by Translator: BornToBe; Author: Ordinary Magician (平凡魔术师); Licensed From: 17k
“Huh? You’re just a sergeant. A dog like you wants to personally capture me? Don’t make me laugh,” ridiculed Long Chen.
Sergeant was the lowest commanding rank within the Phoenix Cry Empire. Someone like that had no past accomplishments or true power; it was just a small team-leader role.
But this particular fellow had become so excited about reaching that rank that he couldn’t shut up about it. As soon as he had risen to sergeant, he had become accustomed to his role.
Long Chen’s words now were like poisonous arrows that shot into his heart. His face immediately became unsightly.
He came from a low origin and had suffered for over ten years in the army camp before an opportunity finally came for him to break through to the Blood Condensation realm, and only after that was he promoted to sergeant.
His current greatest achievement was now being viciously insulted, causing his killing intent to soar.
“Long Chen, don’t force me to kill you.” The man ground his teeth and his hand went to the sword on his belt.
“If you dare to draw your blade, I will let your head fall to the ground.”
Long Chen clasped his hands behind his back. His tone was extremely serious. It wasn’t loud and lacked the slightest anger, sounding just like a strong expert with endless confidence.
“You’re asking for death!” The man roared and shot forward off the horse, sending his fist punching at Long Chen.
Blood Qi circulated throughout his body, and a red glow appeared on his body, clearly showing that he had used a trace of the Blood Condensation realm’s power.
Long Chen’s gaze was electric, and his face cold. He took a step forward while also unleashing a fist.
BOOM!
Gale winds surged when the two fists met. Both parties were sent several steps back from the explosion.
“You’re actually so insolent with just this little ability?” Long Chen coldly mocked.
The man’s expression changed. To be ridiculed by someone called a cripple caused him enough fury to explode.
“Go die!”
He unsheathed his sword and sent it slashing at Long Chen’s neck. A whistling wind pierced people’s ears, causing them to feel a chilliness inside.
As if waiting for this exact moment, Long Chen’s foot tapped the ground and retreated several feet in a ghostly manner, completely avoiding the attack.
This retreat had used the newly learned Windchasing Steps. Although he was still at the initial training level of it, with Long Chen’s fused Pill Sovereign memories came an incomparable understanding of the human body’s meridians. With such an understanding, it was as if he had already been practicing it for decades.
With a single step, he arrived in front of a soldier and reached out. That soldier was extremely surprised and hastily raised his blade to block.
But unexpectedly, his hand shook and the blade disappeared. The next moment he could see Long Chen, he was viciously slashing his sword at the sergeant.
The sergeant was still off-balance from his swing and had still yet to ready himself. Long Chen’s retreat, seizing of a blade, and attack had all happened in just a breath. The whistle of the blade slashing towards him shocked him and he quickly used all of his strength to block it.
BOOM!
After the explosion, the sergeant felt some kind of energy he couldn’t contend with, and he was knocked back several meters
As soon as he managed to stabilize his body, his stomach dropped. With his years of experience of life and death battles, he unconsciously raised his blade.
With another huge explosion, sparks flew everywhere as a cold light flew dozens of meters away into a tree.
Previously, that sergeant had used his surprising intuition to block one of Long Chen’s slashes. But he had been unable to resist Long Chen’s terrifying strength. The web between his thumb and forefinger split and his sword was sent flying.
Now the sergeant no longer had his previous arrogance. He was completely stunned and despaired as a cold light flashed in front of his eyes, appearing like the scythe of the Grim Reaper.
“NO!”
That terrified scream hung in the air as the sergeant’s head flew through the air, his face twisted in an expression of shock and unwillingness.
Just as his consciousness was fading, he suddenly remembered what Long Chen had said before. If you dare to draw your blade, I will let your head fall to the ground...
He now finally believed that Long Chen hadn’t been trying to intimidate him, but had just spoken the truth. Unfortunately, his realization came too late.
His headless corpse collapsed to the ground. The head tumbled through the air for a long time before finally falling to the ground and rolling further away.
As for all the soldiers, they were all dumbstruck. The weapons in their hands felt much heavier at this moment.
They were all people who had seen blood before, but never such a ruthless scene as today. Long Chen had had a completely expressionless face from start to finish, completing the kill without even batting an eye. It was even more frightening than if he had been seething with anger.
“Long Chen, you dare to kill my trusted lieutenant. Do you believe me when I say I’ll destroy the entire Long estate?”
An angry cry suddenly came from afar, as a dignified middle-aged man walked over with dozens of experts.
“Have you finally come out?” Long Chen coldly laughed inside. As soon as he had arrived, he had used his divine sense to scout the surroundings and noticed those people hiding and watching from a distance.
“Savage Marquis, you really are worthy of your name. An unreasonable assault like this is just what I’d expect from someone of your reputation,” said Long Chen lazily as he leaned against a stone lion in front of his house gate.
“Today at the literature hall you committed a crime against the seventh prince, heavily injured my son, and now you’ve killed my trusted lieutenant. Hmph, no matter how you try to spin it, I’d like to see how you’ll get out of this one. Let’s see who will come to save you now!” shouted the Savage Marquis angrily.
Looking at this person who was as famous as his father, a ridiculing smile appeared on the corner of his mouth. Someone with such weak methods was also as famous as his father? What crap!
“Zhou Weiqing, did you get stupider the longer you lived? Do you really think that I, Long Chen, am someone who needs rescuing? You really are an idiot.”
Taking out the jade tablet from his robes, he said to him, “Open your dog eyes. Can you see what this is?”
When Zhou Weiqing who was also known as the Savage Marquis saw the pill furnace diagram carved into the jade tablet, his expression changed to one of complete shock.
“How is that possible?! How can you have the tablet of a Pill Apprentice? Is it a fake?” demanded Zhou Weiqing angrily.
“Idiot, you really have gotten senile. Fine, for someone as stupid as you, I’ll give you an extra close look.” Long Chen directly threw the jade tablet to Zhou Weiqing
When he carefully examined it, his expression grew even more shocked. As a powerful nobleman, how could he possibly not be able to tell the veracity of the alchemist guild’s status tablets?
And it was precisely because he recognized it that his expression was so shocked. The person who had signed this tablet was actually Yun Qi! Everyone in the Phoenix Cry Empire with a brain knew of that grandmaster’s name!
Even the successive generations of the royal family had to be respectful to alchemists. The alchemist guild held an extremely high level of influence in the empire.
“Do you see now Zhou Weiqing? Can you hand my tablet back to me?” laughed Long Chen coldly as he looked at the dazed Zhou Weiqing.
The Savage Marquis’s expression was extremely ugly. He wanted to crush the jade tablet in his hands and capture Long Chen, but he didn’t dare do so.
He didn’t know how Long Chen had obtained this tablet, but having it meant Long Chen was one of the alch
emist guild’s people. Those were people above the empire’s laws, and he didn’t have the power to butt in.
Zhou Weiqing was at a complete loss. He returned the tablet to Long Chen, but at that moment, Long Chen’s expression suddenly changed and he coldly shouted, “Zhou Weiqing, today you surrounded a Pill Apprentice’s home with blades, a vicious crime. If you don’t give me some recompense, I will go to the alchemist guild tomorrow and fill out an application for the Phoenix Cry Empire to punish you.”
Zhou Weiqing’s expression immediately changed. The alchemist guild’s punishments were definitely something to be afraid of. They would cut off the empire from medicinal pills, which was the same as choking the lifeline of the empire.
“It seems that I don’t have a clear understanding of what went on today. I’ll immediately go back and investigate to give you proper compensation.” With Long Chen’s current status, Zhou Weiqing could only swallow his anger.
This was the first time Long Chen had ever admired this Savage Marquis. His ability to swallow his own crap was quite amazing.
No wonder despite the passing of over ten years, he still remained in the Blood Condensation realm. He must have spent all of his time training how to swallow crap.
“No matter how or what you investigate, before I am awake tomorrow, my estate had better be completely cleaned up. Otherwise… well, you know what will happen.”
Long Chen coldly snorted and no longer bothered with this treacherous fox. He directly went inside his estate and slammed the doors shut.
He was extremely irritated from today’s affairs. In the morning at the literature hall, in the afternoon at Sunset Mountain, and in the evening at his estate gate… fighting three times in one day was definitely enough to irritate someone. But at least what had happened during the afternoon had been a bit more alluring.
After Long Chen left, the Savage Marquis’s expression became ashen. He hadn’t achieved the slightest bit of his goals in coming here but instead incited great trouble for himself.
“Master, what should we do?”
“What should we do? Hurry and start cleaning up this crap. Even if you have to lick off the bloodstains on the ground to get them off, hurry up and do it.”
With a stomach full of anger and nowhere to release it, the Savage Marquis took it out on his soldiers, cursing and raging. In the end, he left alone.
“Crap, how did that little brat get into the alchemist guild? Now it’ll be troublesome.”
The Savage Marquis muttered inside darkly. Seeing no one around him, he started walking towards the imperial palace.
Chapter 19 Facial Rejuvenation Elixir
In a small side room of the imperial palace, a handsome man in his twenties was quietly listening to the Savage Marquis’s report.
“This happened too suddenly and was completely out of my expectations, so your servant didn’t dare to act on his own. I beg fourth prince’s forgiveness and guidance,” said the Savage Marquis.
That handsome man was the fourth prince Chu Xia. But what separated him from the other princes was that he was just the son of an imperial concubine.
Although he was also a prince, his status was much inferior to the others. But due to his low-profile nature, he didn’t incite the others’ jealousy, and so he had a very good relationship with all the princes.
Practically all the aristocracy in the empire felt that the fourth prince had the best aptitude for inheriting the throne, but unfortunately, he wasn’t born to the right mother.
The fourth prince Chu Xia nodded and said, “You were right not to act. The fact that Long Chen managed to become an alchemist out of nowhere is definitely a bit surprising.”
“Yes, when I saw his tablet, I couldn’t believe my eyes. For that trash to become an alchemist is just too outrageous.” The Savage Marquis was also shaking his head and even now he was somewhat in disbelief.
“It’s interesting. After this Long Chen was heavily injured by your son, he seems to have completely changed and is now so much stronger that he is able to kill a half-step Blood Condensation expert. There might be more than what meets the eye here.” The fourth prince paced around for a bit before saying, “Go back and carefully observe the Long estate’s movements. See if anyone suspicious goes in. Remember, don’t get caught.”
“This servant will handle it. But as for Long Chen…” The Savage Marquis hesitated slightly.
“Don’t bother him for a while. He’s just a chess piece. As long as he doesn’t jump off the chessboard, even with a patron, he won’t be able to escape his fate. His current status is something we must be sensitive about. Get your son to temporarily back off. That’s right, how are your son’s injuries?” asked the fourth prince.
“Thank you for your concern fourth prince. After his recuperation, he’s already out of the woods,” hurriedly replied the Savage Marquis.
But speaking of which, when Zhou Yaoyang had been carried back, the Savage Marquis truly had been frightened greatly. Those injuries had been so severe that he hadn’t even recognized his own son.
But what fortunate was although the injuries appeared frightening, the inner injuries weren’t very great. That was because Long Chen had made him consume a medicinal pill to preserve his life.
In just a short time of recuperation and after spending a great deal of gold, Zhou Yaoyang was already able to get up and walk. Other than being temporarily unable to fight with others, he already didn’t have any great deficits.
“Hm, that’s good then. Go back and remember what I said. Watch them closely, and as soon as anything strange happens, immediately report it to me.”
“Yes, please excuse your servant.”
After the Savage Marquis left, the fourth prince went to the window. Staring out into the pitch darkness, a smile appeared on his lips.
“The black curtain of the night cannot last forever; the sunlight will quickly arrive. Long Tianxiao, just how long can you resist?”
…
The next day’s morning, when the people of the Long household opened the great gates, they found that the floor had been completely retiled, flabbergasting the estate’s people.
What they didn’t know was that the Savage Marquis’s people had completely dug out all the tiles that had been stained with blood.
Seeing the uneven ground after the tiles were excavated, that person who had been cursed by him considered it and ordered the people under him to completely re-tile the floor before he felt reassured.
Long Chen smiled mockingly when he saw this. Those childish men would bully the weak and only fear the strong. Now they would be more well-behaved!
The first thing Long Chen did after getting out of bed was to go see his mother. When she awoke, it was as if everything that had happened yesterday had been just a dream.
“Chen-er, what happened yesterday?” Although she saw that Long Chen was completely safe, she was still a bit nervous.
“Mom, your son has already grown up and become a true man. Just the same as my father, I can also shield this family from wind and rain,” said Long Chen solemnly as he held his mother’s hand.
He didn’t want her to know too much; she was just an ordinary mortal after all. Before this, Long Chen had already examined her body. The meridians she had been given by the heavens were simply too short, and it wasn’t just that she had a bad Spirit Root, but that she didn’t even have one at all.
Furthermore, his mother was now almost forty and had no way to cultivate the Nine Star Hegemon Body Art. Besides, the Nine Star Hegemon Body Art was a Yang cultivation method; women were unable to train in it.
No matter how Long Chen tried to defy the heavens, he had no way to change his mother’s natural constitution. All he could do for her was to let her not worry.
Seeing her son seem to just grow up overnight, it was as if she were seeing the image of her strong husband. Mrs. Long couldn’t help being moved and tears started to flow.
“Good child, mom won’t ask you any
more. Mom trusts you.”
Long Chen quickly wiped away his mom’s tears, laughing, “Mom, your son has grown up. You should be happy! I prepared a gift for you.”
He then touched his spatial ring, causing a jade bottle to appear in his hand. Before he could say anything, Mrs. Long asked in surprise, “Where did you get a spatial ring?”
Long Chen didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Why did his mother’s expression seem so suspicious?
Of course, he knew that always hiding things from his mother wasn’t a solution. In order to handle his mother’s worries, he told her about his status as an alchemist.
In any case, people would learn about it sooner or later, so he had no need to hide it. Long Chen also took advantage of this to say that after he had been beaten, luck had shone on him and he had opened his meridians; meaning he could cultivate now.
And he had even managed to cultivate a Pill Flame and obtain the qualifications to become an alchemist. When he had gone to the alchemist guild, he had by chance met grandmaster Yun Qi. He had immediately leaped at that chance, using his pity to get closer to him.
Long Chen used his tears to move grandmaster Yun Qi, who finally ceded and made an exception to let him become an alchemist.
Hearing these shocking words, Mrs. Long was completely mystified. But Long Chen solemnly swore it was the truth and also took out his tablet for his mother to examine. Only then did she believe it.
Although she wasn’t a cultivator, she knew about alchemists. That was a supremely grand occupation; for Long Chen to become one was several generations’ worth of luck.
“Mom, don’t move. I’ll help you apply this.”
From the bottle, he took out a couple drops of medicinal liquid. He gently dabbed it onto his hand, causing a fresh scent to fill the room. Just one breath of it could completely relax a person.
Seeing how serious Long Chen was now acting, Mrs. Long didn’t move at all. Long Chen gently applied the medicinal liquid on her face.
A cool and relaxing feeling immediately spread across her face.
“Chen-er, just what is this? It feels very good,” whispered Mrs. Long. She closed her eyes and relished the feeling.