Wild Dogs

Then, he looked at Yang Fan intently.

"Don't think I'm joking with you, everything I said is true."

"If you can't cultivate to the third level of Qi Refining, I will definitely kill you."

Seeing Xue Ming's serious expression, Yang Fan felt a chill run down his spine.

He hurriedly bowed to Xue Ming, nodded repeatedly, and then left the cave.

When he left the Blood Nether Cave, his back was already ice-cold.

"This is really troublesome. We need to advance to the third level of the Qi Refining stage within two months."

This wasn't a problem for him.

Yang Fan could sense that once he reached the third level of the Qi Refining stage, Xue Ming would definitely make a move against him.

"Could they really be planning to use me for alchemy?"

Yang Fan pondered in his heart, clenching his fist.

If Xue Ming really wanted to use him to refine pills, what could he do?

No, we must find a way to improve our strength.

We also need to find out exactly what Xue Ming did to him.

Yang Fan was certain that Xue Ming was not only using puppets to monitor them openly.

They must have secretly placed other marks on him, otherwise they wouldn't have let him live.

Thinking back to his last trip to the Blood Cave, where all the other blood corpses died except for him, he remembered that he had survived.

Yang Fan became increasingly convinced that Xue Ming was after him.

Taking a deep breath, Yang Fan shook his head and immediately returned to his cave.

Back in his cave, looking at the puppet, Yang Fan sighed.

He walked to a corner, and taking advantage of the puppet's inattention, he took out the King's Banner, bypassing its line of sight.

He then immediately questioned Zhou Peng and explained the whole story.

Zhou Peng also sighed.

"It seems I guessed correctly. He either wants to turn you into a puppet or use you to refine pills."

"Neither of these is a good thing; you must be very careful."

Yang Fan nodded.

"But this isn't something that can be solved by being careful; you have to help me think of a solution."

Zhou Peng thought for a moment and then said to Yang Fan.

"There's only so much I can do to help you improve your strength as quickly as possible."

"You should start cultivating as soon as possible. Once you reach the tenth level of Qi Refining, I will help you refine a Foundation Establishment Pill."

"Strive to reach the Foundation Establishment stage within a month, and refine those Gu worms as soon as possible."

"Perfecting the Mind-Capturing Gu might have miraculous effects, but that's all we can do for now."

Yang Fan thought for a moment, then could only sigh helplessly.

Now that things have come to this, he can only take it one step at a time.

That very night, Yang Fan began cultivating.

He dared not take the pills given to him by Zhou Peng and Xue Ming directly.

With the small cauldron present, all these pills were processed into high-grade pills that could be safely consumed.

The medicinal herbs he bought from the outside noodle stall were processed in a small cauldron, which greatly enhanced their medicinal properties.

The medicinal herbs collected in the Blood Cave were all imbued with the essence of blood, making them unsuitable for normal cultivators to consume.

Yang Fan finished processing everything using the small cauldron, and all the medicinal materials and cauldrons needed to refine the Foundation Establishment Pill were now complete.

The only thing he lacks now is a slightly better flame.

Although he could condense flames from the spiritual energy within his body, such flames were not very effective for alchemy.

It would be best to find some flames formed by nature, as the success rate of refining elixirs would be higher.

However, these things can't be rushed; we have to find them slowly.

Early the next morning, Yang Fan hurriedly returned to the Skinning Cave to continue processing the corpses there.

After this period of processing, his skills had become incredibly refined, and Yang Fan had even begun to enjoy dissecting corpses.

Dealing with these human skins was nothing special; what he really cared about were the valuable items he found on them each time.

Thanks to the Gu worms given to him by Xue Ming, he can avoid the detection of other Gu worms around him, which makes it much easier to do some tricks in secret.

However, Yang Fan understood that he couldn't go too far with the tampering, otherwise it would be bad if Xue Wang found out.

Fortunately, he always hid a part of the human skin, so he wasn't worried about anything going wrong.

After completing his mission, Yang Fan left the Skinning Cave.

After leaving the Skinning Cave, he deliberately circled around it a few times to make sure no one was following him, and then returned to the cave where he had hidden the Gu worms.

Today he has to figure out a way to hatch the eggs of these Gu worms.

The Mind-Capturing Gu requires five kinds of poisonous insects to be refined, and the process is quite difficult.

Yang Fan took out a large urn that he had prepared beforehand, and then carefully took out some corpses and stuffed them into the urn.

To refine this kind of Gu worm, one needs either a living person or a corpse. Yang Fan couldn't bring himself to do it with a living person, and he also couldn't easily obtain a complete corpse. Therefore, he used a corpse to refine the Gu worm.

Fortunately, he obtained this complete corpse in the Skinning Cave, which was perfect for refining Gu worms.

After stuffing the corpse into the large urn, Yang Fan cut a small opening in the corpse and stuffed the five kinds of insect eggs into various parts of the corpse.

After doing all that, Yang Fan immediately added various rare materials into it.

These materials can accelerate the hatching of Gu worms.

After these materials were added, Yang Fan took out dozens of spirit stones and threw them into the large urn.

The hatching of Gu worms requires a large amount of spiritual energy, and ordinary spiritual energy from heaven and earth is not enough. Using spirit stones is much better.

After doing all this, Yang Fan took a deep breath, then pulled out his knife, carefully cut open his wrist, and poured the blood into the large vat.

Fresh blood gushed out, and before long, the entire urn was filled with blood.

Yang Fan also felt dizzy. Even as a cultivator, losing so much blood still made him feel unwell.

However, he was a cultivator after all, and as long as he hadn't bled out completely, he could naturally find a way to recover.

After doing all this, Yang Fan immediately took out a few pills to replenish his blood and qi, and only then did he recover.

Then he carefully sealed the large urn, and then pasted several talismans around the urn.

After doing all this, he dug a deep pit in the ground and put the entire large urn inside.

According to ancient texts, it takes a day for the eggs to hatch when refining Gu worms, but it takes forty-nine days for the Gu worms to be fully refined. This Mind-Capturing Gu also requires that long time.

Although Yang Fan was somewhat impatient, he knew that haste makes waste, so he didn't rush to get the Gu worms out that day.

After doing all this, he glanced around, then brought over a few large rocks from nearby and blocked the entire cave.

Then, just to be on the safe side, he threw another explosive talisman into the cave.

As the explosive talisman shattered, the rocks around the cave collapsed, completely burying the entrance, making it appear as if there was nothing there at all.

After doing all this, Yang Fan finally breathed a sigh of relief. With such multiple layers of protection, this place should be safe now.

Then he can patiently wait for the Gu worms to hatch.