Fire Lizardmen

Yao Chen looked at the small mountain of Magic Cores on the ground, shimmering with dazzling colors and radiating terrifying energy. His soul form grew so excited it nearly blurred, and he nodded repeatedly, his voice trembling. "That's enough! More than enough! Your Excellency, not only can I refine those Sixth-Grade Pills, I'd even have enough to open the furnace and make several Seventh-Tier Pills! These Magic Cores are all of extremely high quality!"

Xiao Yan stared so hard his eyes nearly popped out, his throat dry.

Although he didn't know exactly how powerful the magical beasts these Magic Cores came from had been, the terrifying energy pressing down on him was unmistakable. The two most dazzling cores in particular made his soul tremble.

What on earth had his uncle done while he was gone all night?!

At that, Lin Hai nodded expressionlessly, as if merely confirming something trivial.

His gaze swept over the three soul herbs on the table and the piles of high-grade medicinal ingredients on the floor. "All right, I'll leave this to you. Recover as soon as you can, then start refining pills. Make the Fifth- and Sixth-Grade Pills first."

Yao Chen immediately gave his assurance. "Rest easy, Your Excellency! With the Seven Illusion Clear Spirit Saliva and Iron Thread Soul-Restoring Flower, my soul will recover to at least seventy percent in two days. Within three days, I'll certainly be back at my peak! I'll have the pills ready on schedule!"

"Mm." Lin Hai replied, his tone still calm, as if already thinking about what came next. "Once you've refined the first batch of pills, I'll head to the Central Plains. We should be able to trade these pills for some of the main ingredients needed to refine Eighth-Tier Pills."

"Eighth-Tier Pills..." Yao Chen's eyes blazed.

If he truly had enough Eighth-Tier medicinal ingredients to practice with, he might have a chance to glimpse the legendary ninth tier!

"Before that, though, I need to visit another place and pick up some 'pocket change,'" Lin Hai said, almost to himself.

"Pocket change?" Yao Chen and Xiao Yan both froze. What kind of pocket change would this esteemed expert need to go out of his way to collect?

Lin Hai's gaze seemed to pierce through the roof and reach far to the south, toward a place called Jia Nan Academy.

"Beneath the Inner Academy of Jia Nan Academy lies an underground world of magma, where creatures called 'Fire Lizardmen' live." Lin Hai's voice was perfectly calm, though his words sent a chill down their spines. "The 'Fire Beads' that form inside them contain pure fire-attributed energy. They're a great tonic for fire-attributed cultivators and can also greatly improve an alchemist's control over flames. They're hard currency in the Central Plains, and quite valuable."

He paused, then added, "The key is that there are plenty of them. If I sweep through the place, I should collect enough to trade for more than a dozen eighth-tier Magic Cores."

"Fire Lizardmen? Underground magma? Sweep through the place?" Yao Chen listened, dumbstruck. He naturally knew of Jia Nan Academy, the renowned institution across the continent. Its Inner Academy was even more mysterious, and he'd heard of the Magma World beneath it. It was said to be extremely dangerous, with heat hot enough to melt Spirit King experts. The Fire Lizardmen living there were ferocious and traveled in packs; rumors even spoke of Flame Lizardmen powerful enough to rival Spirit Venerables!

And this esteemed expert was calling a trip there to hunt Fire Lizardmen and collect Fire Beads... picking up some "pocket change"? He even planned to sweep the place? To trade for eighth-tier Magic Cores?!

Eighth-tier Magic Cores! Those were treasures produced only by peerless ferocious beasts comparable to human Spirit Venerables!

The way he spoke, it was as if he were heading to the market to buy a few cabbages!

Yao Chen felt his understanding of the world being overturned all over again.

He opened his mouth, but couldn't get a word out. All that remained was speechless shock.

Xiao Yan was even more lost, but the words "Jia Nan Academy," "underground magma," and "sweep through" were enough for him to imagine just how terrifying the scene would be.

He looked at his uncle's calm profile, and had only one thought: Uncle... he's so strong it's almost unreasonable...

"Xiao Yan," Lin Hai said, turning his gaze toward him. "Train well and listen to your teacher. Your uncle will be back before long."

Without waiting for either of them to react, his figure rippled like water and vanished from the room entirely. He hadn't caused the slightest disturbance in space, as if he'd never been there at all.

Only the rare medicinal ingredients covering the table and floor, a small mountain of high-tier Magic Cores radiating terrifying energy, and two utterly dumbfounded figures—one old, one young—remained in the room.

Yao Chen struggled to swallow, though he had no saliva, and looked from the pile of Magic Cores to the words Lin Hai had left them with. In the end, every emotion melted into a long sigh, filled with boundless feeling.

"Xiao Yan, you'd better train hard... Your uncle... he's laying a path to the heavens for you..."

The magical beasts of the Hengduan Mountain Range had only just suffered their misfortune. Next, it would be the Fire Lizardmen living beneath Jia Nan Academy's Magma World who would meet their end.

Meanwhile, Lin Hai had already crossed endless mountains and rivers, heading toward the Black Corner Region at a thousand miles with every step.

To him, this really was just a simple mission to gather some "pocket change."