The Eternal Saint of Alchemy

Xiao Fan gazed at the gradually dissipating dust and fell into deep thought.

As Deputy Hall Master Lu said, the items left behind by the Grandmaster of the Void Pill might attract the covetousness of some people, and could also be a threat.

The three replacements he left behind were enough to keep the system running, but overall, the spiritual energy output decreased by nearly 20%.

If they also came for the relics of the Supreme Pill Saint, then the changes in spiritual energy here cannot be anything but surprising.

"Let's go back." He turned and walked towards the carriage, took the longsword from inside, wrapped it in a soft cloth, and said, "Hurry up, hurry up."

Han Fei tugged on the reins and pulled the carriage away.

Ye Ruolin galloped on her horse, her clothes fluttering in the wind.

Deep within the basin, the two-colored bronze furnace stood quietly in the underground stone chamber. The spiritual energy between the twelve bases was stably connected through three substitutes, while the light from the central stone pillar was slightly dim.

Xiao Fan sat in the carriage, holding a jade bottle in his hand, from which a rich spiritual energy fluctuation emanated.

The sword lay horizontally beside him, separated by a soft cloth. Its weight was just right; it wouldn't sink in at all, only leaving a shallow mark on the ground.

The return journey was even more nerve-wracking than the journey there.

Han Fei traveled without stopping, changed horses at the post station, and traveled day and night, arriving at his destination in just four days.

On the third night, the carriage stopped at the edge of an open plain to rest.

We're not far from the Dan Tower now. Once we cross that low ridge ahead, we'll enter the Dan Tower's warning zone. In theory, this area should be safe.

Han Fei tied up the horse and prepared to start a fire to boil water. Xiao Fan stepped out of the platform, stretched his limbs, and saw a faint light flash across the horizon.

It was a color that was half dark and half purple, and it disappeared in a flash.

Xiao Fan stood beside the carriage, looking in that direction. The faint light there had disappeared, yet a trace of worry still lingered in his heart.

Ye Ruolin jumped off her horse, walked forward, and followed his gaze. "It's nothing," he shook his head.

Xiao Fan withdrew his gaze and said, "We'll go to the Pill Tower tomorrow, and then we'll discuss this matter further."

He turned and walked toward the fire, and just as he was about to add another piece of firewood, he suddenly felt a slight vibration.

The vibrations were steady and came from deep within the earth; they were almost imperceptible without focused attention. Xiao Fan's raised hand froze in mid-air as he watched the scene below.

Within his sea of ​​consciousness, the array base began to tremble violently.

Just then, a strong surge of spiritual energy suddenly emanated from the basin, penetrating through the thick soil and rocks and entering the array base in his mind.

He was very familiar with this fluctuation; it meant that one of the twelve bases had been forcibly removed.

Someone sabotaged the stand-in.

Xiao Fan's expression changed, and he stood up abruptly, his face filled with anger.

The twelve foundations deep within the basin form a closed-loop system of spiritual energy. If any one foundation is not replaced correctly, it will cause an imbalance in the entire system.

The intense tremor just now meant that the killer hadn't made any preparations at all and had simply taken the stand-in away.

He looked up towards the northeast. Ahead lay the Dan Tower, and behind him, the basin, a journey that would take several days.

It's too late to go back now. The only thing he can do now is to determine the extent of the system damage through the remote array base before deciding whether to return immediately.

"What's wrong?" Ye Ruolin noticed his expression and quickly stepped forward.

"Someone has damaged the basin system." As he spoke, he squatted down, placed his hands on the ground, and maximized his sensitivity to the array. He then used his divine sense to probe into the basin by following the spiritual energy veins on the ground.

The feedback he received caused him to frown slightly. The balance of spiritual energy in the entire system had been completely broken. The halo on the central stone pillar had been extinguished, and the other eleven halos were only barely maintaining their positions and had not completely collapsed.

Once the substitute is removed, the system enters a self-protection mode. It can maintain the normal operation of spiritual energy by reducing system output, but once the second substance is removed, the entire system will stop operating.

He withdrew his divine sense, looked towards the Dan Tower in the northeast, and then towards the dark plain behind him.

"The system can still hold up for now, but not for long. Are they really going to let them dismantle all twelve units?"

Ye Ruolin pondered for a moment and said, "Then I'll go with you. Since someone has tampered with your substitute, it means someone has found the entrance to that basin. If you go back by yourself, it might attract attention."

Xiao Fan glanced at her and nodded.

The next day, as dawn broke, the carriage set off again. After crossing the mountain ridge, they entered the area patrolled by the Pill Tower, where some patrolling cultivators had already appeared on the road.

On the third day, upon returning to the Pill Tower, Xiao Fan only had time to pack the Pill Sword, notes, jade bottle, and other items into the iron box in the courtyard specifically used for storing pills. He also exchanged a few words with Jiang Yuanji before leaving again.

Ye Ruolin had already prepared two fine horses. After he mounted them, she handed him a bag of water and two pieces of dry rations. "Perfect. If we travel at night, we can reach the basin by tomorrow morning."

Xiao Fan tied the dry rations and water to the saddle, looked back towards the direction of Dan Tower, flicked the reins, and mounted both horses at the same time, galloping off in the southwest direction.

We barely rested along the way.

The next morning, when Xiao Fan and Ye Ruolin returned to the valley entrance, it was just getting light, and a thin mist still shrouded the stone pillars.

Xiao Fan dismounted and quickly crossed the basin, arriving at a stone chamber. He then went up the stairs to a large stone chamber on the second floor. The further down he went, the thinner the surrounding spiritual energy became, as if something had been unlocked.

When he reached the last step, the entire underground space finally appeared before him.

The central stone pillar now lacks two of its halos.

Of the twelve stone platforms, two are empty. One of them is to replace the Fire Marrow Crystal slice on the Cold Platform. The Fire Marrow Crystal on the other stone platform has been removed. Due to the rough handling, a small piece of the edge of the stone platform has been cut off.

On another high platform, pills were laid out, but the platform was empty, and substitutes were scattered all over the ground.

After the platforms on both sides were removed, the spiritual energy network seemed to be cut off as well.

The remaining ten halos on the central stone pillar do not shine evenly; some halos are much dimmer than the others, flowing downwards like a river.

Xiao Fan walked to the two empty lecterns and squatted down.

There were some remaining fragments on the ground. Judging from their color, these fragments must have occurred in the last day or two, which coincided with the time he sensed the tremors.