Yao Chen had never expected to once more meet the little demon girl in such a manner.
“Haha, this is fate. From now on you are one of my people.”
The little demon girl was startled for a moment before shouting a declaration for everyone to hear. It was as if after such a loud declaration Yao Chen would really become one of her people.
Yao Chen was currently still soaking in the bath with a painful expression. Beside him was also the screaming Feng Xian…
“Hey, why are you cooking yourselves?”
Only after she made her declaration did she curiously ask Yao Chen what he was doing.
“Medicinal bath.” Yao Chen was in pain, as this was the most critical moment of the medicinal bath, which also was the most painful time. Even for him it was excruciatingly painful and it was difficult to speak even a single word.
Beside him, the huge bear reached a claw into the water.
“No, you can’t eat them. They aren’t cooking themselves. Stupid dumb bear, hurry up and go. If you don’t listen I’ll be cooking you.”
The huge bear felt wronged and retreated. Thinking about it, he felt something was wrong. Wasn’t the punishment for acting against a human just one claw? Why was the punishment different with them? The stupid bear couldn’t figure it out. Furthermore the way she had gone to ‘invite’ them had been clearly different from the way she had ‘invited’ those human experts before. Her treatment towards these humans was obviously much better.
“Why are you here?”
Yao Chen took a deep breath. At this time his willpower truly was tested. Feng Xian had already screamed his throat hoarse and couldn’t make a sound anymore. That was lucky, or who knew what the demon girl would do to him.
“Why can’t I be here? Hey, now you’re one of my people so you have to listen to me. First of all you can’t ask me questions; only I can ask you them. Hey, why are you here?”
“My name is Yao Chen, not ‘hey’,” Yao Chen retorted.
All the demons all looked at him like he was a dead man. It was over for him. That man hadn’t treasured this opportunity and actually contradicted the young master.
However… the demon girl blinked and lightheartedly laughed. “Ok, Yao Chen, how did you get here?”
The huge bear’s jaw almost dislocated! Why kind of day was today?! Was the young master’s mind still ok? It couldn’t be that she had been affected by some enchantment from these humans right?
Yao Chen smiled bitterly. “Can we talk tomorrow?”
This rude kid! The demons all bristled and advanced on Yao Chen and Feng Xian. Demonic Qi filled the air; this human was far too brazen! He actually wanted the young master to wait? He obviously didn’t appreciate the kindness she was doing for him! If he repeatedly contradicted her then that was one thing, but he was actually haggling with her?! Asking for death! No, begging for death!
“What are you guys doing? I didn’t tell you to move, so back up!” The demon girl suddenly turned and shouted at those demons that were emitting Demonic Qi. When she ordered them she was extremely tyrannical, but when she then turned back to Yao Chen she smiled seductively. “Unless you help me refine medicine then I’ll kill you now.”
The huge bear covered his ears. Their master had definitely gone crazy. To laugh with a human… since the old master was in seclusion, he would have to discuss this with the Sacred Daughter.
Yao Chen bitterly smiled and nodded. In such a dilemma he could only lower his head.
“You’re nodding as in I have your promise?” She excitedly jumped.
Yao Chen could only once more nod. He had to refine for her. It was said that the demon race had so many medicinal ingredients they didn’t even have anywhere to put them. It would be convenient for his alchemy tests, but… once he entered a demon cave, would he able to get out? But in any case, the first thing was staying alive.
Feng Xian turned his head. The most painful moment had just passed, and now he could just barely resist the medicinal energy. Looking at her she said, “Huh? Human? Or demon?”
She blinked. “Is he your friend?”
“A brother.”
“Oh, then whatever.”
The demons all couldn’t bear to look anymore. Heavens, her air as their master, her morals, they had all disappeared! This human was definitely a monster!
A day passed. After they finished the medicinal bath, Yao Chen and Feng Xian arrived at the Demon Valley’s mountain under the watchful eye of the huge bear.
“I’m thinking of building a huge alchemy palace here. After studying the ways you humans store medicinal ingredients we’ll also build a huge storehouse. What do you think?”
“That’s good…”
Yao Chen blinked; it really would be excellent. Many medicinal ingredients all had expiration dates or would lose efficiency over time. The demon race that always stayed deep within the mountain fields had many more opportunities to get these rare medicinal ingredients, and due to improper storage they would often lose their medicinal effect over time.
“When do I start refining? And let me just say right now that I can at most refine fourth tier pills, so don’t get your hopes high. And if I end up wasting a lot of medicinal ingredients while refining don’t blame me. And also…”
“What’s the rush?”
“Didn’t you ask me here to refine medicine?”
“Fine, I’ll bring you over the refining cave.”
Her joyful mood immediately fell.
Yao Chen smiled and reached out his hand, giving her a couple medicinal pills. “These were refined just for you.”
“Just for me? What kind of medicinal pill is this? What does it do?”
“It can let you use more strength while you are in human form… call it the Transformation Pill.”
She blinked and smiled. “You like my human form?”
“It’s ok.”
Beside him, Feng Xian’s eyes practically popped from his head. Yao Chen was too mysterious! He could even chat with the Demon Valley’s seductive young master! And it even seemed the young master enjoyed messing with Yao Chen.
Arriving at the refining cave, they saw that there were already two alchemists inside who were refining pills. Seeing Yao Chen enter, they both looked at him disdainfully. “Princess, have you sent another helper? Does he have a foundation in refining medicine? If he’s not useful then I won’t take responsibility to teach him.”
“That’s right, this old man didn’t come here to teach disciples. Speaking of which, where is the Diseased Flame Cold Insect Thread I asked for? And the Gold Immortal Insect?”
Amongst the two alchemist, one appeared to be in his forties, while the other had long hair and a childish face, seemingly filled with an immortal aura. As he spoke, all kinds of precious medicinal ingredients were continuously thrown from his hand into the refining cauldron, and a five-colored flame ignited below the cauldron. All kinds of exquisite refining techniques were used by him expertly, and a mixture of the refinements had appeared.
Yao Chen’s gaze brightened slightly. His technique was truly marvelous, but in terms of the finer details it was a bit rough. It was obviously a heretic path that he had come up with by teaching himself alchemy.
As for the middle-aged man, each one of his movements seemed similar to the Yao clan’s system. It could be seen that his foundation had been secretly stolen from watching the Yao clan’s nurturing, but his understanding of the secrets and smaller points had many gaps. But as a Dou Wang, these small gaps were made up for with pure power and he was extremely experienced.
“He’s a newly come alchemist. You two don’t mess around with him, he’s one of my people.”
The demon girl put her hands on her hips, making it clear that Yao Chen was under her authority.
Yao Chen smiled bitterly and greeted them courteously, “Greetings two seniors.”
“Hey, you’re one of mine so there’s no need to be courteous to them.” The princess was a bit irritated at that.
Suddenly a bell-like laughed came from the side, “Hahaha, little sis, what do you mean, ‘your person’? Isn’t this an exile of the Yao clan?”
“Big sis? You recognize him? What do you want?! The Yao clan is blind, and now he’s come to us.”
The demon girl was startled for a moment but she quickly placed herself in front of Yao Chen as protection. She turned and whispered to him, “Be careful of this big demon lady. She’s an expert at bewitching people, so you must be careful.”
Yao Chen laughed and looked up. It was the Sacred Daughter he had seen before the Yao clan’s Great Competition.
There truly was a bewitching aura coming from her body. But Yao Chen’s will had long since gained a resistance to such things from the great pain from the medicinal baths. This small enchantment wasn’t even as effective on him as just the little demon girl’s natural trickiness.
The Sacred Daughter was a bit surprised at that. Her bewitching power actually didn’t have the slightest effect on Yao Chen. Such a thing would normally only occur with powerful Dou Wangs, and not even every Dou Wang was capable of that. Only those who had tempered their minds to perfection were capable of being unaffected.
The demon girl noticed the Sacred Daughter had released her bewitchment and was about to get indignant, but then she saw that Yao Chen was smiling indifferently and her anger turned to laughter. She gave Yao Chen a special spot and gave him a refining cauldron. “Ok, fine. Yao Chen, this will be your cauldron. It’s not that good but use it for now. When I have an opportunity in the future I’ll find you the best alchemy cauldron in this world.”
Yao Chen nodded and was about to turn to call Feng Xian to prepare the ingredients when he saw Feng Xian’s gaze was unable to escape from the Sacred Daughter. It was obvious he had been bewitched.
The Sacred Duaghter smiled and blinked towards Feng Xian. This was at least a consolation prize.
However Yao Chen frowned and flicked Feng Xian’s forehead. “Wake up!”
“… Ah… just now… how close, demon girl… I…”
Luckily Feng Xian had also experienced the medicinal bath several times so he quickly awoke. Shooting a glance at the Sacred Daughter, he no longer dared to look again. Otherwise, would he be affected again?
The Sacred Daughter looked blankly and then hatefully glared at Yao Chen. Reaching out her hand, she grabbed the little demon girl. “Little sis, I have something important to discuss with you. As for your person, haha, just leave him here refining for now.”
“What do you need to talk about? Yao Chen, you stay here. I’ll come back in a bit to… uh, just to find you.” She had obviously been about to say ‘find you to play’.
Yao Chen quickly entered his refining state. Completely ignoring the two Dou Wang alchemist seniors, he entered his own refining rhythm.
“Wait, young man, those two medicinal ingredients have conflicting properties and can’t be refine together. You’re wasting them!”
That middle-aged alchemist suddenly shouted and reached his hand out towards Yao Chen. A flash of ferociousness appeared in his eyes.
Yao Chen’s heart shook but at this time he had already entered a mysterious and marvelous refining state, and everything around him was within the domain of his Spiritual Perception. Perhaps even the slightest mite of dust could be sensed by him. With a cold snort he took two steps to dodge his attack and continued to throw in more medicinal ingredients into his cauldron.
With his attack failing, the middle-aged alchemist became even fiercer. But he was truly surprised that a youngster like Yao Chen was able to enter such a marvelous refining state. He didn’t continue attacking, as he had had an excuse for the first one, but it would be too excessive to continue.
The other alchemist with the immortal aura smiled slightly. His gaze was locked onto every single one of Yao Chen’s movements as if studying.
Feng Xian was carefully guarded against the middle-aged alchemist, his face a bit ashen. His nerves had already been stretched tight when they were brought to the Demon Valley, and if it weren’t for how well the little demon girl treated Yao Chen, he wouldn’t have entered the demon race’s territory even if he were beat to death. There were countless stories of people that had entered the demon race to be never seen by people again…
When he finished refining, he took out twenty-four fourth tier healing medicinal pills pills that couldn’t be considered perfect but were still quite good.
“Little friend, these pills seem a bit strange. They look to be fourth tier. Are they healing pills?” That old alchemist walked over with a smile.
“Yes.” Yao Chen nodded it. These pills had been named the fourth tier Wound Healing Blood Suppressing Balls by him. It was a new pill formula he had come up deep in the forests.
“I’ve forgotten to introduce myself. This old man is surnamed Qu, Qu Dongsheng, a free cultivator. Is this little friend an expert from the Yao clan? But why have you come to the demon race’s territory?”
“Oh, so it’s old Qu.” Yao Chen wasn’t good at talking with others, so after just a single sentence he didn’t say any more.
But at this time Feng Xian gasped and awoke from his nervous state. Going over, his eyes twinkled. “You are the legendary Medicine Demon Dongsheng, senior Qu Dongsheng?”
Qu Dongsheng looked at Feng Xian in surprise and laughed. “I hadn’t expected that having stayed in secret within the demon race for over thirty years that my name is still known.”
“Senior might have completely disappeared thirty years ago, but the pills you left behind before that are still in circulation, and whenever they appear it causes a commotion.”
“Haha, is that so?”
Qu Dongsheng laughed and patted Feng Xian. “These are a couple Soul Improving Pills that are suitable for your current cultivation.”
“Senior has gifted me I don’t dare not accept. Many thanks senior.” Feng Xian received a pill bottle and repeatedly said his thanks.
These few words had pulled them much closer. Seeing this, that other middle-aged alchemist’s expression immediately brightened several times and he let out a mischievous laugh before going to his side and minding his own business. The two of them naturally hadn’t come to Demon Valley as guests, but for their own reasons.
“Don’t bother with him. He’s called Hu Chen, and he comes from the holy grounds. Because of a couple things he ended up in Demon Valley.”
“What holy grounds?” Yao Chen was startled.
“Oh, I forgot that little friend is from the Yao clan. Perhaps you don’t even know anything about the holy grounds. This holy land might not be that special to someone with deep learning from the Yao clan, but for alchemists like me, it is a sacred place that all alchemists wish to go to. It is not inferior to the experts of the Yao clan. And in the holy grounds, as long as you have the talent, you can study whatever you want.”
A faint envy appeared on Qu Dongsheng’s face. “Unfortunately when I was young I didn’t know of the holy land’s existence, otherwise… haha, past events don’t need to be brought up. Right, little friend, you showed me a couple techniques just now that I have some confusion about. Could it be that by doing this you can improve it a bit…”
Qu Dongsheng quickly began discussing refining techniques with Yao Chen. He had truly noticed a few things that Yao Chen could improve on, and following a couple sentences, Yao Chen ended up learning quite a few little tricks from Qu Dongsheng. Just from those small tips and tricks, Yao Chen’s alchemy techniques improved by quite a bit. It might sound simple to explain such simple things, but if not explained, you might spend your entire lifetime without figuring them out. The Yao clan naturally had better tricks, but those were all advanced alchemy arts whereas everything Yao Chen had learned in the clan school was just the fundamentals.
After a burst of discussion with Qu Dongsheng, Yao Chen began to feel that the outside world’s alchemy arts weren’t that inferior to the Yao clan’s. In some manners it might have even exceeded the Yao clan.
“These techniques of mine are just minor arts. If young friend wants to learn more, haha, you might have to go ask brother Hu Chen for advice.”
Hu Chen who was refining to the side had obviously been listening to the side. He coldly snorted, “The holy grounds might be a relaxed organization, but not everyone can enter the Pill Tower to study. Only unless the alchemist association jointly recommended you could you enter the Pill Tower.”
He was obviously mocking Qu Dongsheng. That lie he spouted about not knowing about the Pill Tower’s existence when he was younger was obviously untrue; he had simply not possessed the qualifications.
Holy grounds… Pill Tower? Such a place didn’t seem to sound bad to Yao Chen. If he wanted to fulfill his parent’s final wishes, he must improve his alchemy and cause the entire Yao clan to shake. If he just relied on his own experiments to study, it would not be possible to achieve such a level. A sacred cultivation land that could compete with the Yao clan was perhaps his only chance.
“Senior Hu Chen, how can one obtain the alchemist organization’s joint recommendation?” Yao Chen asked directly.
Hu Chen’s movements turned sluggish for a moment. Just now he had made a move against Yao Chen, so he hadn’t expected such a question from him. “What, you want to enter the Pill Tower to study alchemy?”
“Yes, and I also beg senior for some pointers.”
“Why would I have to tell you anything?”
Yao Chen laughed, “Please tell me whatever senior wishes.”
It was definitely no accident for Hu Chen to suddenly make a move against him. At their level, each move of theirs was calculated. After all, this was Demon Valley.
“Oh? Smart kid.” Hu Chen placed his hands atop his furnace and indifferently shot a glance at Qu Dongsheng. Coldly laughing, he said, “Yuan Transforming to Life Pill, have you heard of it?”
Yao Chen was startled. “Naturally I’ve heard of it.”
Yuan Transforming to Life Pill, a seventh tier medicinal pill. Only the Yao clan possessed the pill formula for it, and it allowed one to extend the lifespan by a hundred years using the Yuan power of heaven and earth. A person could take this pill twice in their lifetime, so no matter who it was or what realm they had reached, they could live for another two hundred years by relying on it.
“The reason the two of us are here is for the Yuan Transforming to Life Pill. We have an incomplete formula, and some of the descriptions are imperfect. Even after thirty years we haven’t been able to refine it. Perhaps the problem is with the fundamental technique. If you wish we could exchange refining techniques. Of course, we will set up a poison oath not to spread these techniques to others. How does that sound? After this I can lead you into the Pill Tower’s Pill Gathering, and through proving yourself at the Pill Gathering, you can enter the Pill Tower to study.”
Yao Chen frowned. The basics and foundations of the Yao clan were completely unique. Even if people in the outside world tried to imitate them, they wouldn’t even be able to gain one percent of the true techniques. Although he had been expelled, deep down he was still a disciple of the Yao clan. Despite the people he hated and wanted revenge against in the clan, there were also people like elder Yao Lan who he deeply respected.
He definitely could not do things that were unworthy of the Yao clan.
“Haha, kid, did you think that old man was giving you advice because he was a good person? He was just probing your Yao clan’s fundamental techniques is all. How did you think he got the reputation of Medicine Demon? It was because just by discussing a couple sentences with someone he could squeeze out pill formulas from them like a demon!”
“Hey, that’s bullshit! Don’t listen to him little friend, listening to him will make you lose.”
“What do you mean lose? I, Hu Chen, might not be some good Samaritan, but I am completely straightforward. The reason I wanted to injure you just now was to make you consume a couple truth-intoxication serums, and once you were under their effect I could make you tell me whatever I wanted. Hehe, but your willpower and soul are too stronger so that plan will never succeed. Do you think my Pill Tower’s techniques are something that can be easily exchanged?” coldly said Hu Chen.
Qu Dongsheng also coldly laughed, “The innocent are innocent. Don’t doubt yourself young friend.” After saying that he turned and went back to refining, seemingly ignoring the others.
Feng Xian opened his mouth, but didn’t know what to say. He only blankly started at Yao Chen. At this time he simply followed Yao Chen.
Yao Chen sighed, but shook his head. “The Yao clan’s alchemy techniques absolutely can’t be transmitted out. However if your goal is just the Yuan Transforming to Life Pill, I might be able to help you research it together.”
Research it together? An ominous light flashed in Hu Chen’s eyes and he laughed. “Looks like the Yao clan’s kids aren’t just not stupid, but also extremely crafty. We’ll definitely have to discuss this later.”
He once more focused his full attention of the furnace of pills he was refining. He had his own goals for staying with the demon race, but he naturally also had to help refine suitable medicinal pills for them in order to get their limitless support.