On the second day, Xiao An went to the Pavilion of Instruments to receive a task of refining materials, although the task of refining materials in the Pavilion of Instruments and the task of purchasing medicinal herbs in the Pavilion of Dan have been changing, there are such tasks almost all year round, so there is no need to worry about not having a task to accept.

During this time, there was an increasing trend of the Cangyue Sect's tasks for late-stage Qi refining cultivators. And the elders of the sect kept silent about these anomalies, and the entire sect was shrouded in a strange atmosphere.

All this seemed to have nothing to do with Xiao An, and Xiao An put all his mind on learning the refining weapon.

......

Inferiority, a secret room.

Wei Hongjian, the head of the Wuji faction, was sitting cross-legged in front of a table, holding a teapot and pouring tea for the person opposite, and then pouring himself a cup. Master Wei's movements were like flowing water, without a trace of fire.

"Thank you, Master Wei!" a hoarse voice sounded from the opposite side of the table, and a pair of miserable white hands stretched out from the opposite side of the table to hold the teacup.

At this time, I saw a person sitting on the opposite side of the table, this person was shrouded in a black cloak, and he was obviously sitting opposite the table, but people couldn't help but ignore his existence.

"It has now been ascertained that after the Cangyue Sect Secret Hall robbed the Shen family three months ago, they did not get the "Thousand Hammer Forging Body Secret Method". After the black shadow opposite Master Wei put down the teacup, he began to report the latest news to Master Wei.

Master Wei slowly stroked the beard under his chin with his hand, "In this way, when the head of the Shen family had an accident three years ago, he didn't put this exercise in the family. ”

This exercise is nothing to the Wuji faction, and the frustration is that the game he just laid out was broken by others before it could play a role, and after three years, I don't know who destroyed my layout.

What started as an idle move was suddenly becoming extremely important and urgent.

......

Qishifang City is located in the south of the Cangyue Sect and the north of the Wuji Sect, and is in the middle of the two sects, and the distance from the two sects is about a thousand miles. This was originally a barren land, and neither the Cangyue Sect nor the Wuji Sect took it to heart, and it was a three-way zone.

It is said that more than 300 years ago, when the ancestor of the Shen family passed by here, he found that the temperature of the ground was getting higher and higher, and he suspected that this was a sign that the "earth fire" was about to break out of the ground. Just when the ancestor of the Shen family was about to continue to explore this place, he was injured by a "Red Fire Scale Python" demon beast that suddenly appeared in the late stage of the spirit induction.

The scales the size of a copper coin on the body of this demon beast have extremely strong defensive capabilities, and in addition, it is good at spitting out a kind of red flame, which can easily burn the magic weapons of a mid-stage Qi refining cultivator, which is extremely difficult to deal with.

This red fire scale python sensed the impending earth fire and occupied this place in advance. Most of the strange stones in Fang City are made by burning this red fire scale python when it usually swallows demon fire.

And the earth fire within a radius of 10,000 miles in this place is in the hands of several sects, and if you want to refine the pill or refine the weapon, you can only spend a high price to rent the earth fire from these sects. And the alchemy room and the refining room are often under the heavy protection of these sects, and if you want to rent it, you must not only have spirit stones, but also have a relationship.

This impending earth fire means a lot of wealth, so the founder of the Shen family started the idea of earth fire.

If the earth fire has already rushed out of the ground, it will definitely be occupied by the sect.

The heavenly materials and earthly treasures that appear in the family territory belong to this family is the default rule of the immortal cultivation world, if you establish your own family here before the earth fire rushes out of the earth, you can justifiably occupy it.

As a casual cultivator, the ancestor of the Shen family contacted the three scattered cultivators surnamed Lin, surnamed Xu, and Han to hunt the red fire scale python together. It happened that the disciples of the Cangyue faction were patrolling nearby, and these scattered cultivators handed over the worship post of opening a mountain here and establishing a family to the Cangyue faction.

In the end, he was recognized by the Cangyue faction in front of the earth's fire, and established their own immortal cultivation families, and this place became the territory of the Cangyue faction.

Unlike the magma that flows out of volcanic eruptions, "earth fire" is mainly the product of the fusion of underground magma and abundant spiritual energy underground. After the earth fire gushes out of the ground, there will be only a raging fire containing aura, and no magma will gush out.

There are three main types of flames used by monks when refining pills and refining weapons, namely heaven and earth spiritual fire, flames cultivated by monks with exercises, and earth fire.

And among these three flames, the heaven and earth spiritual fire are all things that can be encountered but not sought, and the price is extremely high, and it is not at all something that can be possessed by casual cultivation.

The flame that a monk cultivates with exercises can only be possessed by a monk at or above the foundation building stage, and it is very easy to have a lack of spiritual energy in the monk's body when refining pills or refining weapons.

Earthfire is the least powerful of the three flames, but it has the advantage of being cheap and almost endless, and is the most widely used.

Because there were a total of six earth fires that reached the ground, in the end, the Han family and the Xu family each occupied two, and the Shen family and the Lin family each occupied one.

Later, at the suggestion of the head of the Shen family, the four major scattered cultivation families jointly funded the establishment of Qishifang City, and the Shen family and the Lin family even established a refining room and an alchemy room respectively for renting out their family's earth fire.

Among the four founding ancestors, Han surnamed Sanxiu is good at alchemy, Xu is good at refining, Lin is good at fighting, and only the monk surnamed Shen has no expertise.

Thanks to the superb alchemy and refining technology of the Han family and the Xu family, and the alchemy room and refining room that are easy to rent, Qishifang City quickly prospered.

After nearly three hundred years of development, the quality of the alchemy and refining tools of the Han family and the Xu family is only slightly worse than that of the Cangyue faction, but it is on par with the Wuji faction. Since taking office, the contemporary head of the Wuji faction has always had the idea of including the Han family and the Xu family into the sect.

Although the Shen family is not good at it, its cultivation has always had an advantage among the four major families. Especially eighty years ago, the Shen family produced a monk in the foundation building period.

With the support of the monks in this foundation building period, the Shen family took most of the income from Qishifang City into their own pockets. This move caused serious dissatisfaction among several other families, but the situation was stronger than people, and the remaining three families could only be aggrieved.

Later, the previous head of the Cangyue faction died suddenly, and the inflated Shen family actually negotiated the conditions with the Cangyue faction at this juncture, wanting to reduce the number of spirit stones handed over by Qishifang City.

Soon after He Jingdao became the head of the Cangyue faction, the Shen family, a monk in the foundation building period, died unexpectedly in the mouth of the demon beast. Everyone understood that this was a secret move by the Cangyue faction to use the lives of the Shen family's foundation building period monks to deter the scattered cultivators in the territory.

Just when the other three immortal cultivation families in Qishifang City were extremely excited and were about to join forces to suppress the Shen family after losing power, these families were also assassinated.

Although the Cangyue Sect immediately sent people to protect these Immortal Cultivation Families, these families all believed that the Cangyue Sect was deliberately shouting to catch the thief. For a period of time, rumors spread that the Cangyue faction was going to take action against the scattered cultivation in the territory, and it took a lot of effort for the Cangyue faction to extinguish this rumor.

But after this incident, the contradictions between the three families and the Shen family eased instead.

The Shen family's storage bag disappeared after the death of the monk during the foundation building period, and the Shen family's savings and some high-level exercises also disappeared. The head of the Shen family was trapped at the peak of the eighth layer of qi refining for many years because he did not have the ninth layer of qi refining exercises in his hands.

Four years ago, the Wuji Sect began to secretly contact the head of the Shen family, and sent the "Thousand Hammer Forging Body Secret Method" and some spiritual objects that would help break through cultivation.

Although the head of the Shen family had already passed the best time to cultivate the Thousand Hammer Forging Body Secret Method, he had a great deal of confidence in strengthening his physical body with this technique, and with the spiritual objects sent by Wuji, he was very sure that he would be able to raise his cultivation to the ninth level of qi refining.

Who knew that less than half a year after the exercise was sent, the head of the Shen family suddenly disappeared, making the Wuji faction's plan to win over the four major families in Qishifang City fall through.