Because the Primordial Ancestral Dragon Art was a perfected version that the system had extrapolated and upgraded from the Qin Family's Ancestral Dragon Art, the two shared the same roots. When Qin De and the others switched to cultivating it, they encountered not the slightest rejection or bottleneck.
Only an hour passed.
Boom!
An incomparably powerful aura suddenly erupted from Qin De's body. His originally pale-gold Xiantian True Essence was purified and compressed in an extremely short time, faintly taking on a dark-gold sheen. The cultivation barrier that had kept him at Xiantian Paragon for years actually began to loosen at that moment!
"What a domineering cultivation art! I feel that the quality of my true qi is now a full three times stronger than before! If I encounter that Xiantian Paragon expert from the Xiang Family again, I'll need only three moves to take his head!" Qin De opened his eyes, a brilliant gleam shooting from them. He seemed to have grown ten years younger.
Qin Feng and Qin Zheng also finished cultivating one after the other, their faces filled with wild joy. Although they had only just switched cultivation arts, their strength had already soared visibly.
Seeing his family's strength increase so greatly, Qin Chen felt a surge of gratification.
However, he quietly waited a while, yet his mind remained silent.
Tch, it really is a stingy system. Qin Chen inwardly rolled his eyes.
He had thought that passing the cultivation art rewarded by the system on to his family might trigger some hidden reward like "family prosperity." But the system did not fall for that at all; it did not even give him a "ding."
Still, Qin Chen did not mind. He had achieved his goal anyway.
"Chen'er!" Qin De strode up to Qin Chen and gazed intently at him, as though looking at a rare treasure. "You've rendered a monumental service this time! Tell me, what reward do you want? As long as it exists on this Qianlong Continent, I'll get it for you, even if I have to risk this old life of mine!"
Those were precisely the words Qin Chen had been waiting for.
He put away his smile, his expression turning serious. "Father, I don't want gold, silver, or jewels, nor do I want any divine weapons. I have only one request."
"Oh? Tell me!" Qin De swept his hand grandly, his heroic spirit soaring to the clouds.
"I would like to ask you to find me two teachers," Qin Chen said, enunciating every word. "One must be proficient in artifact refining; the other must be proficient in pill refining. Ideally, they should be among the very best on the Qianlong Continent."
At those words, the secret chamber immediately fell silent.
Qin De and Xu Yuan exchanged glances, each seeing a trace of astonishment in the other's eyes.
"Chen'er, you want to learn pill refining and artifact refining?" Xu Yuan could not help speaking, a note of admonition in his voice. "Third Young Master, your martial talent is unmatched throughout the ages. You ought to devote all your energy to cultivation. Though pill refining and artifact refining are highly esteemed arts, they consume an immense amount of mental energy and time. Who knows how many geniuses on the Qianlong Continent have ultimately accomplished nothing because they divided their attention!"
Xu Yuan was telling the truth.
On the Qianlong Continent, pill refiners and artifact refiners enjoyed extremely high status because they could produce pills that improved cultivation and divine weapons that sliced through iron like mud.
But the entry requirements for these two professions were outrageously high as well. They required not only special physiques and flames, but also vast amounts of time spent on trial and error. For a ten-year-old child, however skilled in martial arts, to learn to hammer iron and roll pills-wasn't that sheer nonsense?
Qin De also frowned. "That's right, Chen'er. If you need pills and weapons, I'll naturally pay handsomely to have people refine them. Why must you learn to do it yourself?"
Qin Chen had long anticipated this reaction. Unhurriedly, he trotted out that all-purpose "white-bearded old man."
"Father, Uncle Xu, there's something you don't know." Qin Chen sighed, putting on an inscrutable air. "That old immortal in my dream once told me that I not only possess the primordial True Dragon bloodline, but also have a soul a hundred times stronger than an ordinary person's. He said I was born an unparalleled genius at pill refining and artifact refining, and that if I didn't learn them, I would surely suffer heaven's punishment."
"Besides..." Qin Chen shifted the conversation, his gaze turning sharp. "Once Father's Flying Eagle Plan begins, we'll inevitably face battles that set the heavens ablaze. When that happens, we'll need enormous quantities of healing pills, breakthrough pills, and fine weapons to equip the entire army. Rely on money to buy them? Leaving aside whether we can buy that many, even if we can, it could easily expose our hand. Only by keeping the core techniques in our own hands can our Qin Family stand undefeated!"
His words were well-reasoned and rang with conviction, instantly striking Qin De and Xu Yuan in their weak spot.
That was right. What did the Flying Eagle Plan lack most?
Logistical support!
If the Qin Family could mass-produce high-grade pills and divine weapons themselves, what could the Xiang Family possibly use to fight them?
As for whether dividing his attention would delay Qin Chen's martial cultivation?
What a joke. He had reached Late Xiantian before he was even ten. Even if he lost eight or ten years, he would still be stronger than all the geniuses in the world put together!
What was more, this was guidance from an "immortal"!
"Good! Well said-keep the core techniques in our own hands!" Qin De slapped his thigh, a resolute gleam flashing in his eyes. "Chen'er, since the immortal said you possess such talent, I certainly won't stand in your way!"
Watching Qin De radiate such commanding presence, Qin Chen smiled in satisfaction.
Early in the morning two days later, Cloudmist Manor's tranquility was shattered by a shrill whistle cutting through the air.
A dazzling streak of azure light came whistling from the horizon like a falling meteor, landing steadily on the manor's bluestone square.
The light faded, revealing a refined man in azure Daoist robes, with the bearing of an immortal. Beneath his feet hovered a flying sword that emanated an icy sword aura.
This man was none other than Qin De's sworn friend through life and death, Feng Yuzi, a renowned cultivator on the Qianlong Continent. As a cultivator who had entered the Golden Core stage, Feng Yuzi not only possessed exceptional strength, but was also universally acknowledged as the continent's foremost artifact-refining grandmaster. Many of the divine weapons in the East-Subduing Prince's estate, and even throughout the entire Chu Dynasty, had come from his hands.
Qin De had already been waiting in the square with Qin Chen for quite some time. Seeing Feng Yuzi land, he immediately went forward to greet him with a hearty laugh. "Brother Feng, you're finally here! This third son of mine has been waiting for you as eagerly as someone longing for the stars and moon."
Feng Yuzi put away his flying sword and pointed helplessly at Qin De. "Brother Qin, oh, Brother Qin. Your message talisman made it sound as though something desperately urgent had happened. I thought the Xiang Family had made their move ahead of schedule. Yet now you tell me you want me to teach your third son, who isn't even ten, to hammer iron and refine artifacts? Aren't you just making sport of me?"
Although Feng Yuzi and Qin De shared a friendship forged through life and death, he had not known whether to laugh or cry upon hearing this request.
The path of artifact refining was exceedingly tedious and had extremely high entry requirements. It required not only enormous amounts of true qi to sustain the flames, but also extraordinarily keen soul perception to inscribe formations.
A ten-year-old child whose meridians had not even fully developed-what business did he have learning artifact refining?
Before you continue