Miaowa Kingdom, Jinyang Valley, Great Sword Sect.
"No! Sob..."
"Damn it! Aren't you afraid of retaliation from our lineages for doing this?!"
"Beasts! You beasts!"
Within the picturesque valley, towering palaces stood flanked by suspended cages of refined steel.
Yet the cages were so cramped that the people inside could not even turn around. The stench of blood was overwhelming, curses and pleas for mercy blending into utter chaos.
"Y-you... doing this... aren't you afraid... afraid of the Heavenly Sword Sect?!"
As the youths walked onward, they witnessed countless scenes of inhuman darkness. Now that they themselves faced the possibility of ending up like this at any moment, their eyes held nothing but fear, along with faint traces of confusion and helplessness.
They were all gifted youths, each one a highly anticipated figure among their lineage's younger generation. Just when they had believed they could carve out a world for themselves, the bloody truth dragged them back to reality.
"The formation has closed."
Lin Chang'an and the other youths could only watch as the misty formation sealed itself shut. The sunlight was so brilliant, and the fragrance of green grass drifted through the air, yet they were already in a foreign place.
The youths were brought to a high platform paved with dark brown bluestone carved with patterns. Lin Chang'an's heart secretly trembled—the dark brown speckles were bloodstains.
Watching them from on high was Lu Pingyuan, Elder Lu, who wore a broad smile.
"You are fortunate. Because of your aptitude and age, you are different from them."
Steward Lu pointed at the figures in the hanging cages and said with a cruel smile, "Now is the time to prove yourselves."
On the high platform, the youths watched in bewilderment and helplessness as those with talents demonstrated them nearby, while they could only rely on luck.
"What do you need to refine pills?"
A sect disciple glared at him with brutal menace. Lin Chang'an, however, merely gave the disciple—who looked to be around thirty—a calm glance.
"I am proficient in refining many medicinal pills, including Bigu Pills and Qi Gathering Pills. Do you need me to demonstrate them one by one?"
At that moment, Elder Lu walked over. Looking at Lin Chang'an, he laughed. "Friend Lin, your courage is extraordinary. Of course this old man believes you."
As they spoke, Elder Lu flicked a finger. Spiritual light flashed from the storage pouch at his waist, and a Low-grade Artifact Cauldron half the height of a person appeared before them, along with ten floating pellets.
Looking at the ten pellets that had landed in his palm, Lin Chang'an frowned and inspected them carefully. Then he sniffed them and gave them a lick, immediately breaking into a smile. "Whose handiwork is this? These pills are not merely a little lacking."
Anything not tempered in a pill furnace was collectively called pellets—commonly known as semi-finished products.
"Ten pellets. Successfully refine half of them, and you pass."
Elder Lu spoke with the smile of a kindly elder, but Lin Chang'an understood the cruelty hidden behind it.
"With pellets of this quality?"
Lin Chang'an was not intimidated. He opened his eyes wide and snapped irritably, "I'd be thanking heaven and earth if I could successfully refine five."
Then his tone shifted. With a proud clasp of his hands, he said, "If I were refining them myself from beginning to end, I could make six or seven Bigu Pills out of ten with materials of this quality."
Alchemists were scarce to begin with. A success rate of sixty to seventy percent for Bigu Pills was already exceptional for a Qi Refinement-level alchemist.
Rather than getting angry, Steward Lu clapped and laughed. "Good. Then let this old man see what you can do."
Lin Chang'an turned around and took a deep breath. A layer of cold sweat had already formed on his back. Though he had put on an imposing front, everything rested on his own skill.
In a year of famine, a craftsman would not starve. The old ancestors truly had not lied.
Calm down, calm down! Things are already like this. First stabilize the situation, then secretly build up strength.
As Lin Chang'an looked at the pill furnace before him, he felt a sense of familiarity. A trace of fervor glimmered in his eyes, and Steward Lu secretly nodded at the sight.
He seemed to be a cultivator with extraordinary devotion to pill refinement. Only people like this could travel farther down a particular path.
"Rise!"
With a solemn expression, Lin Chang'an suddenly formed a hand seal and lightly struck the pill furnace. At once, the Spirit Stones embedded in the formation on the gilded furnace walls shimmered with flowing light, and Spiritual Fire rose within the furnace the next moment.
Because low-level cultivators did not possess sufficiently deep spiritual power, Pill Furnaces had specialized formations. By embedding Spirit Stones and activating them, one could consume the spiritual energy within the stones to produce Spiritual Fire.
Lin Chang'an calmly began using his own spiritual power to control and adjust the temperature and intensity of the furnace's Spiritual Fire.
This seemingly slow and painstaking behavior instead made Steward Lu secretly nod again. This kid had some real ability.
"I can draw talismans. I need talisman cinnabar."
At that moment, a panicked cry rang out, followed by a wave of startled exclamations from the youths.
A Great Sword Sect cultivator gave a cruel smile, drew the precious sword from his waist, hauled a cultivator from a cage, and sliced across the person's wrist. In an instant, blood flowed into a bowl.
"No talisman cinnabar. There is only the more precious Cultivator Blood. Draw with that."
The youth's face turned deathly pale. Even the hand holding the talisman brush trembled, and his lips quivered as he said, "Y-you! How can you do this?!"
"Cut the nonsense. You only have ten chances. If you cannot prove your worth, then go be a pig."
The chaotic scene gave this group of youths a firsthand look at cruel darkness.
Yet Lin Chang'an had already shut out everything beyond the furnace, his entire focus fixed on the pill furnace before him.
One hand rested on the Spirit Stone of the furnace, while the other used the Object Manipulation Technique. The ten pellets slowly floated within the furnace, spinning round and round as they glimmered with spiritual light and underwent the tempering of Spiritual Fire.
As the ten pellets spun round and round within the pill furnace under the tempering of Spiritual Fire, black impurities constantly separated out. At the same time, spiritual light radiated from the pills as their medicinal properties began to merge.
Though Lin Chang'an appeared tense, his hand pressed against the Spirit Stone embedded in the furnace wall was quietly drawing away a portion of its spiritual energy.
Within his sea of consciousness, a Jade Pearl greedily absorbed the spiritual energy drawn from the Spirit Stone. Lin Chang'an muttered to himself, Absorb a little less. It wasn't easy getting such a free meal.
As he refined pills, Lin Chang'an could not help narrowing his eyes. The Mysterious Treasure in his sea of consciousness required vast Spirit Stone resources to sustain it, so...
Much of the bewilderment from being scammed into this place vanished at that moment. Lin Chang'an narrowed his eyes and looked once more at this blood-soaked place.
A smile appeared on his face. With its lovely hills and clear waters, birdsong and fragrant blossoms, this place seemed more and more pleasing the longer he looked at it.
He was serious about refining pills, but the success rate of pill refinement was never high. Alchemists were money-burning pits—this was common knowledge in the Cultivation World.
At this thought, Lin Chang'an could not help curling his lips into a smile. This isn't my fault. Inviting a god is easy; sending one away is hard. You were the ones who insisted on keeping me.
"Pills complete, open furnace!"
At Lin Chang'an's solemn shout, the Great Sword Sect cultivators in the square stared at this newcomer in astonishment. Good heavens—among all the cultivators they had scammed and kidnapped here, this was the first newcomer who treated the place like home.
With a confident smile, Lin Chang'an looked at the fierce-faced Great Sword Sect cultivators as though he felt the warmth of family.
The first step was to rely on the Great Sword Sect's resources and become the Chief Alchemist here.
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