"Tch~ Do you take me for an idiot? Mastered the 'profound mysteries of alchemy,' my foot..."
Xia Nuoyi shot him a fierce glare. "Even if you want to find an excuse to get yourself off the hook, could you at least pick a believable one?"
"It's true!"
Bu Wuchen looked utterly serious. "Actually, I originally wanted to apply for a student spot in the Pill Hall. Who knew that bastard of an old man would deliberately target me? He threw me out without even giving me a chance to try."
Xia Nuoyi narrowed her eyes. "Huh? You really went to the Pill Hall?"
"If I remember correctly, the 'master' in charge of teaching at the Pill Hall this week is a Lin Lineage elder: Lin Taoshu."
"Hehehe, no wonder he targeted you."
Understanding dawned on Bu Wuchen. "Damn, looks like I walked straight into the line of fire!"
Something seemed to occur to the girl in green silk. Her gaze flickered twice before she asked, "Can you really refine pills?"
"Yes."
Bu Wuchen nodded. "As long as I have all the ingredients, refining Mortal Rank, Low Grade mystic pills is a piece of cake."
He was not making extravagant claims. On the contrary, he was being quite modest.
He worried that if he said right away that he could refine Mortal Rank Upper Grade mystic pills, Xia Nuoyi would decide he was boasting. That would make things difficult!
The girl in green silk pondered briefly, then said, "All right. I can find you a place to refine pills."
"If you really can refine Mortal Rank, Low Grade mystic pills, I can help you settle the score with Lin Taoshu!"
"But if I go to all that trouble to give you a chance, only to discover that you can't refine mystic pills at all..."
A bone-chilling glint suddenly lit up Xia Nuoyi's beautiful eyes. "The consequences of making a fool of me will definitely be worse than offending the Lin Lineage!"
"All right, it's a deal."
Bu Wuchen agreed without the slightest hesitation.
As though afraid that a long night would bring more dreams, Xia Nuoyi grabbed Bu Wuchen's hand and dashed out of the classroom without looking back.
Only when the girl in green silk had completely disappeared from the students' sight did they come back to their senses.
"Uh... the lesson... isn't over yet, is it?"
Someone muttered timidly.
"That 'Bu Wuneng' is way too lucky, isn't he? He actually... actually held hands with the vice principal..."
"The most infuriating part is that the vice principal took his hand first!"
"Boohoo, why wasn't I the one the principal held by the hand and rushed out of the classroom with?"
In just one short month, Bu Wuchen had gone from a "young prodigy" who entered the advanced class upon enrollment to a weak little runt at the bottom of the beginner class, so his classmates had given him plenty of nicknames.
"Bu Wuneng" was one of them.
"Hey, do you have a death wish? You still dare call Senior 'Bu Wuneng'?!"
Yesterday's life-and-death wager duel had caused such a stir that, by now, nearly half the academy had heard about the fight.
Even those who had not heard of it had thoroughly recognized his strength after personally experiencing the terrifying pressure of Bu Wuchen's Qi Observation Realm Seventh Layer cultivation just now!
Their hearts trembled. "Ah, right, right, right! My mistake! It's Senior, Senior Bu!"
"Phew~ Good thing Senior didn't hear that, or I'd be in serious trouble."
"Yeah. Given how decisively Senior killed on the martial arena yesterday, if he found out about the nicknames we gave him..."
At that thought, the students who had mocked and sneered at Bu Wuchen before could not help breaking into cold sweats.
"Before Senior Bu comes to call us to account, should we go apologize to him together?"
"Yes, yes, yes. That's exactly what I was thinking."
Meanwhile, after Xia Nuoyi pulled Bu Wuchen straight out of the academy, they sped along like the wind and lightning!
Before long, they arrived outside Blood Dragon City's largest mystic pill emporium.
The moment the shopkeeper recognized the girl in green silk, he hurriedly ushered the two into a private room with eager attentiveness.
He respectfully served them tea and refreshments, cautiously told them that the owner would arrive shortly, then withdrew with his back bowed.
Soon, a lean, muscular middle-aged man with close-cropped hair jogged into the room.
As soon as he appeared, he clasped his hands in greeting, his face wreathed in smiles. "Oh my! I had no idea my little grandaunt was coming! Forgive me for not coming out to welcome you, forgive me..."
"Your presence brings splendor to my humble, shabby establishment!"
That greeting nearly made Bu Wuchen spray out the mouthful of hot tea he had just taken.
What the hell? Someone actually calls her 'grandaunt'?!
What the owner, who had introduced himself as Song, said next nearly made Bu Wuchen's jaw drop-
"Little grandaunt, whatever pills you wish to buy, just send someone to let me know."
"I, Song Hechuan, will naturally have someone deliver them to you without a moment's delay. How could I trouble you to come here in person?"
"My only concern is that, with your Divine Communion Realm cultivation, you might not think much of the pills in my humble shop."
Bu Wuchen's eyes widened. Divine Communion Realm?!
Brute Martial Realm, Qi Observation, Qi Control, Divine Communion...
Only above the Qi Control Realm came the Divine Communion Realm!
Yesterday, the girl in green silk had demonstrated "drawing objects through the air" in front of Bu Wuchen.
Bu Wuchen had merely assumed that the girl before him had Qi Control Realm cultivation.
Even then, he had already been astonished!
Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined that this girl, who looked about his age, was actually a Divine Communion Realm expert!
The Divine Communion Realm at fifteen or sixteen...
Never mind a cold frontier city like this;
Even in Great Liang's royal capital, teeming with talent, she would undoubtedly be a genius whose brilliance shone for ten thousand fathoms!
Only then did Bu Wuchen recall a detail-
Yesterday, on the martial arena, Xia Nuoyi had seemed to descend from the heavens. With just a casual wave of her hand, she had scattered the surging pressure of Lü Chunyang's mystic power...
In this world, without special means, cultivators absolutely could not discern the precise cultivation of someone more than one major realm above them.
Thus, Bu Wuchen, who had only been in the Savage Martial Realm at the time, had merely known that Lü Chunyang was powerful.
He had not known exactly which layer of the Qi Control Realm that nearly fifty-year-old man had reached.
Therefore, when the girl in green silk appeared, Bu Wuchen had only thought that she was stronger than that elder of another surname in the Lin Lineage.
But he had imagined that the difference was probably only in minor realms.
After all, in this cold frontier city, Divine Communion Realm cultivation could be considered the ceiling!
In all of vast Blood Dragon City, among its hundreds of thousands or even a million cultivators, the great figures in the Divine Communion Realm could probably be counted on one hand.
Had he not seen it with his own eyes, Bu Wuchen would never have believed, even if beaten to death, that a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old girl in this bitterly cold frontier region could possess such cultivation!
Whether it's being the honorary vice principal of Blood Dragon City Academy or the owner behind the city's largest beast-fighting arena...
Compared to her dazzling talent for mystic cultivation, those undoubtedly pale into insignificance.
Whether people call her a 'demoness' or 'little grandaunt'... there must be far more to her than that, right?
For a time, Bu Wuchen grew increasingly curious about the girl in green silk.