I'll make you the furnace and the cauldron, so you can refine Yin and Yang and prove the Great

For the next few days, Li Hanshan spent almost all his time in Lin Qingyin's cave. Every morning, Lin Qingyin would meditate and regulate her breathing by the spirit spring pool to consolidate her newly broken through to the peak of the Nascent Soul realm. Li Hanshan would be by her side, using pure Yang energy to help her smooth out the nodes in her meridians that had naturally widened due to the breakthrough, adjusting them to the smoothest possible rhythm of spiritual energy circulation.

Their dual cultivation was no longer just for healing. Lin Qingyin's body was like a newly honed blade, showing a level of cooperation far exceeding Li Hanshan's expectations during the first complete spiritual energy cycle.

Her "Jade Pivot Heart Sutra" cultivation method is known for its balance and harmony, and there is almost no repulsion between it and his pure yang energy. Each cycle of spiritual energy can make the foundation of both of them more stable and solid.

In this process, Lin Qingyin gradually let go of her initial burden of "repaying kindness".

She would adjust her breathing rhythm when he approached, tilt her head back slightly to rest on his shoulder when her spiritual energy circulation reached its depths, and quietly lie in his arms with her eyes closed to regulate her breathing after it was over, her fingers resting on his chest with a gentle but docile dependence like that of a tamed feline.

During these days, she also gradually got to know Shen Qingyue.

Shen Qingyue would come to Lin Qingyin's cave every afternoon to sit for a while. Sometimes she would bring newly drawn talismans for Lin Qingyin to critique, and sometimes she would just sit quietly by the spirit spring pool watching Lin Qingyin regulate her breathing. The awkwardness between the two of them at their first meeting was fading away day by day, like a seed that had been repeatedly moistened by spring rain finally cracking open its first shell.

Shen Yun would occasionally come over. She stood at the entrance of the cave, her gaze lingering on each of the two figures for a moment, before speaking in the calm tone of a sect leader: "Fellow Daoist Lin's foundation is already solid. In another half month, he should be able to fully adapt to the peak of the Nascent Soul realm." She nodded slightly as she spoke, then turned and left.

That day, Shen Yun stopped Li Hanshan at the entrance of the cave. Standing in the mist by the spirit spring pool, her deep purple dress shimmered slightly with a dark sheen from the moisture. Her gaze fell on him, and she said earnestly, "Have you found out the reason for Lin Qingyin's frequent qi deviations? Her foundation shouldn't be having such problems."

Li Hanshan stopped beside her, remained silent for a moment, and then spoke: "There is an extremely deep rift within her body, harboring the remnants of a demonic spirit. The location of that rift is extremely hidden; even she herself cannot perceive it. It only opens when her spiritual power accumulates to the critical point of the peak of the Nascent Soul stage. But given her aptitude and cultivation method, that rift shouldn't be flaring up so frequently."

Shen Yun frowned slightly: "You mean..."

Li Hanshan glanced at the ever-flowing pale golden light curtain at the top of the cave: "When she was cultivating outside, that rift also existed within her body, but it didn't flare up as frequently. After entering this core immortal island, the interval between flare-ups has shortened by almost half."

Shen Yun followed his gaze to the pale golden light screen, and after a moment of silence, asked, "You mean, the acceleration of the time array has also accelerated the growth of inner demons?"

"It's not just accelerated." Li Hanshan withdrew his gaze. "The acceleration effect of this formation seems to gradually increase as it continues to operate. According to you, the original acceleration ratio of this formation was about three times that of the outside world. But in the past ten years, I can feel that the frequency of the formation's operation is faster than it was at the beginning. If this trend continues, the acceleration ratio will be even higher later on." This discovery was naturally not something Li Hanshan felt, but rather something he discovered through his dream.

Shen Yun's expression changed slightly: "You mean, the acceleration rate of this formation has been slowly increasing?" She paused, "Then what rate are you sensing right now?"

Li Hanshan was silent for a moment: "About five times."

"Five times? Didn't the Immortal Alliance say it would be three times? Could it be that the time formation has undergone new changes recently?" Shen Yun guessed.

Li Hanshan nodded: "That should be true, but this will also accelerate the accumulation of inner demons, causing them to pile up in a short period of time."

Shen Yun was puzzled: "However, the time array has existed for many years, and I have never heard of anyone going into qi deviation before. It should still be a problem with Fellow Daoist Lin himself."

Li Hanshan nodded, about to say something, when a violent tremor suddenly came from the ground beneath his feet. The tremor was completely different from ordinary earthquakes, carrying a violent surge of spiritual energy, as if something had erupted violently outside the cave.

The surface of the spirit spring pool churned violently, and the splashing water refracted into tiny specks of light in the glow of the luminous pearl. The pebbles on the cave walls were shaken and fell with a soft rustling sound as they collided on the stone surface.

Li Hanshan's divine sense almost instinctively probed in the direction from which the tremor came. His divine sense passed through the cave's restrictions, through the outer rock walls, and rapidly spread out. Then his pupils suddenly contracted—about a thousand feet away from Cave No. 9, at the entrance of another cave, a burly middle-aged man stood amidst a pile of rubble, his body surrounded by extremely chaotic black spiritual energy. His face was distorted, and his eyes surged with dark red light, like charcoal embers slowly burning deep within his pupils.

His spiritual energy fluctuations were completely out of control, with every strand carrying a violent, corrosive intent, like a beast trapped in an iron cage frantically ramming against the cage's boundaries.

He had smashed several cracks through the rock walls of the caves around him, and broken stones were scattered all over the ground. Several figures rushed out of their respective caves to check the situation.

The middle-aged man attacked haphazardly. If the formation on the Central Mountain Range were strong enough, it would probably have been mostly destroyed by this man.

"Refining the void."

Li Hanshan's gaze sharpened. This middle-aged man's cultivation level was also at the Refinement stage, but judging from his current state, he seemed to have also gone astray.

More and more cultivators poured out of the various caves. Some stood at the cave entrances watching from afar, some were trying to suppress the attack from a distance with spells, and others were frantically dodging. An attack from a Void Refinement cultivator was truly terrifying.

A streak of silvery-white light streaked past, abruptly stopping several hundred feet away from the middle-aged man. As the light dissipated, a tall, slender figure was revealed. It was a middle-aged man dressed in a silver-white robe, with a lean face and piercing eyes. A steady and heavy aura of a late-stage Void Refinement cultivator flowed around him, pressing down on the surging vortex of spiritual energy like an invisible mountain.

He raised his hand, and a silvery-white spiritual light surged from his palm, spreading out in all directions at an extremely fast speed, like a huge curtain being drawn open, enveloping the middle-aged man.

The moment the spiritual light touched the middle-aged man's chaotic spiritual energy, it emitted a dense hissing sound, like ice falling into boiling oil, forcibly pressing the surging black spiritual energy back into his meridians.

The middle-aged man's body stiffened abruptly. His pupils, swirling with a dark red light, flickered violently a few times before going out for a moment, like a lamp wick being snapped. He tried to break free, but the silvery-white spiritual light clung tightly to his meridians like a bone-deep infection, and no matter how much he struggled, he couldn't shake it off.

"It's Elder Gong, an elder of the Immortal Alliance, whose cultivation is at the late stage of the Void Refinement realm," Shen Yun explained to Li Hanshan.

Elder Gong's voice came from mid-air: "He has gone mad with demonic possession. And it's deteriorating at an extremely rapid pace. My suppression can only last for the time it takes for an incense stick to burn. If we can't find the source and remove the inner demon from the depths of his meridians within that time, the moment his spiritual power completely spirals out of control—"

He didn't finish speaking, but the unspoken meaning was clear enough.

Lin Qingyin had somehow arrived beside Li Hanshan. She frowned as she gazed at the middle-aged man in mid-air, who was exerting all his strength to suppress the attack: "Even a Void Refinement cultivator has suffered a cultivation deviation?"