I have the face of a great demon.

Tie Zhu and Ye Sisi circled the stalactites again and again, their eyes wide open, trying to find clues about the formation among the stone pillars.

Their expressions shifted from doubt to confusion, and then to utter bewilderment, like two children lost in a maze.

"I've been looking at them for a long time, and these stone pillars are just stone pillars. Where is there any formation?" Tie Zhu scratched his head, looking puzzled.

Ye Sisi also frowned. She even reached out to touch the stalactites, trying to sense some unusual fluctuations, but the result disappointed her: "There's really nothing special here. There's definitely no formation here."

Just as the two were completely bewildered, the Ghost Scholar suddenly appeared and couldn't help but laugh out loud, saying with a hint of mischief and smugness, "Haha, even you guys were fooled. This is not a thousand-year-old stalactite pillar at all."

Upon hearing this, Tie Zhu and Ye Sisi's eyes widened even more. They stared at Liu Xingchen in disbelief, as if to say, "Are you kidding us?"

It turns out that there are many caves in this karst cave, and each cave has many stalactites, but among so many stalactite columns, only one will gather stalactite liquid that has lasted for thousands of years.

Everyone only looks for stone pillars that can accumulate stalactite liquid over thousands of years, who would have thought that this is not the one?

The liquid from the stalactite on this stalactite was taken by the scholar from a cave that actually produces liquid from stalactites, and applied to this stalactite to impersonate a real thousand-year-old stalactite.

There were forks in the cave, and Liu Xingchen led them through a maze of twists and turns, eventually entering a cave that was not the actual cave containing the thousand-year-old stalactites.

No one expected this. The stalactites all looked similar, so no one bothered to distinguish them carefully. Everyone was focused on the liquid stalactites on the stalactites, and that's how they fell for Liu Xingchen's trick.

People who come here often might notice the difference, but apart from the scholar, they don't come here often, so they naturally wouldn't recognize it.

Even Tie Zhu and the other two couldn't recognize him, so Elder Gan was even less likely to recognize him.

After figuring out the whole story, Tie Zhu and the other man gave Liu Xingchen a thumbs up, praising his quick wit.

The scholar flew over triumphantly, swallowed the liquid stalactite from the stone pillar in one gulp, and chuckled.

After leaving the herb garden, Elder Gan hurried to find He Taichou, eager to report the latest situation.

"Sect Master, something terrible has happened!" Elder Gan told He Taichou in detail about the sharp decline in the production of stalactite liquid in the Spirit Herb Garden.

Upon hearing this, He Taichou frowned. He knew what the stalactite liquid meant to the sect, so he immediately summoned all the elders in the sect to discuss countermeasures.

The elders were all shocked upon hearing this. They immediately set to work, exploring the mountain where the stalactite liquid was produced, hoping to find the root of the problem.

They examined every inch of the mountain, even resorting to the sect's secret techniques and treasures, hoping to find some clues.

However, half a month passed in the blink of an eye, and they gained nothing.

The molten stalactite on the mountain peak showed no signs of improvement, as if, just as they had feared, the molten stalactite accumulated over the years on the mountain peak was about to run out.

The elders gathered together, looking at each other in bewilderment, and could only lament the capriciousness of fate.

They had no idea that the problem actually lay in a small cave where someone had played a clever trick without their knowledge.

"It seems that the accumulated stalactite liquid on this mountain is really about to run out," an elder sighed, his tone filled with helplessness.

“Yes, perhaps this is fate. Our sect’s fortune may have truly reached a turning point,” another elder echoed.

Helpless, they had no choice but to accept this reality.

Having fooled the people of the Tianhe Sect, Liu Xingchen and his companions could now more confidently fleece them.

With the help of the millennium-old stalactite liquid, the spirit ghost's cultivation advanced by leaps and bounds. In just a few months, the spirit ghost, who was already at the Golden Core stage, unknowingly broke through to the Nascent Soul stage.

This made Liu Xingchen marvel at the wonder of fate. Looking at the smug look on the spirit ghost's face, he felt both envious and surprised.

"This guy is practically cheating!" Liu Xingchen said half-jokingly.

Human cultivators must undergo tribulation lightning from the moment they break through to the Golden Core stage. Every time they break through to a major realm, they will face tribulation lightning; if they fail to overcome it, they will be reduced to ashes.

However, the spirit easily crossed this hurdle, without any thrilling tribulation or life-or-death struggle, and naturally reached the Nascent Soul stage.

Tie Zhu also looked incredulous: "This spirit ghost is too lucky. We cultivate hard and face the threat of lightning tribulation, but it just breaks through while drinking stone liquid and taking a nap."

Ghosts are different from humans; this is something they can't really envy.

After Linggui reached the Nascent Soul Realm, he became an even greater help to Liu Xingchen.

The spirit ghosts at the Nascent Soul stage not only have greatly increased strength, but the spiritual energy they can provide has also become exceptionally vast and pure.

For Liu Xingchen, this was undoubtedly a huge help.

Liu Xingchen felt as if he had been drawn into a vortex of spiritual energy, with the spirit continuously supplying him with pure spiritual energy, greatly increasing his cultivation efficiency.

He could feel his cultivation level soaring at an unprecedented rate.

With this assistance, Liu Xingchen decided not to waste a single second. He began to cultivate day and night without distraction, focusing solely on absorbing and refining the immense spiritual power provided by the spirit ghost.

As time went by, Liu Xingchen's spiritual energy became more and more abundant, and his cultivation level continued to break through bottlenecks, moving towards higher levels.

On this day, Tie Zhu and Ye Sisi were tending to the medicinal herbs in the herb garden when the sky suddenly darkened.

Looking up, I saw dark clouds spreading rapidly across the sky like ink, with flashes of lightning and distant rumbles of thunder, and a chilling pressure gradually descending upon me.

"Why is it raining all of a sudden? This damn weather," Tie Zhu muttered.

But Ye Sisi exclaimed in alarm, "Oh no! This is a sign of impending tribulation!"

"What? Tribulation? Who is undergoing tribulation here?" Tie Zhu exclaimed in surprise. He had never experienced tribulation before and had never seen it before, so he was a little panicked, fearing that he would be caught in the crossfire.

But Ye Sisi had seen through tribulations, so she quickly said, "Looking at this direction, it seems to be our location."

Huh? Here we are? Oh no, it's the stars!

The two hurriedly ran towards Liu Xingchen's cultivation spot.

At this moment, Liu Xingchen was immersed in cultivation and was completely unaware of the changes in the outside world.

"Brother Xingchen, wake up! You're about to undergo your tribulation!"

Liu Xingchen was awakened by Tie Zhu and Ye Sisi's voices, snapping out of his cultivation state. Seeing their anxious faces and then looking at the thunderclouds in the sky outside the window, he belatedly realized that he was about to face a tribulation of lightning.

"Why don't I feel anything at all?" Liu Xingchen looked at the spirit ghost with some resentment, thinking that the spirit ghost would remind him.

The spirit looked completely innocent. Floating in the air, he scratched his head and said somewhat awkwardly, "Well, I've never gone through a tribulation before. How would I know this was a lightning tribulation?"