Unsealing the First Seal

"Heavens, these spiritual treasures are so expensive!"

Looking at the prices on the list, Tang Wulin could not help but sigh.

Among the four great spiritual treasures of heaven and earth, even the cheapest hundred-year Purple Cloud Lingzhi cost two million Federation credits. That was the Spirit Pagoda's internal price; the market price would only be higher. The most expensive, the hundred-year Life Fruit, ranged from five to eight million Federation credits.

For Life Fruits of the same age, the more fruits they bore, the higher their value. The hundred-year Life Fruit Meng Xinghe had chosen bore more than twenty fruits, with an internal price of 7.44 million Federation credits.

Tang Wulin had thought he was already quite wealthy, but he now realized that his few million in savings were not even enough to buy a hundred-year Life Fruit.

Two or three minutes later, a Spirit Pagoda employee delivered the four spiritual treasures Meng Xinghe had ordered. Gu Yuena swiped her card to pay, looking so unconcerned that Tang Wulin was left dumbfounded. He even instinctively touched his own wallet.

Holy shit, that was more than fifteen million Federation credits. She did not even blink while paying. She was so damn rich!

Tang Wulin shed tears of poverty inwardly, but when he remembered that these things were for him, a blissful smile spread across his face.

"Meng Xinghe, how am I supposed to eat this?"

Tang Wulin held one of the four great spiritual treasures, a Life Fruit. It looked much like a bunch of green grapes, except the grapes were only the size of soybeans and were a vivid jade-green throughout, like exquisite works of art carved from green jade.

The Life Fruit carried the meaning of endless vitality. It grew only in barren deserts and was hailed as the most brilliant treasure of the desert.

The Star Dou Great Forest had every kind of environment except deserts, so this was also Gu Yuena's first time seeing such a spiritual treasure. Her crystal-like purple eyes reflected the Life Fruit, and she could not help swallowing.

Fruit brimming with such abundant life force... I really wanted to know what it tasted like...

"This is not for you to eat." Meng Xinghe took the Life Fruit from Tang Wulin's hand. "It may look delicious, but it actually tastes extremely bitter and astringent. It is not suitable for eating as fruit."

Tang Wulin: Huh? Eating it as fruit? How could I possibly be worthy of treating a Life Fruit worth at least five million as fruit?

Gu Yuena: Oh, so it did not taste good? No wonder I had never seen it on the dinner table.

"None of these four hundred-year spiritual treasures are for you to eat directly. Let me process them a little and refine them into a pill. You can just take that."

Meng Xinghe used his palm as a furnace. Azure flames burned in his hand as all four hundred-year spiritual treasures were tossed into them.

Tang Wulin stared in astonishment and asked curiously,

"Meng Xinghe, you can even refine pills? Ah, no, what I mean is, we are both nine-year-old children. How do you know how to do so many things?"

Over the past week since school began, Tang Wulin had learned that Meng Xinghe was cultivating four supplementary professions at once, and that his proficiency in each was not low—at least Level Three—including blacksmithing, the one that demanded the most talent.

He had thought that was already Meng Xinghe's limit. He had not expected him to now have the identity of an alchemist as well, and to have reached such a high level that he could refine pills without even needing an alchemy furnace.

So legendary all-round geniuses really did exist in this world. The one standing before him was one of them.

"I know the Breathing Method. It lets me save a great deal of cultivation time to do other things. When you do more things, naturally, you learn more."

Meng Xinghe refined the pill with one hand. The azure Sky Flame extracted the essence contained within the four great hundred-year spiritual treasures, gathering it together amid the flames to form the initial shape of a pill.

This refining speed alone would have put even alchemy grandmasters who had immersed themselves in the field for years to shame. As for his technique of extracting one hundred percent of a spiritual treasure's essence, it was a divine skill they would not even dare imagine.

The Breathing Method... Tang Wulin's mouth twitched.

In the entire Federation, only the Holy Spirit Cult had a method for cultivating the Breathing Method. Other soul masters could only learn it by naturally reaching that realm.

In other words, Meng Xinghe had relied on his own talent to naturally reach the realm of the Breathing Method at the age of nine—or perhaps even earlier.

What kind of monster was this classmate of his?

With Meng Xinghe as a comparison, even Gu Yuena, another monster, seemed as ordinary as a normal person. After all, Gu Yuena had only displayed monstrous talent in cultivation; in other areas, she had not shown anything yet.

A few minutes later, a smooth, flawless jade-green pill appeared in Meng Xinghe's palm. Its sweet, fresh medicinal fragrance drifted through the air, invigorating anyone who smelled it.

"Here."

Tang Wulin reached out and accepted the pill Meng Xinghe handed him. It looked like a green-apple-flavored hard candy.

"Meng Xinghe." He lifted his gaze from the pill. "After I take it, what else do I need to do?"

"After taking the pill, just meditate and cultivate. Leave the rest to me."

Having received his answer, Tang Wulin nodded.

Brother Huo had given him enough confidence, so he swallowed the pill without hesitation. It tasted sweet, like a licorice candy.

The pill melted as soon as it entered his mouth and seemed to have a concentrating effect on his mind. Tang Wulin entered meditation faster than usual.

Meng Xinghe sat on the ground and pressed both palms against Tang Wulin's back. He mobilized his soul power to guide the pill's medicinal energy through Tang Wulin's meridians in a full circuit, while diverting part of his soul power to break the first seal.

The first of the eighteen seals was already on the verge of collapse, so it was not difficult to break. Meng Xinghe directed his soul power at several weak points in the seal. The already tottering seal immediately crumbled on its own, releasing the essence of the Golden Dragon King bloodline contained within.

Meng Xinghe acted at once. Before the bloodline essence could merge with Tang Wulin's own bloodline, he used Sky Power to wrap it layer upon layer and guide it outward through the meridians.

During this process, the bloodline essence, which contained a trace of the Golden Dragon King's will, instinctively resisted. It turned Tang Wulin's body into a battlefield. However, the pill's medicinal energy protected Tang Wulin's body, leaving him unharmed in this battle. In fact, the battle helped him digest the pill's medicinal energy.

Strands of golden light flowed from Tang Wulin's body and gathered in midair into a small golden sphere. Within it, a golden dragon could vaguely be seen roaring.

"Hmph, now that you are outside, do you think you can still act so recklessly!"

Seven-colored radiance flickered in Gu Yuena's purple eyes as the bloodline pressure of the Silver Dragon King fell precisely upon the bloodline essence gathered into the golden sphere.

If the Golden Dragon King himself were still alive, I might give you some respect.

But you were merely a tiny fragment of bloodline essence. How dare you act so wildly before me, the Silver Dragon King!

If this old dragon did not show her might, did you think I was some sleeping beauty dragon?

Under Gu Yuena's suppression, the golden dragon within the bloodline essence reluctantly settled down.

More than ten minutes later, all the bloodline essence contained in the first seal had been extracted. It now rested obediently in Gu Yuena's hand, like a tamed little pet.