by Translator: BornToBe; Author: Ordinary Magician (平凡魔术师); Licensed From: 17k
As a result, Long Chen simply told them to scram, and they didn’t dare to make a sound. They obediently went to report this, but in the end, nothing else happened. Most likely, the Law Enforcement Hall was also aware they were unable to cause Long Chen any difficulties over such minor things. Rather than wasting the effort, they just let him be.
Finally, the Dragonblood warriors were all gathered, with the new Dragonmark warriors also present. They worshipfully looked at the person standing in front, the only person who could wear their personal robes in the inner sect.
Looking at all those new faces, Long Chen felt a bit foreign. But seeing how passionate their gazes were, he was also full of emotion.
“Brothers, I’ve come here today to give you candy. There’s no need to be courteous. Come, each person can have one.”
Chapter 1053 Huo Long’s Split Bodies
“Candy?”
Everyone was flabbergasted. They had been gathered to get candy?
“Gu Yang, Guo Ran, come and distribute the candy to the Dragonmark warriors.” Long Chen tossed a case to Guo Ran.
Guo Ran opened it and saw that they really were candy. What he didn’t know was that these were medicinal pills Long Chen had added a layer of sugar to. That was to prevent their scent from spreading. Otherwise, once this case was opened, nobody on Crouching Dragon Mountain would be able to keep their eyes open.
“Dragonmark warriors, listen well. Now you’ve joined the Dragonblood Legion. I trust the Dragonblood warriors have told you about the Dragonblood Legion’s history. In the Dragonblood Legion, you don’t need to have high talent. You just have to be absolutely loyal. You can never betray your brothers and sisters. They will also never betray you, and I also trust you. Starting today, you’ll become true members. Swallow the candy in your hands. That little ball of sugar will be your first step toward the peak of the martial path,” shouted Long Chen.
“Yes, boss!”
The Dragonmark warriors directly swallowed the little balls in their hands. In their hearts, Long Chen was a god. Even if he wanted them to swallow a ball of dung, they wouldn’t hesitate.
“Heavens, my stomach is burning!” cried a Dragonmark warrior.
Following him, the others also began to feel like a fire was burning in their stomachs. Red vapor began to come from their mouths and noses when they breathed.
Then it wasn’t just their nose and mouth, but also their ears. In fact, even their eyes were emitting some of it. It was a ghastly sight.
“Brothers, don’t be afraid. This is the effect of the Bitter Earth Mortal Molting Pill. With our points, we couldn’t buy peak grade Divine Mortal Molting Elixir, so you’ll need to experience some bitterness. The Bitter Earth Mortal Molting Pill can greatly increase your talent, stabilize your foundation, and cleanse your bone marrow. Because your cultivation bases are high, you’ll have to experience some extra pain, but everything you go through now is so you can survive on the battlefield. Endure it, because it’s all worth it,” said Long Chen.
“Don’t worry boss, we can still endure!”
One person cried out, but as soon as he spoke, he coughed up red vapor, looking comical. Crouching Dragon Mountain became covered in a red haze.
“Guo Ran, don’t cry. They’ll definitely be able to bear it,” comforted Gu Yang.
“Who’s crying? This smoke… it’s irritating to my eyes. Ugh, I can’t handle it, I have to leave.” After saying that, Guo Ran vanished like a wisp of smoke. His constitution was too weak, and he couldn’t even handle this vapor.
The Dragonmark warriors had turned completely red now, like prawns that had been thoroughly cooked.
Long Chen had the Dragonblood warriors constantly splash water on their bodies. When the water touched them, it was like water splashing on red-hot iron. A crisp boiling sound came from them.
The Dragonblood warriors couldn’t help but rejoice in their good luck. They had already consumed the peak grade Divine Mortal Molting Elixir, or they would also be experiencing this pain now.
The Dragonmark warriors looked like they were being cooked in flames. Their skin was roiling, and black liquid was seeping out of it. That liquid was extremely disgusting to smell.
Seeing this, the Dragonmark warriors firmed their resolve. They weren’t fools. They knew this was the impurities that the medicinal energy had forced out of their bodies. That was an immensely beneficial thing to them.
Although they felt unbearable pain, they were also grateful to Long Chen. They had heard of Divine Mortal Molting Elixir, and they also knew they couldn’t afford to buy it. However, they hadn’t thought that Long Chen would be able to use a different method to achieve the same effect as peak grade Divine Mortal Molting Elixir.
Long Chen nodded. Although these Dragonmark warriors only had average talent, that battle of blood and fire had strengthened their wills. That was something many experts did not possess.
“The pain should last around three days. Once those three days are over, you should feel like you’ve completely transformed.”
After saying that, Long Chen left Crouching Dragon Mountain. Just as he was leaving, he suddenly thought of something and had Guo Ran send an application for him.
That application was for the Alchemy Pavilion. Long Chen was applying to be one of their disciples and enjoy the benefits of such a position. He clearly listed his alchemy abilities and his experience in that regard.
“Boss, even if you used your butt to think, it’s clear you’ll be refused. You beat up one of their teachers. Aren’t you asking me to go and get cursed?” said Guo Ran bitterly.
“If you could figure it out, so could I. They definitely won’t approve my application. What I want is to record their attitude and reason,” said Long Chen.
“Alright then.” Guo Ran helplessly thickened his skin and went over. He knew he was probably about to receive a bout of cursing.
Long Chen continued to seclude himself in the outer sect. This time, he was refining a different pill. This was the very famous Heavenly Star Sea Merging Pill.
This was a pill all Sea Expansion experts required. Its medicinal energy was extremely powerful, and it could raise a Sea Expansion expert’s cultivation base the quickest. As long as your realm was high enough, you could consume it without any side effects. It was an extremely miraculous, but also precious medicinal pill.
In the Xuantian Dao Sect, one nine-ring Heavenly Star Sea Merging Pill cost one point. An inner sect disciple might spend all their points on them, and they would only get one hundred.
That sounded like a lot, but the Heavenly Star Sea Merging Pill was different from ordinary medicinal pills. It could be classified as a lukewarm pill. Although its medicinal energy was extremely strong, its effect was very slow. In order to see a rapid effect, you had to constantly consume them.
One hundred of them could be eaten in three days. Only at that speed would the medicinal effect be apparent.
That was why many disciples would store up hundreds, or even thousands of points to exchange for a huge number of Heavenly Star Sea Merging Pills. When they felt that they were about to advance a level, they would buy as many as they could and go into seclusion to attack the next barrier.
The Heavenly Star Sea Merging Pill was an important pill for this realm. It could be compared to the Bone Forging realm’s Bone Tempering Pills. These two realms were both realms based on piling up a mountain of medicinal pills.
Bang!
Long Chen slowly opened his furnace lid. He let out a startled cry, “Huo Long, you really are amazing!”
There were nine pills inside, seven of which were nine-ring pills. And this was the result of his first attempt. For other alchemists, just the rate of success in forming the pills would not surpass thirty percent.
Even with his Pill Sovereign memories, he hadn’t thought that he would be able to refine nine-ring pills in his first try. Furthermore, there were seven of them.
Huo Long flew out of his arm and rubbed ag
ainst him. It sent him a mental message.
That message startled Long Chen. Previously, Long Chen could sense Huo Long’s feelings, but this was his first time getting a complete mental message.
Although it wasn’t very clear, similar to a baby’s babbling, he could comprehend the general meaning. Huo Long was expressing that it had grown up and could help Long Chen with some things now.
Although it was just an unclear message, it delighted Long Chen. This meant that Huo Long’s spirit was fully formed and it could properly communicate.
If it possessed a full spirit, it would also possess Spiritual Strength. When it refined pills in the future, it could use that Spiritual Strength to increase the quality of the pills. There was no need for Long Chen to be actively refining in order to refine nine-ring pills.
However, right now, Huo Long’s Spiritual Strength was still very weak. It needed some more time to grow.
This discovery delighted Long Chen. After devouring two powerful Earth Flames, Huo Long was now displaying its terrifying potential. If it could devour more Earth Flames, it would become his strongest trump card.
After calming himself down, Long Chen continued refining. With Huo Long’s assistance, his speed increased and he was capable of refining over ten thousand Heavenly Star Sea Merging Pills in one day. They were basically all nine-ring.
However, after all that refining, Huo Long needed to rest. Long Chen gave it that time. As for himself, he took advantage of that time to refine medicinal ingredients into powders.
In truth, the most time-consuming part of refining a pill was refining the ingredients into powders. Because there were so many ingredients, all of which required different processing, refining a pill was extremely complicated. But there was no way around that. Refining pills was not the same as cooking soup.
While he refined the medicinal ingredients, he also consumed a few Heavenly Star Sea Merging Pills to strengthen his own cultivation base. For half a month, Long Chen refined pills and cultivated like this. As he consumed Heavenly Star Sea Merging Pills like food, he advanced to the seventh Heavenstage of Sea Expansion.
As for the number of Heavenly Star Sea Merging Pills he had, that number had broken past a hundred thousand, delighting Long Chen.
It had to be known that it hadn’t cost him a single point to refine all of these. And compared to the Heavenly Star Sea Merging Pills on the market, the effect of his pills was several times greater.
To say that one of his was worth ten of what was on the market was a bit of an exaggeration, but its effect was definitely no lower than seven times greater. His pills were just a little bit off from reaching top grade, or he wouldn’t be able to advance so quickly.
The thing that delighted Long Chen the most was that as Huo Long absorbed the Earth Flame essence within its body, it suddenly split into two and then from two into four. Long Chen now had four flame dragons.
“You awakened an ability?”
Long Chen was shocked by this. He hadn’t expected Huo Long to awaken its own abilities as it grew stronger. It was now able to create split bodies, and each one of them was its own body, capable of moving freely.
Four flame dragons swam around Long Chen with delight. Huo Long was indescribably excited to have awakened its own innate ability.
“I wonder… could this work?”
Long Chen suddenly had a thought and took out another pill furnace. Communicating with one of the flame dragons, he sent it toward the pill furnace.
Chapter 1054 Zheng Wenlong Arrives
“Huo Long, you’re truly, truly amazing!”
Long Chen was startled to see that he was able to control any of the flame dragons to help him refine pills, and he could use two at the same time.
In his delight, he ran over to Tang Wan-er, took the crystal card, bought three more seventh tier furnaces, and tried them all at once.
The result was four bangs. And those bangs weren’t from the formation of the pills. All four refinements had failed.
Long Chen looked at the four flame dragons, the four flame dragons looked back at him. For a long while, no one said a thing.
“Ah, I really should calm down a bit.”
Long Chen finally came to the conclusion that both he and Huo Long were too excited. Furthermore, Huo Long had only just managed to split into four. Its control over its split bodies was still rough, and there was no way to perform alchemy like that.
It would require Long Chen to use a great deal of soul energy to control all four, and right now, he was also too excited, leading to the failure. Such a tumultuous state was not suitable for alchemy.
But with this experience, Long Chen quickly adjusted himself. He had to use his spiritual control over the four flame dragons instead of relying on their own control.
The results came quickly. The four refinements all succeeded at the same time, with each furnace having nine pills. However, the highest quality pill was only seven-ring, while the worst was three-ring.
Huo Long’s intelligence was very high, so it knew this wasn’t a good result. But Long Chen said, “This is very normal, so don’t grumble. We need to work on our cooperation. Since you brought out three more bodies to refine pills at the same time, we’ll need some time to raise the quality. Just succeeding in the refinement so quickly is already amazing.”
Long Chen comforted Huo Long and continued refining with four furnaces. The difficulty of the refinement was high enough, so refining four at the same time was something that would probably be viewed as impossible in the alchemy world.
For him to succeed in his second attempt was absolutely shocking. This was the result of their spiritual connection.
Long Chen directly consumed the pills of this attempt, treating them as nothing more than a snack before continuing.
After thirteen tries, Huo Long’s control over his flame was growing, and adding in Long Chen’s cooperation, they were finally able to refine furnaces full of nine-ring pills.
For their efficiency to multiply four times delighted Long Chen. Like this, he would be able to easily obtain forty thousand Heavenly Star Sea Merging Pills in one day.
When he wasn’t refining pills, he was helping Huo Long rest by helping it absorb the Earth Flame essence.
Another half a month passed. Long Chen had refined over a million Heavenly Star Sea Merging Pills.
After another three days of refining, the number of Heavenly Star Sea Merging Pills he had accumulated was over one million three hundred thousand, including the hundred thousand he had refined before. Only once he was close to one million four hundred thousand pills did he stop.
In this month, Huo Long grew stronger and stronger, and its spirituality also rapidly rose. Long Chen suddenly had a thought and handed the process of refining pills to Huo Long on its own.
The current Huo Long now had control over its own Spiritual Strength. Although the pills it refined on its own were of lower quality than when they cooperated, its quality was still high enough.
When it refined Heavenly Star Sea Merging Pills on its own, it could also refine nine-ring pills. Although they were no longer close to top grade like when they worked together, they were about the same as the pills sold by the Alchemy Pavilion.
Refining pills on its own was taxing to Huo Long’s Spiritual Strength. Long Chen was worried it wouldn’t be cautious and told it not to go all-out. If it got tired, it could focus on digesting the remaining Earth Flame energy in its body.
With his help, Huo Long had digested the majority of the Earth Flame energy. He guessed that once Huo Long refined all that energy, it would not be any weaker than the flame leopard.
After making sure that Huo Long would rest properly, Long Chen finally came out of seclusion. The city was still peaceful, with everyone following the rules obediently. The law enforcers didn’t dare to cause any trouble.
The outer sect disciples had become the commoners’ guardians. They had completely taken the place of the law enforcers and were abl
e to keep the peace.
In fact, some of these outer sect disciples would help the commoners when they had time. They would go out hunting with them to increase their combat experience and teach them survival tricks.
After all, just relying on the Xuantian Dao Sect’s rations was like waiting for opportunities to fall into their lap. With Long Chen as an inspiration, the outer sect disciples would bring some young disciples amongst the commoners to go hunting so they could get experience. They could hunt in regions that were less dangerous so their families could eat.
When Long Chen came out of seclusion, he felt like the outer sect had gone through a heaven-toppling transformation. The outer sect disciples were now interacting very well with the commoners as if they were a family.
Seeing this, Long Chen went directly to the inner sect. This time, he saw that the inner sect was basically deserted. There was no longer a sea of people.
He guessed that everyone was training during this time because the inner sect competition was about to start. They didn’t dare to waste any more time.
“Boss, you’re back!” When Long Chen returned, Guo Ran was in the midst of drilling the Dragonmark warriors. With a proud expression, he said, “Look, what do you think of these brothers now?”
The Dragonmark warriors looked at Long Chen with emotional expressions. Ever since they had consumed the ‘candy’ Long Chen had fed them, they felt like they had completely transformed.
Furthermore, after a month of hellish training, they were finally beginning to release their own light. If they were previously rusty blades, then they had now shed that rust to reveal their sharpness.
“Excellent. Now you’re finally showing your sharpness. You won’t bring dishonor to the name of the Dragonmark warriors,” praised Long Chen.
After one month, these disciples seemed to be new people. That wasn’t just the effect of the Bitter Earth Mortal Molting Pill. It was definitely related to how Guo Ran and the others had patiently drilled and trained them.