"You're incredible, Master!"
"With Pill Dust Master here, our Tao Family can prosper!"
"Did you see the look on that old bastard Huang Hezi's face? Like he'd lost his parents. It was glorious."
"Serves him right. He brought it on himself. Everyone respected him for all he'd contributed over the years, but after promising Senior Sister Tao Wan, he switched sides at the last moment. Now that he's performed so poorly, I doubt he'll have an easy time with the Shangguan Family!"
"Pill Dust Master, this way!"
He had been the first to refine a Spirit Feeding Pill and the first to finish the match.
From the moment Luo Chen stepped down from the platform, he received respect unlike anything he had known before.
If his performance in the first match had brought people a pleasant surprise,
then his second success had earned him unprecedented acclaim from the Tao Family.
Luo Chen accepted it calmly.
He made his way through the crowd to Tao Wan.
"Thanks for the effort." Tao Wan gazed at him, her voice gentler than before.
Luo Chen smiled and shook his head.
"It was hardly any trouble."
Hardly any trouble?
Tao Wan looked toward the Pill Refiners still struggling on the platform and, for a moment, had no answer.
After a while, she said, "You've taken first place twice now. Whatever your ranking in the next match, I have a chance to move up from fourth. You can hold back a little in the third."
She did not say it because she doubted him. She said it because she trusted him completely.
His Pill Refinement Art in the first two matches had won her over utterly.
But—
Hold back?
Luo Chen paused, unsure what she meant.
Then his gaze passed over the Tao Family crowd and