Luan waited some more, but the result didn't change, the crystal pearl remained silent.
He even used his Sixth Sense to try to push the pearl, but it didn't budge.
Not only did he feel like the pearl had stolen from him, he became annoyed that the thing refused to listen to him.
From all it had shown, to Luan, the pearl had some level of intelligence.
It was widely known that objects with intelligence in this world are highly sought after treasures, but at the moment, Luan wanted to throw the crystal pearl into the deepest parts of the earth.
Out of annoyance, Luan infused his cane with so much qi that wooden structure of the cane seemed to condense under it. He had almost emptied his core.
Luan then struck the ground with it.
Boom!
A large crater formed on what was left of the hill, creating large cracks.
So far, this was the strongest move Luan had made since he came to this world.
He then paused.
Within his body, his core was already working on absorbing qi from the world, which was normal. However, what wasn't normal was the way it grew as it absorbed qi.
It was almost as though his core's size was about to increase. It began expanding, only to condense and withdraw.
Luan noticed that whenever it did this, his core was refining the qi it had absorbed and turning it into a purer form of qi.
Though the increment in his quality of qi was miniscule, it was still a change.
Luan watched as all of this happened and he couldn't help but feel that he was lacking a lot of things.
Even though he had used the Six Hells Ape art for reference, its form of cultivation had its own nature.
For example, everyone in his family who cultivates this art have an affinity to flames, this was the nature of the art.
Luan had no idea what the nature of his art is.
Despite it being in its early stages, he needed to figure this out before breaking through to the Foundation Building stage.
Furthermore, he needed more cultivation arts to gain inspiration from. And also, combat arts.
Though he was able to quickly do away with Arty and Susu, Luan didn't want to limit his fighting style to just close combat.
There's a lot to do.
He frowned, momentarily forgetting about the Spirit Vein the crystal pearl ate.
"At least there's still a lot of spiritual herbs here. This alone should be enough to put quite some weight in the family's pockets." Luan smiled.
Despite everything, he was still happy. At least he could assist his family.
"How big is this place anyways?"
Still standing in the middle of the crater, Luan was able to see one ends of the grotto. Its diameters was about 4 kilometers wide.
There's no beast in this grotto, nor structures. Could this pocket dimension have been made just to plant spiritual herbs?
How profligate of its creator.
But now, it had become a property of the Khan family.
But how to explain this to them?
If he explained to his family that he was just walking around randomly and stumbled into a Secret Grotto, would they believe him?
As ridiculous as it sounded, that was what he decided to tell them. Sometimes a detailed story does nothing but complicate matters.
Luan walked back to the spot he entered from. From the inside, one wouldn't be able to tell that it was an exit or an entrance.
Exiting the Secret Grotto, Luan walked into a canyon illuminated by a full moon. The stars gracefully adorned the heavens with their light.
"Liana is going to be so worried." He chuckled.
The next moment, his body vanished. He decided to head back as quickly as he could.
As he moved, from a distance, he sensed a few people at the Foundation Building stage.
Hmm, familiar auras.
Yes, they were familiar to him as he had sensed them the day he returned. They were people he didn't know twenty years ago.
Luan already figured that his family had taken in new people as guards or outer members of the clan. Which was a normal thing in this day and age.
However, he didn't feel right about these people.
Do they know about the Secret Grotto?
If they did, had they been secretly going there to monopolize the gains there?
All of these ran through Luan's mind as he couldn't think of any other reason of why a group of outer clan members would come to the borders of the Khan's land by this time.
Uncertain of what their intentions were, Luan decided to follow them.
If they had been greedily taking from the grotto and keeping the gains to themselves, he was going to punish them himself.
There were four guards.
While it did seem like they were heading towards the canyon area, they soon took a turn, heading towards a forest near that was before the canyon.
This change made Luan even more confused, and at the same time, more suspicious of them.
Soon, these guards came to a stop.
There was a man waiting for them in the forest. This man didn't look like anyone Luan knew.
"Greetings, Steward Jo." The guards chorused and one of them stepped forward to hand him a letter.
"Hmm," Steward Jo opened it up and began reading. "The 13th young master has recovered? Did the poison fail after putting him in a coma for twenty years? The Lord wouldn't like this. His plans will fall through if that child doesn't die soon."
"We also don't know how he recovered. Lady Liana came—"
"Lady?" Steward Jo glared at the guard who spoke.
"Apologies. Liana Khan went for a walk with the Luan and she came back with him healed."
"Did she mention anything about meeting a Saint of any profession?"
"No, sir."
"Then how does one recover from a Grade-5 Heart Demon Pill? Isn't he meant to have been consumed by the pill by now and become an empty shell!?"
Luan's pupils constricted, as he struggled to contain his killing intent.
I was poisoned!? How? When? Why?
Did the why, matter now?
His mind tried to fathom this comment made by Steward Jo.
Subconsciously, Luan was already attributing all that he had suffered in the last two thousand years to this man and whoever was behind him.
Kill!
He wanted to kill this man.
A Heart Demon Pill.
Luan knew what it was. A pill made by one of the most hated and feared races of the Myriad Races.
The Devil race.
While this pill could be used as an elixir for a devil, it was an absolute poison to a human.
Moreover, it was a grade-5 pill, strong enough to poison and kill cultivators above the Golden Core stage.
How had he survived?
Luan even doubted his ears at this point.
If it was true that he had ingested that pill, as a Qi Condensation stage cultivator he was, now and in the past, how had he survived for twenty years?
It still doesn't change the fact that these guys have conspired against my family.
Now would be the right time to step out and deal with them, but he hesitated.
Steward Jo's aura put him off.
The man gave off the aura of a peak-stage Foundation Building cultivator, however, Luan could sense danger with his Sixth Sense.
He just wasn't sure if the danger came from Steward Jo himself, or from some hidden trump cards.
"Return to your posts…" Steward Jo began. "And next time, make sure not to come with tails!"
His hand moved like a blur as he hurled a bead the size of a pigeon's egg, in the direction Luan was hiding.
Boom!
The bead was like a boulder when it crashed. it destroyed the trees around, leaving a dent on the ground.
With a command from the steward, the bead rose to the air, floating over where it had just landed.
The guards were startled as they focused to see who it was that tailed them.
"Come out, you rat." Steward Jo said, well aware that his target had dodge his sneak attack.
"A rat? Me? Were you dropped on your head as a baby?" Luan replied as he appeared a few meters away from the floating bead. His gaze lingered on the bead for a while before turning to look at the steward.
That bead should be a graded weapon… but it's not the cause of this danger I sense.
His Sixth Sense was almost bestial in nature.
"Young master Luan!" The guards cried out.
This was someone they thought to have just recovered and was still in wheel chair. And yet, here he was, giving off the aura of peak-stage Qi Condensation realm cultivator.
Steward Jo frowned. His movement art, it was basic but yet fast and effective.
"Are you certain that the Khan elders said that the boy hasn't been possessed?" He said to the guards.
To him, this was a more believable reason as to why Luan was here.
"Oh, I'm possessed alright… possessed by the urge to rip out your throat!"
Luan finally stopped restricting his killing intent and let it flow.
It was as though a gate opened and a flood of bloodlust washed throughout the land.
Steward Jo and the guards even choked at the smell of it, feeling as though their souls were about to be snatched.