Fearing its master might change her mind, the fat duck flapped its wings and flew toward Qixia Peak. “This Great One is leaving!”
Watching its plump body flap away, True Monarch Chanxi reminded it helplessly, “Linchuan, ducks don't fly. How could you forget again?”
“This Great One isn't a—” Halfway through its instinctive retort, the fat duck remembered something. Its wings stiffened. “This Great One understands.”
With a flap of its wings, a ripple of spatial energy surged, and it instantly vanished into thin air.
True Monarch Chanxi smiled helplessly. It wasn't that she wanted to restrict Linchuan's freedom.
It was simply too gluttonous. Over the years, it had constantly snuck off to the outer sect to find new disciples to feed it, and by now it was...
At that thought, she sighed and returned to Governing Peak on her sword.
A green sword light streaked across the sky, vanishing into the clouds.
Above the clouds of the secret realm, a yellow spiritual light descended, enveloping the six hundred and ninety-three new disciples.
The familiar feeling of pressure vanished, and Gu Ningyun found herself back on the arena stage of Fighting Peak.
Had the secret realm team competition ended a day early?
In front of a recording stone, a Foundation Establishment martial uncle in white robes and a blue belt took out seven large-bellied porcelain bottles.
With a pinch of his fingers to form a spell, hundreds of pills flew out from the bottles, scattering like countless specks of spiritual light.
In the blink of an eye, a pill trailing a small tail of light stopped right in front of Gu Ningyun.
She heard the voice of the alchemy cultivator from Xi Caixuan's group. “A mysterious-rank low-grade Spirit-Purifying Pill!”
Gu Ningyun had seen this pill in the alchemy identification section of the 《Almanac of Heavenly Wonders》. It could purify evil qi, sha qi, and other impurities that had invaded the body and mixed with spirit energy. However, it was ineffective if the spirit root or primordial spirit had already been corrupted by evil qi.
During the duel with the lynx, because its cultivation was too high, only the six sword cultivators could directly deal damage to it.
Their combat strength was already limited. If Gu Ningyun had chosen to act as a support, their overall power would have been even lower.
If they had exhausted their talismans, pills, and array plates without taking down the lynx or heavily injuring it, victory would have been nearly impossible.
Therefore, Gu Ningyun had chosen to fight as a sword cultivator to boost their offensive power, hoping for a swift conclusion.
Without Gu Ningyun's healing, almost everyone had been injured in the battle, their bodies tainted by evil qi.
This included Gu Ningyun herself.
At the moment, her spirit energy was completely drained. Combined with the evil qi hindering her recovery, she was powerless to play 《Zongjiao》 even if she wanted to.
While she was lost in thought, the Foundation Establishment martial uncle finished distributing the pills and spoke up to remind them. “These are mysterious-rank low-grade Spirit-Purifying Pills.
Your bodies have been invaded by evil qi. Consume them immediately.”
Gu Ningyun pinched the pill and popped it into her mouth.
While consuming pills resulted in pill toxicity, she could expel some impurities and toxicity with every breakthrough. Taking a small amount of pills was naturally fine.
Besides, she still had spirit spring water to help cleanse her body.
The pill dissolved into a surge of warm spirit energy as soon as it entered her mouth, spreading through her limbs, dantian, and meridians. Soon, Gu Ningyun felt the evil qi being purified bit by bit.
The effect was quite good; she could keep these as part of her regular stock.
Martial Uncle Lu had said that in the later stages of alchemy, the requirements for flame and temperature were very high. Relying solely on the sect's earth fire wouldn't be enough.
She had a wind spirit root. Unlike those with fire spirit roots who could generate core fire after forming their Golden Core, it wasn't realistic for her to refine pills herself.
It seemed that to ensure she had enough high-quality, toxicity-free pills in the future, she would have to properly supervise Wen Xuan's alchemy practice.
Wen Xuan was currently holding her Spirit-Purifying Pill, studying it with a professional alchemist's eye.
Suddenly, she felt an intense, unignorable gaze coming from her right. She turned her head and caught Gu Ningyun hastily averting her eyes.
“Ningyun, do you have something to say to me?” she asked after a moment of silence.
Gu Ningyun's back stiffened. The opportunity for supervision had come too suddenly; she hadn't thought of how to phrase it yet.
Looking into Wen Xuan's clear, innocent eyes, Gu Ningyun felt inexplicably guilty.
She hesitated for a moment. “It's nothing. Go back to what you were doing.”
“Oh.” Wen Xuan popped the pill into her mouth. “This pill is very effective for purifying evil qi. It's just a pity that mysterious-rank pills can only be refined once one reaches the Foundation Establishment stage.”
Gu Ningyun: “...”
It seemed she could only buy Spirit-Purifying Pills from outside for now.
She would go back tonight and see if drinking spirit spring water could expel the pill toxicity from her body.
After the distribution of the Spirit-Purifying Pills, another Foundation Establishment martial uncle came to collect the storage bags containing the demon beasts.
These demon beasts had been specifically captured and placed in the secret realm by the sect for the competition. Once the event was over, the remaining materials naturally had to be returned.
After handing over the beasts, the disciples were guided back to their previous seats in the spectator area.
Gu Ningyun checked the team competition leaderboard. Unlike the previous versions, this was now the final list, including the average scores from the individual matches.
At a glance, Gu Ningyun saw Ruiyu Pavilion in first place: 129,237 points.
Second place was Fu Mingzhi's group: 25,742.
Even though they had nearly 40,000 points before being robbed by Ruiyu Pavilion...
Gu Ningyun felt no guilt. They were still in second place, after all. It wasn't a big deal.
Third place was Ling Hanbai's group: 21,236.
Fourth place was Si Puyu's group: 20,563.
Fifth place was Zhu Zijin's group: 20,562.
Gu Ningyun's divine sense swept over the list, and she couldn't help but look again. That was right—the difference was only a single point.
She silently withdrew her divine sense and glanced at Zhu Zijin in the distance.
Thanks to a cultivator's excellent eyesight, she could see Zhu Zijin's darkened expression even from that distance.
However, his teammates were quite supportive. Although they looked sad, not a single person blamed Zhu Zijin.
Gu Ningyun focused her hearing and realized they seemed to be summarizing the flaws in their performance this time, preparing to avenge their shame next time.
Gu Ningyun's heart tightened. No, Ruiyu Pavilion had to conduct a summary as well. They couldn't afford to be careless, or they might actually be overtaken.
The martial uncles from the New Disciple Training Department had also returned to their seats in the spectator area.
Seeing the person in charge of the competition, Head of the New Disciple Training Department Perfected Person Ye, stand up, Gu Ningyun's heart skipped a beat.
Was it time to announce the results and hand out rewards?
Perfected Person Ye was already summarizing the team competition.
When she mentioned the truth behind the evil qi, Mu Chenze turned to look at Gu Ningyun. His joyful expression was comparable to someone who had correctly spotted the exam questions before a test in Gu Ningyun's past life.
Beyond that, she also felt six intense gazes.
Following her intuition, she turned her head and immediately locked eyes with the six members of Xi Caixuan's group.
Mu Chenze's voice rang out with excitement. “Ningyun, the evil qi really was a special arrangement by the sect. You guessed right!”
“We guessed it together,” Gu Ningyun said with a wink and a smile.
Mu Chenze was slightly taken aback, and then his peach blossom eyes crinkled with layers of laughter. “You're right.”
Jiang Yao and Wen Xuan leaned in. “What riddles are you two speaking in?”
Jun Luo didn't react, but Gu Ningyun's sharp eyes noticed him tilting his ear slightly toward them.
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