a deceased Rogue Cultivator. There, he inherited a cultivation technique, basic talisman crafting methods, the Blood Qi Pill recipe, and Spirit Grass planting manuals, thus inadvertently stumbling into the world of cultivation.

Throughout his entire cultivation career, he had never encountered another cultivator. He had relied entirely on groping his own way forward.

The Blood Qi Pills he refined looked vastly different from the descriptions in the recipe. The cautious Jiyin did not dare to consume them rashly.

Thus, he came up with the idea of finding human test subjects.

As expected, after a year of pill testing, he had already caused the deaths of seven disciples. All these youths had suffered severe depletion of their vital blood and qi after taking the Blood Qi Pill, causing their organs to rapidly age to varying degrees before they died within a matter of days.

Under his continuous refinements, Er Niu was the first person to take the Blood Qi Pill and not die.

This gave him a glimmer of hope for success.

Previously, the work of cultivating spirit medicines and refining Pills had been handled entirely by Jiyin himself, making his daily schedule quite exhausting.

Song Wen's performance just now sparked the idea of training the boy specifically to plant spirit medicines.

With Er Niu's success, Jiyin felt that perfecting the Blood Qi Pill was finally within sight. This was exactly when he needed to focus his absolute attention, and he no longer wished to waste so much energy on cultivating Spirit Grass.