Qi Condensation Pill, Sold!

Inside the room, the lamplight flickered!

Chen An abruptly rose from the bed, his body standing straight as a spear!

His five fingers clenched tight, his knuckles erupting in a rapid series of crackling pops. A vast, mountain-heavy, tyrannical brute force instantly began to accumulate and coil wildly through his chest and arms.

The next instant, his right arm dropped sharply as he exerted force, his waist twisting, his blood and qi surging. Every muscle and bone in his body moved as one as he threw a punch straight ahead!

Boom!!—

A dull, piercing explosion of air suddenly rang out. A fierce gust swept through the entire room, sending the currents in the air into a wild frenzy.

His fist tore through the air, leaving behind a faint visible ripple. The fierce and tyrannical force of the punch bore down heavily—it was the full eruption of the Mountain-Crushing Force after reaching minor mastery.

The punch force was heavy and solid, its brute strength restrained yet explosively powerful. It was no longer the stiff, reckless battering of brute force from before. Every inch of exertion was perfectly measured, his meridians and blood qi flowing in flawless harmony with the martial skill's secrets.

As the punch landed, the wooden table before him shook violently. The oil lamp atop it swayed fiercely, its flame flickering madly without end.

The vast, invisible punch force did not dissipate. Instead, it transformed into a heavy, fierce, invisible blast of force that howled through the air like an arrow loosed from the bow, smashing viciously into the earthen wall a zhang away.

Bang!!!

A muffled boom erupted. A section of the earthen wall's surface instantly caved in, dense spiderweb cracks spreading out at once. Plaster flaked away in showers, while broken stones and dust scattered across the floor.

The vigorous, tyrannical residual force surged through the little room. The doors and windows trembled softly, while the air around him continued to churn.

Chen An slowly withdrew his fist. Watching the dust roll through the room, a look of shock rose in his eyes.

"Is this the true power of an earth-rank mid-grade martial skill at minor mastery?!"

Chen An muttered under his breath. Lowering his head to look at his hands, he could hardly believe that punch had come from his own fist.

One had to know that he had not used any true qi in that punch. He had thrown it using nothing but the strength of his flesh body.

Generally speaking, someone at the peak of the Body Realm could indeed throw a punch carrying five thousand jin of force. Yet Chen An felt that the power behind that punch had likely surpassed an ordinary peak Body Realm cultivator's by several times.

At the very least, he felt that even his former self at the second level of the Qi Condensation Realm would not have been able to withstand the punch he had just thrown.

No, it was not that he would have failed to withstand it. He would probably have been blown apart by a single punch!

And if he fully drove it with the true qi in his body now, then that power...

He did not even dare imagine just how terrifying such a punch would be.

It could probably blow Bai Yifan apart with one punch, right?!!!

"The Mountain-Crushing Force is already this powerful at minor mastery. What about major mastery and perfection?!"

Chen An took a deep breath and suppressed the turmoil in his heart. Looking again at the system panel, his gaze flickered faintly.

The joy of spending money was that the more you spent, the better it felt!

The sensation of his cultivation soaring through spending money had him almost addicted.

Why had the games from his previous life been so addictive? Why had so many people spent thousands upon thousands buying skins and equipment, piling up their combat power?!

The logic was the same!

Spend resources, and you immediately saw tangible improvement.

Pay the price, and you instantly gained strength that could crush others.

There was no long, tedious bitter cultivation, no endlessly distant wait. All feedback came fast and direct.

If you were weak, spend money to make up for it. If you lacked something, spend money to level up. Weaknesses vanished in an instant, and gaps were reversed in a moment.

That immediate thrill of becoming stronger was the most enticing thing of all, easily drawing people into its depths.

Before, he had only thought others were impulsive and wasteful. Now that he had experienced it himself, he finally understood. Compared to the slow, drawn-out cultivation of grinding away day after day, this shortcut of becoming stronger with money was simply too tempting.

It was just that, even if he wanted to spend now, he had nothing left to spend.

Because he was out of money!

Glancing at the balance on the panel, which had already returned to zero, Chen An began considering where he could get more money.

Borrow from someone?!

Shen Qinglan and Shen Zongyue immediately came to mind. Shen Qinglan was his childhood sweetheart, while Shen Zongyue had often given him cultivation methods, martial skills, and even costly medicinal pills over the years.

If he asked, he should be able to borrow a considerable sum of Yuan Crystals from the two of them.

But after thinking it over, Chen An shook his head and dismissed the idea.

If he asked, the Shen father and daughter would certainly lend him money. But he had only just taken more than a hundred Yuan Crystals from Shen Qinglan and accepted a bottle of Qi Condensation Pills from Shen Zongyue.

If he went to borrow money from the Shen father and daughter again now, it would definitely arouse their suspicions.

Right!

Qi Condensation Pills!!!

A flash of inspiration suddenly surfaced in Chen An's mind. He turned around and looked toward the white jade bottle he had placed on the bed earlier.

As far as he knew, a single Qi Condensation Pill in the Wurong County marketplace was worth a full hundred Yuan Crystals. This entire bottle contained ten pills, making it worth a staggering thousand Yuan Crystals.

A thousand Yuan Crystals!!!

If all of it were used to spend on the system—raising his cultivation and refining his martial skills—it would be equivalent to nearly a thousand years of tedious meditation and cultivation.

At that thought, scorching desire instantly flooded his heart.

Keep them and slowly refine them for consumption, steadily improving his cultivation step by step?

Too slow!

Having already tasted the exhilaration of rapidly advancing through the system, he could not stand the slow pace of ordinary martial artists wasting away the years.

Sell them!!!

Once that thought arose, it grew like wild grass, impossible to suppress again.

Chen An's eyes flickered intensely, his gaze swiftly becoming resolute and sharp.

Qi Condensation Pills were precious cultivation medicine, but to him now, they were far less practical than solid Yuan Crystals.

Medicinal pills could only slowly nourish one's blood qi and assist cultivation. But Yuan Crystals could make him stronger in an instant, bringing about a direct qualitative transformation.

Having decided to sell the Qi Condensation Pills, Chen Ning began to ponder.

For him, there were two routes for selling this entire bottle of Qi Condensation Pills:

The first was to wait until dawn tomorrow and sell them at an official marketplace in the city.

The second was that today happened to be the day the black market opened, so he could take this bottle of Qi Condensation Pills there and sell it.

The greatest advantage of selling at a marketplace was stability and security. Under broad daylight, with rules established by the major powers, one's life and safety were best protected.

But the corresponding drawbacks were equally obvious.

The medicine shops in official marketplaces were tightly regulated. Selling medicinal pills required registering personal identity information and filing records layer upon layer. Pills of unknown origin were rejected outright.

Even if he barely managed to sell them, the purchase price would be deliberately driven down, far below the fair market value. Pills worth a thousand Yuan Crystals would likely lose more than half their value in the end. It was simply not worth it.

The black market, meanwhile, was the exact opposite of an official marketplace.

The black market's greatest advantage was that it did not ask about origins, investigate identities, or require registration.

No matter where the pills came from or whose hands they had passed through, as long as there was no problem with the goods, buyers would negotiate a price and purchase them directly. The entire transaction would remain secret, leaving no records behind. It would not implicate Shen Zongyue either, sparing him countless future troubles.

Moreover, the black market was more straightforward with its prices. Desperate martial artists and underground factions had enormous demand, and pills moved quickly. The price would not be driven down too outrageously, preserving most of their value and bringing in far more than the marketplace.

Beyond that, black market transactions were flexible—goods and money changed hands at once, and once the deal was done, all debts were settled. They were highly discreet, and moving at night made it difficult to attract attention. He could turn them into money without anyone noticing.

But the dangers of the black market were just as plain to see.

The black market was a chaotic mix of dragons and fish, filled with desperadoes. Murder and robbery for treasure happened often. If one lacked strength, getting robbed by robbers meant one's life would be hard to preserve.

"Fortune is sought amid danger!"

After considering it briefly, Chen An decided to take the risk.

It was called a risk, but with his late Houtian Realm cultivation and the Mountain-Crushing Force at major mastery, unless a Xiantian Realm expert personally acted against him, it was hard to say who would rob whom.

And every Xiantian Realm expert possessed an extraordinary status. In all of Wurong County, there were only three Xiantian Realm experts known publicly.

Such experts had no need to lower themselves over a mere handful of Yuan Crystals.

Taking a deep breath, Chen An did not delay. He took a black hooded cloak from the wardrobe, then circulated his cultivation method. The features on his face shifted for a while, transforming his appearance into that of an unfamiliar young man. Only then did he tuck the bottle of Qi Condensation Pills into his clothes, find the last few remaining Yuan Crystals in the wardrobe, and quickly open the door. With a flash of his body, he swiftly melted into the night...