Everyone's a Master: I'll reward my disciples ten thousandfold!

The two stepped into the village.

Weeds grew rampant among the ruins.

The beams of the collapsed house crashed onto the dirt road.

A torn piece of floral-patterned coarse cloth hung on a splinter, fluttering in the wind.

The bloodstains on the earthen walls and the ground had long since dried, forming dark brown patches.

Two crows perched on the charred roof ridge, emitting hoarse, short cries. Hearing footsteps, they flapped their wings and flew away.

The air was filled with a stench of fish and decay.

Lin Xiao drew his demon-slaying sword, stepped forward, and stood beside Chen Yuan.

His sharp eyes scanned every corner of the ruins where monsters might be hiding.

Chen Yuan walked inside with his hands behind his back and a calm expression.

The system panel scrolls continuously at the edge of the field of vision, displaying prompts.

[During exploration... 7 'Damaged Farm Tools' found, Value: None.]

[Under exploration... Found 3 'Stained Cloths', Value: None.]

[Exploring... Found 12 'Broken Pottery Jars', Value: None.]

It's all a pile of garbage with no recycling value whatsoever.

Chen Yuan stepped over half of the earthen wall and stopped in front of a relatively intact earthen house ruin.

There was a dry well nearby, and several broken hoes were scattered on the ground.

A very faint whimpering sound came from underground.

Lin Xiao frowned, reversed the sword, and locked his gaze on a pile of rubble in the corner of the ruins.

Beneath the rubble lay a heavy wooden cellar door.

"Sect Leader, there's some commotion down below," Lin Xiao said in a low voice.

"Move it away," Chen Yuan ordered.

Lin Xiao strode forward, gripping the hundreds-of-pounds-weight rock with one hand, his arm muscles bulging.

The power of the third level of Qi Refining erupted suddenly, and with two loud "booms," the boulder was effortlessly thrown five meters away.

He reached out and grabbed the brass ring on the cellar door, pulling hard.

"Crunch—"

The door hinges made a screeching sound as the cellar door was completely flung open.

A damp, musty smell mixed with the smell of rice bran wafted up.

In a dark corner of the cellar, there were several chipped earthenware jars and half a bag of moldy brown rice.

A small, thin figure huddled in the only ray of light streaming in through the crack.

It turned out to be a girl of fifteen or sixteen years old.

She was wearing a tattered coarse cloth shirt, and her head and face were covered in dust.

He clutched a faded, coarse cloth bundle tightly in both hands, his large eyes filled with fear.

Upon seeing the figure standing against the light at the cellar entrance, the girl instinctively shrank into the corner.

His back slammed against the earthen wall, scraping off a layer of yellow soil.

But soon, her gaze froze.

His gaze was fixed on the demon-slaying sword gleaming with a bluish light in Lin Xiao's hand.

The faint traces of bloodlust and the powerful fluctuations of spiritual energy remaining on the blade caused her pupils to contract sharply.

"You...are cultivators?" Her voice was hoarse.

Lin Xiao didn't answer, but turned to look at Chen Yuan.

Chen Yuan took a half step forward, his gaze falling on the girl, and asked calmly, "We are from the Guiyuan Sect, just passing through. What happened here?"

The girl's tense shoulders relaxed slightly.

She bit her lower lip, her voice broken: "Three days ago, the beast tide broke out... the mountains and fields were full of monsters, and the villagers couldn't escape at all. My father stuffed me into the cellar and went out with a hoe to fight them off..."

She lowered her head, tears falling onto the cloth bundle: "He never came back. My name is Su Muhan, and I've been hiding here for three days."

Chen Yuan's eyes flickered slightly.

No body was found, but the broken hoe was on it.

Just as he was about to continue his questioning, a dazzling golden prompt suddenly popped up in the center of his vision.

[Potential disciple detected nearby!]

Name: Su Muhan

Age: 15

[Physique: Celestial Spirit Body (Unawakened)]

[Potential Rating: S]

[Innate Trait: Spiritual Sense - Possesses an innate and exceptionally strong perception of spiritual energy fluctuations, capable of sensing all unusual spiritual energy movements within a radius of one hundred feet.]

[System Recommendation: This person has extremely high value in recruiting apprentices; recruitment is strongly recommended!]

S-rank!

Chen Yuan's eyelids twitched suddenly.

Lin Xiao's invincible physique is a hidden SSS-level, and this unassuming little girl is actually an S-level genius!

Moreover, the "Heavenly Spirit Body" is not yet awakened, which means there is still a great deal of room for growth.

Chen Yuan remained outwardly calm, not even raising an eyebrow.

He quickly calculated in his mind what high-class phrases he could use to lure people into joining the sect.

Su Muhan raised her head at this moment, her eyes fixed on the sword in Lin Xiao's hand.

"Your sect's sword... has such strong spiritual energy."

Her voice was soft, but her tone was extremely firm: "I've been able to sense the presence of certain things since I was little, and the villagers all call me a monster. But when this man passed by just now, I could feel it from underground. It was very strong, very warm, and didn't have that stench of a monster."

She suddenly stood up, bracing herself against the earthen wall, and ran to the bottom of the cellar with her bundle in her arms.

He raised his mud-covered face and looked directly at Chen Yuan.

"Senior, does your sect... still accept new members?"

Su Muhan spoke very quickly, afraid the other party would refuse: "I can do anything! I can do laundry, cook, and clean the yard! I eat very little... I don't want to stay here alone anymore..."

In the end, the little girl bit her lip tightly, trying her best not to cry out.

Chen Yuan fell silent.

He looked into the girl's pleading eyes and paused for a full three seconds.

For those three seconds, he maintained the composure befitting a high-ranking sect leader.

"The Guiyuan Sect doesn't recruit disciples based on their physical labor."

Chen Yuan stood with his hands behind his back, his voice deep and imposing.

"What I'm looking at is character."

He looked down at Su Muhan below the cellar entrance.

"Would you be willing to join the Guiyuan Sect and become my second disciple?"

Su Muhan was stunned at first, then her eyes instantly turned red.

With a thud, she knelt down on both knees and kowtowed heavily to Chen Yuan above her.

"Disciple Su Muhan greets Sect Leader!"

The system's crisp notification sound rang in Chen Yuan's mind.

[Ding! Su Muhan's application to join the Guiyuan Sect has been successfully accepted!]

[Apprenticeship successful! Su Muhan officially becomes the second disciple of the Guiyuan Sect!]

[Sect Reputation +50! Sect Luck +50!]

Immediately afterwards, the panel turned red and a new mechanism announcement popped up!

[Congratulations, host, on recruiting your second disciple! New mechanism: The sum of the disciples' cultivation levels will be fed back to the host in real time!]

[Current total cultivation level of disciples: Qi Refining Level 3 (Lin Xiao) + None (Su Muhan) = Qi Refining Level 3.]

[Host's current cultivation level is being calculated...]

[Host's current cultivation level: Mortal → Qi Refining Level 3!]

boom!

An invisible wave of energy suddenly surged outwards from Chen Yuan's center.

A scalding, domineering heat surged out of nowhere and formed in the dantian.

The heat surged wildly through his limbs and bones, forcefully breaking open the withered and blocked meridians.

The bones made a series of crisp "crackling" sounds.

The muscles bulged and exerted force, brimming with explosive vitality.

mortal.

One layer of Qi.

Second level of Qi Refining.

Refinement level three!

In the blink of an eye, everything fell into place.

Chen Yuan clearly felt that a solid, circulating vortex of spiritual energy had appeared in his dantian.

With a significant enhancement of the five senses, one can have complete control over the movements of the surroundings.

He, Chen Yuan, has stepped into the world of cultivation.