Jaed21
Author if you read my comment= why don't you have the protagonist hire random people , where you always have him show up when `nie li` wants to teach his techniques , making him become paranoid and distrustful of anything , that will make him waste time on strengthening and make people who follow him stay away , why `nielii` doesn't want them to know his secret , and by losing his minions , he will feel more hatred for the protagonist who has his friends because of his caution of not helping them( another idea would be , you plant evidence in the family of 'nielii ' , where you leave things related to the dark guild , thing that will make him stop cultivating and want to solve the problem , and to finish ,changing face and using one of the kind , you pay another and make him accuse 'nielii' of being part of the dark guild, since in the class he said things that are not known and all the class will support and end up having to escape (that would give many points to the protagonist and will make everyone have in mind that joining with 'nielii' is just to have problems.