May I seek good fortune and avoid misfortune, and live a long and prosperous life.

So, after locking his residence, Li Heng went to the alchemy room area again.

Li Heng had just visited both of the alchemy rooms where pills were being refined.

They discovered that both alchemy rooms had already finished refining pills, and the alchemists and apprentices had left, leaving only the servants cleaning up the alchemy rooms.

So Li Heng immediately went into one of the alchemy rooms and tried to get on the good side of the servant. The servant said that the alchemy was successful. Li Heng smiled and congratulated him on the surface, but in his heart he was cursing.

He then went to another alchemy room to ask the servant, who looked distressed and said that the alchemy had failed and the alchemists were venting their anger on him.

Li Heng appeared to be comforting him, but inwardly he was secretly amused.

Then Li Heng offered some comforting words and flattery, successfully winning over the servant and entrusting him with the task of disposing of the waste pills.

As Li Heng left with the discarded pills, the servant stared at him blankly, tears streaming down his face, and said:

"What a kind person! I've lived most of my life and never seen anyone so selfless and devoted to helping others. I've truly seen something incredible today!"

"Wouldn't it be great if someone could help me dispose of my useless pills every day?"

Then he shook his head, shattering his illusion:

"Who the hell would hang themselves—want to die too long? If someone helps with this kind of work even once, we're practically best friends. Was this guy just really stupid or just being kind? Oh well, whatever, he did it willingly, so it's not my fault. I didn't hurt him."

......

Back in his room, Li Heng put all the discarded pills together, feeling very happy.

On his very first day at the Tianyan Sect, he reaped a huge harvest, a total of 35 defective pills. However, these defective pills were not all of the same type. Ten of them were defective top-grade Qi Gathering Pills, thirteen were defective top-grade Marrow Cleansing Pills, and twelve were defective top-grade Qi Condensation Pills.

These discarded pills all have a side effect: taking them will greatly reduce one's lifespan, but their effects are generally about a quarter of those of the original pills.

That very night, he ate a used, top-grade Qi Gathering Pill to test its effectiveness.

Before the poison from the wasted pill could even erupt, the Longevity Scroll within Li Heng's body instantly glowed and enveloped his entire body, easily neutralizing the poison that could consume over thirty years of a cultivator's lifespan.

Subsequently, streams of pure energy filled Li Heng's dantian. Originally, Li Heng's dantian was only two-thirds full of spiritual power, but now it was being filled at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Late stage of Qi Refining Level 1!

Qi Refining Stage 1 Completed!

A tiny, discarded pill actually allowed him to reach the peak of the first level of Qi Refining in an instant!

Moreover, most of the pure spiritual energy was wasted, as Li Heng's dantian couldn't hold that much, and it could only be lost in vain.

This wasted Qi Gathering Pill is indeed top-grade! If we ignore the pill poison that can severely damage lifespan, this wasted pill is comparable to a high-grade Qi Gathering Pill!

Eating just one of them saved him a year's worth of cultivation time.

However, the spiritual energy obtained through consuming pills is not as pure as the spiritual energy obtained through meditation and cultivation, so Li Heng was not in a hurry to break through the realm barrier and advance to the second level of Qi Refining.

He planned to hone his spiritual power to its limit before attempting to break through the barrier to his cultivation realm and advance to the second level of Qi Refining, which would be the safest approach.

The barrier to advancement is extremely strong. If a cultivator's spiritual power is not pure enough, it is usually difficult to break through the barrier. Generally, one needs to use a barrier-breaking pill to forcefully break through. However, cultivators who advance in this way have a weak foundation and weak spiritual power. In battles at the same level, they are far inferior to those cultivators with a deep foundation.

He, Li Heng, has an unlimited lifespan; if he's going to cultivate, he'll cultivate to become the strongest immortal!

He will become stronger with each step he takes, and one day he will be so strong that even if he exposes himself, no one will be able to do anything about it.

......

Spring came and autumn went, and half a year passed just like that.

For the past six months, Li Heng has been living cautiously every day.

On the one hand, do your job as well as possible and don't let Zhao Bingtian and the two Dantong find fault with you.

Although Zhao Bingtian sometimes vented his anger on Li Heng when he failed at alchemy, Li Heng always silently endured it without arguing or complaining. This made Zhao Bingtian feel embarrassed to keep scolding him.

After all, there aren't many sect servants as useful as him anymore. If they scold Li Heng away, the sect might not be able to assign servants as hardworking and dutiful as him next time.

On the other hand, he befriended the many servants in the alchemy room, occasionally pretending to suffer a loss in order to gain their friendship.

As a menial servant, he received two low-grade Qi Gathering Pills and two low-grade Spirit Recovery Pills each month, but he usually used them to give as favors.

Anyway, he wouldn't even look at such a low-grade pill.

For six months, he worked as a handyman in the alchemy room, earning 100 sect contribution points each month. After accumulating 600 points, he spent 100 points to exchange for a concealment technique and another 500 points to exchange for a basic concealment formation.

The sole purpose of this basic concealment formation is to mask the fluctuations in aura when breaking through a minor realm during the Qi Refining stage.

Many of the servants were puzzled to see him exchange his hard-earned contribution points from the past six months for such a thing. The servants in the alchemy room who were on good terms with Li Heng all advised him to exchange it for something else, such as a low-level Qi Gathering Pill, a Rejuvenation Pill, or even some better Qi cultivation techniques and spells.

However, Li Heng simply used his exceptional eloquence to fool them.

Over the past six months, through the continuous consumption of discarded top-grade Qi Condensation Pills and top-grade Marrow Cleansing Pills, his spiritual power has been honed to its limit. It can be said that at the first level of Qi Refining, his spiritual power is invincible and has become solidified.

The entire dantian was filled with solid spiritual energy, while the spiritual energy in the dantian of most Qi Refining Level 1 cultivators was gaseous.

Only the most outstanding Qi Refining geniuses have liquid spiritual energy in their dantian. Solid spiritual energy is unprecedented, and most ancient cultivation books do not even record this form of spiritual energy.

This is the result of his continuous consumption of top-grade Qi Condensation Pills and their waste pills over the past six months. Other cultivators simply do not have such good resources to be able to eat waste pills comparable to high-grade Qi Gathering Pills like candy when they are at the first level of Qi Refining.

Even the descendants of Nascent Soul Ancestors cannot do this, so Li Heng's cultivation method is completely unreplicable by others.

Finally, on a dark and stormy night, he successfully deceived everyone by using a basic concealment formation and advanced to the second level of Qi Refining.

After reaching the second level of Qi Refining, he felt that his strength had greatly improved, and the capacity of his dantian was more than three times that of other cultivators at the same level.

After advancing to the second level of Qi Refining, he did not immediately devote himself to cultivation. Instead, he took some time to learn some basic spells, since even the strongest spiritual power still needs to be used through spells.

Another six months later, his cultivation level had reached the late stage of the second level of Qi Refining.

At this moment, half of his spiritual power was still not solidified, so he was not in a hurry to advance to the next level.

However, he switched to a book called the Five Elements Return to Origin Technique. This Qi cultivation method didn't have any particular advantages; its only advantage was that it could balance and unify the five spiritual energies. Its principle was to utilize the mutual generation of the five elements to construct a small cycle of the five elements within the dantian.

However, apart from this effect, this Qi cultivation method can be described as garbage. The cultivation speed is as slow as a tortoise, and it has no combat power or supernatural abilities. In the game terminology from Li Heng's previous life, this method has very low stats!

It also has a mnemonic: The five elements revolve endlessly, without bias or prejudice, all laws are balanced, gather energy into the sea, primordial unity, slow is slow, balance is the most important!