Qin Ran looked away, but the pair of pure eyes kept appearing in his mind. He tried many times but couldn't get rid of them. He couldn't help but laugh and sigh.
He asked the servant leading the way, "What's your name, fellow Taoist?"
"Sir, you can just call me Xiaoqi." The servant replied politely.
"How did you come to join the Yuan organization?" Qin Ran asked again.
"No comment, sir."
“How many years have you been in the organization?”
"No comment, sir."
"Which island are you from?"
Xiao Qi hesitated for a moment and replied, "Devil's Island."
"Oh! You're a local?" Qin Ran looked very happy, as if he had met a fellow villager. "Will there be many people from Devil's Island in the Devil's Island branch?"
But Xiao Qi did not answer. He seemed to realize that Qin Ran was trying to trick him, so he kept silent and just walked ahead.
"Are there people from other places in the organization?"
Qin Ran was still chattering behind him, asking endless questions.
"Do you have a Taoist partner?"
"How many alchemists do we have here?"
“Will we cultivate our own elixirs?”
…
But no matter how Qin Ran asked, Xiao Qi didn't reply.
There was no other way. Qin Ran thought about it and finally asked, "Who is the woman in black in the teahouse?"
He asked for a long time but Xiao Qi didn't answer. Only for this question, Xiao Qi didn't even ask "Which woman in black?" As if he knew who he was asking, he suddenly replied: "That's our Saint."
“Saint?” Qin Ran frowned, thinking of those eyes again, the saint of the magic organization, the saint of the human trafficking organization, “What does she do?”
Xiao Qi's eyes showed an obsessive look, as if he had thought of something extraordinary: "Saint, of course, it is to grant us divine light, eliminate our suffering, allow us to be redeemed, and sublimate our souls."
"What is that?"
Looking at Xiao Qi's appearance, which was like that of a fanatic, Qin Ran thought about those eyes and had some guesses in his mind.
But, he still found it outrageous... This man was a monk, not a commoner, so how could there be redemption, suffering, and sublimation
"Is she so powerful?" he asked, trying to get more information.
But Xiao Qi suddenly turned around and glared at him, scolding: "Don't be disrespectful to the Saint!"
Qin Ran opened his mouth but said nothing. In his mind, he had a clearer understanding of the woman in black.
"Saint?"
Apart from the few words the Saint asked Xiao Qi to say, Qin Ran ignored all the other words. Qin Ran didn't get an answer and didn't ask any more questions.
The two walked out of the city. After they got outside the city, Xiao Qi cast a spell to fly up and took Qin Ran to the coastline. After flying for a while, they came to the edge of the sea.
Qin Ran walked to the edge and looked down. The cliff was about fifty or sixty meters high, and below it were dangerous reefs and turbulent sea water.
If an ordinary person falls down, he will die on the rocks, then be washed away by the sea water and eaten by the fish in the sea.
"Aren't you going to the base? Why are you here?" Qin Ran asked Xiao Qi with a smile.
He secretly became alert, suspecting that the "Yuan" organization had brought him to this remote place on purpose to make it easier for them to kill people and dispose of the bodies.
Xiao Qi didn't answer, but just turned back to look at him and said, "Follow me."
After saying that, he leaped up and jumped down.
Qin Ran did not follow immediately, but followed Xiao Qi's jump. Xiao Qi jumped down from above, fell straight down, fell into the air, and suddenly disappeared.
He suddenly realized that there must be a formation or a different world below. He then walked to the place where Xiao Qi jumped down and jumped down with him.
Sure enough, when he landed at the place where Xiao Qi disappeared, he suddenly felt something like a film covering his face. Then he went down and passed through the film. The scene in front of him suddenly changed, and he saw a small formation space in front of him.
There are roughly types of array spaces, such as trapping array, illusion array, and Qiankun array. He analyzed them professionally.
Then he looked around the space and found that it was just the gate covering the base. There was a platform on the cliff, and where the platform was close to the cliff, there was a stone door about five or six feet high, and that was all.
Xiao Qi was waiting for him on the platform. When he saw him arrive, he walked to the gate on the cliff without saying a word, took out the standard identity token of the "Yuan" organization, put it into the groove on the door, and then dripped blood on it.
The door absorbed the blood, confirmed the identity token, and then opened to both sides.
“Every time I open the door, I need to bleed…” Qin Ran secretly complained in his heart, “With so many times of going in and out, won’t I get anemia?”
Behind the stone gate was a dark passage that was as tall as the stone gate, about 50 to 60 feet high and 60 to 70 feet wide. When people walked in the passage, their footsteps echoed and it felt empty.
Qin Ran followed Xiao Qi into the corridor, and the stone door closed automatically behind him.
The passage was dark, but closing the stone door had no effect on the light inside the passage. The passage was still dim, neither darker nor lighter.
Qin Ran looked around secretly and found array patterns engraved on the walls on both sides. After careful identification, he could find the array patterns used for lighting. So he knew that the light in the passage formed its own system.
The array patterns on the wall were actually quite complicated, and with his level of array skills, he couldn't make them out at the moment. He could only roughly tell that in addition to the lighting system, the array patterns also served to reinforce the walls and widen the passage space.
The two walked in the passage for a long time. At a certain moment, Qin Ran suddenly felt that the air was much more humid. He was startled and looked back quickly. After looking far away, he found that the passage was downward and had a considerable curvature, which was difficult to notice.
They had been walking for a long time and were probably already below sea level.
After walking for a while, Qin Ran found rooms on both sides of the wall. The rooms were not big, with doors and windows. They were made of stone, and the doors and windows were very small. He could not see clearly what was going on in the room. He wondered if anyone lived there.
But the layout gave him a prison feel.
"'Yuan' organization..." he muttered to himself.
They continued to move forward, their footsteps making bright and empty "clacking" sounds. After passing several stone doors, they passed another stone door, which was suddenly knocked on from the inside. Someone shouted, "Is there anyone there? Is there anyone there? Help me, help me!"
The sudden noise sounded very loud in the empty and dim passage, startling Qin Ran. He looked over and saw through the narrow stone window a man with disheveled hair flash by.
"What's wrong with him?" he asked Xiaoqi.
"I can't make the pills, so I'm restricted from traveling." Xiao Qi replied in a flat tone.
"What kind of elixir is he going to make?"
Xiao Qi tilted his head to look at the stone gate and replied, "Second-grade pill, he should be an alchemist who refines Qi and Blood Pills."
Qin Ran looked over and saw two horizontal bars made of jade on the stone door.
Two horizontal bars, second-grade alchemist. Second-grade alchemist, second-grade elixir, golden elixir cultivator...
"What if he can't refine it?" Qin Ran asked.
"Then you will be locked up and not allowed to come out."
"Until death?"
"Until death."
"How many chances did he have?"
"A first-grade alchemist has one chance, a second-grade one has two. He is a second-grade alchemist, so he has two chances." Xiao Qi replied, "It seems that he has already failed once, wasting the medicinal materials for a second-grade pill."
"Twice..." Qin Ran muttered.
He is an alchemist, and he knows a completely unfamiliar recipe for an elixir. An alchemist needs to fail hundreds or thousands of times before he can learn it.
What does it mean to learn? As long as the success rate exceeds 50%, the alchemist can say that he has learned how to make that kind of elixir.
But now, the "Yuan" organization only allows two chances of failure.
With just these few words, he could tell how many alchemists would die here.
The two continued to move forward. Every once in a while, an alchemist would appear asking for help. They were either alchemists who had failed once, failed twice, or failed completely and were waiting to die.
"Why are there so many?" Qin Ran couldn't help but ask again.
"Because this is the accumulation of hundreds and thousands of years of the Yuan organization." Xiao Qi replied.
“Hundreds of years, thousands of years…” Qin Ran opened his mouth, “Savings?”
The alchemists here have been treated as objects and have been locked up for so many years.
The further one goes, the deeper into the sea, the wider the passage becomes, the bigger and more spacious the rooms on both sides become, and the better the accommodation conditions for the alchemists living in them become.
Even after walking a little further, some stone doors were opened and alchemists could come in and out freely. There were also alchemists sitting outside reading books on alchemy.
But no one paid any attention to Qin Ran. They didn't even look at him.
As we walked, a large space appeared in front of us. The space was dozens of feet high and covered several hundred square meters. In the center there was a circular altar of more than ten square meters.
Qin Ran didn't know what it was for, Xiao Qiye didn't explain, he led Qin Ran around the altar and walked straight forward.
The circular altar is located at a crossroads. In addition to the direction from which it came, there are two similar passages on the left and right.
On the side of the detour they took, Qin Ran looked over and saw the words "Refining" on the wall. He guessed that the area beyond that was the territory of the weapon refiner.
Xiao Qi led Qin Ran forward. After passing the altar, the passage behind became wider, the light became brighter, and the rooms on both sides became larger.
If it was a prisoner at first, it has now become a room in a star-rated hotel.
The two came to a gorgeously decorated door. Xiao Qi went forward and knocked on the door, saying, "Chief, there is a new alchemist."
After a long while, an old, panting voice came from inside: "Find a place to stay and don't disturb me!"
"Chief, he is a specially hired alchemist." Xiao Qi said again.
As soon as the specially hired alchemist appeared, the room suddenly became noisy. With a bang, an old man with a naked and skinny upper body opened the door of the room, bringing out a strong fishy smell.
The old man narrowed his eyes, looked past Xiao Qi, and looked Qin Ran up and down, sneering, "Specially hired alchemist? You?"
In addition to the unpleasant smell, Qin Ran also saw two naked women with big breasts and fat buttocks in the room through the open door. He didn't look at them for long, but clasped his fists and bowed, and replied, "It's me."
The old man stared at Qin Ran for a long time before he said, "You are young, but you are quite capable. You actually dare to come before me and become my specially-appointed alchemist."
He pointed to a room across from him and said to Xiao Qi, "Let him live there. I will take care of him myself."
"Okay." Xiao Qi agreed.
“Bang!”
Then the old man closed the door in a hurry.
Apparently, the pear blossoms in the room are beginning to overshadow the crabapple blossoms again.
“Wait here for a moment.” Xiao Qi said, then turned to get the key from deeper in the passage and opened the stone door for Qin Ran.
He handed the key to Qin Ran and said, "This is your residence. If you have any questions, go ask the chief across the street. He is our chief alchemist here, and he is responsible for all matters related to alchemy here."
Xiao Qi didn't wait for him to reply. He just left and walked out the door, closing the door for him.
Qin Ran could only look at the simple and elegant stone door and shake his head.
He turned around, looked at this spacious and gorgeous room, and curled his lips: "My Master, I have done this for you..."