Experiment

Even his female confidante had only come to light after he betrayed his sect and completed his vengeance. Qin Sang gazed at the crystal, sensing its connection to the stone pillars and the stone platform beneath his feet. There was no mistake—the crystal was the "key"! Without it, there was no opening this door, and no way into Heaven-Pointing Peak! Qin Sang's eyes flickered. He dashed off the stone platform and rushed toward the grand hall's exit, but he halted abruptly in his tracks. His expression turned solemn, not daring to take another step. Above the area outside the grand hall, a spatial rift stretched across the void. There was only a single rift, but the surrounding space was completely murky and chaotic. Amidst the dim, gloomy aura lingered subtle fluctuations that signaled intense instability. His cultivation was restricted to the Qi Refinement stage, so he did not dare trespass blindly. Recalling Granny Jing's warning, Qin Sang slowly retreated. His mind gradually calmed, and once he thought through the situation, he let out a self-deprecating chuckle. There was really no need for him to overthink all of this. Whatever relationship Granny Jing shared with Senior Qingzhu had nothing to do with him. All he needed to know was that the closer Granny Jing was to Senior Qingzhu, the more reliable her information would be, which worked to his advantage. Since Granny Jing was unwilling to bring it up on her own, it was best for him not to pry. If he accidentally touched upon her sore spots, it would only backfire and earn her displeasure. Having sorted this out, Qin Sang stopped dwelling on it. He glanced at the crystal, mentally calculating the time, and then turned his gaze toward the handsome young man. Taking off the young man's mustard seed bag, Qin Sang opened it and poured out everything inside. For a moment, glittering treasures and jewels illuminated the hall, nearly dazzling his eyes. In spirit stones alone, there were definitely over ten thousand low-grade spirit stones. Qin Sang did not bother counting them closely and swept them all into his own storage, pushing the other items of little value to the side. What remained were spirit pills, magic tools, talisman treasures, and two sets of exceptionally powerful restriction implements. The handsome young man had already exhausted one talisman treasure, yet there were surprisingly two more in the mustard seed bag. Both were quite peculiar, likely passed down within the Yuanshen Sect. Qin Sang did not dare keep them and intended to destroy them after entering Heaven-Pointing Peak. The same went for the magic tools. Qin Sang intended to follow Granny Jing's advice: regardless of quality, he would keep none of them. The best few had already been destroyed in the fierce battle, and the remainder were far from top-tier. With his ebony sword and Ten Directions Yanluo Banner, even fine magic tools could hardly catch his eye. He dared even less to keep the two sets of restriction implements, which were undoubtedly crafted with great care by senior cultivators of the Yuanshen Sect. Had this been an ordinary Yuanshen Sect disciple, he might have kept them, but the handsome young man possessed an unusual identity and was tied to two of the sect's elders. With so much at stake, no amount of caution was too much. The combined worth of all these items was not even equal to a single Xutian Thunder, so Qin Sang felt little heartache giving them up. Pushing them aside to join the pile of "junk," he turned his attention to the jade bottles and examined them carefully. To his disappointment, none of the jade bottles contained spirit pills that could aid in Core Formation. Reflecting on it, that made sense. The handsome young man was already at the False Core stage; had he possessed such pills, he would have consumed them himself long ago rather than leaving them to benefit others. Fortunately, several jade bottles contained pills for consolidating one's foundation and nurturing vital essence. One bottle held pills whose efficacy was on par with the Lilong Pill, likely leftovers from what the handsome young man had taken. To have so many left over proved the perks of having connections! These spirit pills could help him reach the False Core stage much faster. Qin Sang gladly put them aside and transferred them into fresh jade bottles. As for the other pills, most were meant for healing and recovery, so Qin Sang unceremoniously swallowed them to tend to his injuries. Aside from those, what Qin Sang valued most was a jade slip titled *Incomplete Records of Taixuan Formations*. It recorded several spirit formations, which Qin Sang found remarkably subtle and ingenious at a glance. The contents were exceedingly profound, impossible to master overnight, so Qin Sang could only commit them to memory as best he could for now. After sorting through the loot, Qin Sang leisurely sized up the handsome young man. After Yu Hua, this was the second False Core stage expert he had captured alive. In his eyes, the young man's value among these spoils was by no means inferior to the Xutian Thunder. Refining a living corpse was difficult and yielded a low success rate; Qin Sang could not guarantee that he would succeed on his first try when refining Yu Hua. Although he could not take the handsome young man out with him, using him for practice was an ideal opportunity. The young man had not yet awakened. Qin Sang retrieved a Heavenly Corpse Talisman and spent considerable effort driving it into the young man's origin soul space, suppressing his origin soul. Then he paused. Here, his cultivation was restricted to the Qi Refinement stage, tying his hands and significantly hindering the process of refining a living corpse. Qin Sang stood on the stone platform, waiting quietly. Finally, fifteen minutes passed. Following the method Granny Jing had taught him, Qin Sang activated the crystal. The door on the stone platform slowly parted to reveal the familiar chaotic expanse. Without hesitation, Qin Sang grabbed the handsome young man and leaped into the doorway. Another bout of dizzying vertigo washed over him, but he soon felt solid ground beneath his feet once more. Qin Sang breathed a quiet sigh of relief and hurriedly opened his eyes, only to find the square altered beyond recognition. The fragments of the stone pillars had long turned to ash, and nearly none of the massive stone blocks forming the concentric rings had escaped unharmed—shattered into multiple pieces and covered in fractures. Fortunately, the stones had not been reduced to dust entirely, allowing the square to barely retain its original outline. This stretch of void had long regained its stability. The darkness that had threatened to swallow everything had vanished without a trace, and order had returned to the space. *What a powerful grand formation!* Qin Sang marveled inwardly. For it to suppress a shattered space even in disrepair, how formidable must it have been in its prime? Time was of the essence. After a brief look around to ensure nothing was amiss, Qin Sang set to work on corpse refinement at once. He had already prepared an ample supply of Five Elements yin materials, and plenty of earth fiend qi remained in the Shaoyin Magnetic Bottle. Laying the handsome young man flat on the ground, Qin Sang tapped his fingers across the young man's body to lay down an entire array of restrictions, then picked up a piece of blue nether metal... Time slowly drifted by. Without blinking, Qin Sang kept his eyes fixed on the young man, executing every step meticulously while observing his changes. This was not his first time refining a living corpse, and his technique was already thoroughly practiced. Even so, he soon discovered that the False Core stage was indeed vastly different from late Foundation Establishment. ... *Boom!* A dull pop suddenly echoed from the handsome young man's dantian, followed by a violent explosion. Furious earth fiend qi erupted outward, tearing the young man's flesh and bone to pieces in an instant. Without even uttering a groan, he perished on the spot, leaving not a trace of his remains behind. The earth fiend qi continued to blast in every direction. Qin Sang dodged with exceptional agility, his expression turning somewhat grim. As expected, this refinement attempt had ended in failure. Still, Qin Sang had not anticipated the failure coming so swiftly. He had only fused a single wisp of earth fiend qi into the young man, yet violent conflict had erupted the moment he tried to introduce a second. He had done his best to salvage it, but to no avail, ultimately culminating in the blast. Reflecting on the entire process, Qin Sang felt that the primary reason lay in his insufficient cultivation. If he were currently at the False Core stage, his control would have been far superior, and he likely could have suppressed the clash.