At noon on the fifth day.

In the main hall, Zhang Song stared at the small cauldron with bloodshot eyes, his face looking extremely gloomy.

Fan Zhengping, who was controlling the earth fire, buried his head even lower and didn't dare to look at Zhang Song's face at all.

In the past five days, they had intermittently refined twenty-five alchemy recipes. However, twenty-four of them had either been ruined because the medicinal herbs clashed with each other during the refining process or had caused the cauldron to explode. Fortunately, the quality of this cauldron was quite good. Otherwise, they wouldn't even have a cauldron left by now.

Now there was only the last alchemy recipe left. If this one failed too, all the precious spiritual herbs that Zhang Song had painstakingly collected this time would be wasted.

"Why are you trembling? Be more careful!" Zhang Song snapped harshly when he saw Fan Zhengping's body shaking.

"Yes." Fan Zhengping forced himself to calm down and tried his best to control his hands.

After a while, suddenly a wisp of medicinal fragrance wafted out.

Zhang Song's face lit up with joy. He rushed over and lifted the lid of the cauldron with a swoop. When he saw the three dark green pills inside, he heaved a long sigh of relief. "Good, excellent!"

Fan Zhengping quickly stepped forward to take a look upon seeing this. Then, with a look of delight on his face as well, he said, "Master, these are the best in terms of appearance in the past three years. And there are three of them too."

"Um." Zhang Song nodded and pondered for a moment before saying, "Although the appearance of these pills is better than the previous ones, they still seem a bit lacking somehow. I don't know if it's because the heat wasn't controlled properly or due to the quality of the medicinal herbs. Well, go and bring that kid out to test the pills."

Fan Zhengping nodded in agreement. Just as he was about to leave, he suddenly frowned and turned around, looking rather uneasy. "Master, the other three people have all awakened their spiritual roots. You see..."

He had originally intended to plead for Lu Li and the other two, but after just experiencing Zhang Song's intimidating presence, he didn't dare to say what was on his mind.

"Spiritual roots?" Zhang Song stared at Fan Zhengping suspiciously. "What do you mean?"

Fan Zhengping's body trembled, and his mind raced as he said, "I... I was worried that you were overworked, Master, so I took the liberty to feed each of them five Awakening Spirit Pills on my own. They... they have all awakened, and all of them have miscellaneous spiritual roots..."

"You bastard! So that's why my medicinal herbs were always short! It turns out you were up to mischief!" Zhang Song cursed furiously and slapped Fan Zhengping hard on the lower abdomen.

Instantly, Fan Zhengping flew backward out of the main hall and crashed into the middle of the courtyard with a bang. His head tilted to one side, and he spat out a mouthful of blood with a "wow".

Zhang Song stood at the entrance of the hall, looking at Fan Zhengping from a distance and shouted, "I'll settle accounts with you later. Go and bring those three kids out for me right now!"

Fan Zhengping's face was as pale as paper. He finally realized that in his master's heart, he was ultimately no match for the illusory Puncture Acupoint Pills. This slap had completely woken him up.

He struggled to stand up and staggered towards the room where Lu Li and the other two were imprisoned.

Hearing the sound of the door opening, Lu Li immediately stood up. When he saw Fan Zhengping with a pale face and looking so weak, he couldn't help but look surprised. "Brother Fan, what happened to you..."

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Fan Zhengping shook his head. "Master has returned. I couldn't help you. He asked me to take you to test the pills. You... just hope for the best."

"Test the pills!"

Lu Li's body trembled, and his mind went blank for a moment. "Has it finally come?"

He walked out of the room and saw Qin Shouren and Chen Zhong coming out one after another. Both of them had expressions of intense fear on their faces.

Fan Zhengping let out a soft sigh and said with difficulty, "Let's go. The appearance of these pills is quite good this time. If you're lucky, not only can you escape this disaster, but you might even reap some benefits."

Seeing that the three of them still didn't move, Fan Zhengping added, "Don't even think about running away. Look at what happened to me after being beaten by Master..."

"Let's go."

Lu Li glanced at Qin Shouren and Chen Zhong and said in a low voice. Then he walked in the front.

"I... I don't want to die." Qin Shouren followed behind Lu Li, his hands shaking constantly.

"What's there to be afraid of? The three of us will die together, and at worst, we'll start over eighteen years later. Who knows, we might even get a better spiritual root next time," Chen Zhong said, as if resigning himself to fate, trying to pump himself up.

Lu Li immediately felt a bit relieved when he heard this. "Fatty Chen is right. Whether we stick our necks out or not, we'll still face the same fate. Maybe it'll really be as Brother Fan said. What if we're lucky?"

Even though he said that, Lu Li actually knew that even if the pill testing was successful, they wouldn't be able to survive.

According to what Fan Zhengping had said, that alchemy recipe was extremely precious. Even if the pill testing was truly successful, Zhang Song wouldn't let them leave alive.

When the few of them arrived at the main hall, Zhang Song was already impatient.

He grabbed Lu Li and pulled him in front of him, forced his mouth open, and stuffed a pill into it. Then he said in a cold voice, "Swallow it. Don't make me angry."

Lu Li felt as if he had fallen into an ice cellar when he met Zhang Song's gaze. His throat moved, and he swallowed the pill.

Zhang Song then called Chen Zhong and Qin Shouren over and handed one pill to each of them. "Take it yourselves."

Fan Zhengping leaned against the door, watching this scene with a complicated feeling in his heart.

Once the medicinal power entered his body, Lu Li immediately felt an extremely powerful force rampaging through his dantian.

After awakening the spiritual root, a cultivator would manifest the first qi meridian. The qi meridian was connected to the barrier of the dantian, and the first acupoint was on the barrier of the dantian. Fan Zhengping had said before that the function of the Puncture Acupoint Pill was to assist in opening up the acupoints.

With his mind racing, Lu Li quickly guided that force with his spiritual consciousness and rushed it towards the acupoint on the first qi meridian on the barrier of the dantian.

"Ah!"

A sharp pain suddenly hit him. Lu Li felt as if someone was stabbing him with a sharp knife. His mind relaxed for a moment, and that powerful force immediately rushed back and started crashing around randomly in his dantian.

Screw it!

Lu Li steadied his mind and once again controlled the force to charge towards the acupoint.

"Ah!"

Another scream rang out.

Seeing Lu Li's face contorted in pain and constantly screaming, Zhang Song's heart sank halfway.

Qin Shouren and Chen Zhong beside him seemed to have also realized the key point, and their screams echoed one after another.

After a while.

Suddenly, Lu Li heard a "pop" sound. When he looked inside his body with his spiritual consciousness, he found that a hole had actually opened above his dantian, revealing a pitch-black opening. The other end of the opening was connected to the qi meridian.

It's opened!

Lu Li couldn't believe it. He had actually entered the first level of Qi Refining just like that.

It was said that the first acupoint was the hardest to open. Unexpectedly, just this one Puncture Acupoint Pill had actually helped him open the most crucial acupoint. Although there were still ninety-nine acupoints in the first level that hadn't been opened, he could still be considered to have entered the first level of Qi Refining.

Lu Li swayed unsteadily, and his expression gradually became more natural.

Zhang Song couldn't help but feel suspicious when he saw this. He immediately rushed towards Lu Li.

"Oh no!"

Lu Li's face changed. His mind raced, and before Zhang Song could get close, he fell backward directly, while showing an expression of extreme discomfort and rolling on the ground continuously.

Beside him, Chen Zhong had also broken through the acupoint. Just as he was about to happily report it, he suddenly saw Lu Li rolling on the ground and constantly winking at him. He frowned and finally realized what was going on. So he also fell to the ground and started rolling around.

Qin Shouren had been clenching his fists all along, struggling to control the medicinal power with a pained expression on his face. Finally, when he managed to break through the acupoint, he didn't notice the winks from Lu Li and Chen Zhong at all. Immediately, he burst out laughing loudly, "Hahaha, I'm an immortal now! I'm an immortal!"

Lu Li:...