2: Chapter 2: Activating the Immortal Cauldron

Unless she didn't want to stay in the Jade Maiden Palace or didn't want to achieve Foundation Establishment. As for killing Xiao Yuan, that never even crossed her mind; after all, they were childhood sweethearts, and she couldn't harden her heart enough to do it.

Her voice carried a hint of panic and a tremor.

"You want... what do you want!"

Seeing this scene, the evil smile at the corner of Xiao Yuan's mouth grew even thicker.

No matter how high this woman's cultivation was, she was just a naive little white rabbit who didn't understand the dangers of the world! He, the big bad wolf, was definitely going to eat her up today!

Immediately afterward, he leaned close to Ye Qingcen's ear and whispered a few words.

Ye Qingcen's eyes widened, and she opened her mouth to refuse, but before she could make a sound, Xiao Yuan's voice turned a fraction colder.

"Senior Sister Ye, you wouldn't want your affairs to be known by the entire Sect, would you!"

Ye Qingcen's expression changed drastically, and she looked at Xiao Yuan with some annoyance. In the end, she nodded with a resentful look on her face.

Her expression was filled with unwillingness, shame, and anger, yet it also carried a hint of helplessness and a pitifully shattered feeling! Compared to Foundation Establishment and the Dao of immortality, everything else no longer mattered!

The corners of Xiao Yuan's mouth curled up slightly. He stepped forward, scooped Ye Qingcen up by the waist, and turned to walk toward the bed inside.

...

Ye Qingcen silently stood up, turning her back to Xiao Yuan to tidy her disheveled clothes and skirt.

Her fingertips trembled, but she forced herself to remain calm. By the time she turned around, her face was already covered in frost.

"After today, there will be no more ties between you and me. I hope you... conduct yourself well and stop coming to pester me."

Today, not only had she failed to get the Spirit Stone, but she had even implicated herself.

Right now, she wished she could vanish instantly; how could she have the mood to ask for anything else? She just wanted to stay as far away from this bastard as possible!

Propping his head up with his arms, Xiao Yuan leaned lazily against the bed with a bantering expression: "Senior Sister Ye, what kind of words are those... Come over and sit often in the future, feelings always need to be cultivated, right?"

No matter how much of a green-tea expert Ye Qingcen was, wasn't she still completely within his grasp!

Ye Qingcen was slightly stunned, choked up by his brazen and unrepentant appearance.

She blankly stared at Xiao Yuan's face, which was both familiar and unfamiliar.

She couldn't believe his transformation; in the past, this fellow was always extremely careful and ingratiating in front of her, never even daring to raise his voice when speaking. How could he be like this now!

Not only had he domineeringly taken her body, but his entire person seemed to have had its soul swapped from inside out, radiating an evil aura that made her heart flutter with panic.

Yet, strangely enough, clearly she should have hated this fellow to the core, yet somewhere deep inside her heart, a strange feeling faintly stirred!

She hurriedly shook her head, suppressing the shameful thoughts in her heart. Giving a cold huff mixed with shame and anger, she flicked her sleeves and slammed the door as she left.

Seeing her disappear at the doorway, Xiao Yuan sat up abruptly from the bed, his face filled with uncontainable wild joy.

He immediately introspected his Dantian.

He saw that the body of the small tripod was now flowing with a lustrous radiance, clearly several times brighter, and profound patterns faintly emerged within the light.

As expected! The power of Yin and Yang uniting was...

Xiao Yuan's heart beat like a beating drum, and he quickly moved his mind to try summoning it.

A palm-sized small tripod appeared out of thin air in his palm.

The body of the tripod was neither jade nor gold, presenting an overall Chaos-like dark grey color, yet its surface floated with fine, starlight-like specks of light.

The belly of the tripod was rounded and stood on three legs. Each leg was engraved with blurry ancient totems—the left resembled a sun raven spreading its wings, the right resembled a moon toad crouching, and the back was an intersecting vortex, as if it were the meeting place of Yin and Yang.

The edge of the tripod's mouth was faintly wreathed in thin mist, and fine runes occasionally flashed within the mist, mysterious and majestic.

"Good fellow... This is definitely a treasure!"

He couldn't wait to test the functions of this tripod.

This was the Scrap Recycling Station, after all, and the last thing it lacked was "garbage"! Since it could refine all things, he wondered what it could be refined into!

His gaze swept over the mountain-piled discarded items in the corner of the room: broken Magical Artifacts, charred Medicinal Pill residues, talisman papers whose spiritual power had completely dissipated, damaged Formation Flags, various failed-refinement Materials and medicine dregs, grass roots...

Xiao Yuan squatted down to search for a moment, and from a pile of pitch-black residues, he pinched out a dim-colored, crack-covered waste pill.

It was precisely the lowest-grade "marrow cleansing pill". Because the refinement failed, the medicinal poison far exceeded the medicinal properties, and ordinary Cultivators wouldn't dare to consume it at all.

"It's you." He placed the waste pill into the tripod.

As soon as it was placed inside, a profound cultivation method flowed from the tripod into his mind. Xiao Yuan experienced a sudden flash of spiritual insight, circulated his Qi according to the method, and let out a soft cry: "Refine!"

The body of the tripod shook slightly, radiance flowed across its surface, and those starlight points suddenly lit up before quietly dimming.

The entire process took no more than a breath's time.

Xiao Yuan hurriedly looked over—he saw a Medicinal Pill lying quietly at the bottom of the tripod, completely rounded like jade, milk-white in color, with clear pill patterns, emitting a pure and gentle medicinal fragrance.

A perfection-quality marrow cleansing pill! A waste pill had actually been elevated by several grades, directly turning into top-tier quality.

"Hahaha... I've struck it rich, I've really struck it rich this time!" Xiao Yuan's heart was filled with wild joy.

Being in the Sect's Scrap Yard and holding a divine tripod capable of turning waste into treasure—was this a garbage dump? This was clearly a mountain of gold and silver!

After his wild joy subsided a bit, he frowned, sharply noticing that the light of the yin-yang creation cauldron seemed to have dimmed by a sliver.

Sensing carefully, that profound energy within the tripod had consumed approximately... one-fiftieth?

Xiao Yuan touched his chin, his excitement slowing down slightly.

It seemed that although this tripod was powerful, it wasn't infinitely usable. Every time it refined something, it required the consumption of the "power of Yin and Yang uniting".

In other words... he had to constantly find female Cultivators to "replenish energy".

Thinking of the extremely ashamed and indignant gaze Ye Qingcen had when she left, as if she wanted to bite him to death, Xiao Yuan scratched his head.

Tricking her once was fine, but wanting a second time? Difficult.

"It seems... I need to expand new 'channels'." He rubbed his chin, casting his gaze toward the cloud-wreathed peaks outside the window, the corners of his mouth gradually lifting into a smile.

The Jade Maiden Palace didn't have much else, but female Cultivators... were scattered all over the mountains.

As Xiao Yuan was rubbing his chin pondering the "energy replenishment plan", he sensed someone approaching. His expression shifted slightly, and he quickly put away the creation cauldron.

At this moment, the broken wooden door was pushed open with a clatter.

A middle-aged male Cultivator wearing dusty manager robes walked in with a straight face, faintly radiating the coercion of the sixth layer of Qi Refining—this person was precisely Manager Liu of the Scrap Recycling Station.

"Xiao Yuan, today's waste Materials should be sent to the incinerator." After finishing like routine business, Manager Liu paused, glanced at him again, and said, "In addition, next month's Sect outer Sect evaluation includes you on the list. If you pass the evaluation, you will continue to stay here; if you don't pass..."

He drew out his voice and spat out the second half of the sentence: "You will be demoted to the Xishan Mine to mine Spirit Stones for three years."

Xiao Yuan was taken aback: "Evaluation? Aren't I only at the first layer of Qi Refining? According to the rules, I don't need to participate in the annual evaluation!"

Manager Liu was expressionless: "Rules are dead, but people are alive. The list is decided from above, and I am only passing along the message."

Xiao Yuan's heart sank.

Although the Scrap Recycling Station was dirty and poor, it was safe at least.

If not for the fact that it was next to a subterranean fire pit, where the heat poison of the subterranean fire harmed a Cultivator's body, causing their cultivation to make no further progress and shortening their Lifespan, no one would be willing to come. This was definitely a place for retirement within the Sect.

After all, there were no disputes here, no schemes or intrigue, and no one would come to bother them.

But the Xishan Mine? That was universally recognized within the Sect as the "Disciple Graveyard"!