Stubborn? No, Going All-In is a Kind of Wisdom!

The entire hall was deathly silent.

The steward's drifting words—"Passed"—were like a fuse, instantly igniting the entire Ten Thousand Immortal Pavilion.

"Fuck! It actually worked?"

"A low-grade Foundation Establishment Pill... He—he used Spirit Stones as spiritual herbs and actually refined one?!"

"What kind of crooked, heretical path is this? I've been refining pills for thirty years, and today my eyes have truly been opened!"

Countless gazes focused on Zhao Hao. There was no trace of mockery left in them, only incomprehensible shock.

They did not understand.

But they were greatly shaken.

Even Fairy Xuan Su, who had remained cool and aloof all this time, now turned her eyes toward him. Her furnace of nearly perfect high-grade pills had long since emerged, yet she still could not make sense of what school of thought the other party's almost juggling-like pill-refining technique belonged to.

On the other side, Li Ming, the young alchemist whose expression had been gloomy all along, carefully looked Zhao Hao's sturdy physique up and down, a few traces of scrutiny and confusion in his eyes.

Zhao Hao heaved a heavy breath, putting on a look of lingering fear. With slightly unsteady steps, he handed that low-grade Foundation Establishment Pill to the steward for registration.

Because he had learned alchemy on the spot, he was already the last alchemist to complete his refinement.

After the steward announced tomorrow's competition rules, Zhao Hao did not even glance around him and walked straight toward the Ten Thousand Immortal Gambling House opposite the Ten Thousand Immortal Pavilion.

When Zhao Hao's burly figure blocked the entrance of the Ten Thousand Immortal Gambling House, the noisy waves of sound inside slowly came to a stop.

Quite a few gamblers' eyes fell on him in unison.

"It's him! The one from the audition who flipped the wok and stir-fried pills!"

"Why is he here? Didn't they say his furnace exploded?"

"Shh... keep it down! I just squeezed over from the Ten Thousand Immortal Pavilion. He... he passed!"

"What?! With that refining method of his, he could still refine a Foundation Establishment Pill?"

Zhao Hao ignored these whispers and wordlessly shouldered his way through the crowd.

Right now, he was a body cultivator who had won money and had a fiery temper. Arrogance was necessary.

He walked up to the counter and slammed that gold-rimmed token onto the table with a smack.

"Payout!"

His voice was loud and full of vigor, jolting the attendant behind the counter.

Once the attendant saw the token and Zhao Hao's face clearly, he immediately put on a fawning smile. Soon, a steward personally trotted out from the back hall, respectfully holding a storage pouch in both hands.

"Senior! Your—your twenty thousand Low-grade Spirit Stones, not a single one missing. Please count them!"

Zhao Hao took the storage pouch, swept it with his divine sense, nodded in satisfaction, and casually stuffed it into his robes.

This string of rough actions once again set off the entire venue.

"Twenty thousand! He really won twenty thousand Spirit Stones?"

"Damn it, ten thousand turned into twenty thousand! If I'd known, I would've followed and placed a bet too, even if it was only a hundred Spirit Stones!"

Just then, the crystal wall at the center of the Ten Thousand Immortal Gambling House flashed, and the betting information for the next round updated.

"Second round, second match: refining a second-tier low-grade pill, the Soul Condensing Pill!"

"Look at the odds! Fairy Xuan Su is still one to one. That Li Ming is one to one point five..."

"Zhao Hao! One to three!!"

A cry of shock shifted everyone's attention from Zhao Hao's storage pouch to the crystal wall.

One to three!

That number instantly made the entire Ten Thousand Immortal Gambling House boil over.

"One to three? The Ten Thousand Immortal Gambling House is certain that this Zhao fellow is dead for sure in the next round!"

"Nonsense! The Soul Condensing Pill is a second-tier pill, and what it emphasizes most is divine-sense control! He's a body cultivator—how strong can his divine sense be? In the last round, he nearly wrecked the furnace refining a Foundation Establishment Pill. This time, there's no chance!"

"That's true. Fairy Xuan Su is still strong, but there's no way to make Spirit Stones by choosing her. Then I'll choose Li Ming. This time, he refined one high-grade Foundation Establishment Pill and five mid-grade Foundation Establishment Pills!"

Just as everyone was chattering, a sarcastic voice rang out behind Zhao Hao.

"Well, well, isn't this Fellow Daoist Zhao? What good luck. You actually managed to muddle your way through."

Zhao Hao turned around. A young cultivator in brocade robes was staring at his chest with eyes full of jealousy.

It was none other than the unlucky bastard from the audition who had been affected by his "wok-flipping" technique, causing him to perform abnormally and fail even to pass the audition.

Zhao Hao raised an eyebrow. Before he could speak, the brocade-robed cultivator gave a cold laugh and continued fanning the flames:

"What? You won some Spirit Stones and now you want to run? If you've got the guts, bet all twenty thousand Spirit Stones on yourself in the next round!"

The moment he said this, the surroundings instantly quieted. Everyone looked at Zhao Hao as if waiting for a good show.

Zhao Hao was laughing in his heart.

Good grief. Just when he was sleepy, someone delivered a pillow. He had been worrying about how to act naturally and put the Spirit Stones back in, and now this divine assist had arrived.

Yet his face put on the look of someone struck right in a sore spot. His neck stiffened, and he retorted in a muffled, booming voice, "I won those spirit stones with my own ability. Why should I stake them again?"

"Hahaha!" The brocade-robed cultivator laughed so hard he rocked back and forth. "You call that ability? That's dog-shit luck! The next round tests second-tier pills. Do you dare stake it? You don't!"

"All in! All in!"

No one knew who started the chant, but the gamblers crowding around to watch the excitement, never afraid of making trouble bigger, immediately joined in the uproar.

"That's right! If you're a man, go all in!"

"Do you dare make a big bet or not!"

Stirred by the wave of voices, Zhao Hao's "face flushed red." The knuckles of his clenched fists cracked with "ka-ba" sounds, and even his eyes began to bloodshot, as if he had been provoked past reason.

When the brocade-robed cultivator saw his expression, he instantly grew even more excited and jeered, "What? Don't dare anymore? Fair enough. You're only at the level of a first-tier alchemist anyway. Your divine sense is as weak as a chick's, and you still want to refine second-tier pills?"

Zhao Hao suddenly took a step forward, his savage aura frightening the brocade-robed cultivator into subconsciously retreating half a step, terrified that this brute might smash a fist into his face.

After all, a body cultivator's punch was not something his fragile protective spirit shield could withstand.

Seeing that Zhao Hao only stood there without moving, the brocade-robed cultivator regained his nerve and puffed out his chest to twist the knife. "The odds are one to three right now!"

"If you put in those twenty thousand, winning means sixty thousand!"

"Sixty thousand Low-grade Spirit Stones! Have you ever seen that many spirit stones in your whole life? If you don't dare bet, then scram. Stop embarrassing yourself here!"

"Who... who the fuck says I don't dare!"

Zhao Hao seemed to be completely set off. He yanked out the storage pouch from inside his robes, still carrying the warmth of his body, and with a bang, slammed it heavily onto the counter again!

"I'll stake it! All of it!"

He shouted until his voice went hoarse, but the hand pressed on top of the storage pouch held it down deathly tight and did not move away.

The steward behind the counter was a shrewd old hand. Seeing this posture, he piled on a professional smile and, with the speed of a thunderclap before one could cover one's ears, "pulled" that storage pouch out from under Zhao Hao's hand.

"Very good! Senior is truly heroic! This is your new token. Please keep it safe!"

The steward moved deftly through the procedures and handed over a brand-new token.

Zhao Hao opened his mouth, as if he wanted to go back on it, but in the end he only gnashed his teeth and snatched the token. Amid the earth-shaking roar of laughter behind him, he fled "with his tail between his legs" out of the Ten Thousand Immortal Gambling House.

"Hahahaha! That idiot really staked it!"

"Twenty thousand spirit stones, tossed straight into the water just like that. Body cultivators really are all one-track minds!"

"There'll be a good show tomorrow. I have to go to the Ten Thousand Immortal Pavilion and grab a good seat, so I can watch with my own eyes how he blows up his furnace!"

However, no one noticed.

Once Zhao Hao stepped out of the Ten Thousand Immortal Gambling House and completely left those mocking gazes behind, all the emotion on that flushed face receded like the tide.

Replacing it was the slight curve rising at the corner of his mouth.