59: heretical practitioners gathering

On the first day after the news of Yang Mingrong's death spread, the spies monitoring the Small Courtyard outside left.

Instead of letting Lin Luoxue come out, Zhang Daobai went alone to various markets to gather information.

Upon learning that the Yang Family had given up on investigating the truth behind Yang Mingrong's death, Zhang Daobai couldn't help but nod in satisfaction.

Seeing that White Moon's assassination results were outstanding, Zhang Daobai even considered returning to the Cloud Sword Sect to assassinate Yun Changqing as well.

But thinking that doing so might alert the enemy, Zhang Daobai gave up on the idea after some thought.

The next day, Zhang Daobai finally let Lin Luoxue out and took her to the Wanbao Chamber of Commerce.

One reason was to order three types of Mutated Attribute Spiritual Items, and the other was to retrieve the Spirit Stones from the auction of the soul nurturing pills.

After deducting the auction house's commission, the two soul nurturing pills netted a total of 334,000 Spirit Stones.

Looking at the pile of crystal-clear Spirit Stones in the storage ring, Zhang Daobai couldn't help but marvel at how wealthy Alchemists were.

As for the three Mutated Attribute Spiritual Items, Steward Wang quoted a price of 1.86 million, which was close to Lin Luoxue's prediction.

However, this branch did not have those three Mutated Attribute Spiritual Items; they needed to be transferred from other branches, which would take at most a month.

After leaving the Wanbao Chamber of Commerce, Lin Luoxue headed straight for the Xuantian Mountain Range.

This was because the purchase of spiritual items had exhausted all the Spirit Stones she had, and she even owed Zhang Daobai 500,000 Spirit Stones.

"Things should be stable for a while now."

Zhang Daobai thought silently as he watched Lin Luoxue leave.

After Lin Luoxue left, Zhang Daobai found a pill shop and sold the Medicinal Pills he had refined for practice during this period.

Since the Medicinal Pills Zhang Daobai refined were mostly High Grade, the shop owner excitedly accepted them and offered the highest market price.

After replenishing some Spirit Medicine Materials, Zhang Daobai returned to the Small Courtyard to continue practicing Alchemy.

After receiving Cultivation Feedback from his Spirit Tamers several times, Zhang Daobai had finally realized something.

That is, since Cultivation Feedback could directly increase his cultivation without side effects or making his Foundation unstable,

then he didn't need to Cultivate bitterly himself anymore. As long as he had enough Spirit Tamers and enough feedback, his cultivation growth rate wouldn't be slower than Lin Luoxue's at all.

The free time could be used to practice various cultivation arts. Alchemy was just the beginning; in the future, Zhang Daobai would also try talisman drawing, Formation setting, Artifact Refining, and so on.

In the following period, Purple Maple Immortal City returned to its former tranquility.

With the Cultivation Feedback from White Moon's Breakthrough to the second rank, Zhang Daobai successfully broke through to the Late Foundation Establishment Stage.

This extraordinary speed of Breakthrough even left Lin Luoxue stunned, and a sense of unfairness rose in her heart.

But Lin Luoxue soon felt relieved upon second thought; after all, Zhang Daobai was an existence that could not be judged by common logic.

Besides that, with Long Li's assistance, Zhang Daobai also successfully broke through to become a Rank 2 Alchemist.

With this skill, Zhang Daobai finally had a stable source of income. Coupled with the fact that the pills he produced were mostly High Grade, he became somewhat famous among the nearby Loose Cultivators.

In the Small World, Zhang Daobai sat before the Pill Furnace, skillfully controlling the spirit fire within.

Before long, a rich pill fragrance wafted out from the Pill Furnace.

"Collect!"

Zhang Daobai quickly formed a hand seal, extinguished the spirit fire in the Pill Furnace, and took out four still-hot Medicinal Pills.

"Four High Grade Meridian Protection Pills. It's a pity they're just a bit short of reaching perfect quality."

Zhang Daobai quickly inspected the four Medicinal Pills. Although he felt some regret that they hadn't reached perfect quality, he was very satisfied in his heart.

Just as Zhang Daobai was putting the four Medicinal Pills into a jade bottle, Lin Luoxue walked in with a solemn expression, opening the door to the Pill Refining Room.

"Purple Maple Immortal City is in trouble."

Lin Luoxue walked straight to Zhang Daobai's side and said in a heavy tone.

Hearing this, Zhang Daobai's hand holding the jade bottle trembled, and he looked up at Lin Luoxue with eyes full of surprise.

How long had it been peaceful before Purple Maple Immortal City was in trouble again?

After putting the Medicinal Pills into his storage ring, Zhang Daobai then asked, "What's the trouble in Purple Maple Immortal City?"

"In the past two days, I've discovered many Evil Cultivators hiding their evil Qi in Purple Maple Immortal City, and their numbers are increasing."

"With so many Evil Cultivators gathered, there must be some unspeakable secret. I suspect they must be planning to cause destruction in Purple Maple Immortal City," Lin Luoxue speculated with a very certain tone.

"Evil Cultivators?"

Zhang Daobai was shocked to hear this. Evil Cultivators were considered a major blight in the cultivation world.

Every time they appeared, they would stir up a bloodbath, using extremely cruel methods with absolutely no bottom line.

Soon, a black-robed figure suddenly came to Zhang Daobai's mind—the same Black-Robed Person who had bid for the fourth-rank Perfection flame flood dragon bone at the Ten Thousand Treasures Tower auction some time ago.

At that time, Lin Luoxue had sensed an evil Qi on him and suspected he might be an Evil Cultivator.

Thinking of this, Zhang Daobai couldn't help but wonder if that Black-Robed Person was related to these Evil Cultivators.

"Tsk! Why does it feel like Purple Maple Immortal City has been plagued with disasters ever since we arrived?" Zhang Daobai complained, rubbing his temples with a headache.

The collapse of the Secret Realm, poisoned Medicinal Pills, the gathering of Evil Cultivators... Although he was the one who caused the Secret Realm to collapse, the latter two things had never happened since Purple Maple Immortal City was founded.

How could they start appearing only a few months after they arrived?

"Why don't you stay in for a while? Wait for the Wanbao Chamber of Commerce to deliver the spiritual items, then upgrade your Spirit Channeling Dao Body," Zhang Daobai suggested after some thought.

Those Evil Cultivators are a bunch of lunatics, and Lin Luoxue always goes about alone, making her an easy target.

Lin Luoxue thought for a moment and shook her head. "No! I think we should find a way to figure out what they are planning."

"Just hiding from them will make us very passive. What if they want to refine the city?"

Refining a city is the most heinous of all the evil deeds committed by Evil Cultivators.

They would set up a large-scale Evil Path Refinement Formation to refine all the living beings in an entire city into cultivation resources or use them to refine Magic Treasures.

Although there is a Nascent Soul Ancestor presiding over Purple Maple Immortal City and over ten Golden Core True Persons guarding it, there is no shortage of powerful experts among the Evil Cultivators.

If these Evil Cultivators really want to refine the city, even if they could escape by hiding in the Small World,

they would still be eroded by the soaring resentment left behind after the City Refinement upon coming out.