Although Li Rushi could not deduce what kind of technique Lin Lin was using,

  he could confirm that Lin Lin had Foundation Establishment level cultivation and was most likely practicing some kind of evil, heretical art.

  This put Li Rushi in a difficult position.

  Heretical arts went against the natural order and were completely different from orthodox cultivation methods.

  When an ordinary cultivator broke through to Foundation Establishment, their power would immediately increase slightly.

  Then, through different levels of cultivation, all the way to late Foundation Establishment, their power would continuously rise.

  Evil arts were completely the opposite.

  Once you broke through to Foundation Establishment, you immediately had peak Foundation Establishment combat power.

  As you continued cultivating, passing through levels like Nirvana and Decline, your power would actually grow weaker and weaker.

  So very few people were willing to walk the path of evil arts.

  But as luck would have it, this was exactly the path Lin Lin was on.

  After obtaining the living core from Liu Yueyan's body, Lin Lin followed the Blood Servant Sect's technique and began core implantation.

  Core implantation meant cutting away certain parts of a living core nucleus and re-implanting it into a person's body.

  This was the key secret of the Blood Servant Sect's techniques.

  At the same time, it also revealed the secret of the core nucleus.

  Lin Lin had initially had doubts about the Blood Servant Sect's techniques.

  People easily fell for authority and firmly believed in what was written in books.

  In reality, books were written by people, and they could also be fabricated by demons and monsters.

  You could not be sure how much of the content was true and how much was false.

  Lin Lin did not want to give up this opportunity, nor did he want to blindly believe in Long Mingyu's techniques.

  So his choice was to experiment.

  After several months of comparative experiments, Lin Lin gradually discovered some clues.

  After their cores were removed, Madness Wolves, once they recovered from their injuries, gradually became docile in temperament.

  Lin Lin re-implanted the living core back into the wolf's body.

  The wolf became aggressive again.

  This experiment proved that the core could indeed affect the host's emotions.

  Back when Long Mingyu failed to break through to Core Formation, he talked nonsense everywhere.

  Everyone in the Long family thought Long Mingyu had been driven crazy by the setback.

  Now it seemed, it was very likely that during the breakthrough process, Long Mingyu had somehow perceived the secret of the core, which caused the breakthrough to fail.

  When he fell into demonic deviation, he accidentally damaged the core in his body, thus freeing himself from its control.

  This was also why Long Mingyu was so panicked and uneasy after failing his breakthrough.

  He could only pretend to be crazy and stupid to get by.

  Because in his eyes, the cultivators of the Long family were all monsters controlled by their cores.

  The so-called five Nascent Soul elders of Baiyue City were just a bunch of old monsters controlling the human world.

  Although Long Mingyu had escaped the core's control, he was still just a weak cultivator.

  If the Nascent Soul elders ever found out about his situation, they might kill him on the spot.

  However, Long Mingyu's act of playing crazy bought him a way out.

  Since the Long family had always valued face, they could not stand his daily颓废 and madness.

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  So the whole family decided to get rid of him.

  To stimulate his fighting spirit, they settled him on Windrest Island, which was teeming with demon beasts.

  Little did they know, this played right into Long Mingyu's hands.

  The demon beasts on the island became perfect research subjects for him.

  During this time, he gradually discovered that the so-called core was actually a creature similar to an insect.

  To verify Long Mingyu's hypothesis at the time,

  Lin Lin took another living demon core from a Madness Wolf.

  He used a knife to cut away two parts of the core, the glands and the claw hooks, and re-implanted it into the wolf's body.

  The wolf, with its core restored, still lacked strong aggression, yet retained the strength and speed of a demon beast.

  It even seemed to have cultivated some evil art, greatly increasing its power.

  This experiment fully proved that the Blood Servant Sect's techniques were feasible.

  The core used several organs to control the host's brain.

  By removing these parts, you could effectively steal someone else's core for free and achieve a rapid breakthrough.

  This was where Liu Yueyan came in.

  But taking a human core was very difficult.

  According to the autopsy report on the Madness Wolf,

  when the core was damaged or forcibly the host, it would inject a poison into the cultivator through its glands.

  This poison would destroy the cultivator's meridians, causing immediate death.

  At the same time, the core would also self-destruct.

  Lin Lin did not want to harm Liu Yueyan.

  So he had to use the same method again: surgery with anesthesia.

  Previous surgical failures happened because the anesthesia only affected the host, not the core itself.

  This time, he used a crude wooden syringe to administer local anesthesia directly to Liu Yueyan's core.

  By having Liu Yueyan continuously circulate her energy, he could tell if the core was anesthetized.

  When the core no longer responded to spiritual energy, it was anesthetized by the ether.

  After confirming anesthesia, he quickly removed the core with a scalpel.

  Then, he implanted the core into his own body, allowing its mouthparts to connect with his blood vessels and meridians.

  This surgery was extremely difficult, and Lin Lin had to endure the pain without anesthesia.

  Fortunately, Lin Lin was skilled. Although the whole process was painful and exhausting, he managed to get through it.

  After the surgery, he needed to use a technique to activate the core and make it cooperate with its new host.

  Here, the Blood Servant Sect's founder, Senior Long Mingyu, had thoughtfully provided followers with a simple technique called the Evil Dragon Overturns the Sea Art.

  The logic of this technique fit Lin Lin's needs perfectly, so he prioritized using it.

  It was only after using this technique to step into Foundation Establishment that Lin Lin realized the so-called Evil Dragon Overturns the Sea Art was only a dozen or so pages long.

  And that was the end of the Blood Servant Sect's techniques.

  At the very end of the manual, Long Mingyu confidently declared he would write a second volume of Blood Servant Sect techniques.

  He hoped that everyone who joined the Blood Servant Sect would expose the虚伪 truth of Baiyue City.

  Lin Lin did not count on this producing a second manual.

  Although he did not know the details, according to Fifth Master Jin, this教主 Long was probably wiped out by Baiyue City.

  Since he was wiped out, there would naturally be no sequel.

  But Lin Lin was satisfied for now. After all, he now had the ability to fight most Foundation Establishment cultivators.

  On the training ground, Lin Lin lightly tapped the ground with his toe, leaped gently, and hovered in the air, looking down at the Canglong Gang crowd. "Everyone, if you insist on fighting, I, Lin, am ready."

  "But with my level of cultivation, this will definitely be a bloody, evenly matched battle. Even if you侥幸 win, your losses will be heavy, and you will gain no valuable spoils."

  "More importantly, without the Li family, you will not even get paid."

  Hearing this, Li Rushi was greatly shocked.

  The safety of the Li family was exactly what Li Rushi had been worried about all along.

  Unwilling to accept it, he quickly asked, "What do you mean? What happened to the Li family?"

  Lin Lin smiled slightly. "Senior Li, just what I said. The Ma family struck first and slaughtered the entire Li family, stealing all their assets."

  "And I, to seek justice for the Li family, killed the Ma father and son to prove my righteousness. Now you repay kindness with enmity and attack my Qingfeng Sect. Are you not afraid of the world's ridicule?"

  Li Rushi was horrified to realize he felt like a rat in a rice jar.

  While greedily chewing on the rice inside the jar, he was also falling into an inescapable abyss.

  After a moment of silence, Li Rushi's could no longer sit still.

  "Uncle, if what Sect Leader Lin says is true, we should turn around and take revenge on the Ma family!"

  Li Wangxuan's eyes were red with shock at the news of the Li family's destruction.

  He struggled to keep his mouth shut, tears welling in his eyes. "Uncle, Sect Leader Lin is our benefactor. He killed the Ma father and son and avenged us. We should not treat him like this. Besides, my father is my only family left."

  The other Canglong Gang members also expressed their opinions, hoping Li Rushi would not try to gnaw on the hard, unprofitable bone of Qingfeng Sect.

  The Ma family was already a large cultivation clan, and having stolen all the Li family's wealth, they were probably rolling in money now.

  Compared to Qingfeng Sect, the Ma family was an easier target.

  Qingfeng Sect was, after all, a cultivation sect with many Qi Refining disciples who were not pushovers.

  More importantly, these Qi Refining disciples all had prominent families behind them. Fighting to the death would create lasting feuds.

  Li Rushi was an old fox.

  He knew Lin Lin was not telling the whole truth, and the Ma family might not be easy to deal with either.

  But he had no choice.

  If he stubbornly insisted on attacking Lin Lin now, he would only end up deserted and infamous.

  This was an open stratagem. it was a trap, but he had to fall for it.

  "Let's go! We'll return to the Li family first to see the real situation."

  Li Rushi had no choice but to lead his people away.

  Before leaving, he whispered for a long time to two disciples in the group who had long swords on their backs, then led everyone away on their flying artifacts.

  These two sword-bearing disciples, however, stayed behind.

  One of them was at early Foundation Establishment, the other at late Qi Refining.

  The Foundation Establishment disciple bowed to Lin Lin. "Senior Li was foolish and wronged the Sect Leader. Please forgive him, Sect Leader. But the matter is not yet clear, and we hope the Sect Leader will stay a moment."

  "We two are disciples of the Spirit Sword Sect, considered half in-laws with Qingfeng Sect. We hope Sect Leader Lin, for the sake of our connection, will not pursue this matter further."