The Immortal of Plague begins by establishing the root of lung fire.

Song You sat in the tree hollow and opened the 46th page of the "Illustrated Catalogue of Herbs," which recorded the cultivation method of ginseng for cultivators.

A living cultivator is buried in a colony of Devouring Fungi, which then consumes the cultivator's flesh, blood, and Dao root nutrients. The mycelium extends along the earth's veins, regrowing into human-shaped roots a hundred paces away beneath the soil—this is the Cultivator Ginseng. Cultivation takes an extremely long time, and the resulting Cultivator Ginseng is used to brew high-grade medicinal soups.

Song You's fingertips traced the pages. All the cultivation methods in this world treat people as raw materials. Li Bin was planted in the medicine cellar, and in a few months he would become a medicinal herb for making soup. Since Li Bin was cultivated as a great medicine, the ginseng he produced would definitely be of high quality. No wonder Jia Chunfang only kept this person.

Song You closed the book. He hadn't yet come across these herbal medicine recipes, so he rolled up the book and put it in his pocket.

He held a piece of raw venison in his hand, which he had just taken from the cold storage when he left the warehouse. He opened his mouth, bit off a piece of meat, chewed a few times, and swallowed it. The gamey taste spread in his mouth, and the food residue turned into heat, making his stomach feel hot.

He ate three pieces of raw meat in succession, and the heat spread to his limbs and bones, making his body more full and nourished by the heat.

With some time before returning, Song You suddenly wondered if he could cultivate here. So he sat up cross-legged and began to circulate the external flames within his chest cavity. The grayish-white flames moved very slowly within his lungs.

Normally, it only takes one incense stick to complete a cycle in the Po Zang Guan (魄藏观) area, but here it takes several times longer. Calculated, in the same amount of time, the progress is less than one-twentieth of that in the Po Zang Guan area. The lung qi is obstructed, and the flames of the outer flames are dim.

The opening of "Lung Fire Technique" states that this method cultivates oneself by burning lung qi to strengthen the outer flame, without relying on external spiritual energy. However, it seems that the environment still has some impact on the speed of cultivation.

Song You stopped operating. Ancient books and miscellaneous records mentioned that major sects occupied the government offices and royal residences of the Great Qian Dynasty as Taoist temples.

Considering the current state of cultivation, those ancient buildings likely hold secrets that accelerate cultivation, which is the reason why sects are vying for these sites. After the fall of the Great Qian Dynasty, the sects divided up these resources, making them inaccessible to ordinary people.

As the return journey drew near, Song You opened his mouth and swallowed the "Illustrated Compendium of Herbs" into his stomach, a feeling of being ripped out washing over him.

Opening his eyes, Song You sat on a wooden plank bed in a bungalow in the outer courtyard of Po Cang Temple. The room was dimly lit, and the air was filled with the smell of musty bamboo leaves.

Song You did not interfere with Meng Meng and Meng Wenyuan's approach to dealing with Bharat; he provided the information, and Ruikang Pharmaceuticals would naturally verify it.

He breathed a sigh of relief. All Meng Meng needed to do was expose the dirty secrets of the Second Municipal Hospital and Li Man online, making them too busy to deal with their own problems and diverting their attention, which would alleviate the potential dangers on Song You's side.

Song You felt his limbs and bones completely digest the high-calorie food he had swallowed in the tree hole, and his lungs were full of lung energy.

He recalled the oppressive feeling when he drew qi into his body and noticed a slight difference. As the number of times he traversed the body increased, he discovered that the oppressive aura of great terror changed subtly each time, and he didn't know whether it was good or bad.

While in the warehouse, he had pondered whether the World of Reflection truly existed, but Song You no longer bothered to investigate. That world had food, medicine, and resources that allowed him to survive. As long as he could profit from it, its authenticity was irrelevant. To him, as long as he lived, that world existed.

If he dies, it will be meaningless whether that world truly exists.

Song You sat up cross-legged, placed his hands flat on his knees, and the external flames in his chest cavity began to circulate again.

The air from the Soul Treasury Observation entered the lungs through the nasal cavity, causing the outer flames to scorch the lung air, transforming it into gray-white flames that traveled throughout the body. The high temperature of the outer flames was burning the edge of the fourth body leak.

Ordinary disciples survive on the low-quality rice porridge distributed by the temple each day, and their cultivation is slow due to the depletion of their vital energy. Song You, on the other hand, relies on high-calorie food as a foundation, coupled with the body improved by the essence of wild beasts, and his outer flame grows at a much faster rate than theirs.

The resources that the geniuses valued by the elders possess may not be comparable to the resources they obtained in another world.

Song You closed his eyes and focused on guiding the external flames to circulate in his lungs, increasing his initial cultivation level.

The grayish-white flames swirled within his lungs, each cycle devouring the nascent lung energy within. His breathing became long and even, and his heartbeat slowed.

Now all we need to do is wait for Brother Jiang Yang to arrive and ask him about the matter of the body leaking.

Time passed, and it was nearly midnight in a secluded corner of the outer courtyard.

Jiang Yangge stopped in front of a dilapidated bungalow. He looked around and, seeing no one, pushed open the door, turned around, and bolted it shut.

Jiang Yangge leaned against the door and let out a long sigh. He couldn't apply medicine to the broken bone in his left arm; he could only wrap it tightly with cloth, and it would bleed when he moved. He was exhausted, both physically and mentally, from what had happened at the pharmacy that day.

Song You's methods and cunning broadened his horizons, so it seemed that the item was most likely on him.

Jiang Yangge walked to the table, poured a glass of cold water and gulped it down.

Last time, he paid a great price to write to his family asking them to protect the Qi Refining Manual. Afterwards, he tried to find a way to be sent back to the village to retrieve it, but he didn't expect Jiang Yangjiao to come directly to him.

As a result, her younger sister Jiang Yangjiao died in the Zhongzao Hall. Jiang Yangge believed that she definitely had a Qi Refining Method with her. That method was their family's hope for turning their lives around, and it was also brought by his sister at the cost of her life.

He had to find out the whereabouts of the Qi Refining Method. Everyone in his family had been tested before, and no one had the aptitude for Qi Refining, so no one paid much attention to that technique.

He was writing the letter because he had recently discovered an opportunity that would allow people who couldn't sense spiritual energy to draw it into their bodies for cultivation, making the cultivation manual he was referring to extremely important.

Only with this can I avenge my father.

At that time, only three people survived in the main hall. It was Song You who brought back his sister's belongings, and Jiang Yangge did not believe that he had not taken them.

Now, one last verification was needed. He walked to the bed, squatted down, reached under the bed, groped for a moment, and pulled out a rusty iron cage covered with a gray cloth.

Lifting the gray cloth, the surface of the iron cage was covered with scratches. Jiang Yangge stared at the objects inside the cage and swallowed hard.

It was a bronze rooster sculpture, with its head held high and a proud posture, but most of the cracks on its body made it look somewhat dilapidated.

Four mythical beast sculptures are attached to the rooster's back: a silver scorpion and a spider, and a gold snake and a toad.

He unearthed this strange object two and a half years ago in a collapsed courtyard on the back mountain. At the time, he was looking for a wild herb and found this iron cage and the bronze rooster inside.

He bent his knees, knelt in front of the iron cage, and bowed forward with his hands.

"My lord, I wish to investigate whether my family's Qi Refining Technique has fallen into Song You's hands," Jiang Yangge said, his voice low.

The bronze rooster did not react at all.

Jiang Yangge stood up, walked to the wooden table with the missing leg, reached into the hidden compartment under the corner of the table, and took out five copper coins bearing the official seal of the Great Qian Dynasty.

When he was chosen as a celestial seedling and left the village, he secretly took fifteen copper coins with him. He didn't tell anyone about it. Later, he discovered that the objects in the iron cage could answer his questions, but the price was that he had to devour the copper coins and some other things.

Unfortunately, he could only answer yes or no, and each time he was asked, the number of cracks on his body would increase; otherwise, his cultivation would have been much smoother.

In the past two or three years, he has avoided several near-death experiences by relying on the iron cage. The news of Elder Jia Chunfang's return today was something he obtained yesterday by exchanging a copper coin.

With only five coins left in his hand, Jiang Yangge clutched the copper coins and walked back to the iron cage. This issue was related to his next plan, and he had to find out Song You's background.

He slipped a copper coin into the gap of the iron cage and dropped it into the wide-open mouth of the golden toad. The coin fell into the toad's mouth without making a sound.

The bronze rooster remained motionless, so Jiang Yangge gritted his teeth and threw in the second one.

The toad's mouth was open, and Jiang Yangge's palms were sweating. He picked up the third copper coin and dropped it into the gap.

"Click."

The golden toad finally raised its lower jaw and closed its mouth completely.

Brother Jiang held his breath.

Inside the iron cage, the heads of the silver scorpion, the silver spider, and the golden snake rotated simultaneously. Different colored lights illuminated the eye areas of the three strange beasts.

Jiang Yangge broke out in a cold sweat; now was the real test.