Even after his disciple assured him he was fine, Bai Zhou still couldn’t rest easy.

It reminded him of those Alchemists who took "Immortal Pills." Although there were no apparent harmful effects at first, the pill’s toxins remained permanently in their bodies, leading to excruciating, unending torment in their later years.

Moreover, this was something that could genuinely affect the Soul Spirit. Any potential damage would impact one’s very psyche.

And so, Bai Zhou tested his disciple with a few more questions.

Thankfully, aside from still being a bit dazed and slow to react, there was nothing else wrong with his disciple.

"How on earth did you do it? Is this a unique ability of your race? Will it affect your health in the future?" Still deeply perplexed, Bai Zhou fired off a volley of questions.

Hearing Bai Zhou’s questions, the disciple groggily explained the principle of his immortality once more, this time in greater and more profound detail.

The principle was simple.

It involved a great deal of knowledge from divination trigrams, including how to separate the Soul Spirit from the physical body.

It also included certain methods for purifying medicinal substances, which the disciple had, to Bai Zhou’s surprise, used on himself.

As Bai Zhou listened, he surprisingly began to understand.

While marveling at his disciple’s wild and ingenious idea, Bai Zhou was also filled with concern.

"Don’t ever do this again. If no one had been around to save you in time, you really would have ascended to the heavens for good."

"That won’t happen, Master," the disciple explained earnestly. "I could feel it. I felt that my spirit and my body would intersect again. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have attempted it so readily."

"You can feel something like that?" Bai Zhou asked in disbelief.

"Yes."

"When will they intersect?"

"I don’t know."

Hearing this, Bai Zhou gave his disciple another sharp rap on the forehead.

"Blockhead!"

The disciple didn’t try to dodge, letting Bai Zhou hit him. "I am indeed a blockhead, Master."

"..."

Bai Zhou was suddenly so exasperated he was at a loss for words.

Just as he was pondering how to talk his disciple out of such foolishness, he felt the mist in the air change, seeming to grow suddenly thicker.

Before, the mist had never seemed to touch his skin. But just now, the moist vapor began to cling to his clothes, and his skin felt clammy.

He wiped a hand across his face and found it beaded with moisture.

’Why is this mist getting so thick?’ Bai Zhou wondered. ’Is the weather always this extreme?’

"When did this mist roll in?" he asked his disciple curiously.

"A long time ago," the disciple replied after a moment’s thought. "It started not long after you left, Master. Right around the time I learned how to achieve immortality."

"That long?"

The mist had persisted for that long? Bai Zhou immediately realized something was truly wrong with it.

’What kind of mist could last for so long?’

"Has anything else strange happened in the village?" Bai Zhou pressed.

"Yes!" This time, the disciple answered without a second’s thought. "Master, I’ll take you to see."

"Alright."

His heart heavy with worry, Bai Zhou followed his disciple through the village.

The disciple led Bai Zhou to a place that resembled a storehouse. Inside were the various tools Bai Zhou had taught them to make, but they were now all piled in a disorderly heap.

"What happened?" Bai Zhou asked, puzzled by the sight of the tools.

"Look here." The disciple pointed to the joint of one of the tools. The wooden structure was covered in patches of black mold, which had eaten deep fissures into the material.

Bai Zhou quickly inspected the other tools and discovered that the mold had appeared on their most critical parts, damaging them to the point of being unusable.

It was as if they had been deliberately sabotaged by someone who knew the tools intimately.

And yet, the mold also looked as if it had formed naturally in the damp mist.

Bai Zhou picked up a stick and scraped at a patch of mold, but the slight pressure caused the already fragile tool to fall apart.

’The corrosion is that deep?’

The pitch-black mold had apparently bored deep into the wood’s core.

’So that’s why these tools were tossed in here.’

Feeling the damp mist around him, Bai Zhou couldn’t help but connect the two phenomena.

’Could this mist be a living organism? One with its own consciousness?’

Bai Zhou couldn’t think of any other explanation.

If it didn’t possess a strong sense of self-awareness, it wouldn’t have specifically targeted the weakest points to render the tools completely useless.

"When did the problems with the tools start?" Bai Zhou pressed.

"After the mist appeared on the island," the disciple replied confidently.

Hearing this, Bai Zhou was even more certain of the connection between the two.

"All the tools? In the whole village... they’ve all been corroded?" Bai Zhou asked, his concern growing as he thought of the mist blanketing the entire island.

His disciple nodded.

’It seems the problem is even more serious than I imagined.’

Bai Zhou followed his disciple on another tour of the village. He found it was just as his disciple had said: discarded tools were everywhere. The Chali Race had regressed to a primitive state; all the tools he had taught them to make were now useless.

’How can it be so targeted?’ Bai Zhou even felt it was like a prelude to war, a deliberate destruction of an enemy’s civilized creations.

Back in the hut, Bai Zhou sank into deep thought.

’The mold is caused by the mist, and the mist has been here for a long time...’

’It began to spread across the island not long after I left, right when my disciple learned to achieve immortality...’

’Immortality?’

A spark of insight flashed through Bai Zhou’s mind.

If he remembered correctly, the mist around him had seemed to thicken considerably right after his disciple had told him a bit about the method for achieving immortality.

At this thought, Bai Zhou immediately asked his disciple if he had noticed any change in the mist when they had been talking earlier.

His disciple, however, shook his head.

’Only I can feel it?’

’Because I learned the method of immortality, the mist has latched onto me?’

Remembering the sudden dampness on his skin, it all clicked for Bai Zhou.

He urgently asked his disciple, "How many other people know the method for achieving immortality?"

At this, his disciple fell silent, hemming and hawing as if trying to hide something. Bai Zhou saw his predicament at once, and a terrible feeling bloomed in his chest.

"Everyone... everyone in the village knows..."

The disciple said sheepishly. He had never been one to keep things to himself, always sharing everything Bai Zhou taught him with the other villagers. Bai Zhou hadn’t minded before.

He never expected it would cause such a disaster this time.

"What’s wrong, Master?" the disciple asked, seeing the panicked look on Bai Zhou’s face.

Bai Zhou looked at his still-oblivious disciple, sighed, and explained his theory.

After hearing Bai Zhou’s explanation, the disciple froze in place.

"I’m sorry, Master. I didn’t know."

"It’s alright. This isn’t your fault."

’Who could have imagined that simply knowing something could invite such a catastrophe?’

’Is it that those who steal life from the heavens are destined to face divine retribution?’