Hu Wenhai's situation indeed caused quite a stir within the sect.

After all, who has ever seen such a peculiar talisman master?

But despite the commotion, no one thought there was anything wrong.

After all, Hu Wenhai was a genius personally discovered by Senior Brother Xinghe.

Can you name anyone discovered by Senior Brother Xinghe who wasn't a genius?

Anyone who wasn't a weirdo?

Look at the Ouyang family when they first arrived. They weren't just doing things wrong; what they did couldn't even be called humanly decent!

Although the Ouyang family still doesn't do much decent work now, when they claim to be the best in the world in the field of artifact forging, who dares to oppose them?

Don't be fooled by the Ouyang family squatting in the Dark Moon Palace every day, waiting to eat demonic beasts. When it comes to forging skills, Ouyang Ming is truly top-tier.

Have you ever seen someone use a Holy Artifact like the Demon Slayer as a bone knife?

What? You say Hu Wenhai is wasting resources?

In terms of wasting resources, Hu Wenhai is indeed terrifying, but can he compare to the Ouyang family?

The number of furnaces the Ouyang family has blown up could circle our Grand Sky Sect three times.

So Hu Wenhai is just waiting for an opportunity, a chance to rise.

Meanwhile, disciples from various palaces of the Grand Sky Sect are speculating about when Hu Wenhai will showcase his extraordinary side.

As for when Hu Wenhai will show his extraordinary side, Chu Xinghe doesn't know. He only knows that these past few days have been the happiest of his year.

Look at these days, the elective courses he set up are consuming sect resources like crazy, thanks to the efforts of the disciples from various palaces.

Plus, the newly arrived Thunder Hand, Brother Ben, truly lives up to his nickname.

The resources are being consumed like nobody's business.

Batch after batch of resources are being allocated, and Hu Wenhai is consuming them non-stop, almost catching up with the peak period of the Ouyang family.

With this two-pronged approach, the Compass of Misfortune has even started to turn slowly.

Watching the turning Compass of Misfortune, Chu Xinghe really wanted to shout, "Heaven bless me, Chu Xinghe!"

In such joyful times, Chu Xinghe was contemplating whether to arrange for the Dark Moon Clan to cause another explosion.

But after thinking it over, Chu Xinghe decided not to get too carried away.

The Compass of Misfortune finally gave him a chance to consume sect resources, and he should learn to be content.

As the saying goes, "The heart is never satisfied, like a snake trying to swallow an elephant." Slow consumption and gradual improvement are already very enjoyable.

Although the Dark Moon Clan's consumption is enormous, who knows what bizarre things might happen if they really explode again?

Besides, even if nothing bizarre comes out of it, there's currently no suitable place to let the Dark Moon Clan recklessly explode things.

Although he really wanted to send the Dark Moon Clan to blow up the Cloud Soar Sect's base, it seemed a bit inappropriate from a moral standpoint.

So Chu Xinghe temporarily shelved the idea of involving the Dark Moon Clan and chose to quietly enjoy this hard-earned happy life.

A year... the Compass of Misfortune finally did something decent.

Every morning, he had a very light breakfast of braised pork... then went to the Dark Moon Palace to check for any mishaps...

After confirming that everyone's elective courses were making no progress, he happily went to visit Brother Ben. But this time, Chu Xinghe was smarter.

He only watched from a distance, never giving close guidance.

He had learned from multiple experiences that every time something went wrong, it was because he accidentally opened up all sorts of bizarre inspirations for them.

So this time, he only observed from afar, not saying a word.

Moreover, not only did he keep himself away from Hu Wenhai, but he also arranged for Ma Liang, Ouyang Ming, and a series of backstabbers to stay clear.

Using the excuse that Hu Wenhai needed to retreat for talisman cultivation, he resolutely prevented the backstabbers from having any chance to approach and assimilate Hu Wenhai.

This emphasized stability.

After checking the Dark Moon Palace, he spent the afternoon slacking off at the Skill Tower. If it weren't for having to go to the Spirit Crane Palace every evening to learn alchemy, Chu Xinghe would consider this day perfect to the extreme.

It's not that Chu Xinghe wanted to learn alchemy; it's mainly because of the Great Elder...

The Great Elder had a huge opinion about him, the Medicine Saint's inheritor, not reaching the Ninth Grade Alchemist level after so long.

The Great Elder said, "Xinghe... you're the Medicine Saint's inheritor, right? Look at how long it's been, and you're still just an Eighth Grade Alchemist. You haven't even stepped into the Ninth Grade. Aren't you ashamed?"

Hearing the Great Elder's words, Chu Xinghe was teary-eyed...

Well... Great Elder, do you hear yourself?

What's wrong with the Medicine Saint's inheritance? It's been just over a year since I received it, and I'm already an Eighth Grade Alchemist... do you know what that means?

The Medicine Saint took five years to go from an alchemy apprentice to the Eighth Grade.

But hearing Chu Xinghe's defense, the Great Elder slammed the table and said, "What's the Medicine Saint compared to you, Xinghe?"

Chu Xinghe: "..."

So, Chu Xinghe could only spend time every evening learning various alchemy knowledge from the Great Elder.

But I have to say, the stuff in the Medicine Saint's inheritance is really fierce.

Chu Xinghe didn't pay much attention to the Medicine Saint's inheritance before, but now that he's studying it, he found that it contains not only alchemy knowledge but also many bizarre things.

Like voodoo...

Although voodoo is called a poison technique, it's not just about poisoning.

As the saying goes, "All medicines have some poison," voodoo is actually the strongest alchemy technique from ancient times.

Voodoo has been passed down from ancient times, and over the course of history, it gradually got lost, leaving only alchemy today, with voodoo existing only in some ancient texts.

However, the Medicine Saint was a ruthless person, somehow obtaining some records of voodoo and even researching it, so the Medicine Saint's inheritance contains some voodoo knowledge.

And voodoo is different from ordinary alchemy; alchemy is just a branch of voodoo.

If it were true voodoo, almost nothing in the world couldn't be turned into medicine, including poisonous insects, plants, and flowers.

Unfortunately, even in the Medicine Saint's inheritance, there's only a small part about voodoo, so Chu Xinghe doesn't dare to try it, only gaining some understanding.

Regarding voodoo, Chu Xinghe specifically asked the Great Elder.

For Xinghe's first initiative to ask about alchemy, the Great Elder was very attentive.

However, despite his attention, the Great Elder didn't know much about voodoo. He only knew that in ancient times, the last voodoo master supposedly sealed all his knowledge in a divine artifact called the Green Wood Dragon Cauldron.

But there's not much record about what this Green Wood Dragon Cauldron is, and voodoo was lost from that time. Later alchemy was just a fragmented version derived from some records of ancient voodoo by generations of alchemists.

What? You ask why not study other aspects of voodoo?

It's not that they don't want to, but they can't... because the "poison" in voodoo is about using poison to counteract poison. Many alchemists have tried, but the result was that instead of curing the poison, they ended up poisoning the patient to death...

So complete voodoo can only remain a legend.

Over the years, countless people have searched for the whereabouts of the Green Wood Dragon Cauldron, but it has never appeared...

The Great Elder also advised Xinghe not to use the voodoo in the Medicine Saint's inheritance recklessly, as even the Medicine Saint was only a half-baked researcher in voodoo.

If you really use it, who knows what strange reactions might occur, so for safety's sake, the Great Elder's advice is for Xinghe to just understand it, but never use it...

This time, Chu Xinghe agreed with the Great Elder.

After all, voodoo is something that can poison people to death if mishandled, so it really shouldn't be used recklessly.

The joyful days went by one after another.

One day, after finally enduring the Great Elder's lecture, Chu Xinghe was about to go rest when the Great Elder spoke.

"Xinghe... you don't need to come to learn alchemy with me tomorrow. Prepare yourself; the day for the once-every-five-years evaluation of the Top Ten Sects is coming."

Hearing the Great Elder's words, Chu Xinghe, who was drowsy from alchemy, immediately perked up.

He had heard Elder He, the master of miscellaneous studies, talk about the Top Ten Sects evaluation quite a bit recently.

The so-called Top Ten Sects evaluation is actually very simple. Every five years, the top ten sects in the world undergo an evaluation, and based on three criteria, their rankings are reassessed.

The three criteria are simple: first is top-tier combat power, second is disciple inheritance, and third is sect resources.

These three aspects are used to evaluate where the top ten sects should be ranked.

The evaluation is conducted by the renowned impartial and just Old Man Wuyang of the Wu family.

Mentioning Old Man Wuyang is quite something.

Although his cultivation level might not even rank in the top ten in the world, this old man has lived long enough.

Even the current Sect Master of the Grand Sky Sect, Gu Mingchao, would call him "ancestor" when they meet.

So the evaluation of the top ten sects every five years is led by Old Man Wuyang, using those three criteria to determine the rankings.

What? You ask what happens if someone disagrees with the evaluation results?

That's easy to solve... anyone who disagrees can challenge other sects. If you win, your ranking can be raised. The top ten sect rankings aren't set in stone...

But over the years, Old Man Wuyang has proven himself, and almost every evaluation's rankings have been accepted by all parties, with very few expressing dissatisfaction and wanting to challenge.

As for this evaluation of the top ten sects, although Chu Xinghe knows that our Grand Sky Sect's ranking is hard to shake... while we can't change the ranking, can't we shake things up a bit elsewhere?

After all, this evaluation is a major event that the whole world pays attention to, and it's personally led by the famously impartial Old Man Wuyang.

The evaluation details for each sect are to be made public, and no matter how hard we try, we can't shake off the bad reputation of being the number one sect. But if I, Chu Xinghe, mess up the sect during the evaluation, and Old Man Wuyang announces the Grand Sky Sect's affairs, wouldn't that be embarrassing?

Thinking of this, Chu Xinghe was teary-eyed. Good things just keep coming...