At the time, more and more warriors from the Demonic Sect arrived, soon forming a group of a dozen.
Acting on the orders, half of them swiftly chased in the direction Brother Bao had fled. The rest began carefully inspecting the scene and checking on Lu Lin's team.
A man crouched down, placing fingers on Lu Lin's wrist to check his pulse, then reported to that young woman, "Reporting, Immortal Master, only this person is still breathing, but injured and unconscious. The others... are all dead."
Just then, Lu Lin, with a timely, pained groan, "slowly came to". He immediately exhibited a look of shock and confusion and seemed guarded and defensive, struggling to rise but irritating the "injury" in his chest, before instantly going ghostly white and breaking out in cold sweat.
"Damn... seemed too tough on myself earlier... next time better ease up." Lu Lin winced in pain. This wasn't an act—the punch he'd thrown for realism had been genuinely forceful.
The black-dressed young woman swept her indifferent gaze over Lu Lin, her cool voice betraying no emotion. "How lucky. Knocked out from the start, yet it saved your life."
"Immortal Master, how should we deal with these robbers?" A superintendent pointed to Shi Xiao and the others, who were pinned to the ground by those fiery arrows, on the verge of passing out.
"Take them all back!" The young woman's voice was icy. "Interrogate them strictly! Pry their mouths open, find out if there's someone else behind them, and how many traitorous vermin are still hiding within our Demonic Sect!"
"Yes!" Everyone bowed, accepting the order.
"I will personally report this incident to the Sect. There's no need for you to follow up." The black-clad young woman cast a final glance at Lu Lin and instructed, "Take that boy back and treat his injuries."
With that, she lightly tapped her toes on the eaves before her figure drifted off into the night sky like willow fluff in the wind.
Once she left, the atmosphere there momentarily relaxed.
Everyone sprang into action, marching Shi Xiao and the other captives off. A plump superintendent with a kind-looking face helped Lu Lin up, took him back to the Demonic Sect's city outpost, and gave him a healing pill.
Inside the quiet guest room.
Lu Lin swallowed the pill, feeling a gentle, warm current quickly spread through the injured area of his chest, soothing and comforting, greatly easing even the sharp pain of his broken bone.
With the injury slightly alleviated, he could finally calm his mind and carefully sort through the threads of this incident.
Based on the fragmented conversation between that young woman and Brother Bao, combined with his own initial suspicions, the truth wasn't hard to deduce.
There was a traitor among the Demonic Sect's warriors, colluding with external bandits to ambush and kill fellow warriors who had come down the mountain on private business, looting their belongings.
The Sect's Immortals had smelt something fishy and set up this trap.
And the eleven of them, from start to finish, were nothing but bait to lure out the traitor and the mastermind behind it all!
As for their lives... no one cared.
Nothing more than cannon fodder, or expendable material.
Dead? Fate brings it. Alive? Consider yourself lucky.
After piecing it all together, Lu Lin's expression couldn't help but darken.
This was the Xuesha Demonic Sect. This was the status of martial arts practitioners in this cultivation world.
He'd only heard about it before, but this time he experienced it firsthand, truly becoming a pawn that could be sacrificed at will.
This feeling that others held his fate in their hands, determining his life and death, was extremely uncomfortable, like a heavy, cold boulder pinning down his heart.
And this was also his first time witnessing a head-on clash between a cultivator and a martial artist. The vast gap between them, like an unbridgeable chasm, was even greater than he'd imagined.
"My strength... is still far from enough! Only by obtaining greater power can I break free from these restraints pressing in from all sides..."
Lu Lin took several deep breaths, suppressing the churning emotions, as calmness and determination returned in his gaze.
...
In a quiet, shadowy, dead-end alley of Xuesha City.
The black-dressed young woman, her face frosty, stared at Brother Bao's cold corpse on the ground and the three opened, empty wood boxes.
The spiritual energy around her fluctuated violently with anger, emitting a suffocating pressure that made those Body Tempering Tenth Level superintendents around her hardly dare to breathe.
Those Qi and Blood Pills and Tendon-Tempering Pills mattered little—they were just pills for mortals. But that Xueyan Deer Antler was a true spiritual object, a precious material that could be used to refine pills for cultivators. It was worth a fortune, far beyond those pills for warriors.
Silence persisted for a long while, the chill in the air almost freezing-cold.
"It seems... there's a bigger fish behind these bandits, most likely a rogue cultivator." The black-clad young woman's voice was as cold as a knife. "Search, now! Turn the city upside down, but dig out that rat hiding in the shadows!"
"Yes!" The superintendents, seemingly in great relief, bowed to acknowledge the order, their figures flashing off into the alleyway.
"Better not let me find you..." The young woman clenched her pearly teeth, squeezing out an icy whisper from her cherry lips. "Otherwise, I'll definitely... grind your bones to dust!"
...
Early morning the next day.
Reinforcements from the Demonic Sect arrived, escorting dozens of newly captured warriors to the Xuan-Iron mine.
Lu Lin joined them on the trip back.
The dozens of newcomers, mostly aged fifteen to twenty, each wearing an expression of confusion and fear, were driven forward like lambs to the slaughter, clueless about their future.
Upon arriving at the mine, Lu Lin immediately went and reported to the goateed superintendent about his 'close shave' yesterday in Xuesha City.
"I have heard of this." The goateed superintendent waved a hand, his tone plain, seemingly already informed of it. "You're quite lucky, kid, to have escaped with your life. I'll grant you a day off today, go back and take a good rest."
"Thanks a lot, superintendent." Lu Lin withdrew and returned to the bunk room.
Closing the door and making sure no one was around, with a thought of his, a brown pill the size of an olive, giving off a strange herbal fragrance, appeared in his palm.
It was a Tendon-Tempering Pill, which aided in tempering muscles and tendons, accelerated the training, and was even more valuable than the Qi and Blood Pill.
"Pity, there's no Training Time left right now, can't test its effects... I'll have to wait until I have mined some spiritual stones in the mine tomorrow." He suppressed the urge to try out this Tendon Tempering Pill immediately and stored it away.
Then, that Xueyan Deer Antler, deep red and still warm, appeared in his hand.
However, the moment the antler touched his hand, Lu Lin froze in shock!
For the Martial Dao Furnace had transmitted a message, several clear lines of text hovering in his mind.
[Medium-grade spiritual energy detected!]
[Current Martial Dao Furnace level is insufficient. Failure to absorb and convert!]
[Materials required for Martial Dao Furnace upgrade: 100 jin of copper essence, 3 pieces of low-grade spiritual stones.]
[Upgrade enables: Medium-Grade Spiritual Energy Absorption; Higher Conversion Rate; Expanded Inner Space.]
"Upgrade?" Lu Lin was greatly astonished.
To absorb the spiritual energy of this antler, he needed to upgrade the Martial Dao Furnace first? This was truly beyond his expectations.
But the benefits after upgrading instantly tempted him.
Leaving aside the absorption of higher-grade energy and higher conversion rate, just the expansion of the Inner Space alone made it absolutely necessary.
The current Inner Space, only a one-foot cube, was too cramped. It could only store small items like books and pills. Even a slightly larger box could not fit inside. Its utility was limited.
If it could be expanded, it would be countless times more convenient in the days to come.
Storage pouches and similar treasures could only be used by cultivators with spiritual power. No one would ever think that a mere martial artist like him could possess an immaterial storage means that functioned at his will.
This would be a huge trump card, enough to turn the tables at a critical moment.
It's just... the materials required for the upgrade were hard to get.
Copper essence, he'd heard of it.
Although not exclusively for cultivators, it was extremely valuable, outclassing Xuan-iron, with a market price of about three hundred silver coins per jin, matching that of a piece of shoddy spiritual stone.
Though a hundred jin of copper essence demanded a huge sum, as long as he mined patiently, he could save up enough.
But those three pieces of low-grade spiritual stones were no easy thing. They were genuine spiritual stones, containing pure spiritual power, the hard currency among cultivators. How and where could a warrior like him get them?
"I've heard... those gang-controlled rich mining areas have yielded low-grade spiritual stones..." Lu Lin's eyes flickered as he pondered. "From the looks of it, after my Realm improves a bit more, I'll have to find a way to enter those rich mining areas."
With no immediate hope of upgrading, Lu Lin had no choice but to store the Xueyan Deer Antler back in his Inner Space, then went to bed.
...
The next day, Lu Lin once again picked up his iron pickaxe, shouldered his bamboo basket, and went deep into the mine tunnels.
Though his injuries weren't fully healed, he could still handle mining.
Clang!
The iron pickaxe fell heavily as a large chunk of rock broke off.
After the trip to Xuesha City, his strength had increased dramatically again, making mining even more effortless and far more efficient than before.
Before long, a shoddy spiritual stone slipped into his hand.
Time passed. By evening, as the sunray slanted westward, Lu Lin had mined a total of six shoddy spiritual stones, all converted into Training Time.
"Time to try out these Tendon Tempering Pills."
As a hint of anticipation flashed in his gaze, he took out three Tendon Tempering Pills and swallowed them in one gulp without hesitation.