Seeing Shi Hao again stirred a few emotions in Meng Chuan, but there was no sense of distance or unfamiliarity.
This was a child he had watched grow up. How could he feel like a stranger? He only felt a deep warmth.
Shi Hao had his grievances, but he was happy too.
A sharp tongue and a soft heart, a dead duck insisting its beak was still hard—that was Shi Hao all over.
Receiving a gift from Meng Chuan made him feel even better.
"Perfect timing. I could use something like this lately." Shi Hao examined the Great Dao Golden Core in his hand, admiration in his eyes.
"What marvelous alchemy. My skills are nowhere near this level, and the alchemist's cultivation has reached the summit. They surpass even me."
He did not ask Meng Chuan where the Great Dao Golden Core had come from. He had long known Meng Chuan had secrets.
But knowing that did not mean he had to break the pot just to get to the bottom of it.
"With your alchemy skills, who wouldn't surpass you?" Meng Chuan retorted.
Shi Hao had never studied alchemy systematically. He knew a little about its principles and techniques, but there was far more he did not know.
Throughout his life, he had barely refined any pills at all.
Perhaps the most advanced pill he had ever refined was the Resurrection Pill.
But how had Shi Hao refined that pill?
By brute force, manipulating the Heavenly Laws and forcing the pill into being...
It was fair to say Shi Hao's alchemy belonged to a school of its own: the barbarian school.
"Are you injured?" Meng Chuan asked. He had picked up on something in Shi Hao's words.
Why would anyone in good health need a Great Dao Golden Core?