“This can’t go on like this, I have to go all out!”
The man in black, though heartbroken over his protective talisman, revealed a ruthless expression on his face. Who knew how many talismans that kid still had? He had to end this quickly.
He pressed his toes down, enduring the pain as he used a “Swift Travel Talisman,” rushing forward. His fist struck down like thunder.
In his eyes, a pill refiner who only hides behind talismans couldn’t have strong physical strength.
This punch should be enough to shatter the boy’s arm!
However, the moment the two fists collided, the ferocious grin on his face froze.
“Bang!”
A muffled, heavy sound echoed. The man in black felt an overwhelming and terrifying force from the small fist opposite him. He screamed in pain, flying backward and crashing heavily against the bamboo, breaking several stalks.
“You... you...”
He struggled to get up from the ground, staring at Li Mengze in disbelief, his eyes filled with shock.How could this kid’s physical strength be so formidable?!
“Aren’t you a pill refiner?!”
“Who told you that someone who refines pills can’t fight?”
Li Mengze’s talent in martial arts was average compared to his uncle and Li Yuanhu, two martial prodigies. His martial arts were nothing special in comparison.
But that didn’t mean he was a weakling without a single ounce of strength.
He moved like a leopard and pounced again.
“Wait! Don’t kill me!”
The man in black panicked. He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a dirt-colored talisman. Without looking, he slapped it on the ground. “Earth Escape Technique!”
He intended to flee using the escape technique.
Li Mengze raised his hand, releasing a talisman that flew out, arriving first. It transformed into an invisible ripple in the air, instantly covering an area of ten meters around them.
“Imprisonment Talisman!”
The man in black’s body stiffened suddenly, forcibly frozen in place. His escape technique was interrupted.
“No! Spare me!”
Tears streaming down his face, he begged desperately, “Please spare me! I didn’t know who you were! I have an eighty-year-old mother above and a three-year-old child below. My whole family depends on me! Please show mercy and let me go like a fart!”
“An old mother above, a child below?”
Li Mengze walked up to him, looking down with no trace of pity in his eyes.
“When you tried to kill me, did you think about how I also have a father and mother?”
He slowly raised his fist.
The man in black looked at the approaching footsteps, his eyes filled with despair.
He never dreamed that a young master of the White Market, who had ruled the youth with impunity, would lose today to a half-grown pill refiner.
“In your next life, be born lucky. Don’t be a calamity cultivator again.”
A sword talisman struck down.
The man in black trembled, the gleam in his eyes quickly fading.
Li Mengze withdrew his fist and looked at the corpse on the ground. His heart surged violently, but he had no regrets.
“Father was right. Mercy to the enemy is cruelty to oneself.”
A trace of disgust appeared on his face. After hesitating briefly, he reached toward the corpse.
“Poor bastard.”
“This is less profitable than the last batch of pills I sold.”
He pocketed all the spoils before snapping his fingers. A Fire Burning Talisman ignited, burning the remains into ash.
After finishing, he clapped his hands, his face returning to the obedient and sensible expression as if the ruthless person from moments ago was just an illusion.
He quickly left, leaving only the rustling bamboo forest behind.
Inside the Pill Hall, the scent of medicine lingered.
“Teacher, after consulting ancient texts, I found there might be room to improve the formula for the Spirit Containing Pill.”
Li Mengze held an aged pill scripture. “If we replace the main ingredient ‘Snake Saliva Fruit’ with ‘Ice Crystal Grass,’ and blend in ‘Fire Floss Flower’ for harmony, although the process is riskier, theoretically, the pill’s medicinal properties will be gentler and the pill poison reduced by seventy percent.”
Su Qingxue’s beautiful eyes showed a trace of surprise.
This child had actually begun to reason by analogy and was attempting to improve the formula?
She took the scripture and carefully read it, her face growing serious.
“Your idea has some merit, but water and fire clash. Ice Crystal Grass and Fire Floss Flower have completely opposite properties. Perfectly blending them requires extremely precise control over the heat and divine consciousness. A slight mistake and the pill furnace will explode.”
“The disciple wants to try.”
Su Qingxue looked into his determined eyes, seeing a reflection of her younger self. Her heart softened as she said gently, “Alright. Since you have the intention, you may use the materials in the Pill Hall as you please.”
With her approval, Li Mengze immediately began his tireless experiments.
The first time, he carefully purified the medicinal liquid of Ice Crystal Grass, but as soon as it met the Fire Floss Flower powder, “Boom!” The pill furnace emitted black smoke mixed with a burnt smell. Only a puddle of charred medicinal dregs remained at the bottom.
“Failed...”
Li Mengze’s face was as black as coal, but he wasn’t discouraged. He carefully recorded the cause of failure.
The second time, he learned from the previous attempt, trying to wrap the Ice Crystal Grass’s properties with water-type spiritual energy and slowly neutralize it.
The two medicinal forces clashed inside the furnace like warring armies, causing another explosion, even louder than before, nearly tearing off the pill room’s roof.
The disciples guarding the Pill Hall had been terrified these past few days. No one dared to ask questions, but every time they heard muffled explosions, they would instinctively shrink their necks.
Days passed quickly, near evening.
After countless attempts.
When Li Mengze poured the last trace of divine consciousness into the pill furnace and carefully maintained the delicate balance, an unprecedented pure and refined medicinal fragrance finally wafted gently from the cracks of the furnace.
“It worked!”
He excitedly opened the furnace lid. At the bottom lay a crystal-clear pill. On the pill’s surface, five clear pill patterns appeared!
The improved Spirit Containing Pill not only succeeded but its quality far exceeded ordinary ones!
Su Qingxue followed the scent. When she saw the pill, even with her calm demeanor, she could hardly contain her excitement.
“Good! Good! Good!”
She repeated three praises, and one could imagine the impact such a pill—one with minimal pill poison and gentle properties—would have on the entire prefecture’s pill market.
“With this pill, you can exchange for all the resources you need for your cultivation in the prefecture! Give the pill a name.”
“Purge the poison, trace back to the source—call it the Pure Source Pill!”
Li Mengze carefully put the Pure Source Pill into a jade bottle, a slight smile of joy appearing on his lips.
“Father... I made something good!”
The reputation of the Pure Source Pill was like a stone thrown into a still lake, initially causing only a few small ripples without much commotion.
Li Mengze had expected this.
The prefecture had eighty to a hundred pill shops. Every day, various new pills appeared, most being superficial changes. Cultivators were used to this and guarded their wallets tightly.
“Is your pill really as miraculous as you say?”
Inside “Hundred Herbs Hall,” the largest pill shop in the east city, shopkeeper Qian twirled his carefully trimmed mustache and looked skeptically at the plain pill in the porcelain bottle before him.
He had an old acquaintance with Su Qingxue and only agreed to sell the Pure Source Pill out of respect for her. But the pill’s price was thirty percent higher than the usual Spirit Containing Pill, which was a blatant rip-off.
“Shopkeeper Qian, you can try it yourself.”
Li Mengze said nothing more, just smiling confidently.
He had a profit-sharing agreement with Hundred Herbs Hall. The more pills sold, the more the shopkeeper earned. He wasn’t afraid that Qian wouldn’t put in effort.
Though doubting inside, Qian perked up.
On the day the Pure Source Pill was launched, Hundred Herbs Hall hung a banner reading “Restore the Foundation, Cultivation Miracle Pill,” attracting many cultivators who mostly came to gawk.
“Pfft, another new pill, just hype.”
“Pill poison almost zero? What nonsense. There’s no pill without pill poison.”
“A middle-grade spirit pill costs one bottle; why doesn’t he just snatch that?”
“Exactly. The color looks good, but who knows if it’s mixed with glitter? There are too many scammers these days.”
Listening to the surrounding comments, Qian’s face fell even longer, cursing Li Mengze a thousand times in his heart.
At that moment, a frail old man squeezed through the crowd.
He wore a gray Daoist robe washed countless times, his aura feeble. His cultivation was stuck at the peak of Refining Qi Stage Four, clearly nearing the end of his lifespan but unable to break through.
People like this were common in the cultivation world, wasting their whole lives only to end in illusions.
The old man stared fixedly at the jade bottle on the counter, his cloudy old eyes flickering with a near-mad desire.
“Shopkeeper,” he croaked, “is this pill really as good as you say?”
Qian immediately changed to a smiling face. “Fellow Daoist, I, Old Qian, have run this shop for decades, and I value honesty above all! The Pure Source Pill is definitely the purest pill you’ve ever seen!”
This cultivator had been stuck at the peak of Refining Qi Stage Four for ten years due to early Dao foundation damage. Seeing his lifespan near its end and cultivation path hopeless, he had long lost hope.
Hearing of a new pill, he came with a last-ditch mentality to try it.
“Good! Today, I’ll bet everything on this!”
The cultivators around showed expressions of anticipation.
“That old man’s crazy!”
“Well, he has no choice. If he doesn’t break through soon, he doesn’t have much time left.”
Under everyone’s gaze, the old man trembled as he opened the jade bottle and poured out a pill. Without hesitation, he swallowed it in one gulp.
As the pill entered his abdomen, his aged face instantly flushed red, veins bulging on his forehead. He shook violently as if enduring immense pain.
“See? I said new pills are untested! They’ll kill people!”
“Look! What’s that on his body?”
Black, stinky blood slowly oozed from the seven orifices of the old man. His skin exuded a greasy black sweat.
“It’s pill poison!” an experienced cultivator shouted.
Immediately afterward, a wave of spiritual energy far purer and denser than before erupted from within the old man!
The surrounding heavenly and earthly spiritual energy seemed to be drawn in, forming a visible whirlpool, crazily rushing into his body!
“Crack!”
The bottleneck that had troubled him for decades shattered in an instant.
A powerful aura belonging to a Refining Qi Stage Five cultivator soared skyward.
“I... I broke through! I really broke through!”
Feeling the unprecedented strength within, tears streamed down the old man’s face. “Thank you, shopkeeper, for this divine pill!”
Everyone’s eyes went wide. They expected a cultivation pill but he actually broke through?
The crowd erupted the next second!
“Shopkeeper! Give me ten bottles! No, twenty!”
“Don’t push! Don’t push! There’s a queue! I saw the pill first!”
“I’ll pay double!”
The cultivators went mad, eyes bloodshot, swinging their spirit stone pouches like sharks smelling blood, rushing to the counter.
Qian’s mouth opened wide enough to fit an egg. He had been in business his whole life but never seen such pill selling!
Quickly regaining composure, he smiled broadly, maintaining order while shouting loudly:
“Line up! Everyone line up! One bottle per person!”
Pill Hall, Orchid Garden
Su Qingxue listened to the news brought back by her disciple, her gentle and refined face showing an amused and helpless smile.
She called Li Mengze, who was tending herbs in the garden, and asked mock-seriously, “Mengze, be honest with me. That cultivator who broke through on the spot—was he your planted ‘shill’?”
Though unfamiliar with mundane matters, she knew no coincidence was so perfect.
“Teacher, you wrong me.”
Li Mengze spoke sincerely. “I don’t have that kind of ability to predict who would breakthrough.”
He paused. “Actually, I did arrange someone. I gave Senior Brother Zhang ten pieces of low-grade spirit stones. He was supposed to fake taking the pill and shout ‘Good luck!’ But before he could go on stage, that old senior broke through by himself.”
He shrugged helplessly. “Now my ten spirit stones are wasted. Senior Brother Zhang just asked me if he could have the spirit stones back. He had prepared his lines but missed his chance. He feels really frustrated...”
“Pfft!”
Su Qingxue couldn’t hold back and covered her mouth, laughing so hard she trembled.
She gently tapped Li Mengze’s forehead with a slender finger and said both exasperated and amused, “You little rascal! You really leave me speechless!”
Li Mengze smiled, his face full of anticipation.
The Pure Source Pill was selling well; it should earn quite a few spirit stones.
The beast tide receded; all was ready for recovery.
Li Pingcan said a temporary goodbye to his elder brother and quietly flew with Green Jiao toward another mountain range.
“Little Carp, aren’t we going to scavenge anymore? Where are we headed?”
The serpent bracelet that Green Jiao transformed into twisted on his wrist, his thoughts full of confusion. “Ahead is ‘Falling Phoenix Slope.’ Two demonic beasts just finished fighting there, both badly injured. It’s the perfect time for us to strike!”
“Can you scavenge forever?”
Li Pingcan replied grumpily, “You have to look further ahead.”
“That’s true.” Green Jiao agreed thoughtfully, then excitedly said, “So are we going for a big score?”
Li Pingcan ignored the snake’s mind full of looting and explained, “From a loser’s memories, I learned there’s a temporary ‘Rogue Cultivator Market’ at the edge of the beast disaster battlefield. It’s a place where many who found good stuff on the battlefield sell or trade their loot. I want to check if I can find good materials.”
That Star Iron sword, though sturdy, was still a rough draft, lacking spirit. It felt stiff and couldn’t fully unleash the subtlety of the Thirteen Wind Returning Swords technique.
He wanted a tailor-made magical implement flying sword.
“Rogue Cultivator Market?” Green Jiao’s interest instantly peaked. “There must be good stuff there! Let’s go! Maybe we’ll find some unsuspecting fat sheep to...”
“Shut up.” Li Pingcan interrupted. “We’re here to do honest business.”
One man, one serpent, battling with words, riding flying sword. Soon they arrived at the so-called Rogue Cultivator Market.
The market was hidden deep in a secluded valley, its entrance shrouded by natural miasma.
Li Pingcan disguised himself as an unremarkable middle-aged rogue cultivator and suppressed all his aura before entering.
The moment he stepped in, a mixed stench of blood, herbs, and burning metal hit his nose.
Hundreds of rogue cultivators, or sect cultivators disguised as such, gathered here.
Most wore black robes or bamboo hats hiding their faces, eyes wary, bargaining quietly between stalls.
The goods were diverse.
There were fresh pelts and meat from demonic beasts still warm; magical implements stained with dark red blood; and some broken jade slips.
Li Pingcan didn’t dare be careless. He quietly expanded his Fungal Lord Domain, constantly alert to his surroundings.
He didn’t rush to find a weapon refiner but leisurely browsed the stalls, patiently gathering useful information.
“Damn, I lost big this time. I used three first-tier middle-grade fireball talismans to kill that beast, and all I got was this piece of junk!” A bearded man cursed, looking at a pitch-black beast bone in his hand.
“Be grateful! I didn’t get a single hair and almost lost my life!” A one-eyed man said irritably, “You didn’t see it. The Seven Stars Sect and Yunxia Rong’s gang swept through like locusts. Anything slightly valuable was cleaned out!”
Li Pingcan chuckled inside. Luckily, he had Green Jiao; otherwise, he would be drinking scraps like these rogue cultivators at the battlefield’s edge.
After a round of wandering, he roughly understood the prices and trading methods here. He then turned his gaze to the deepest part of the valley, where the only stall had a blazing furnace.
Behind the stall sat a short and sturdy, plain-looking middle-aged man.
The man was shirtless, revealing bronze-toned muscular arms. He gripped a huge iron hammer, pounding an iron ingot glowing red-hot, oblivious to the surrounding noise.