Now, Wei Tu’s cultivation had reached the late Foundation Establishment stage. Once he advanced to the peak of Foundation Establishment, he could use that ten-thousand-year spirit medicine, the Three-Eyed Silver Toad, to begin forming his Golden Core and break through to the Golden Core realm.

Logically speaking—

There was no real need for him to acknowledge a mid-stage Golden Core cultivator as his master at this moment.

But—

Without the aid of medicinal pills,

Going from late Foundation Establishment "Minor Accomplishment" to the "Peak" stage wasn’t something that could be achieved in just a short while.

Under normal circumstances, it would take Wei Tu at least forty to fifty years to reach the peak. Even with ample pills, he could only cut that time by half at best—still needing more than twenty years of cultivation.

—The Yuan Refined Technique had the effect of purifying mana. However, by the time one reached late Foundation Establishment, its purification effect was far less potent than it was during early or mid stages, requiring significantly more effort and energy.

This “cultivation period” would also be Wei Tu’s “vulnerable period.”

And right now, the world was in chaos.

Having a Golden Core True Lord to rely on was far better than having no backing at all.

So, from this angle, becoming True Lord Che’s disciple was a win-win situation.

True Lord Che could advance the Rogue Cultivator Alliance’s long-term plan and extend his influence into Zheng Kingdom’s cultivation world, while Wei Tu would gain a powerful Golden Core master for protection—ensuring peace and stability for his cultivation.

Besides, becoming a disciple brought another benefit—

That was, when it came time for Wei Tu to form his core, he wouldn’t just be able to tap into the Alliance’s third-rank spiritual veins, he’d also be able to receive protection from Rogue Cultivator Alliance cultivators.

That particular advantage was something Wei Tu valued deeply.

A stable cultivation environment had become one of the most precious “cultivation resources” for rogue cultivators of both Zheng and Jing.

...

After weighing the pros and cons,

Wei Tu didn’t hesitate any longer. He immediately expressed his stance: “To be accepted as Senior Che’s disciple is a blessing beyond measure—how could I possibly refuse?”

“I was just caught off guard a moment ago and didn’t respond right away. I hope Senior Gao won’t take offense.”

He followed up with this explanation.

After all, when a Golden Core cultivator extended an invitation to take someone as a disciple, most cultivators would be overwhelmed with joy and agree on the spot. Very few would pause and deliberate like he had.

To outsiders, his cultivation was still only at mid Foundation Establishment. For him to form a Golden Core, it would likely take one or two hundred years. True Lord Che accepting him as a disciple now clearly meant he saw great potential in him—it was no different than bestowing grace.

Still, Gao Chen wasn’t bothered by the delay.

Taking a master wasn’t a trivial matter—it was a lifelong decision for a cultivator.

It couldn’t be treated lightly.

In Gao Chen’s eyes, Wei Tu’s hesitation only proved his cautious and thoughtful nature. Cultivators with such character tended to be mature, capable of shouldering responsibilities, and trustworthy.

“At the moment, Master is still in closed-door cultivation. Once he emerges, I’ll report this matter to him immediately,” Gao Chen said, his tone friendlier than before. His form of address also changed.

He now called Wei Tu “Junior Brother,” no longer “Daoist Friend” as before.

After all, Wei Tu was still at the Foundation Establishment stage, while he himself was in the False Core realm. There was no competition between them within True Lord Che’s faction.

“Junior Brother Wei, I have a spare estate that’s currently vacant. You’re welcome to stay there for now.” After a moment’s thought, Gao Chen pulled a cave dwelling token from his sleeve and handed it to Wei Tu.

“Thank you, Senior Brother Gao.”

Wei Tu accepted the token and likewise changed how he addressed him.

Not only did the Rogue Cultivator Alliance have internal factions, but even among True Lord Che’s disciples, there were their own cliques. By accepting Gao Chen’s offer, Wei Tu had, in a sense, aligned himself with Gao Chen’s faction.

...

The estate Gao Chen mentioned was located in the secondary core district of Honghe Mountain Market.

It was a quasi-third-rank cave dwelling.

“Cloudsmoke Residence?” Standing at the entrance, Wei Tu looked up at the plaque nailed to the lintel and softly repeated the name to himself.

He activated the cave dwelling’s formation and walked in.

Since it was a borrowed space, Wei Tu didn’t wander around the other rooms in “Cloudsmoke Residence.” He headed straight for the cultivation chamber.

“Before long, the Wind-Cleaving Eagle will break through to late second-rank. But late second-rank draws too much attention…” In the chamber, Wei Tu glanced at the storage pouch at his waist, narrowing his eyes.

Even after leaving Cicada Cry Cliff, he hadn’t forgotten his agreement with the Beastmaster Sect.

—If the Wind-Cleaving Eagle broke through to late second-rank before completing the breeding process, that wouldn’t be good for him. Its rapid advancement could expose the existence of the Myriad Spirits Demon Infant.

No matter how talented a Earth-rank bloodline spirit beast might be, it couldn’t possibly advance two minor stages in just fifty years and reach late second-rank.

“For now, I’ll stop feeding it the Immortal Spirit Dew. Once it’s done leaving a seed, I’ll resume everything as usual,” Wei Tu thought.

“There’s also… that black finger bone…”

Wei Tu patted the spirit beast pouch and released the Wind-Cleaving Eagle, planning to seize this chance to extract the black finger bone embedded in its abdomen.

Back at Cicada Cry Cliff, Wei Tu had considered removing the “black finger bone” early—

But now, due to a series of coincidences, the black finger bone had taken deep root in the eagle’s stomach. It had parasitized the beast’s body, feeding on its flesh and growing larger than before.

If he had removed the bone while still at Cicada Cry Cliff, the Wind-Cleaving Eagle would have suffered serious damage, greatly weakening its combat strength.

For safety’s sake,

Wei Tu chose not to act rashly back then and postponed the operation until now.

Three days later, thanks to Wei Tu’s precise control, he successfully excised the parasitic black finger bone from the Wind-Cleaving Eagle’s body.

Compared to several decades ago, the black finger bone was now slightly larger in size, and a thin black membrane had grown over its surface.

The black membrane clung tightly to the bone, making it look like a mummified finger soaked in gloom for countless years.

“Caw! Caw!” At that moment, the Wind-Cleaving Eagle, still drowsy from the anesthetic Wei Tu had given it, let out a few faint cries, completely unaware that a piece of it had just been removed.

Staring at the black finger bone for a moment,

Wei Tu’s heart stirred. Mimicking the action he’d performed back in the secret realm, he channeled several threads of mana into the bone.

Just like last time—

Once infused with mana, the black finger bone regained some of its sentience. A faint blood-colored glow appeared across its surface. It hovered in midair and began writing lines of blood-red script across the ground.

But unlike before, this time the number of characters the black bone wrote was over a thousand, several times more than the few hundred from the previous instance.

“The first three layers of the ‘Profound Nether Yin Fire’ technique?” Wei Tu swept the blood script with his divine sense and instantly recognized what the black finger bone had transcribed.

Back in the secret realm, the few hundred characters it had produced were only the first layer of the “Profound Nether Yin Fire” technique—a demonic spell—not the full cultivation method.

“So, to get this demonic bone artifact to produce the complete technique, I’ll likely have to perform a blood sacrifice to fully awaken it…” After recording the blood script into a jade slip, Wei Tu studied the black finger bone carefully, mulling over the situation.

Things were different now.

His outlook was far broader than when he had first entered the Cloud Ze Secret Realm over thirty years ago.

At the time, he’d fed the black finger bone to the Wind-Cleaving Eagle merely as a precaution.

Who could have expected it to directly parasitize the eagle?

But in truth, this wasn’t exactly “parasitism.” It was more like a fateful mismatch—by coincidence, the Wind-Cleaving Eagle had become the bone’s natural sacrificial vessel.

That said, since no blood ritual had been performed to forcibly offer it up, the eagle hadn’t suffered much—its vitality remained intact, its core essence unharmed.

“Should I cultivate this Profound Nether Yin Fire? After all, it’s not like the True Demonic Refinement Art. I don’t actually need it…” Wei Tu hesitated internally.

The True Demonic Refinement Art was a body-refining technique. By cultivating it, he could disguise himself as a demonic cultivator and gain a potential backup identity in this chaotic world.

But the Profound Nether Yin Fire was different. It was just a powerful demonic spell. While it could become another life-saving trump card, it wouldn’t significantly affect his current cultivation path.

However—

The upper limit of this divine ability was extremely high.

It could very well be a peak third-rank, possibly even a fourth-rank divine ability—a Nascent Soul-level spell.

The allure of a Nascent Soul divine ability to a cultivator… went without saying.

“Within the Foundation Establishment realm, I already have enough life-saving means. There’s no need to add Profound Nether Yin Fire. Even if I succeed in learning it, its benefits to my current strength are limited. Worse, it could steal time from more important training.”

After pondering for a moment, Wei Tu calmed himself and shook his head, suppressing the impulse to begin cultivating the Profound Nether Yin Fire while still in the Foundation Establishment realm.

Time for cultivators was always limited.

Even with his Late Bloomer destiny, which made learning techniques and divine abilities easier than for others, he still couldn’t split himself in too many directions. It was nearly impossible to take on another high-level demonic divine ability without delaying his main cultivation.

The Yuan Refined Technique.

The Hundred Veins Blood Tempering Art.

The True Demonic Refinement Art.

These three techniques alone had already consumed a great deal of his energy. It would be extremely difficult to add another top-tier demonic divine ability on top of that.

Decades ago—

He had purchased a first-rank pill furnace at the Golden Moon Cliff exchange event hosted by the Heshan Huang Clan, with the intention of studying pill refining alongside his talisman craft.

But after so many years,

He’d opened a pill furnace fewer than one hundred times. His alchemy proficiency was barely on par with a first-rank mid-grade alchemist—extremely limited.

It wasn’t because he was lazy, lacked determination, or had planned poorly.

It was simply that “human energy is finite.” The time he’d set aside for alchemy was often swallowed up by more pressing matters.

…

After waiting for roughly half a year—

That day, Gao Chen sent a talisman message, summoning Wei Tu to his cave dwelling immediately, without delay.

“True Lord Che must’ve finished his seclusion.” Wei Tu’s eyes flickered. In a flash, he left Cloudsmoke Residence.

A short while later—

Wei Tu arrived at Gao Chen’s cave dwelling.

But inside the cave, there was more than just Gao Chen. Another cultivator was present—a red-lipped, white-toothed dwarf with distinct green eyebrows.

This dwarf was dressed in traditional Daoist robes, pitch black.

“Late Foundation Establishment?” Wei Tu sensed the cultivation of this green-browed dwarf and was silently taken aback.

It wasn’t the cultivation level that shocked him—he’d met many late Foundation Establishment cultivators before.

What startled him was the dwarf’s youthful appearance. He looked no older than seven or eight, and his bone age wasn’t even over two hundred.

A late Foundation Establishment at under two hundred years of age—such talent would be considered extraordinary even in the top-tier sects.

“This is Pei Ye. Like Junior Brother Wei, he is also someone Master intends to take as a disciple,” Gao Chen said, glancing at Wei Tu as he took his seat, making the introduction.

“Wei Tu, the Talisman Master?” Pei Ye echoed Wei Tu’s name, clearly having heard of him before.

“Green brows… childlike appearance…”

At that moment, Wei Tu also began to form his own guesses about Pei Ye’s true identity.

This time, the disciple True Lord Che was planning to take was a Zheng Kingdom rogue cultivator. And among all the rogue cultivators in Zheng Kingdom who had made a name for themselves, there were only a handful to count.

“Qingmei Shangren.” Wei Tu sifted through his memories and recalled the nickname that the green-browed dwarf had earned in the Zheng Kingdom cultivation world.

Come to think of it, Qingmei Shangren was indeed quite famous in the Zheng Kingdom.

His notoriety didn’t come from his looks, but rather from his tragic background.

Qingmei Shangren was born with a “Profound Wood Spirit Body” and came from a rogue cultivator family. But since his spiritual body hadn’t awakened when he was young, he was guided by his parents to cultivate the family’s inherited metal-element technique.

In the five elements, metal overcomes wood.

The deeper Qingmei Shangren cultivated the metal-element technique, the more damage his Profound Wood Spirit Body suffered.

Because of this, not only was his spirit body ruined, but even his appearance was permanently fixed in a child’s form—he never grew up.

A damaged Profound Wood Spirit Body had limited potential.

One of the Golden Core True Lords from a major sect once commented on Qingmei Shangren, saying that he had no chance of ever reaching the Golden Core realm—his Foundation Establishment was his ceiling.

“Qingmei Shangren is becoming True Lord Che’s disciple… does that mean True Lord Che thinks he can cure him?” Wei Tu raised a brow slightly.

The Golden Core realm was a fusion of essence, energy, and spirit.

Qingmei Shangren’s rise came from his Profound Wood Spirit Body, but it was also the cause of his stagnation. The broken spirit body had granted him speed in cultivation far beyond others, but also shackled him forever at the Foundation Establishment stage.

“Wait... a faint fragrance?” Wei Tu’s nose twitched. From Qingmei Shangren, he caught a subtle orchid-like scent.

“Could he actually be a woman…”

Wei Tu was surprised.

But this wasn’t something he could easily confirm.

Qingmei Shangren had preserved a childlike body—no Adam’s apple, no visible male traits. It was hard to judge his gender based on those alone.

“It’s none of my business.” Wei Tu shook his head, deciding not to dig deeper into Qingmei Shangren’s secrets.

“Since both Daoist Wei and Daoist Pei are here, come with me to meet Master,” Gao Chen said after giving the introduction, not wasting any time.

As his voice faded—

Qingmei Shangren paused slightly. He looked up at Wei Tu, and a trace of bitter smile appeared on his lips.

From Gao Chen’s words, he could tell how highly Gao Chen regarded Wei Tu.

Keep in mind—he was already at late Foundation Establishment, one small realm above Wei Tu. But Gao Chen mentioned Wei Tu first and him second.

That kind of subtle favoritism—Qingmei Shangren hadn’t felt something like that in quite a while.

“Wei Tu.” Qingmei Shangren stood still, staring at Wei Tu’s back as he silently repeated his name.

Though he had heard of Wei Tu before, it was only in passing. He never imagined Wei Tu had already caught True Lord Che’s attention…

…

True Lord Che’s cave dwelling was located at the peak of Red River Mountain, the most central area of the entire market.

The spiritual energy here had already reached the level of a third-rank spirit vein, no weaker than what Wei Tu had experienced at Yunhe Mountain.

“Red River Mountain Marketplace started out as a small one, with only a first-rank spirit vein. After the Loose Immortal Alliance moved in, it was Master Qi, the formation master, who personally laid down five third-rank spirit veins brought from the Jing Kingdom and set up the ‘Heaven-Stealing Element Converting Array’...”

As host, Gao Chen casually shared the history of the marketplace’s development while leading Wei Tu and Qingmei Shangren up the mountain.

Not long after—

With Gao Chen leading, Wei Tu and Qingmei Shangren arrived at the outer hall of True Lord Che’s cave dwelling and were seated in the front reception room.

But what surprised Wei Tu was—

Inside the front hall, two other groups entered shortly after them.

Judging by their conversation, it wasn’t hard to figure out—they too had come to apprentice under True Lord Che.

“How many disciples is True Lord Che planning to take?” Seeing this, Wei Tu’s anticipation about becoming True Lord Che’s disciple dropped quite a bit.

In his view, with so many disciples, how could True Lord Che possibly have time to personally guide them? This whole thing was clearly more about expanding influence under the pretense of taking disciples.

Disciples in name—subordinates in truth.

It wasn’t that different from the adoptive sons taken by military generals in the mortal world.

“Then again, maybe this is for the best. If True Lord Che really took me as a personal disciple, I’d be more worried about my secrets being exposed.” Wei Tu quickly calmed down again.

He didn’t have high expectations from True Lord Che.

Just two things.

First, a stable environment for cultivation.

Second, access to a third-rank spirit vein when condensing his Golden Core.

These two things didn’t require him to be an inner disciple—just being an ordinary disciple under True Lord Che would suffice.

But for other cultivators, that might not be enough.

Like Qingmei Shangren.

When he learned that True Lord Che was willing to take him in, he was overjoyed, thinking the True Lord might be able to cure his “incurable condition.” With that hope, he had rushed to Red River Mountain Marketplace and waited eagerly for the chance to meet him.

Little did he know—

True Lord Che’s real goal was not to cure him but to make him a “fighting force,” not a “disciple.”

That gap in expectation was hard for Qingmei Shangren to accept.

If it weren’t for the fact that they were inside True Lord Che’s cave dwelling right now, Qingmei Shangren might’ve already lashed out in frustration.

Besides Qingmei Shangren—

The two other groups of cultivators who came seeking apprenticeship also had their own mixed feelings.

“Don’t worry, Junior Brother Wei,” came Gao Chen’s voice again, entering Wei Tu’s ear.

“Master is accepting disciples for two purposes this time. One is to select a true inner disciple. The other is to expand his influence.”

“As a talisman master, your chances of becoming an inner disciple are very high.”