They didn't end up finding another swarm. Instead, they encountered the sea of fog again. Lu Qingshan was forced from his seclusion to go help rescue the few martial artists who went inside.

  Fortunately, their willingness to follow his orders had gone up drastically after seeing him demolish an entire demonized insect swarm by himself. By staying completely still once they entered the fog, and letting him plant human-faced spiders on them, Lu Qingshan was able to locate them quickly.

  He looked up at the forest in front of him. There was no indication at all that this was an entrance. His brows furrowed in deep thought. This whole setup reminded him of something he'd read in Daoist Qingxu's journal.

  Demonized insects, a sea of fog, trapping people inside.... It all reminded him of the process to rear gu. Daoist Qingxu had described it as "a hundred elite insects placed into a single, enclosed bowl to battle to their death. The victor produces an unrivaled poison." What it described was too complicated for Lu Qingshan to match, but he understood how it was used to conceive many kinds of spiritual insects.

  “Let’s go back,” he said, still thinking about the implications. He didn’t expect to reach the end of the area so soon. They had been moving in a single direction the entire time, and now needed to consider expanding towards other paths.

  But this posed a considerable risk of encountering others. And Lu Qingshan was fairly sure that anyone they found would be a demonic cultivator. He needed to approach this carefully.

  Lu Qingshan brought everyone back to where his sect stayed, grabbing his batch of secret medicines as he gathered everyone together. "We've reached the end," he said gravely. "The sea of fog is all around us. What should we do next?"

  "Can we walk around the edge?" Song Lin asked. "I feel that's how we can best know the limits of this territory."

  "No," one of the martial artists said. "The fog wall is not fully uniform."

  Song Lin opened his mouth to argue, but Lu Qingshan shook his head. "He's right. There'll be many ways for us to get stuck. I'd spend way too long trying to get people out of the fog walls," he said. "It would slow us down too much. And if the demonic cultivators have some way to see through the fog, we might end up falling into a trap. It's too risky a plan."

  "We can head back towards the center then," An Xin said. "Maybe we missed something on that mountain peak. Come to think of it, there were three strange areas near the start. But here, we only found a single one."

  Many people dissented. Most notably, the martial artists who had grown exhausted from running for their lives. Here, they could rest and practice martial arts in peace, even if they had to lower their stature.

  The strange area she had mentioned was where most of the materials for their current secret medicines came from: a field of rapidly growing herbs. Previously, Lu Qingshan had discovered Blood Vines in their past mountain forest home. Those were excellent materials only made better by their fast growth rates, producing batches of Marrow Tempering secret medicines every few weeks. But even those materials could not compare with the amount provided in this field.

  These herbs could even help produce Viscera Tempering secret medicines, and they often matched the growth rate of the Blood Vines, if not faster. Lu Qingshan knew any martial sect would wash entire cities in blood in order to get their hands on such a prize. Yet locked inside the sea of fog, there weren't many ways to bring the foundation of a sect here. Too much risk.

  Solving the mystery behind the sea of fog meant a wealth of profit. Still, Lu Qingshan cast that thought aside for now. He looked at their current situation. All in all, it was pretty good, until they were inevitably discovered.

  "How long do you all think we can stay here? The place is not large enough for us to avoid the demonic cultivators forever," he said. "An Xin is correct. We may have to return, but not yet. I want to see if there's something beneath the soil here."

  Lu Qingshan had noticed the earthworm shifting slightly some time ago. He was certain it would wake up soon. It was an intuition born from the spiritual connection with the Insect Harmony Mantra.

  "One more week," Lu Qingshan shouted. "Then we prepare to move out again." A few groans were heard, but there were no other complaints. He smiled at their obedience and returned to his seclusion.

  The Nimble Deer Breathing Method had recently reached the limit of its practice. So had the Golden Drop Inner Force. The first technique seemed to simply enhance his dexterity some more. The second just increased the piercing force behind his attacks. But when Lu Qingshan stilled his mind and relaxed his body, he felt that the two of them provided a very weak secondary enhancement to each other.

  He'd only initially suspected a common link between the five animal techniques and the five elements inner force techniques. Now, he was certain he was on the right path.

  Next was the Turtle Breath Inner Force, which Lu Qingshan spent two days bringing to the fourth level. He glanced at the stone slab and was pleased to see his lifespan increase by a year. Now, he had thirty-seven years of lifespan remaining according to the stone slab. But he wasn't sure what that actually meant. Would he keel over dead at sixty-five years old exactly, or did it signify how long it took for his body to begin deteriorating?

  Martial artists were not known for their longevity. They peaked in their thirties, and began to decline soon after that. Sixty years was usually too long for a martial artist to muster much of their former power. Lu Qingshan had always believed it referred to his total lifespan, but now he wasn’t so sure.

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  If it referred to how long he had until he withered away, then he still had a long time left to grow. After all, an Innate realm expert had their means of maintaining strength through the declining phase.

  Knowing just how far he could take his growth rate was liberating. He took that enthusiasm and tackled the fourth and final martial art he could level up until they had to leave. In the end, he managed to succeed: the Verdant Summer Inner Force broke through to the third level.

  Lu Qingshan breathed deeply. A wellspring of power and energy rushed forth from his body. This technique granted him additional stamina, a soothing balm to his aching body, and a peaceful countenance. It wasn’t fast to level, but he always had a good experience practicing the technique.

  In some ways, it resembled the Turtle Breath Inner Force, only more powerful. Perhaps it was also a lifespan-extending method.

  He stood back up. All these techniques didn’t give him much confidence against demonic cultivators, but it did improve his ability in dealing with that massive swarm on the mountain peak.

  Lu Qingshan fell deep into thought. His mind became full of rough calculations regarding how long it would take to reach the mountain, how long he had to explore, and how long to reach the next level of the Insect Harmony Mantra. With a swarm of that size, he expected to break through with ease.

  The problem was the demonic cultivators and what they would do. Right now, Lu Qingshan could not rest assured, being completely in the dark about their movements. He didn’t know if they were still searching for his group or off causing trouble. Without that assurance of information, Lu Qingshan refused to stay in one place for long. If a single one of them were caught unaware, shaking off their enemies would become near impossible without him unleashing the Heavenly Demon Disintegration Technique in full.

  And if he was pushed that far, Lu Qingshan knew his cultivation would practically stop. Maybe even regress. So he couldn't get into a fight, couldn't be discovered, and had to move so carefully he rarely had time to dedicate himself to closed-door practice. All of this was dragging him down.

  No, he needed to try something different. Since the information disadvantage was too great, the best idea Lu Qingshan had was to try and locate the demonic cultivators again, and find out exactly what they were planning. Though the Insect Harmony Mantra gave him a measure of security for attempting something so dangerous, he needed something more.

  Lu Qingshan currently had access to groups of human-faced spiders, some Bloodseeker Flies, and all the spiritual insects picked up from Liu Wanli. He had also managed to convince the crystal cicada to work with him when it wasn't sleeping. But all these weren't enough. Demonic cultivators had numerous abilities and Lu Qingshan didn't dare to say he knew all of them.

  Normally, he'd never consider contending with them willingly even with an extra life. He had discovered a new trick, though. That something came from Daoist Qingxu's book — inscribed within the pages was another technique for creating spiritual insects, that Lu Qingshan believed possible to accomplish with what he had. Curse refinement, it was called.

  The technique still called for a large number of insects — ones he didn't have. It required him to gather another swarm of insects. Whether he liked it or not, Lu Qingshan had to go back to the mountains. But he didn't have to take the others with him.

  Lu Qingshan’s musings were put to a stop when a slight wriggle in his pocket alerted him to the spiritual earthworm’s awakening. It crawled out, lazily opened its mouth, and seemed to exhale. From afar came a cry of shock, and then Lu Qingshan found himself surrounded by all five immortal cultivators.

  “I just sensed a huge amount of earth-element spiritual energy,” Qin Ye almost shouted.

  “Stop,” Lu Qingshan said, holding out a hand. “Calm down and explain.” As a martial artist, his spiritual senses weren't the same as theirs. He knew the worm had done something, but it was still muted. After all, it had just woken up.

  “It’s like the Cold Abyss Pearl,” Li Fanghua whispered, taking care not to let the three foreign cultivators hear. “But the concentration is much, much more than that.”

  “If I cultivated in that type of environment,” Qin Ye emphasized, “I could reach Jade Cleansing in half the time.”

  Song Lin and the An siblings also wanted to put in a good word. They gritted their teeth, took a deep breath, and opened their mouths. But Lu Qingshan shook his head.

  "We'll see how you perform against the demonic cultivators," he said. "Come with me. We'll go back to the mountains alone."

  "But—" Song Lin wanted to protest. The An siblings however, did not. They simply nodded their heads, knowing who held the most power in this situation.

  "Thank you." In order to keep the three cultivators from gaining the advantage against Qin Ye and possibly killing him for the earthworm, Lu Qingshan needed to take them with him. This was not up for negotiation. Either they followed, or they died here, leaving their corpses for his flies to devour. It seemed the An siblings were more used to situations such as this.

  He sent them away after speaking briefly about the nature of their mission. There was no need to explain too much. Lu Qingshan then turned his focus as to what exactly happened to the earthworm. He held out a hand, and it wriggled some more to nestle its body against his fingers.

  His spiritual connection with the earthworm remained distant. But once it realized who he was, that feeling slowly returned. Lu Qingshan gained feedback over its new abilities.

  First, the spiritual earthworm had indeed broken through to a new level like his previous Bloodseeker Fly, thanks to what it had consumed. This enhanced its conversion of spiritual energy.

  Next, it had gained the ability to produce metal element spiritual energy, albeit at a lesser rate. The last batch of food hadn’t been enough to display this. So it was reasonable for the others to miss this aspect of its abilities.

  Finally, its detection range of food sources, speed of burrowing, and appetite had increased. Lu Qingshan was tempted to bring it with him to hunt around. But that could wait until this place was relatively free from danger.

  Now that Lu Qingshan knew what was going on, he had to confirm it for himself. He switched through all his different breathing methods and discovered that each of his martial arts accumulated higher amounts of proficiency than before. There were various levels of enhancement.

  The martial art that performed the best in this type of earth-related spiritual environment was naturally the Earthen Crust Inner Force. Surprisingly, the Raging Bear and Giant Whale Breathing Methods also accelerated their performance. A quick set of calculations ran through his mind, and Lu Qingshan was tempted to stay here for another week to ramp up to the third level of the Earthen Crust. That would afford him more defense against what he’d be facing.

  But Lu Qingshan still shook his head. Too much a risk to go another day without knowledge about the demonic cultivators’ plans. It was time to head out.