Holding the Qi Refining Sutra jade slip and the servant disciple clothes, Lin Hao walked into the wooden house ahead.

The house was a double room with two simple wooden beds, looking very shabby.

"At least it's a cultivation sect, but the treatment for servant disciples is poor!" Lin Hao frowned. The place was worse than the house he had lived in when he was the leader of the bandits.

"Are you a new servant disciple?" A chubby boy in the room, seeing someone enter, brightened up and asked.

"Yeah." Lin Hao nodded, noticing the word "servant" on the boy's clothes, realizing they were in the same position. He politely introduced himself, "My name is Lin Hao. What's your name, senior brother?"

"Lin Hao? I can't be called a senior brother, I’ve only been here for half a month longer than you," the chubby boy waved his hand. "Just call me Wang Fu."

"Alright." Lin Hao continued, "Wang Fu, I just became a servant disciple. What exactly do we do as servant disciples?"

"We're servant disciples in the mining district, and our main job is mining," Wang Fu said with a worried expression. "The rule in the mining district is that for every five jin of spiritual iron mined, you get one meal. Since I came here, I've been starving every day. Sigh, I miss the days when I was a young master at home. I could eat until I was full, spend money freely, and had beautiful maids to serve me. But after my cultivation aptitude was tested, my old man spent five thousand taels to send me here to Xuan Yue Sect to cultivate... and now, I’m just mining. Not only do I not get enough to eat, but sometimes I even get beaten."

"Five thousand taels...?" Lin Hao was stunned. He was very surprised. He could barely make a few taels of silver a month as a bandit. Five thousand taels was such a large sum of money; how long would it take him in his bandit career to earn that much?

"Yeah! Xuan Yue Sect is one of the four major cultivation sects in Zhao Country. Although it's ranked at the bottom, it's not a place for ordinary people to enter," Wang Fu continued. "The five thousand taels I spent were because I have decent cultivation aptitude. Those with worse aptitude than mine had to spend more money. For example, the young master of the Han family, Han Dali, had such poor aptitude that he spent ten thousand taels just to barely enter Xuan Yue Sect."

"To enter a sect... it costs this much money!" Lin Hao was shocked.

He originally thought being caught by that woman and brought to Xuan Yue Sect as a servant disciple was bad luck. But after hearing Wang Fu’s story, it turned out he had gained a huge windfall of several thousand or even ten thousand taels.

With that thought, Lin Hao's mood brightened a lot.

"Lin Hao, how much money did you spend to enter Xuan Yue Sect?" Wang Fu asked when he noticed Lin Hao's strange expression.

"I didn’t spend any money. A woman named Liu Shijie, who can fly, brought me here," Lin Hao hesitated and told the truth.

"Fly? She's either a Core Formation expert or a direct disciple with exceptional talent!" Wang Fu’s face suddenly showed shock. "There’s only one person in the sect who fits that description. You... you wouldn’t be the disciple brought back by our sect's head disciple, Liu Qinghan, would you? What’s your relationship with her?"

"I don’t know Liu Shijie. Is she that important?" Lin Hao was somewhat surprised.

"You don’t know Liu Shijie, but she brought you here and didn’t make you pay, so your cultivation talent must be very good," Wang Fu said with admiration, raising Lin Hao in his esteem.

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"Can you tell me more about Liu Shijie?" Lin Hao couldn’t help but ask.

"Liu Shijie is amazing. She’s one of the strongest geniuses in our Xuan Yue Sect." Wang Fu’s face showed respect. "She’s just over twenty and has already reached the ninth level of Qi Refining. Her name is known throughout the cultivation world in Zhao Country. She has a great chance to reach the Golden Core stage in the future. She’s the hope of our Xuan Yue Sect..."

Wang Fu, the chubby boy, was very enthusiastic and, besides telling Lin Hao a lot about Liu Shijie, also shared some other details about Xuan Yue Sect.

After some conversation, Lin Hao got a better understanding of the unfamiliar Xuan Yue Sect.

"Lin Hao, there’s someone you absolutely shouldn’t mess with in our mining district—Yan Heng," Wang Fu’s tone became serious. "After you finish your mining task and get your spiritual porridge, don’t eat it right away. You have to give half of it to Yan Heng. Otherwise, he’ll beat you up."

When mentioning Yan Heng, Lin Hao clearly noticed the fear on Wang Fu’s chubby face.

"Who is Yan Heng?" Lin Hao frowned.

"Yan Heng is the son of General Yan from Zhao Country. He arrived at Xuan Yue Sect three months before me and has already reached the first level of Qi Refining," Wang Fu explained. "He’s extremely strong in martial arts, and in our new servant disciple district, he’s the most formidable. No one dares to provoke him."

"He robs other people’s spiritual porridge, and the sect doesn’t do anything?" Lin Hao asked.

"Our Xuan Yue Sect encourages disciples to work hard in cultivation and to compete with each other. Servant disciples don’t have any status here; we just do the hard work. If we get into a little conflict, the elders won’t intervene," Wang Fu said. "As long as it’s not too serious, the elders will just turn a blind eye. That’s why we, the new servant disciples, have to be cautious. Only after becoming outer disciples will we have some protection under the sect’s rules, and the situation will improve."

"Thank you for telling me all this, Wang Fu," Lin Hao said, his mind sharpening.

He now understood that the cultivation sect, Xuan Yue Sect, was not a place to take lightly. It would be tough to make it here.

"Sigh, this servant disciple district is not a place for humans to stay. You never get enough to eat," Wang Fu sighed. "Anyway, I need to focus on cultivation. I hope I can reach the third level of Qi Refining soon and become an outer disciple, so I can leave this terrible place."

With that, Wang Fu sat down on his wooden bed, crossed his legs, and closed his eyes to meditate.

Lin Hao still had more questions to ask, but seeing that Wang Fu had already begun cultivating, he didn’t want to disturb him. Instead, he changed into the servant disciple clothes he had just received.

Then he picked up the jade slip containing the Qi Refining method and prepared to try cultivating. Lin Hao followed the method provided by the blue-robed youth and focused his attention on the jade slip.

After a moment, the contents of the jade slip appeared in his mind.

Xuan Yue Qi Refining Sutra—Upper Section!

The jade slip contained detailed methods for Qi Refining from the first to third levels, along with a diagram of human meridians.

Lin Hao’s mind was particularly sharp after his reincarnation. Anything he saw a few times would be firmly imprinted in his memory.

In no time, he had memorized the upper section of the Xuan Yue Qi Refining Sutra and understood how to cultivate.

"Let’s try cultivating."

Lin Hao sat cross-legged on his bed, closed his eyes, and began focusing on the surrounding spiritual energy, as described in the Xuan Yue Qi Refining Sutra.

He didn’t know how much time passed, but Lin Hao entered a meditative state that was profound and mysterious.

He noticed that the darkness around him suddenly began to shimmer with light spots.

Lin Hao was overjoyed, realizing these were the spiritual energies of the world.

To cultivate, he needed to draw these spiritual energies into his body and channel them to a certain scale to start circulating and enter the first level of Qi Refining.

He calmed his mind and began absorbing the surrounding spiritual energy, using the Xuan Yue Qi Refining Sutra to guide the light spots toward him. After some effort, several spiritual light spots gathered around him and entered his body.

"So comfortable!"

As the spiritual energy entered his body, he felt warm and relaxed.

Lin Hao continued to circulate the Xuan Yue Qi Refining Sutra, absorbing more of the spiritual energy and guiding it into specific meridians.

However, the amount of spiritual energy he had was still too little to circulate in his meridians properly.

Soon, a whole night passed unknowingly.

The next morning.

Lin Hao opened his eyes, feeling refreshed.

There was still not enough spiritual energy in his body, and he hadn’t yet reached the point where he could make it circulate in his meridians to reach the first level of Qi Refining, but he could clearly sense that after a whole night of cultivation, his strength had increased significantly.