Tianyuan Mountain.
It was the largest gathering place for rogue cultivators within a radius of several thousand li.
Over the past year, Tianyuan Market had grown livelier and livelier.
There was only one reason.
A peculiar man had appeared in the market.
Some called him Master Ye, while others privately called him Little God of Wealth.
But most people spoke his name with awe in their eyes.
At the deepest part of the market.
A secluded little courtyard in a prime location.
A crooked wooden sign hung by the entrance, bearing two lines of bold, flamboyant writing:
"I don't refine pills when I'm in a bad mood."
"Bring three portions of ingredients. Whether a pill forms is up to fate."
If anyone tried to impose these outrageous terms elsewhere, their stall would have been overturned long ago.
But for some reason, a long line stretched before this little courtyard year-round.
"Make way!"
"Move, all of you!"
"I'm from Black Wind Cave..."
A burly man with a face full of jowls shoved through the crowd, holding a brocade box and shouting at the top of his lungs.
"Smack!"
Before he could finish.
A pebble flew from who knew where and struck the back of the burly man's knee with pinpoint accuracy.
He dropped to his knees with a thud, his face turning purplish red.
"Shut up if you don't want to die."
An old man in gray robes shot the burly man a cold glance.
"Master Ye likes peace and quiet!"
"Last time, some fool made a racket at the entrance!"
"Master Ye trapped him in a formation for three days and three nights. The poor bastard even crapped his pants, and nobody dared help him."
At that.
Cold sweat instantly broke out on the burly man.
Who in Tianyuan Market hadn't heard?
Master Ye might have been no more than an eleven- or twelve-year-old boy.
But his abilities were astonishing.
Pill refining, artifact crafting, formations—he excelled at them all.
Even more terrifying was his cultivation.
Half a year ago.
Blood Hand Butcher, a notorious figure on Tianyuan Mountain, coveted Master Ye's pills and crept into his courtyard in the dead of night.
But the next morning.
They found him hanging from the old, crooked tree by the courtyard gate, his cultivation crippled and only a breath left in him.
From then on.
Master Ye's rules became the laws of Tianyuan Mountain.
Inside the courtyard.
At that moment, Ye Xuan was sprawled without a care in the world on a Grand Tutor Chair.
He held a handful of unknown spirit fruits, crunching away happily.
"Ah..."
"These rogue cultivators are still way too broke."
Ye Xuan casually flicked a fruit pit in an arc, sending it straight into the trash basket in the corner.
He had lived in absolute comfort this past year.
Go down the mountain for experience?
Only a fool would do that.
Find a place to hole up and let people bring you resources—that was how a smart person did things.
He had merely shown off a little of his pill-refining skill, and those rogue cultivators came flocking like cats drawn to the smell of fish.
By convention, anyone asking someone to refine pills had to provide three portions of ingredients. One pill went to the pill master, and the rest depended on luck.
But things were different when it came to Ye Xuan.
He had the system reward Low-tier Alchemy Mastery.
When refining low-tier pills, his success rate was practically one hundred percent.
Other people gambled three portions of ingredients for one pill.
He swallowed up all three portions, then tossed the customer a pill to send them on their way.
The remaining pills and ingredients all went into Ye Xuan's pockets.
It was pure profit!
And that was exactly why.
In just one short year.
Ye Xuan's cultivation had shot up as if he'd ridden a rocket.
Jade Purity Realm, ninth level!
If Tian Buyi saw this, his jaw would probably drop on the spot.
In the entire thousand-year history of Qingyun Sect, there had never been a freak who reached the ninth level of the Jade Purity Realm at eleven.
Even Wan Jianyi, back in his day, was just a little brother compared to Ye Xuan.
"Still not enough."
Feeling the invisible barrier within his body.
Ye Xuan rubbed his chin and murmured softly.
The ninth level of the Jade Purity Realm and the Shangqing Realm were separated by a chasm.
Countless disciples and elders in Qingyun Sect were stuck at this step.
To break through this bottleneck.
He either had to cultivate painstakingly or take a stronger pill.
"Myriad Ancient Cauldron."
Ye Xuan called softly.
Buzz!
The air trembled faintly.
A palm-sized Bronze Small Cauldron appeared out of thin air, hovering above Ye Xuan's palm.
Over the past year.
Ye Xuan had ransacked countless rare ores and spirit materials.
Those rogue cultivators had brought out even their most prized treasures to ask him to craft artifacts.
Star Sand, Crimson Flame Gold... Ye Xuan had snapped them all up and smelted them into this little cauldron.
The Myriad Ancient Cauldron had originally been only a High-grade Magic Artifact, but now its surface was covered in ancient, inscrutable patterns. Every so often, it gave off a trace of spiritual pressure that made one's heart tremble.
A Low-grade Spirit Tool.
In other words, this thing was now a Nine Heavens Divine Weapon in the Zhu Xian World!
It was only low-grade, but it was still a divine weapon.
Its power was enough to split mountains and sever rivers.
Besides the Myriad Ancient Cauldron.
Ye Xuan had also reforged the Chang Qing Sword.
A Top-grade Magic Artifact.
It couldn't compare with the Myriad Ancient Cauldron, but it was still a decent treasure.
"It's time."
Ye Xuan stood, stretched, and let his joints crack all over.
He walked to the cushion in the middle of the room and sat down.
He took a jade box from his robes.
He opened it.
Inside lay a number of precious Medicinal Ingredients.
Ye Xuan had gone to considerable trouble to gather them all.
The main ingredient, Nine Yang Grass, had been especially difficult to find. He'd even sent several desperate men to bring it back from the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains.
The reason he'd gone to all that trouble was that he wanted to use these ingredients to refine a batch of Heavenly Sun Pills for himself.
Heavenly Sun Pills were the pinnacle of intermediate pills.
Just one was equivalent to fifty years of painstaking cultivation!
Moreover.
Heavenly Sun Pills had mild medicinal properties and were ideal for breaking through bottlenecks.
As long as he successfully refined them.
Ye Xuan would have a very good chance of quickly reaching the Shangqing Realm.
"Rise!"
Ye Xuan's expression grew solemn as he formed a hand seal.
The Myriad Ancient Cauldron expanded with the wind, growing to half a person's height before landing steadily on the ground.
Its lid flew open on its own.
Ye Xuan swept his sleeve, and dozens of rare Medicinal Ingredients flew into the cauldron one after another, like weary birds returning to their nests.
Red flames surged up from the bottom of the cauldron.
They weren't ordinary flames, but the rudimentary Samadhi True Fire that Ye Xuan activated with his abundant vitality at the ninth level of the Jade Purity Realm.
Pill refining depended most on controlling the heat and spiritual sense.
But Ye Xuan seemed exceptionally relaxed.
After the Myriad Ancient Cauldron had been upgraded to a Spirit Tool, it had gained a spirit of its own. It was practically an automatic pressure cooker.
He only had to supply the vitality. The cauldron could handle the rest.
"Sizzle, sizzle..."
Faint sounds came from inside the cauldron.
The impurities were being removed, and the essence was condensing.
Time passed second by second.
Outside, the sky shifted from day to night, then from night to dawn.
In the past, Ye Xuan would have collapsed from exhaustion long ago.
But now, he was full of energy, and a faint divine light swirled in his eyes.
"Condense!"
Ye Xuan suddenly barked, bringing both hands down with a forceful press.
The flames inside the cauldron instantly drew in.
A visible wave of white air spread outward from the Myriad Ancient Cauldron.
Fortunately.
He had set up a barrier formation around the courtyard. Otherwise, the commotion would have torn the roof off.
"Clang!"
The cauldron rang out with a crisp chime, like the music of the Great Dao, exploding inside Ye Xuan's mind.
Success.
A smile tugged at the corner of Ye Xuan's mouth as he pointed into the air.
Six streaks of golden light shot out of the cauldron and stopped in front of him.
Each pill was perfectly round, with cloud patterns swirling across its surface. They glowed golden, as if made of pure gold.
Top-grade Heavenly Sun Pills!
Six of them!
If word got out about this success rate.
The other pill refiners would probably slam their heads against the wall.
An ordinary pill-refining master would consider three pills from a single batch a blessing, and even then, they'd be a mix of low- and mid-grade.
There were only two words to describe a batch where every pill was top-grade.
Absurd!
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