Old Bai

Early the next morning, Yue Wen left Zhao Xing'er in charge of the agency again and boarded a high-speed train to City Six.

The satellite cities belonging to the same city were connected by highways and railways. Within the protection of a single great formation, travel was convenient, with no need to cross the wilderness.

The other party had even given him his house number, and the address was within the urban area, so there probably wasn't any trap to worry about.

Yue Wen's only concern was whether the man's Blazing Flame Powder could meet the requirements for cultivating Chaos Dragon Astral Force. He knew very little about alchemy, apart from a few methods for identifying high-quality Blazing Flame Powder that he had crammed overnight.

But then...

After arriving at the station and taking a taxi to his destination, he looked up at the buildings ahead and froze.

Several small white buildings were connected together. A glaring red sign hung outside the foremost building: "Jiangcheng City Psychiatric Hospital, City Six Branch."

What the...

I came all this way thinking I was meeting an online friend, but it turns out I'm meeting a psych patient?

Why does this psychiatric hospital let its patients use phones?!

Yue Wen's vision went black for a moment.

Surely he couldn't expect a psychiatric patient to actually be some top-tier alchemist?

Still, he clung to a tiny sliver of hope. Someone living in a hospital didn't necessarily have to be a patient. What if this "Old Bai" was a doctor?

Moonlighting as an alchemist outside working hours would be perfectly reasonable.

Even a security guard would do...

In truth, he knew that possibility was extremely slim. Alchemists were highly prized in today's cultivation world, especially skilled ones capable of making high-quality Blazing Flame Powder.

With skills like that, there was no need for another job. Making money would be child's play.

But he had already come this far. After hesitating, he decided not to turn around and leave. Instead, he approached the security booth at the gate. "Sir, I'm here to see Old Bai. Can I go in?"

"Looking for Old Bai? Here to buy medicine, right?" The elderly guard looked Yue Wen up and down, then pointed at a building nearby. "Turn right. Room 208."

Huh, this actually sounds legit.

Before he could leave, the old guard pulled out an unopened gas mask. "Best buy one of these if you're going to see him. I'll let you have it cheap-eight hundred."

"Don't worry, sir. I'm a cultivator." Yue Wen waved him off.

Now he was even more curious about this alchemist.

The building the guard had pointed out seemed to house special-care wards, with private rooms upstairs. Following the signs, Yue Wen reached Ward 208. It was far larger than the other rooms, taking up almost half the floor.

Through the glass in the door, Yue Wen saw green mist swirling inside.

It really did look rather sinister.

Yue Wen knocked on the door. Knock, knock, knock.

There was no response.

He had messaged the man on Cultivation Chat shortly before getting off the train, but there had been no reply to that either. He didn't know whether the man was still asleep or busy with something. Taking a deep breath, Yue Wen held it, focused himself, and cautiously pushed the door open.

Sss-

The green mist inside was thick and viscous. The moment it touched his skin, it actually made a corrosive sizzling sound, leaving a faint sting. Fortunately, Yue Wen's cultivation was high enough and his physique strong enough. For an ordinary person, entering this room would probably have been no different from swimming in sulfuric acid.

How was a gas mask supposed to help with this?

Strangely, not a trace of the gas escaped through the open door, almost as though it had a mind of its own.

Passing through the green mist and around a broad workbench piled with miscellaneous objects, Yue Wen reached the inner room and saw a white-clad figure busily working.

It was a fairly tall man with long, disheveled hair, dressed in a white protective suit and wearing a mask. In front of him stood something like a laboratory bench, with a large glass beaker containing an unknown purple liquid that bubbled away.

He kept adding things to it, muttering, "A little of this, and a little of that..."

Yue Wen watched him pour in two jars of unknown substances. Suddenly, that great blob of purple liquid stood up!

Yes, the liquid gradually assumed a hideous human shape and rose out of the beaker, letting out a faint, wailing cry. "Aaah-"

As Yue Wen's eyes widened, the man pulled a gun straight from his pocket, aimed at the liquid's head, and squeezed the trigger.

Bang!

Yue Wen's brow twitched.

He was certain he hadn't imagined it. Had an alchemist just "executed" a blob of medicine?

He knew nothing about alchemy, but he was profoundly shocked.

After that single shot, the purple liquid settled down, collapsing into the beaker with a splash and becoming an ordinary liquid elixir.

"Hehe, done."

The man gave a strange chuckle and inspected his masterpiece with satisfaction. Only when he turned to fetch a bottle for the elixir did he notice Yue Wen beside him.

"Who are you?" he demanded in an unfriendly tone.

"We arranged this on Cultivation Chat. I'm here to inspect the Blazing Flame Powder." Yue Wen gave an awkward smile, deeply wary of the man before him.

"Oh."

After a moment's recollection, the man nodded. He first finished bottling the elixir, then took out a gourd. When he held it aloft, all the green mist in the air was sucked into its mouth.

In an instant, the room was clear again.

Yue Wen finally resumed breathing.

Only after the air cleared did the man remove his mask, revealing an unkempt face with an extremely receding hairline, a hooked nose, and a drooping mustache. He looked to be in his forties or fifties. One eye stared straight at Yue Wen, while the other wandered off in a different direction.

He looked positively brilliant.

"What I was brewing just now was Soul-Dream Yellow Springs Water. I blended eighty or a hundred Living Nightmare Wraiths into it, so it's very active. I released that Sun-Poison Miasma to block yin entities and keep them from escaping."

After that brief explanation, he took a small, sealed, transparent bottle of white powder from a box nearby and tossed it onto the laboratory bench. "Go ahead and test it."

There was only a tiny amount of powder in the bottle, provided specifically for him to inspect.

Yue Wen had learned beforehand that the most important property of Blazing Flame Powder was its ability to ignite upon contact with qi, maximizing the flames within the qi sea. He had never actually tried it himself, though, so he put on an expert air and told Old Bai, "Just light it so I can take a look."

"Mm..." Old Bai backed away a few steps and shook his head. "I sell this stuff. I don't touch it."

Huh?

Yue Wen felt there was something odd about this man, though his strangeness hardly ended there, so he could only

pick up the little bottle himself and remove the stopper.

There was only a tiny pinch of powder at the bottom. Figuring nothing could go wrong with so little, he gathered his true qi, drew forth its fiery energy, and ignited the powder.

According to what he had found online, if a pinch of Blazing Flame Powder small enough to fill half a fingernail's gap produced a palm-high spiritual flame, it was acceptable. If the flame rose a foot high, it was excellent. If it reached three feet, it was among the finest in the world.

As the fire spiritual energy he released touched that tiny pinch of Blazing Flame Powder, every grain at the bottom of the bottle suddenly lit up. An alarm flashed through Yue Wen's mind.

He hurled the bottle away.

In midair, the bottle erupted into a winding fire dragon several dozen feet long. It scorched the air with a sound like a dragon's roar, rumbling across the room!

Boom-

Had Yue Wen not reacted so quickly, that fire dragon would have exploded in his hand and likely disfigured him.

"What the hell was that?" He turned and glared at Old Bai. No wonder the man wouldn't touch it. He probably knew just how dangerous it was!

"You saw it yourself." Old Bai's eyes gleamed with excitement. "My Blazing Flame Powder is absolutely more powerful than any fire-enhancing elixir on the market! Just this tiny pinch can trigger the ultimate explosive blaze in your qi sea!"

"Isn't that a little too explosive?" Yue Wen frowned. "Are you sure I can swallow this stuff?"

"No," Old Bai replied, immediately shaking his head.

Yue Wen: "..."

Well, you're certainly honest.

"You only said you wanted high-quality Blazing Flame Powder. You never said it had to be edible." Apparently noticing his displeasure, Old Bai scratched the back of his head. "All that matters is whether the quality's high, right?"

Well, that's a new one.

If I'm not buying Blazing Flame Powder to swallow into my qi sea and refine astral force, what am I buying it for? Stuffing it into fireworks to celebrate the New Year?

"Could you make me something normal? High quality is good and all... but it doesn't have to be quite this high." Yue Wen tried asking.

"No." Old Bai refused flatly. "This is my own secret formula. I'm the only person in the world who can make this supreme Blazing Flame Powder! If I made ordinary stuff, how would I be any different from all those mediocre alchemists out there?"

"Master, I understand your commitment," Yue Wen reasoned. "But the customer is king. Who could you possibly sell this stuff to?"

"To a peerless genius of this age with the bearing of a rising dragon, like you, of course!" Old Bai gripped Yue Wen's shoulders and inhaled deeply before continuing, "I can smell it. The true qi you just released had an exceptional scent. Your cultivation method is absolutely first-rate! True qi of that quality deserves my Blazing Flame Powder for its breakthrough!"

"There's a tiny bit of danger, admittedly..."

"But my supreme Blazing Flame Powder can stimulate spiritual fire to its utmost limits, making the astral qi you refine incomparably pure! The moment you break through, your astral qi will rival that of experts who have spent years in the Astral Realm. You'll start ahead of ordinary people, and your future achievements will be even more limitless!"

"Besides, failure doesn't necessarily mean death. As long as you find the finest Grand Unity Mystic Blazing Cinnabar to protect your body, even if your astral refinement fails, your cultivation will only drop a little. You can just start over. What's there to fear?"

Listening to his seductive pitch, Yue Wen really did feel somewhat tempted. But seeing the man's eyes alternately standing guard and keeping watch in different directions, he still asked uneasily, "Has anyone ever died from taking an elixir you sold?"

"Why do you think I live here?" Old Bai shrugged. "Mostly for the free rent and utilities. The second reason is that killing people isn't a crime for me."