Emily Thompson's Shaochong acupoint in his right hand was already filled with spiritual energy. He guided the energy within his body, channeling it along his meridians to attack the Shaofu acupoint, but every surge of spiritual energy felt like crashing into an unbreakable, towering wall.

Cultivation was just this monotonous and tedious. Emily Thompson had no idea how many times he had tried to break through, yet that wall still showed no sign of collapsing—not even the slightest tremor.

The sun had already risen overhead. Emily Thompson planned to return to the temple for a meal when suddenly a joyful roar sounded in his ear.

This roar was very familiar to Emily Thompson. He opened his eyes and saw the little white tiger running over from afar. With a light leap, it jumped onto the huge rock and rubbed its little head against Emily Thompson.

Emily Thompson picked it up and couldn't help but pet it again. After his undercover days ended, he had once raised a cat named Xiaobai as a source of comfort. This little tiger was much bigger, but it felt even better to the touch.

Comfortably rolling around in Emily Thompson's arms, the little white tiger jumped down from the boulder and, facing a certain direction, nodded its head at Emily Thompson.

He hadn't expected it to make such a human-like gesture. Emily Thompson was taken aback and uncertainly asked, "You want me to follow you?"

The little white tiger didn't care whether Emily Thompson understood or not. It dashed into the bushes ahead, ran a dozen steps, then looked back at Emily Thompson and nodded again, signaling him to keep up.

Emily Thompson, intrigued, followed along. Thus, the little white tiger ran on the ground while he flew behind. Before long, the pair arrived at a cliff.

Emily Thompson was a bit puzzled and muttered, "Why did you bring me here?"

Standing on the edge of the cliff, Emily Thompson noticed something odd. Within a ten-zhang radius beneath his feet, the ground was bare and empty, but beyond that, the vegetation was lush and thriving.

At that moment, he realized the little white tiger was standing at the edge of the cliff, nodding downward at Emily Thompson.

It seemed there was something below the cliff.

Emily Thompson walked over to its position and looked down. He saw that on a protruding rock below the cliff, there was a completely red plant growing, resembling a small tree, with a single fist-sized, fiery red fruit at its top.

When he saw the fruit, Emily Thompson was stunned at first, then exclaimed with delight, "Vermilion Fruit!"

Having worked as a medicine boy for ten years, Emily Thompson was extremely familiar with all kinds of plants. He recognized at a glance that the plant growing below the cliff was called "Vermilion Fruit," a rare spiritual herb that was extremely hard to find. Not only did mortal pharmacies buy it at high prices, even Kunlun had a demand for it.

If a mortal ate the Vermilion Fruit, it could prolong their life. Refined into a pill, it could increase a cultivator's magical power. A hundred-year-old Vermilion Fruit could fetch a price of five hundred spirit coins at Baiyun Temple.

"Roar, roar..."

The little white tiger kept growling softly. Looking into its eyes, Emily Thompson read a certain message, leaving him astonished.

"This is... for me?"

A lively light flickered in the tiger's large eyes. Emily Thompson was shocked—this little tiger had such high intelligence! He had never seen an animal with such an expression. Could it be that the Qi Gathering Pill last time had awakened its intelligence?

Was it repaying his kindness?

Chapter 10: The Incense Burner Mutates

Looking at the little white tiger's intelligent eyes, Emily Thompson felt a bit ashamed.

After all, he had given it the Qi Gathering Pill last time with ulterior motives, treating it as a test subject.

The little white tiger clearly didn't know this, and kept urging Emily Thompson with low growls.

Emily Thompson leapt down and picked the Vermilion Fruit. As the fruit left the branch, the Vermilion Fruit tree gradually withered, eventually turning to dust and drifting away on the wind.

A Vermilion Fruit tree bears only one fruit in its lifetime, the crystallization of all its spiritual energy. Once the fruit is picked, the tree withers.

The spiritual fruit in his hand radiated waves of heat, and Emily Thompson's heart burned with excitement. Five hundred spirit coins was a huge sum for him—enough to exchange for many things from Elder Harris, including protective talismans and magical tools. In the future, he could even try taking on some higher-level tasks.

Just as this thought arose in Emily Thompson's mind, he suddenly felt a slight warmth in his chest. Then, before his eyes, the Vermilion Fruit in his hand withered at a speed visible to the naked eye, turning into a stream of heat that flowed toward the incense burner mark on his chest...

"Damn..."

Emily Thompson stood there dumbfounded, watching as the spiritual fruit in his hand turned to dust.

His heart was filled with grief and indignation, and he blurted out, "No, my medicine, my spirit coins!"

Emily Thompson only knew that the incense burner could absorb ghosts—he hadn't expected it to absorb spiritual herbs as well. This Vermilion Fruit, with at least a hundred years of medicinal power, hadn't even warmed up in his hand before it was snatched away...

If he had known the incense burner was so sinister, he wouldn't have reached for it!

However, before Emily Thompson could even feel heartache, his body suddenly trembled.

He keenly sensed that the heat from the Vermilion Fruit hadn't been completely absorbed by the mark on his chest. A small portion of it circulated through his body and surged into his meridians.

Then, to his delight, Emily Thompson discovered that the Shaofu acupoint, which he had been trying to break through for so long without success, was actually opened up by this surge of heat!

At this moment, both the Shaochong and Shaofu acupoints in his body were filled with spiritual energy. Of the eight acupoints in the first level of Qi Refining, he had already opened two.