Chicken and Dog Ascend to Heaven, Deity Transformation peak

Bright City.

Yan Xingci stood before the pill furnace, forming seals with his hands as the furnace fire rose. He was now at the late Golden Core stage, studying alchemy in Bright City's Tianbao Pavilion.

A batch of second-grade pills emerged from the furnace, of superior quality. Yan Xingci wiped the sweat from his brow and placed the pills into a jade bottle.

"Alchemist Yan's skill has improved again. Truly, this is the good fortune of our Shouxian Pavilion." A mellow voice came from the doorway.

Yan Xingci looked up and saw a middle-aged cultivator in brocade robes standing at the entrance. His face was round, his smile amiable—it was Yang Guoliu, the manager of Tianbao Pavilion's herb shop, a Nascent Soul Peak cultivator.

Yang Guoliu was an old hand of Tianbao Pavilion. He had run the herb shop in Bright City for hundreds of years, had extremely wide connections, and understood the ways of favors and worldly dealings to the bone.

A junior brother of a Spirit Transformation stage expert, with such a background—he would not tell anyone about Yan Xingci's background.

Such a perfect chance to curry favor—he had to seize it. How could he bear to share it with others?

Yang Guoliu recalled how, a few years ago, a mid-Spirit Transformation cultivator had brought Yan Xingci to Tianbao Pavilion, and the first thing that cultivator had called him was "junior brother." The junior brother of a mid-Spirit Transformation cultivator?

That background was far too great! From then on, he had gone out of his way to ingratiate himself with Yan Xingci.

"Manager Yang overpraises me," Yan Xingci said with a cupped-fist salute, his tone modest.

Yang Guoliu walked into the pill room, his gaze sweeping over the pill furnace before moving to the jade bottle in Yan