by Feng Yise
There were countless demonic beasts inside the Endless Forest. So it was naturally the ideal location to temper the students. Of course, these sort of tempering would often be accompanied by injuries and death.
In the past trials, many genius students ended up in the bellies of demonic beasts.
The Dan Wu Academy was never a utopia. This place was even crueler than the outside world. The weak was destined to be eliminated.
It was a world where the strong ruled.
The Dan Wu Academy provided geniuses with a relatively safe environment for competition. But a greenhouse could never nurture a true powerhouse. Without the baptism of fresh blood, these geniuses would never m.a.t.u.r.e.
There were all sorts of conflicts in the academy. These conflicts had to have a release point, and that release point was precisely the Endless Trials.
The grudges that could not be settled within the academy could be dealt with during the Endless Trials.
Although the academy would repeatedly emphasize that they were not allowed to make a move on their companions during the Endless Trials, in reality, the academy tacitly approved of students utilizing this opportunity to settle their grudges.
"Senior Apprentice Brother Su indeed has broad horizons, to have already chosen a burial ground for Ye Yuan," Liu Ruoshui praised.
Su Yishan gave Liu Ruoshui a contemplating look, and she blushed bashfully, making her appear highly bewitching.
Liu Ruoshui did not have a good family background. She was born from a small family's concubine and enjoyed extremely few resources since young. However, her talent was pretty good, reaching Fourth Level Essence Qi Realm at 14 years old. This was how she got recruited by the Dan Wu Academy.
If she had not entered the Dan Wu Academy, Liu Ruoshui would have long been sent out as a gift by her family. She was full of hatred towards the Liu Family. She hoped that one day, she could return to smack the faces of those elders to let them see that even without the support of the family, she, Liu Ruoshui, could still rise above others!
Yet, after entering the Dan Wu Academy, Liu Ruoshui realized just how many incredibly talented people there were. She felt that her talent was not inferior to these geniuses, but that her background limited her growth.
What Liu Ruoshui lacked the most was resources so she would try every mean to hang around men just so she could obtain enough cultivation resources.
Liu Ruoshui possessed a naturally attractive body and was the dual cultivation partner that all men dreamed of having. This was also her most significant capital, so she used this capital to walk among men, hoping to find a large tree to climb up.
Big shots like Su Yishan would not even fancy Liu Ruoshui, and Liu Ruoshui understood that even if they took a liking to her, she would only end up as their plaything.
So Liu Ruoshui set her sights on those geniuses who had yet to m.a.t.u.r.e, and that person was Wan Yuan.
In reality, Liu Ruoshui had also considered Ye Yuan before, because Ye Yuan was easier to control than Wan Yuan. Looking at their background, these two people were actually roughly the same. But in terms of future, Wan Yuan left Ye Yuan several streets behind.
Wan Yuan was full of schemes, possessed strength, and even had an Alchemy Grandmaster for a father. There was no better choice than him.
Furthermore, Wan Yuan did not disappoint her and was currently already deeply in love with her.
Liu Ruoshui had also just advanced to Earth Rank not long ago and did not have much contact with this sort of extraordinary genius like Su Yishan. However, just this one glance made Liu Ruoshui feel like he stripped her clothes off, making her very uncomfortable.
"Junior Apprentice Sister Liu isn't bad," after that contemplating smile, Su Yishan only said a sentence lightly; not understanding what he was trying to express either.
After that, he no longer bothered with Liu Ruoshui and carried talking with Wan Yuan.
"At that time, I will cooperate with you to eliminate Ye Yuan. After losing his son, Ye Hang would definitely lose his composure. At that time, our two families will join hands, and we can pull the Fragrant Medicine Pavilion up by the roots. If Ye Hang attacks first, I believe the Imperial Family can't say anything about it."
Hearing Su Yishan's words, Wan Yuan's gaze became sharp, and he said excitedly, "Senior Apprentice Brother Su will personally take action? That's great! Honestly speaking, with Ye Yuan's great circle stage Instant Flash, even if I use my full strength, I might not be able to keep him there. With Senior Apprentice Brother Su personally moving out, there will be no escape for Ye Yuan this time!"
Liu Ruoshui felt a little chill in her heart. Su Yishan's methods are terrifying. She and Wan Yuan were only thinking of how to deal with Ye Yuan, but Su Yishan already included the entire Fragrant Medicine Pavilion into his scheme.
Su Family's primary source of income similarly was through medicinal herbs and pills. They had deep connections with the Drunken Star Manor, so the two families were always on good terms.
Su Family was the largest medicinal herbs provider in the State of Qin. In most cases, Su Family only provided the medicinal herbs and did not interfere with the refinement or sale of medicinal pills.
But who knew what channels Ye Hang went through, to not go through the Su Family for all of his medicinal herbs. This naturally made the Su Family hate Ye Hang.
In the capital, the Fragrant Medicine Pavilion and the Drunken Star Manor were like two tigers who could not tolerate the other's existence on the same mountain. The two families had fought for so many years, and the Imperial Family had already given tacit consent to this delicate balance.
But the Su Family strongly disliked the existence of Fragrant Medicine Pavilion, because the latter occupied a considerable share of the medicinal pills market which also meant that the Su Family's profits were reduced by quite a bit.
But, one had to acknowledge that Ye Hang was remarkable in terms of businesses and operations. The Fragrant Medicine Pavilion's prices were fair, and they had never bullied customers with their power. Their prestige among the demonic beast hunters was very good.
The Su Family and the Wan Family had created obstacles both openly and in the shadows countless times, and yet, they had never dealt any real damage to the Fragrant Medicine Pavilion.
Su Yishan wanted to use Ye Yuan as the pivotal point to pull the Fragrant Medicine Pavilion up by its roots.
To be able to devise such a setup and also be so scheming at such a young age, one had to acknowledge that Su Yishan was an outlaw-like figure.
After Su Yishan left, Liu Ruoshui's eyes were sparkling as she said, "Congratulations, Senior Apprentice Brother Wan! With Senior Apprentice Brother Su's help, Ye Yuan is definitely dead this time. Not only Ye Yuan, but your Lord Father's thorn in the eye can also be removed this time as well!"
Wan Yuan did not have Liu Ruoshui's excitement, as if he was a completely different person from just now when Su Yishan was here.
"Senior Apprentice Brother Su is feeling threatened!" s.u.c.k.i.n.g in a deep breath, Wan Yuan said in a low voice.
"You are saying . . . Ye Yuan?" Liu Ruoshui was also an intelligent person. Now that Wan Yuan said this, she immediately understood, but she was frightened by this thought.
To the academy's students, those in the Martial Roll of Honor's and Alchemy Roll of Honor's top ten were all figures that they had to look up to. An extraordinary genius like him actually felt threatened by a Third Level Essence Qi Realm?
It was too inconceivable . . .
. . . . . .
At Ye Yuan's abode, Lu-er stared at her young master fiddling with Essence Qi Pills that filled up the house.
Ye Yuan retrieved six Essence Qi Pills and placed them separately at the six corners of a pre-drawn hexagon array.
Slightly injecting some essence energy, the array immediately gave off a faint white light, and the six Essence Qi Pills actually started to melt slowly, converging at the center of the hexagon array.
A
fter a while, the light faded, and the liquefied pills started to reform again at the center. It actually reformed into a single medicinal pill!
The reformed medicinal pill, just from the l.u.s.ter of it, one could clearly tell that it was much stronger than the original high-grade Essence Qi Pills.
"Young Master, is this a transcendent-grade Essence Qi Pill?" Lu-er grew up in the Ye Family since young, and naturally was not a stranger to medicinal pills.
High-grade Essence Qi Pills were relatively common but transcendent-grade . . . If Ye Hang performed exceptionally well, then it would be pretty good to have one of these in a furnace of medicinal pills.
But now, Ye Yuan casually used six high-grade Essence Qi Pills to actually conjure out a transcendent-grade Essence Qi Pill like magic.
It was too miraculous!
Ye Yuan took the medicinal pill and placed it in a medicine bottle, saying, "Not bad. This is called Six Astral Array; an array specialized in extracting and refining low-level medicinal pills."
Lu-er found it all very mystical and praised in admiration, "Young Master, you are too amazing!"
Chapter 36 - The Price of Sleeping
The next day after the duel, Ye Yuan had a medicinal theory lesson.
The medicinal theory lesson's teacher was Feng Ruoqing, the youngest teacher in the entire Dan Wu Academy. She was also a ridiculously beautiful teacher with countless pursuers.
Fen Ruoqing's medicinal theory classes were always fully packed. Even if the other instructors whipped their horses, they also could not catch up. Furthermore, every student would be thoroughly engrossed and kept their gaze fixed on Feng Ruoqing.
The initially dry and boring medicinal theory class even appeared to be interesting.
However, Ye Yuan did not seem to have too much enthusiasm for it. Currently, he was snoring away. Yesterday night, he expended a tremendous amount of essence energy to extract and refine transcendent-grade Essence Qi Pills and was currently completely exhausted.
Every high-tier alchemist was also an array master. Someone at the Alchemy Emperor level like Ye Yuan naturally was not an exception.
High-tier medicinal pills required the inscription of arrays in order to attain the best medicinal effects. Hence, array formations were compulsory lessons for high-tier alchemists.
Although the Six Astral Array was not some high-tier array, extracting and refining tens of thousands of Essence Qi Pills still drained Ye Yuan completely. Even so, Ye Yuan still had yet not finished extracting and refining. Tonight will be another long night, so how could he not catch up on his sleep?
By the time all of the pills were extracted and refined completely, Ye Yuan would have several thousand of transcendent-grade Essence Qi Pills. This amount would definitely shock anyone.
The difference between transcendent-grade Essence Qi Pills and high-grade Essence Qi Pills was basically that there were prices, but no sellers.
How could something that even Alchemy Grandmasters could refine only when they were lucky to circulate freely on the market?
The moment a medicinal pill reached the transcendent-grade, there would be a qualitative change.
With regards to medicinal efficacy, a transcendent-grade Essence Qi Pill was already no longer inferior to a low-grade Explosive Yuan Pill. Furthermore, transcendent-grade Essence Qi Pills had no side-effects at all. Even if one used it all the way to the Ninth Level Essence Qi Realm, their body would not develop any resistance to it!
Of course, the pre-requisite was that one had to have a lot of transcendent-grade Essence Qi Pills in the first place.
Who would dare to eat transcendent-grade Essence Qi Pills like jelly beans?
Except for Ye Yuan . . .
Although the Explosive Yuan Pill might be good, firstly, its tier was a little high. Secondly, with Ye Yuan's current strength, he could not guarantee that every pill refined will be high-grade or superior-grade, let alone transcendent-grade.
Even though Explosive Yuan Pill used only Tier 1 ingredients, it was still much more expensive than Essence Qi Pill. Even Ye Hang would not be able to provide it endlessly.
Under these circ.u.mstances, transcendent-grade Essence Qi Pills were without a doubt the most suitable medicinal pills for Ye Yuan.
However, even though transcendent-grade Essence Qi Pills were good, it was so damn tiring!
"The Seven Star Lotus's attribute is water, and it is a yin attribute. Commonly found within a spirit lake, it's suitable for refining . . ." Feng Ruoqing threw the 'Herbal Essentials' book on the table, as her words continued to flow easily. Clearly, she already knew all these medicinal herbs' attributes like the back of her hand.
Feng Ruoqing was young and already a middle-rank Alchemy Master. This made many seniors perspire in embarrassment.
One had to know that even though Master Qian employed by the Fragrant Medicine Pavilion was a high-rank Alchemy Master, his age was even greater than Feng Ruoqing by half a sixty-year cycle. That was the disparity in talent!
Feng Ruoqing walked lightly while talking about the subject with great familiarity, and the students' gaze swayed along with her body.
All of a sudden, Feng Ruoqing frowned lightly and stopped the lesson.
Everybody could tell that Feng Ruoqing was unhappy.
Everyone followed her gaze only see someone bent over the desk fast asleep, while drool was coming out of his mouth.
In a moment, many scornful eyes shot towards Ye Yuan.
How could there be someone who was so daring as to sleep during Teacher Feng's class? So offensive to a beauty!
However, Ye Yuan was currently in dreamland, and could not feel everyone's eyes filled with enmity.
Feng Ruoqing lifted her hand and casually shot out two wind blades.
Kacha! The table legs broke into two, and the table fell to the ground with a crash.
The area under Ye Yuan's hands became empty space, and he was stunned awake; nearly falling to the ground.
Fortunately, his movement technique was already at the acme of perfection, so he managed to stabilize his figure.
"What happened?" Ye Yuan obviously still was not aware of the situation.
But he immediately discovered something was off, because all the students were staring at him, and the beautiful teacher in front of him had a fierce expression. He quickly realized what happened.
"Ah . . . Haha . . . Teacher Feng, you know this; I just experienced a deathmatch yesterday, and I exhausted too much essence energy. I still haven't recovered after one night so I couldn't help myself from falling asleep. Haha . . ." Ye Yuan tried to laugh and smoke his way through.
Feng Ruoqing did not recognize Ye Yuan, but she had indeed heard about the deathmatch yesterday that caused a huge commotion.
Hearing what Ye Yuan said, Feng Ruoqing's expression became slightly better. But Feng Ruoqing felt that behavior like sleeping during class should not be tolerated.
"You are that Ye Yuan?"
"Haha. I'm that Ye Yuan"
"Don't be cheeky during the lesson!"
"Ah. Yes yes, Teacher Feng is right. I will be serious!"
"En. If it's because of the deathmatch, then it's still understandable." Ye Yuan thought that this was over, but who knew that Feng Ruoqing would change the subject. "However, in the Dan Wu Academy, the Alchemy Path is as equally important as the Martial Path. Medicinal theory class is also the foundation of Alchemy Dao. Someone like you who sleeps in class is delaying your future!"
Ye Yuan apologized with sincerity. "Teacher Feng, I was wrong. I won't sleep during your lesson ever again."
"Humph! Not just my lesson; you are not allowed to sleep in all lessons! Go back and copy the 'Herbal Essentials' ten times. I will check during the next lesson," Feng Ruoqing said lightly.
"Ah? T-ten times?" Ye Yuan was stunned.
The 'Herbal Essentials' was a simplified version of the 'Herbal Compendium' written by an Alchemy Sovereign of his generation, Li Shizhen. It covered a systemic overview of
all sorts of medicinal herbs.
Although it's a simplified version, it was still a very thick book. Copying it ten times was too horrifying!
Ye Yuan had some impression of the name Li Shizhen; he came to apprentice himself to his father, Zhengyang Zi. Back then, Qingyun Zi happened to be at the scene.
That punk . . . after I return to the Divine Realm, I will definitely show him some colors! I should teach him what shouldn't be written, to actually write such a thick book!
Since he already wrote such a thick book, then forget it. But there were so many things inside that were incorrect. Wasn't this harming others?!
"That's right, ten times! Any complaints?" Feng Ruoqing felt that she absolutely could not tolerate this matter, so as to serve as a warning to others.
"Yes, I have!" Ye Yuan cried out.
Ye Yuan's words stunned Feng Ruoqing, along with all the other students.
In the students' opinion, being punished by Teacher Feng who was as beautiful as a heavenly fairy was something wonderful. Why would there be any complaints?
The way Feng Ruoqing saw it, this was the first time that she was rebuffed in the academy. Furthermore, it was a man. Moreover, he was even a student!
"The things inside here are so simple. Isn't copying it a waste of time? If there's time, then it's better off to just refine two furnaces of medicinal pills." Ye Yuan refused to give in.
Right now, Ye Yuan's time was very precious. He did not want to waste it on these trivial matters.
What a joke. Was there anyone who understood medicinal theories better than him in this world?
Even if Li Shizhen personally came back, he would not even be fit to carry his shoes!
"Simple? Haha . . ." Feng Ruoqing was so angered by Ye Yuan that she started laughing.
'Herbal Essentials' was not only one of the compulsory lessons for an alchemist but also a highly profound course. Even if Alchemy Kings were to come, they would not dare say that this course was simple.
Yet, this brat who was not even an Alchemy Apprentice actually said it was easy.