The people in the hall couldn’t help but sneer internally. A loss? It’s only because you are an idiot that you suffer a loss. No wonder he was so bold, daring to directly offend so many influential people. Turns out, this person was an idiot.
“Fine, you can have all of it. I don’t want any of the spirit herbs you obtain in the Illusionary Fruit Orchard.” Le Jiesheng didn’t even wait for Ning Cheng to say something to contradict him before stating it publicly.
In any case, behind Ning Cheng stood Sheng Houtian, an existence that wouldn’t allow him to bully Ning Cheng.
Ning Cheng frowned and seemed to have some regrets. But after a moment, he sighed again before speaking, “These six Empyrean Consciousness Transmutation Pills of mine were originally for me and my friend Jian Sanshan. His share……”
Le Jiesheng was all too familiar with Jian Sanshan. He had come to a few banquets in the past. However, he never managed to enter the Illusionary Fruit Garden. From that, it was evident that his claim to fame came entirely from a rubbish pill like the Harmonious Heaven Pill.
The Harmonious Heaven Pill was a spirit pill that aided in sensing the path to the Dao Essence Realm. However, Jian Sanshan was merely a Dao Raising Holy Emperor at best. Therefore, even if his pill could help sense the path to the Dao Essence Realm, it would be pretty strange if it had no after-effects or hidden dangers. Besides, no one had heard of anyone advancing to the Dao Essence Realm using the Harmonious Heaven Pill.
“Okay, I agree.” Le Jiesheng again replied without hesitation.
It made no difference to him if Ning Cheng and Jian Sanshan wanted 10% or 100% of the harvest. These two people can’t even enter the first level of the Illusionary Fruit Orchard.
“Then, many thanks, City Lord Le.” Ning Cheng clasped his fists in thanks and waved to Jian Sanshan to follow him.
The reason he had taken out the Empyrean Consciousness Transmutation Pill was that he knew that Le Jiesheng wouldn’t be able to refuse it. His Sea of Consciousness had already grown incredibly powerful over the last few years. As such, he had already sensed the subtle instability in Le Jiesheng’s recent Dao Essence advancement. Faced with not losing anything at all and gaining six Empyrean Consciousness Transmutation Pills, how could Le Jiesheng not hasten to agree?
“That idiot.” Seeing the six pills that she also needed urgently, put away by Le Jiesheng, the middle-aged woman from 9-Revolutions Sacred Dao Pond cursed in a hateful voice.
However, Shi Yisheng spoke up from the side, “Senior Aunt Tai, Ning Cheng isn’t like others. In the few times I observed him conduct exchanges, he has never suffered a loss. Even Man Huishan is helpless against him. How could he do such an idiotic thing?”
Shi Tianhe spoke up in a deep voice, “Yisheng is right, this one called Ning Cheng, he’s inscrutable.”
The middle-aged female cultivator quickly realised a few things and nodded while glancing at Ning Cheng.
After Le Jiesheng collected the six Empyrean Consciousness Transmutation Pills, he also sensed something weird with the situation. For Ning Cheng to say those things, he most likely was confident enough to enter the first level. Otherwise, why bother talking about distribution.
But even if Ning Cheng could enter the first level, so what? The six Empyrean Consciousness Transmutation Pills were something that he needed no matter what.
Not only did Le Jiesheng realise something weird about the situation, but most of the cultivators in the hall also started to feel something fishy with what happened just now. Ning Cheng might be a low-level cultivator, but he had managed to escape from Man Huishan. How could he not realise Le Jiesheng’s intentions? The only possibility was that Ning Cheng really could enter the Illusionary Fruit Orchard’s first level. Maybe he could even enter the second level.
Man Huishan, on the other hand, laughed coldly in secret but didn’t say anything. He chased Ning Cheng for several years and knew about Ning Cheng much better than anyone here. Ning Cheng was slippery as an eel and cunning as a fox. Why would such a person take out six Empyrean Consciousness Transmutation Pills for no reason at all? If it were him, he would never have agreed to it, even if he craved the Empyrean Consciousness Transmutation Pill.
But when Man Huishan thought of not agreeing, he subconsciously glanced at Le Jiesheng before internally sighing. Would he really not agree? If Ning Cheng had put six of those pills before him, he most likely would have agreed to any condition Ning Cheng proposed. He would have agreed even if he knew that Ning Cheng was taking advantage of him.
Ning Cheng took out the Primal Chaos’s First Furnace and put it into his storage bag. When the crowd saw Ning Cheng’s Primal Chaos’s First Furnace, they couldn’t help but snigger again. Although this Primal Chaos’s First Furnace didn’t look too bad, it definitely didn’t deserve the name ‘First Furnace’. Yet, he dared to engrave the words ‘Primal Chaos’s First Furnace’ on it; was he not afraid of being struck down by lightning?
Ning Cheng didn’t care about what others thought. He simply closed the storage bag and walked through the open entrance like the other alchemists.
The moment Ning Cheng stepped through the entrance, the scene in front of him changed. Another large hall appeared in front of him. He didn’t see any ‘wall’ in the hall in front of him, but instead, he saw a mountain cliff. No, more precisely, the four walls of the hall were four different mountain cliffs. The cliff walls had twelve gates, 3 on each wall. And just as Sheng Houtian mentioned, each gate had twelve pill slots. A void was above the twelve gates, where the hall’s ceiling should have been.
More than eighty alchemy masters had entered this hall before him, and they all had already finished picking their own spots. Everyone had their pill furnaces out in front of them and ready to go. Apparently, they were all waiting for some sign from the Illusionary Fruit Orchard to begin refining.
When Ning Cheng saw that Sheng Houtian hadn’t come in, he probably guessed some of the reasons for his choice. After all, Sheng Houtian had been famous for a long time and was also the second union master of the Pill Union. If he came in, and the level he reached here wasn’t as good as the younger generation, it would immediately tank his reputation. At the same time, Pill Union’s reputation would also take a massive dive.
“Brother Jian, you can stay next to me,” Ning Cheng whispered to Jian Sanshan, who nervously kept close to Ning Cheng.
Jian Sanshan had no intention of staying away from Ning Cheng. Ning Cheng was a genuine Dao Transformation Pill Sage, which meant that following Ning Cheng and refining pills under him would be the best option.
After another half-an-incense stick worth of time, the gate through which everyone entered this hall slowly faded away into thin air.
The many alchemy masters immediately perked up and activated their pill furnaces as soon as the gate disappeared. They all understood that the rush to reach the medicinal gardens had begun.
There were only twelve gates here, but more than eighty pill deities and pill sages. It meant that whoever refined a batch of top-quality Dao Sculpting Spirit Pills first would be the first to enter the Illusionary Fruit Orchard’s first level. In any case, the first to enter would get to harvest the most precious and the most amount of spirit herbs.
“Brother Ning, you’re a Dao Transformation Pill Sage. Try to refine the most difficult Dao Sculpting Spirit Pill that you can.” Jian Sanshan sent Ning Cheng a voice transmission after seeing Ning Cheng take out the Primal Chaos’s First Furnace.
“Why?” Ning Cheng looked at Jian Sanshan in confusion. Didn’t he say that as long as one could refine twelve top-quality Dao Sculpting Spirit Pills, one could step through a gate?
Jian Sanshan also took out his pill furnace while sending sound transmissions to Ning Cheng. “At each level, you can open the gate as long as you refine the specific grade of pills. However, there is a difference in the preciousness and quantity of spirit herbs behind each gate. It’s all dependent on the level of spirit pill you refine and the difficulty of refining that pill. If you refine higher level and more complex pills, then you would find more precious and more numerous spirit herbs inside.”
Ning Cheng already understood that these gates were a part of a teleportation array. But unlike regular teleportation arrays, they required pill aura to activate. But from Jian Sanshan’s reply, he also understood that different pills would lead to different coordinates. In other words, higher complexity pills would teleport you to an area with more precious spirit herbs.
Ning Cheng originally wanted to casually refine a batch of ordinary Dao Sculpting Pills. But after listening to Jian Sanshan’s words, he immediately took out the spirit grasses needed to refine the Primordial Cleansing Pill.
The Primordial Cleansing Pills was only a Dao Sculpting Spirit Pill. The primary spirit herbs were the Purple Current Pistle, the Single Essence Zoysia, and a dozen other auxiliary herbs. But although classified as a Dao Sculpting Spirit Pill, the difficulty in refining it was comparable to that of a middle-grade Dao Raising Spirit Pill. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that the Primordial Cleansing Pill was at the very top of all Dao Sculpting Spirit Pills. More importantly, it allowed Dao Sculpting Holy Emperors to have a higher chance of epiphanies directly in line with their dao intents. Whether you used the pill in secluded cultivation sessions or to attain enlightenment of spirit techniques, this pill’s effects far surpassed every other pill in the same rank.
Seeing that Ning Cheng had chosen to refine the Primordial Cleansing Pill, Jian Sanshan could only let out a sigh. Ning Cheng was probably the only one who decided to refine the Primordial Cleansing Pill for the first level’s gate. Even Jing Han wouldn’t dare to refine such a pill here.
Although he felt eager to see how Ning Cheng refined the Primordial Cleansing Pill, Jian Sanshan knew that now wasn’t the time for it. He had to start refining his own pills. But what he chose to refine was a far cry compared to Ning Cheng. It was the Dry Ration Pill, an ordinary spirit pill for restoring spirit essence.
At this moment, every alchemist had immersed themselves in refining pills and no longer paid any attention to the people around them.
Jian Sanshan, like the other alchemists around him, had also forgotten about everything else and focussed everything on refining the Dry Ration Pill in the furnace in front of him. He and Ning Cheng had become friends, and he didn’t want to make himself look too rubbish in front of Ning Cheng. If Ning Cheng entered the fourth level of the Illusionary Fruit Orchard, it would be too embarrassing if he couldn’t even enter the first level.
Unfortunately, the more he wanted to succeed, the more mistakes he made. His pill art couldn’t gather refined essences, causing the pill aura to spill out of the furnace. Sensing the changes, Jian Sanshan could only sigh. He understood that it would be impossible to refine twelve top-quality Dry Ration Pills in this batch.
At this moment, Ning Cheng’s voice transmission suddenly arrived in his ears. “There is a gap in your pill art, causing your pill aura to overflow. Use your spirit sense to gather and lock up the pill liquid, then use this pill art as follows: ‘Spirit Nourishing Divine Air, True Extreme Fire…..”
Jian Sanshan felt overjoyed. Even though he didn’t know why or how Ning Cheng could keep an eye on his pill furnace while refining pills, Ning Cheng’s voice transmission had convinced him.
In just a few breaths of time, the scattering pill aura gathered back, and the resulting actions even increased the grade of the pills forming inside. As long as Jian Sanshan followed the instructions, he felt confident that this batch would produce twelve top-quality Dry Ration Pills. Fortunately, Jian Sanshan held back his inner excitement and carefully carried out all the instructions.
In the guest hall of the City Lord’s mansion, all the people kept a close eye at the three-dimensional crystal screen in the middle of the hall. Although they couldn’t see the face of each pill master, they could clearly see more than eighty alchemists refining their pills in front of the twelve large gates.
“It looks like there’s quite a fight for the twelve doors to the first level this time.” Holy Emperor Extreme Void smiled as he saw the pill aura visibility overflowing from the alchemists’ furnaces on the large crystal screen.
“I bet the first one to open the gate would be Great Spirit Pill Sect’s Pill Sage Jing Han. He’s a Dao Transformation Pill Sage, after all. His alchemy talent should put him in the top spot here.” A Dao Transformation Holy Emperor spoke up with a sigh of admiration.
“Not necessarily, Senior Lei Shamu is also a Dao Transformation Pill Sage. His understanding of alchemy shouldn’t be any weaker than that of Pill Sage Jing Han…..”
The crowd watching in the guest hall were still in the middle of their discussion when Ning Cheng stood up.
“Who’s that person? What’s the point of standing up so early? It’s only been a while, not even a third of an incense stick. Did he fail to refine a pill? That’s just too much. Right, this guy must be…… a pity about the bottle of Empyrean Consciousness Transmutation Pills, though……” A Dao Raising Holy Emperor, who thought that Ning Cheng had stood up, stopped halfway through his words.
The crystal screen only let people see the figure of the alchemist, but not their face or appearance. He only guessed that it was Ning Cheng. But then he remembered that Ning Cheng’s Empyrean Consciousness Transmutation Pills had gone to City Lord Le. What’s the point of feeling pity about it?
Besides, it wasn’t difficult to guess that the one who stood up was Ning Cheng. That’s because, among those who dared to enter the Illusionary Fruit Orchard, Ning Cheng was the only Dao Sculpting Pill Deity. The rest were all at least at the Dao Raising Pill Deity level.
