As a disciple of an orthodox sect, he felt no moral struggle at all.

He quickly captured several independent cultivators at the Foundation Establishment and early Golden Core stages, intending to use them as sacrifices to steal their cultivation.

However, because his own spiritual root was damaged, he could not absorb and refine the power.

His first sacrifice failed, leaving the victim severely injured while he suffered backlash as well, further worsening his already unstable Golden Core late-stage cultivation.

He imprisoned the failed sacrifices again and desperately continued exploring the ancient cultivator’s cave.

After passing another trial, he obtained the middle section of the Fate Devouring Array manual and a central map.

His attention was completely drawn to the formation itself and he paid little attention to anything else.

He casually stored the map away and focused entirely on studying the middle section of the Fate Devouring Array.

It turned out that the formation was called the Fate Devouring Array.

It could seize anything from others for one’s own use.

Through different methods, it could take appearance, cultivation, voice, spiritual power, organs... virtually nothing was beyond its reach.

Moreover, it only worked between beings of the same kind.

For example, if a female wanted a beautiful face, she would need to use a beautiful human as a sacrifice in order to steal that human’s appearance.

Some snake demon had a damaged dantian, and through the Fate Devouring Array, it could use another snake of the same species with an intact dantian as a sacrifice to steal that dantian.

It was truly an evil formation.

Likewise, when a cultivator’s spiritual root was damaged, they could only first steal another person’s spiritual root before improving their cultivation.

However, the more precious the stolen target was, the stricter the limitations of the Fate Devouring Array became.

For heaven defying acts like stealing spiritual roots, the restrictions were even harsher.

The sacrifice had to be completely without cultivation, under the age of thirteen, and a virgin who had never lost their yin or yang essence.

Even if the ritual succeeded, there was still another problem: compatibility between the spiritual root and the body.

After all, it was not originally one’s own spiritual root, so perfect compatibility was impossible.

If compatibility was insufficient, one would have to steal another spiritual root again.

Usually, repeating the same type of spiritual root theft would result in slightly better compatibility.

After reading the middle section of the manual, the cultivator returned to the mortal world and brought back five children, including Ye Ying, intending to steal their spiritual root talents, then seize others’ cultivation to advance to Nascent Soul.

However, that cultivator was extremely unlucky.

He first stole two dual spiritual root children with the same constitution as himself, but neither matched his body.

He was forced to switch to other types of spiritual roots, but the next four children all failed as well.

By the time it was Ye Ying’s turn, more than a year and a half had already passed.

Ye Ying had grown from eight to ten years old.

After all, the Fate Devouring Array could not be used without limits.

It could only be activated on the night of the full moon by drawing on moonlight energy.

Each successful attempt also required one to two months of testing spiritual root compatibility.

Because of this, more than a year and a half passed.

After Ye Ying escaped, he was abducted by the assassin organization when he was around ten years old.

Due to the formation going berserk, he instead seized the late Golden Core stage cultivation of that cultivator.

Combined with his own mutated water spiritual root and the organization’s deliberate cultivation, he quickly advanced to Nascent Soul.

The book mentioned that Ye Ying met the female lead and died saving her at the age of 26.

He remembered that the arc began one year before the grand tournament of the Heavenly Void Sect.

At the time of that tournament, the female lead was 42 years old.

This meant Ye Ying died when Xiao Ran was 41.

Ye Ying was abducted by the assassin organization at age ten. So 26 minus 10 equals 16. 41 minus sixteen equals 25.

When Xiao Ran was 25, Ye Ying escaped and encountered the Nine Abyssal Gate cultivators.

Xiao Ran was the same age as Xiao Shou.

He was 24 this year, which meant that a little over a year later, Ye Ying would escape the assassin organization.

At this moment, he was still imprisoned inside the ancient cultivator’s cave in Endless Grief Mountain.

In that year and more of time, perhaps some of his companions might still be alive. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

The children were around ten years old, all of them had spiritual roots, and none of them belonged to any sect or family.

They were all kidnapped from various mortal regions by cultivators.

Coming from mountain villages, they were simple and pure in character.

At the very least, after Ye Ying had his restriction removed by the female lead, he did not, like other men, become involved with her, nor was there any emotional description of him falling in love with her.

He only risked his life to protect her out of gratitude.

This allowed one to infer that even after the cruel training of the assassin organization, his personality of repaying kindness with loyalty had never changed.

If those children could be saved, those children would become the first batch of disciples of Eternal Prosperity Sect.

Gratitude would surely transform into sincere loyalty.

Just thinking about it made him almost drool with excitement.

He clenched his fist.

He must eliminate evil and save these children.

Moreover, that ancient cultivator’s cave was not just the female lead’s opportunity.

Although the Fate Devouring Array was evil, its heaven defying function could not be denied and that was only the reward after passing two levels.

There might be even more powerful treasures inside.

Otherwise, the cultivator of the Nine Abyssal Gate would not have been able to advance repeatedly in just sixteen years, seize control of the organization, and become its true leader.