The Eternal Saint of Alchemy

"Who do you think is behind her?"

Granny Miao squinted her eyes, pondered for a moment, and said, "When I was young, I heard that there was a reclusive sect in the Southern Frontier called the 'Black Fire Sect,' which specialized in cultivating evil fire techniques. They were elusive and never showed themselves."

It is said that their founder once obtained half of the Taiyin Danzun Scripture. However, that was a hundred years ago; I thought it was just a rumor.

Xiao Fan suddenly realized something. Could it be that the person who burned the East Sea Tower to ashes with a black flame a hundred years ago was the Black Flame Ancestor?

Grandma Miao looked at him without saying a word, but the expression on her face said it all.

That evening, the group set up camp in the valley.

Golden light shone through the gaps in the tower, like a soft lantern illuminating an area of ​​several feet in radius.

The miasma in the valley had stopped flowing, and the black lotuses that had been growing wildly had also stopped growing; some of the flower buds had even begun to wither.

Xiao Fan sat by the campfire and glanced again at the roll of silk he had taken out from the hidden compartment.

At the very end of the Taixu Dansheng's writings, there was another line of text that he hadn't noticed while he was busy lighting the lamps, but only discovered now.

"Once the lamp is lit, the soul power I left in the tower will return to the lamp and cannot be retrieved. However, as compensation, I have hidden something under the lamp base that can help those who come after find other pagodas. Use it, and you can obtain it."

Xiao Fan stood up, walked to the door, and peered inside through the crack. He visually assessed the location of the lamp base and, sure enough, there was a slightly raised stone brick beneath it, unlike the other stone bricks.

"I'm going to get something, it won't take long," he said to Yun Ruoxi, then slipped through the crack in the door.

The warm golden lamps inside the tower illuminated him completely.

He walked to the lamp base, bent down, and began to feel around on the stone slab. There was a small groove on the edge of the slab, and he carefully inserted his finger into it and gently pushed it.

The stone slab cracked, revealing a small square pit. At the bottom of the pit, a copper ball the size of a walnut lay quietly, its surface as smooth as a mirror, emitting a soft glow under the light.

Xiao Fan picked up the bronze ball and felt it was slightly warm to the touch.

He held the bronze ball up to his eyes and looked closely. He saw faint patterns flowing on it, like a nebula sealed inside.

A stream of true energy was poured into it, and the texture on the surface of the sphere immediately became clear, forming a three-dimensional map of mountains and rivers.

The complete map of the Nine Towers was created by the Grandmaster of Alchemy.

The icy North Sea, the Black Sand Sea of ​​the Western Regions, Qingyun Mountain, the Azure Wave Island of the East Sea, the Sunken Tower of the East Sea, the Black Stone Tower of the Southern Frontier, and three other towers he has not yet visited.

He looked at the three towers. One was located deep in the Thousand Mist Ridge in the southeast of the Great Qing Empire, one was far to the western edge of the desert, and the other... was thousands of miles away in the far south, without even a place name.

The shimmering light flowing across the surface of the bronze sphere paused for a moment on the last tower, as if reminding him that there was something special about it.

Xiao Fan put away the bronze ball and withdrew from the tower.

"Did you get it?" Yun Ruoxi walked over.

Xiao Fan nodded, took out the bronze ball, and handed it to her: "Nine pagodas. There are also three empty spaces."

Yun Ruoxi looked at the pattern on the sphere, then at the distant underwater tower, and then at Xiao Fan.

"The far south... seems quite far."

"It is very far." Xiao Fan put away the bronze ball and looked at the dark southern sky. "We still have plenty of time."

In the valley, the golden light of the Soul-Suppressing Lamp shone through the cracks in the tower gate, warming the entire valley.

The night wind blows through the dense forests of southern Xinjiang, rustling the leaves as if the passage of thousands of years is whispering.

The group stayed by the Black Stone Tower in Southern Xinjiang for three days, confirming that all the cracks had healed, the gate had been closed, and the light of the Soul-Suppressing Lamp had returned to normal before they began to pack up and return.

The night before his departure, Xiao Fan sat alone in front of the tower and took out the bronze ball to examine it closely.

The entire map of the Nine Towers shone with a soft glow under the moonlight. The five towers he had restored were all golden, and of the remaining four, the one in the southern border had already turned golden, while the other three were pale green, waiting for him to complete them.

He gently turned the bronze ball, his gaze sweeping over three different locations. The Thousand Mist Mountains, the closest to the capital of Daqing, were only half a month's journey away.

It lies on the edge of the westernmost desert, thousands of miles from the Black Sand Sea, stretching across the entire Western Regions. As for the one on the southernmost seabed… since there are no reference points on the map, he couldn't estimate the exact distance.

Just as he was about to return to camp, he suddenly felt the golden light in his mind flicker slightly.

Although the Grandmaster of the Void had poured all his soul power into the Soul-Suppressing Lamp in the Southern Frontier, a trace of soul energy remained in the jade slip and lingered deep within his sea of ​​consciousness.

Yun Ruoxi was already waiting outside. When she saw him come out, she said, "A person came from the northeast just now. They lingered at the edge of the woods for a while and then left. Granny Miao said that the person looked exactly the same and smelled of Gu needles. It should be the woman we met a few days ago."

"How did she end up here?" Xiao Fan nodded.

"I don't know either," Yun Ruoxi said. "Granny Miao said the Gu needles inside her body are still acting up, so she didn't dare to come over."

Xiao Fan glanced at the dark forest to the northeast, and his premonition grew stronger.

This girl is definitely not the mastermind. The person behind her must know that the tower in the southern border has been repaired and specially sent her to check the situation.

Having confirmed this, the tower in the Thousand Mist Mountains should be her next target.

Xiao Fan said, "We're setting off tomorrow. We need to go around the Thousand Mist Mountains to get back to the Pill Tower. We can't let them beat us to it."

He responded and went to pack his things.

The next morning, Granny Miao, along with A'duo and A'cai, led Xiao Fan and the other two to the north of the miasma forest.

Before leaving, Granny Miao took out a black insect shell and handed it to Xiao Fan: "This is the Gu worm I use to refine my body and protect your life. It's been there for twenty years. Take it. That underwater tower in the south is definitely not easy to deal with."

Xiao Fan carefully put it away, cupped his hands in thanks, and expressed his gratitude.

Grandma Miao waved her hand, and a rare smile appeared on her wrinkled face: "Young man, you're lucky. The insect tea from Southern Xinjiang is waiting for you to come back and drink it."

"Definitely." Xiao Fan smiled slightly.

After leaving southern Xinjiang, the group traveled north along the official road.