After the destruction of the Immortal Realm, I took in the fallen fairy.

"Oh? Why would Elder Xia say that?"

Lin Heng turned his head and looked at Xia Yonghe, who was resting with his eyes closed in the Immortal Spirit Spring, with a smile.

However, his fingertips had already lightly touched the spirit patterns on his palm that contained the Soft Vine Spirit Locking Technique.

Although Xia Yonghe's identity as the Grand Elder of the Earth Tempering Sect is currently very useful to him.

But recognizing one's own disguise is also a dangerous sign.

"Because the people from the Dark Sect mentioned it to me."

Xia Yonghe said casually, still maintaining his languid posture while soaking in the hot spring, "The Dark Sect said that a young man who has just entered the Immortal Realm is with some consumable they've set their sights on, and this young man is someone they're trying to recruit. And how are you, who has just entered the Immortal Realm, going to get acquainted with a powerful figure who calls himself the Five Sources Immortal Venerable?"

Elder Xia.

After thinking for a moment, Lin Heng removed his fingertips from the spirit runes, then walked back and squatted down next to Xia Yonghe, smiling, "Looks like you have some connection with the Dark Sect?"

Xia Yonghe opened his eyes and glanced at Lin Heng, who had come to the shore: "Given the methods the Dark Sect uses to cultivate their techniques, do you think I, with my reputation, wouldn't be one of their primary targets for recruitment?"

"That's true."

Lin Heng nodded slowly.

Through the cultivators who had lingered outside the farmhouse over the past few days, he had heard quite a bit about Xia Yonghe's romantic escapades with the fairies of the Quenching Earth Sect.

The secret cultivation method involves using fellow cultivators as consumables to enhance one's strength, which is perfectly suited to Xia Yonghe's habits.

Lin Heng then casually joked, "Since the Dark Sect has already extended an invitation, and their cultivation method should improve strength faster than ordinary cultivation, why doesn't Elder Xia agree?"

"Hey, young friend Lin Heng, it seems you, like those people from the Dark Sect, have misunderstood me as well."

Xia Yonghe shook his head and said, "Although I enjoy cultivating with fellow practitioners, I have never intended to use them as consumables to destroy their spiritual roots."

After a pause, he turned to Lin Heng and asked, "This is similar to you, young friend Lin Heng, and the Fairy Yu waiting outside. The Dark Sect says that Fairy Yu is an excellent resource. Have you ever considered cultivating with Fairy Yu and using the destruction of her spiritual root to improve your own cultivation?"

"I don't need to improve in this way."

Lin Heng said it casually.

"I understand what you mean. You are an excellent array builder who doesn't need to rely on the evil methods of the Dark Sect. And I am also an alchemist who can cultivate through pills and widen the gap between myself and ordinary people."

After calmly stating what he and Lin Heng had in common, Xia Yonghe added meaningfully, "But I think there are other reasons why neither I nor young friend Lin Heng chose to join the Dark Sect."

"Oh?" Lin Heng gestured for him to continue.

"Like me."

Xia Yonghe said lazily, "To this old man, those who cultivate alongside me are all fellow immortals from the same sect, whom I see every day and have cultivated with for hundreds of years. And to Young Master Lin, it seems that Fairy Yu is the first beauty you made after arriving in the Immortal Realm?"

Lin Heng didn't say anything, but he understood what Xia Yonghe was trying to say.

In short, the reason can be summed up in one sentence: people are all made of flesh and blood.

After all, the fairies who are willing to cultivate together are all people with good relationships, or even close friends.

If we were to take advantage of the other party and treat them as expendable resources, that would be far too cruel.

Moreover, both Lin Heng and Xia Yonghe have other means to accelerate their cultivation.

Elder Xia.

After thinking for a moment, Lin Heng looked at Xia Yonghe with a smile and said, "It seems like you're explaining something to me?"

Logically speaking, a Nascent Soul cultivator has no need to explain their position to a cultivator who is still in the Crystallization stage.

"Hehe, young friend Lin Heng figured it out so quickly?"

Xia Yonghe didn't hide anything: "Actually, there are two reasons. I want to ask my young friend Lin Heng for two favors."

"Just like this time you asked me to help you construct the Fairy Spring?"

"That is indeed one reason."

Xia Yonghe nodded and said, "My cultivation level has been too reliant on pills. Every breakthrough, even a minor one, depends heavily on a better cultivation environment. As a formation master, my friend Lin Heng can create that environment for me."

Lin Heng smiled but did not answer. Instead, he said, "I would also appreciate Elder Xia promoting the title of Five Source Immortal Venerable for me."

Xia Yonghe was taken aback for a moment, then laughed and said, "Haha, alright, I agree to this."

Now that he knew the true identities of the Dark Sect and Lin Heng, he naturally understood that Lin Heng had deliberately created the title of Five Source Immortal Venerable to intimidate the Dark Sect.

Lin Heng didn't agree to him directly because he wanted to make a deal with him.

For Xia Yonghe, promoting the Five Sources Immortal Venerable was just a matter of a few words.

"As for the second busy thing... I'm not really sure yet."

As he spoke, Xia Yonghe frowned slightly and touched his beard.

Lin Heng waited patiently until he spoke again slowly: "The person who invited me to join the Dark Sect was an old acquaintance of mine, Chu Jiangfeng, the Second Elder of the Yunling Sect."

"But when he invited me to join the Dark Sect, I could clearly feel that the spiritual energy fluctuations around him were different from before."

After a pause, he glanced at Lin Heng and then said in a deep voice, "Young friend Lin Heng, you know I am an alchemist, and my ability to manipulate spiritual energy is just as sensitive to the power of rules as yours, the array masters. So I have a faint feeling that there is a malevolent demonic aura about him..."

"No need to think so."

Lin Heng shook his head and said definitively, "It's demonic energy."

"Really?"

Xia Yonghe frowned even more deeply: "This demonic energy is a product of cultivators in the past who went astray due to their unstable minds. Whether human or demon, once their spiritual roots are permeated by demonic energy, they become mindless monsters... It seems that the Dark Sect's techniques are indeed some heretical and crooked paths."

"Elder Xia, it seems you have something you're wary of?" Lin Heng glanced at him.

"Um."

Xia Yonghe nodded slowly and said, "Although demonic energy can gradually cause people to lose their minds, it can also unleash even greater power. The Dark Sect was supposedly founded by a person at the peak of the Enlightenment Realm. And the Enlightenment Realm is already able to penetrate the rules and power that constitute the origin of the Immortal Realm. If he breaks through to the Feathered Realm, which can form a domain... I'm afraid that then, the Immortal Realm will be plunged into a catastrophe."

disaster……

Upon hearing this, Lin Heng's eyelids twitched involuntarily.

Could it be that the demonic tide that entered the Demonic Calendar is connected with the Dark Sect?