Immortality and Cultivation: Starting with Improving Spiritual Root Aptitude

As soon as Kang Xuying took shape, he let out a low roar, his white jade fangs gleaming coldly, and he crashed into the light barrier of the Five Directions Trapping Formation.

"Pfft—!!!"

With a crisp sound, the seemingly solid Five Directions Trapping Array light barrier was shattered by the illusory figure of Dang Kang. The light barrier instantly broke into countless rays of light that dissipated into the air.

Immediately afterwards, Kang Xuying spewed out swirling streams of wind and earth, which rushed straight towards Fu Qianyu.

At this moment, Fu Qianyu had already escaped three or four zhang away. Seeing that the trap he had painstakingly set up had been easily broken, he was terrified and hurriedly took out a round defensive jade pendant from his storage bag.

As spiritual energy was poured in, the jade pendant glowed with a layer of pale blue light, which was held in front of him.

But he was a step too slow. Kang Xuying's figure blurred, turning into an ochre-yellow afterimage, and with immense force, he slammed into the defensive jade pendant.

"Snap—!!!"

The protective aura of the jade pendant shattered instantly, and the pendant itself cracked with dense patterns before collapsing with a "bang," turning into countless fragments.

The force of the impact was undiminished, and Fu Qianyu was sent flying on the spot, spitting out a mouthful of blood. His body crashed heavily to the ground, and he struggled to get up, only to find that his spiritual energy was in chaos and he didn't even have the strength to lift his hand.

Before he could catch his breath, Kang Xuying unleashed several more swirling streams of wind and earth, attacking him from both sides and enveloping him completely.

Fu Qianyu let out a miserable wail as the swirling wind tore at his body, and blood gushed out.

A moment later, the wailing subsided. He had been torn apart by the swirling current, his flesh and blood a gruesome sight, so much so that his complete form was barely recognizable.

Seeing that the two had completely lost their breath, Wu Fan remained vigilant. With a flick of his finger, three flying needles silently flew out, precisely piercing the dantian of the two.

After doing all this, Wu Fan stopped injecting spiritual power into Dang Kangqi.

After Kang Xuying let out a low roar, he gradually dissipated. When Kang Qi turned into a yellow light, he put it back into his storage bag.

He took out a pale blue recovery pill from his pocket, put it in his mouth, and as soon as the pill entered his stomach, a gentle spiritual energy instantly spread throughout his body, repairing the huge depletion in his body, and the disordered spiritual energy gradually calmed down.

These three flying needles were specially summoned by him as a backup plan when he had the Flaming Sun Sword put back into its storage bag.

Although he was already certain that the phantom that Kang Qi had conjured was incredibly powerful and could easily crush the two of them, he was always on the safe side. The cultivation world was never short of unexpected events, so he had to make thorough preparations to prevent the two from resorting to desperate measures or having some hidden trump card to escape.

"I didn't expect these two to be so easily defeated."

Wu Fan thought to himself, a hint of indifference flashing in his eyes.

Especially Fu Qianyu, who, despite also being at the seventh level of Qi Refining, was far inferior to Liu Xi.

However, Wu Fan gradually grew to like this fighting style that used powerful methods to suppress opponents from the very beginning.

He raised his hand and waved, a gentle stream of spiritual energy transforming into a breeze that softly dispersed the lingering poisonous fog and gunpowder smoke in the air. He then stepped toward Sun Leiluo's corpse.

There were many items scattered on the ground, including broken talismans, shattered low-level magical artifacts, and some scattered spirit stones.

It seems that the explosions just now were the sounds made when Sun Leiluo's storage bag was blown open by the exploding beads, and the contents of the bag were ignited and destroyed by the flames.

Seeing that Sun Leiluo was so poor, Wu Fan did not hesitate for a moment. With a wave of his hand, a surge of spiritual energy swept across the ground, collecting all the unburned items, along with the flying blade nailed to the tree trunk, and putting them all into his storage bag.

After all, even a small mosquito is still meat, and the path of cultivation is extremely costly, so no resource should be wasted.

Immediately afterwards, he walked over to Fu Qianyu's body.

As soon as he got close, a pungent smell of blood and rotting flesh hit him. Wu Fan frowned slightly, suppressing his nausea.

Fu Qianyu's corpse had been churned into a bloody mess by the "wind and earth energy," looking utterly disgusting. If it weren't for the need to search for his valuables, he really wouldn't have wanted to take another step closer.

He bent down, wrapped his palm with spiritual power, and carefully took the storage bag that Fu Qianyu had tied to his waist.

Fu Qianyu's storage bag was not damaged by the swirling winds, which surprised him somewhat.

Then, he put away Fu Qianyu's short sword magic weapon, which had shrunk back to its original size, as well as the five array flags.

After packing everything up, Wu Fan flicked his finger, and two fireballs flew out instantly, landing precisely on the two corpses.

The fireball, imbued with fire elemental energy, instantly burst into flames, emitting a constant hissing sound and accompanied by a pungent, burnt smell.

Moments later, the two bodies were completely engulfed by the flames and gradually turned into two piles of ashes.

After doing all this, Wu Fan looked around and then looked up into the depths of the mountains and forests.

Since these two dared to ambush him here, they were most likely working in a group. It's just unknown which members of the loose cultivator mutual aid association they were.

Thinking of this, he inexplicably recalled the innocent-looking girl with a heavy sword on her back, Lin Shu.

Taking a deep breath to calm his chaotic thoughts, Wu Fan applied another speed-up talisman to himself. With a slight release of spiritual energy from his feet, his figure suddenly transformed into a swift shadow, rushing towards the depths of the mountains and forests.

As he continued his journey, he became increasingly cautious, his spiritual energy constantly circulating around him as he remained vigilant for any movement around him, fearing that he might encounter another ambush.

He traveled swiftly until the first rays of dawn appeared on the horizon, then finally stopped and summoned Feng Xingzhou.

He lightly touched the hull with his toes, and the Wind Chariot carried him toward the horizon, his figure gradually disappearing into the clouds.

......

Two days later, the atmosphere inside the small brick pavilion had already dropped to freezing point.

Gao Xu's face was ashen. Pointing at Ding Cheng and Tang Xin, he angrily launched into a tirade:

"You two are utterly useless! You're good for nothing but causing trouble! One of you is a Qi Refining Level 6 cultivator, and the other is a Qi Refining Level 5 cultivator, yet you couldn't even keep an eye on a mere Qi Refining Level 4 girl, watching her slip away right under our noses. How dare you stand here?!"

Ding Cheng, his face flushed red from the scolding, hung his head, and spoke with a hint of grievance in his voice:

"Second brother, this really can't be entirely our fault! Who could have imagined that the girl, who seemed so naive and innocent on the surface, was actually so shrewd and so secretive? We took turns keeping watch day and night, not daring to relax for a moment, but she just happened to disappear silently in the middle of the night when everyone was asleep. By the time we found out, she was long gone."

"You still have the nerve to make excuses?"

Gao Xu's anger flared even more. He slammed his fist on the table and roared, "What did I tell you? I told you to keep an eye on her at all times, not to turn a blind eye, and certainly not to slack off and nap at night! You can't even keep an eye on one person, and you keep making up all these high-sounding excuses. You're all utterly useless!!!"

Seeing this, Tang Xin quickly stepped forward, lowered her head, and cautiously tried to explain:

"Second Brother, please calm down. Actually, when I got up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, I had a vague feeling that something was wrong. I went to check that girl's room, but she was only wearing one set of clothes. I guess she changed her clothes after leaving the exchange meeting and then immediately ran away, without giving us any time to react."

Upon hearing this, Gao Xu gritted his teeth in anger and was about to unleash another torrent of abuse.

Just then, Master Zhou, who had been sitting silently by the window with his eyes closed, slowly opened his eyes.