At the Tiger’s Gaping Maw outpost.
The bonfire burned fiercely.
A group of female demons had long since eaten and drunk their fill.
They sat around the bonfire, uneasy and nervously waiting.
Hong Yanzhi sat on a tree stump, her chin propped on her hands, eyes unfocused, not knowing whether she was thinking about Lang Buping.
Hua Yingying, Xiao Mili, and six other female demons sat in small groups, their faces full of worry.
Lin Xue sat alone on a flat rock. On the surface, she looked as though she were resting with her eyes closed, but in truth she was sensing Du Niangzi’s situation in her heart.
She could feel that Du Niangzi and the Black-Skinned Demon King were locked in a stalemate.
But she could also tell that Du Niangzi held the advantage.
The Black-Skinned Demon King was merely holding on by force.
Lin Xue felt reassured.
They existed only as cultivation vessels for the Black-Skinned Demon King.
Once the Black-Skinned Demon King died, they would be useless to Guo Shan Feng.
At that point, she could safely lead the female demons of Xixia Mountain away.
Guo Shan Feng would likely not chase a few female demons who had already lost all value.
What she needed to do now was endure until the teleportation spell on the ring finished cooling down, then wait for Du Niangzi to kill the Black-Skinned Demon King.
Lin Xue opened her eyes.
By now, nearly half an hour had passed.
Guo Shan Feng walked over to the bonfire.
“You eight, get up and get to work,” he commanded coldly.
What was coming had finally arrived.
They were about to be forced into dual cultivation.
Lin Xue stood up and patted the dust off her clothes.
She glanced discreetly at the fan stored in her storage space.
She had just borrowed it from Hong Yanzhi earlier, keeping it on her in case of emergencies.
The teleportation spell on the ring still had one and a half hours of cooldown time left.
For now, she could only take things one step at a time and think about how to endure this period, waiting to see when Du Niangzi could finally get rid of the Black-Skinned Demon King.
Hong Yanzhi, Hua Yingying, and the others also stood up and gathered around Lin Xue, standing with her.
Hua Yingying and the rest looked tense. None of them had ever experienced intimacy between men and women, and they all felt fear toward what was about to happen.
Guo Shan Feng pointed at the beast-skin huts in the open area and said coldly, “Eight huts. Each of you pick one and get inside to work. If you do not drain the yang energy from the men inside, do not come out.”
“I will give you one hour. After one hour, anyone who has not finished will end up like that tree.”
As he spoke, he flicked his hand. The long sword Lieyun shot out from his embrace and cleanly severed a large tree dozens of steps away, thick enough that two people could barely encircle it.
The tree crashed to the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.
Guo Shan Feng recalled Lieyun, held the sword, and stood to the side with a stern face. With a wave of his hand, he ordered, “Go.”
The female demons’ faces grew even worse.
Lin Xue took a deep breath and walked toward the farthest beast-skin wooden hut.
The others followed behind her, each choosing a hut and pushing the door open to go inside.
As Lin Xue walked, she calculated silently.
Guo Shan Feng had given them one hour, while the teleportation spell still had one and a half hours of cooldown remaining.
After subtracting that one hour, she only needed to find a way to endure the final half hour.
That half hour might require thinking of a solution involving the human cultivator inside the hut.
Lin Xue reached the hut and opened the door.
The room was small, filled with the mixed smell of beast skin and wood. A torch burned on the wall, lighting the entire space.
The furnishings were extremely simple, with only a wooden bed.
A young cultivator who looked only sixteen or seventeen years old lay on the bed, his hands and feet bound to the four bedposts, a wad of beast skin stuffed in his mouth.
Lin Xue was somewhat surprised.
This minor cultivator was actually so young.
His face was full of youthful innocence. He was still just a child.
After dealing with demons for so long, seeing a human again made Lin Xue feel an inexplicable sense of familiarity.
After all, she had lived as a human for more than twenty years. Deep down, she still identified as human.
But the state of this young cultivator was clearly abnormal.
He appeared to be at the middle stage of Qi Refining.
His eyes were unfocused, and when he saw Lin Xue, his face filled with excitement.
His body was highly aroused as he struggled desperately, muffled sounds coming from his mouth, his eyes burning with desire.
At a glance, Lin Xue could tell that the child had been drugged with an aphrodisiac.
Right now, his mind was probably filled with nothing but thoughts of doing shameful things with a woman.
Guo Shan Feng had added large amounts of aphrodisiacs to the food of these captured cultivators to ensure the female demons could smoothly harvest their yang energy, keeping them in an extremely aroused state so they would willingly give up their primordial yang.
Lin Xue naturally had no intention of doing such a thing with this young cultivator.
Although she pitied his youth, she was barely able to protect herself and had no way to save him.
She walked to the bedside, ignored his struggles, and began searching his body.
She wanted to see whether he had a storage pouch or carried any cultivation methods with him.
She still had over ten thousand experience points.
If there was any powerful technique she could use, upgrading it with crystal stones might give her an extra trump card to help her endure the final half hour.
The young cultivator’s waist pouch was gone, likely taken by the demons when he was captured.
She checked his sleeves as well, but there was nothing.
There was no ring on his fingers either.
Lin Xue felt disappointed.
Human cultivators usually stored items in waist pouches, sleeves, or rings. Storing items elsewhere was rare.
It was highly likely that this boy’s storage artifact had already been taken by the lesser beasts.
Unwilling to give up, Lin Xue examined him more carefully.
Only then did she notice a wooden bracelet on his wrist.
The bracelet looked plain and ordinary, clearly not valuable, which was why it had not been taken.
However, faint spiritual energy lingered around it. It was clearly a magic artifact.
Lin Xue’s spirits lifted.
Bracelets were often defensive artifacts, but defensive artifacts usually contained much stronger spiritual energy.
The weak energy from this bracelet suggested it was not for protection.
Could it be for storage?
Lin Xue tried touching the bracelet and sent a thread of demon aura into it.
A thin restriction blocked her probe.
But beneath the restriction, she clearly sensed something similar to a storage space.
Lin Xue felt delighted.
She was now a Grand Demon at the middle stage of Core Condensation. A mere Qi Refinement restriction was nothing to her.
With a surge of demon power, she easily broke through it.
Immediately, she saw a tiny space less than one square meter in size. Inside were a set of jade talismans, a jade slip, and several small wooden carvings.
Lin Xue’s heart began to pound.
She did not know what the jade talismans were, but she recognized the jade slip.
Jade slips were extremely common information storage items in this world, capable of holding text and images.
Many cultivators used them to record cultivation methods.
With a thought, the jade slip flew out of the storage space and landed in her hand.
Lin Xue silently prayed, ‘Guanyin Bodhisattva, Divine Emperor of Jade, Lord Jesus, ancestors of old, please bless me. It must be a cultivation method.’
She took a deep breath and injected demon power into the jade slip.
Complex patterns and text immediately appeared before her eyes.
The system panel popped up with a line of text:
Detected magic formation “Ninefold Mystic Wall Formation.” Recording complete. Experience points may be used to learn it.
A formation?
Lin Xue froze, then felt deeply disappointed.
Why was it a formation?
What she wanted was an offensive spell or technique.
Yet this cultivator had brought a formation.
Formations usually required multiple people to deploy and were mostly defensive and immobile.
She was alone and planning to escape. What use was an immobile formation to her?
Feeling dejected, Lin Xue tossed the jade slip back into the bracelet’s storage space and took out the jade talismans.
The talismans were exquisitely made, a total of nine pieces, covered in fine engraved patterns.
Lin Xue recalled seeing these talisman patterns in the Ninefold Mystic Wall Formation.
Since the cultivator had stored them together, they were likely used to deploy the formation.
She returned the talismans to the bracelet as well.
She checked the remaining items one by one, but none were noteworthy.
Lin Xue sat down on the edge of the bed in disappointment.
Listening to the young cultivator struggling and making muffled sounds behind her, she felt irritated.
Out of boredom, she added one hundred experience points to the Ninefold Mystic Wall Formation in the system, just to learn a bit about it.
‘Maybe it will be useful someday.’
As the experience points were invested, a flood of formation-related knowledge instantly appeared in her mind.
She casually skimmed through it.
Then her eyes widened, and a look of joy spread across her face.
This Ninefold Mystic Wall Formation was useful.
Most formations became fixed once their core and positions were set and could not be moved freely.
But this formation was different. It was an extremely flexible defensive formation deployed by nine cultivators.
It required a prepared set of jade talismans and nine cultivators trained in the formation.
Each cultivator carried one talisman. No fixed positions were required.
As long as the nine remained within a certain range and simultaneously activated their talismans according to the formation, they could produce a considerable defensive effect.
Nine Qi Refinement cultivators working together could temporarily withstand a full-power strike from a Golden Core cultivator.
Lin Xue was overjoyed.
Was this not exactly what she needed?
With this formation, she could hold out against Guo Shan Feng’s attacks until the teleportation spell finished cooling down, until the Black-Skinned Demon King died.
However, deploying this formation required nine cultivators proficient in it.
Including herself, Hong Yanzhi, and Xiao Mili, there were only eight of them. They were missing one.
Becoming proficient was not difficult. Lin Xue could master it through experience points.
Once she mastered it, Hong Yanzhi and the others would naturally master it as well.
But where would the ninth cultivator come from?
Lin Xue turned her gaze to the young cultivator lying on the bed, staring at her with burning eyes, panting impatiently.
She thought, ‘Since he carries this formation, he must be fairly proficient in it.’
It seemed she had no choice but to wake him up and ask.
Lin Xue immediately activated the Wood Spirit Detoxification Technique.
A wooden needle formed in her hand, and with a flick of her finger, she shot it into the young cultivator’s arm.
The originally green needle gradually turned pink.
As the drug effects were absorbed, the frenzy and distortion on the young cultivator’s face faded, and he slowly regained clarity.
He blinked and looked at Lin Xue.
Although his eyes were full of wariness and hostility, there was also a hint of amazement, as if marveling that such a beautiful woman existed.
Lin Xue pulled the beast skin from his mouth.
“Cough, cough. Ptoo, ptoo.” The young cultivator coughed several times and spat out filth.
“Who are you?” he stared at Lin Xue and asked.
Lin Xue raised a finger to her lips, signaling him to be quiet.
The young cultivator closed his mouth.
After listening to the sounds outside and confirming no one was eavesdropping, Lin Xue asked softly, “Do you want to live?”
The young cultivator froze and asked in a low voice, “You can save me?”
Lin Xue nodded. “I can only say I can give you a chance to survive.”
The young cultivator stared at her, his face full of doubt.
Lin Xue reached out and touched his bracelet, taking the jade talismans from the storage space.
The young cultivator panicked instantly.
His mouth flew open, about to shout.
Lin Xue reacted quickly, stuffing the beast skin back into his mouth the instant he opened it.
“Mmmph.” His curses were muffled by the beast skin.
Lin Xue rubbed her forehead and scolded in a low voice, “Do you want to die? Trying to draw the demons here?”
The young cultivator’s eyes were filled with anger, clearly blaming her for taking his things.
Lin Xue raised the jade talismans coldly and said, “If you die, what use are these to you? I am trying to save you. Can you tell what matters more?”
The young cultivator was still indignant but finally calmed down.
Lin Xue removed the beast skin again.
This time, he did not struggle, but his eyes were fixed on the talismans.
Lin Xue asked, “Do you know the Ninefold Mystic Wall Formation?”
He froze and said, “How do you know—”
Then he remembered that Lin Xue had broken the restriction on his bracelet and must have seen the jade slip.
He snorted and said coldly, “This is my Li family’s inherited formation. How could I not know it?”
Lin Xue relaxed and said, “Good.”
She returned one talisman to his bracelet and said, “I have eight people here. The other eight talismans will stay with me. After one hour, you must activate the formation with us to resist the demons’ attack for at least half an hour.”
“If we are lucky, after that half hour, I can take you and my companions away from here.”
The young cultivator looked at her strangely, as if he had heard a joke.
He sneered. “Just you? Do you think my Li family’s formation can be used by just anyone who glances at it?”
He shook his head mockingly. “Wishful thinking.”
Lin Xue scoffed.
Who was he looking down on?
She crossed her arms and looked down at him, snorting.
“Young man, do not speak so absolutely. There are always greater people beyond you. Although I have only seen it once, I already understand this formation completely. When it comes to understanding it, you probably are not even my equal.”
The young cultivator flew into a rage. “Outrageous. I, Li Tianyu, have studied formations since I learned to read. Even though this formation is simple, it took me three years to fully master it. You, a woman, glanced at it once and dare claim full mastery? You do not know your own limits. No wonder my father always says women are all looks and no brains. You really have no brains.”
Hearing this, Lin Xue did not know whether to laugh or cry.
She said, “If you do not believe me, ask me any question about the formation, and I will answer it. I will convince you completely.”
As she spoke, she summoned the system panel and kept tapping the plus sign next to the formation.
After four hundred experience points, the formation could no longer be upgraded.
She had fully mastered it.
Arms crossed, she waited for Li Tianyu’s question.
Seeing her confident expression, Li Tianyu scoffed.
“Fine. I will ask you a simple question. If you can answer it, not only will I agree to what you said, I will even take you as my master.”
Then he added, “And if you cannot answer it?”
Lin Xue snorted and played with the jade talismans. “If I cannot answer, I will return all your talismans, formally apologize, and take you as my master.”
Seeing such a beautiful woman say she would become his disciple if she failed, Li Tianyu blushed, excitement flashing across his face. “Deal.”
He thought carefully and asked a question he had once found somewhat difficult when he first learned the formation.
In his view, even if Lin Xue had a photographic memory and remembered everything after one glance, she would not be able to answer such a deep question.
Then, when she was left speechless, he could explain it to her clearly and show her that the formation was not as simple as she thought.
Li Tianyu felt certain he would become the master.
This woman was beautiful, but clearly did not know her limits.
He waited eagerly to see her awkward, speechless expression.
However, after hearing his question, Lin Xue merely smiled faintly and then gave the correct explanation.
Li Tianyu was stunned.
He was left completely speechless.
Her explanation was not only correct but concise and precise, even more reasonable than the answer he had prepared, as if she had studied the formation thoroughly long ago.
‘Did she really only look at it once?’
Li Tianyu felt his worldview collapse.