Medicine King’s Valley was a special Sect, with a heritage that stretched back thousands of years. It was a Sect full of Master Alchemists, and most of its disciples were also outstanding Alchemists.
Its combat strength was not strong, only slightly better than some second-class Sects, but far less than any first-class Sect.
However, its influence was far greater than any other force in existence.
As long as one was a cultivator, during their cultivation journey, they would always need to take some form of pill, and these pills could only come from the hands of an Alchemist.
For the Alchemist of this world, the Medicine King’s Valley held the status of being their holy land.
Any Alchemist, when it came to Medicine King’s Valley, would speak with great respect and admiration. Many who strove to be Alchemists would even set being able to study in Medicine King’s Valley, and gaze upon the Pill Saint’s legacy, as a lifetime goal.
The Pill Saint, the Medicine King’s Valley’s first patriarch, had long ago passed away, but the passage of time had not diminished his sacred position in the hearts of this world’s Alchemists. Rumor had it that the Alchemic Method had been created by the Pill Saint, who, using Medicine King’s Valley as a center, distributed it to every corner of the world, so that when cultivators became injured, they would be able to take pills in order to resume their practice.
Before the Pill Saint created the Alchemic Method, the world’s cultivators only knew how to find herbs and directly ingest them, which was simply a waste of resources!
Of course, this was just a legend, and any legend would always have points that were exaggerated, so one could not simply take it at face value.
But this legend did have some truth to it. The Pill Saint really had existed! His portrait hung in Medicine King’s Valley Forbidden Area. Even after thousands of years, it had never fallen, nor did it reveal any signs of weathering. This in itself was quite miraculous.
Although Medicine King’s Valley was called so, its foundation was not actually built in a valley.
Instead, it spanned a dozen mountain peaks, each one more than a thousand meters tall. These mountains were arranged in a circular pattern and covered a radius of hundreds of kilometres.
These few hundred kilometres all belonged to the Medicine King’s Valley.
Each of the peaks was home to many high-rank Alchemists, some of whom widely received disciples in order to pass down their inheritance. Others preferred to live in solitary penance and spent their time in the pursuit of greater alchemic knowledge. Their mountain residences contained several acres of herb gardens, which were planted with all kinds of spirit grasses.
Throughout the entire Medicine King’s Valley, there were countless alchemy materials.
In the centre of all the peaks lay a valley-like existence, which was quite different from the tranquil surrounding mountains. This valley was open all year round, and every day it was bustling and crowded. Cultivators came and went like an endless, stream-like carp swimming through a river.
The reason was simple: This valley was where a small town was built in order to allow the outside world to communicate with Medicine King’s Valley’s Alchemists.
If one wanted someone to concoct a pill for them, they would first gather enough materials, then come to this small town to find a disciple of Medicine King’s Valley. Medicine King’s Valley’s disciple didn’t accept gold or silver as payment, they would only accept one-third of the successfully refined pills.
It didn’t matter what rank of pill one came to Medicine King’s Valley to have refined, whether it was Common Grade or Heaven Grade, if the refining failed, there was nothing one could say, and in the cases where the pills were refined successfully, if ten pills were produced, three would be given to the Alchemist as his or her reward.
This method of compensation was nothing short of blatant robbery. Even a single Heaven Grade pill was extremely valuable. After one worked extremely hard to collect the required materials, not only would they have to bear the risk of failure, possibly ending up with nothing in the end, they would also have to surrender thirty percent of the profits.
But even so, this did not diminish the enthusiasm and determination of cultivators who came to seek Medicine King’s Valley’s Alchemy services.
The main reason for this was because here, the chance that an Alchemist would fail to refine a pill was quite low, and once the pill was successfully refined, the quality was also normally higher than if one had used an outside Alchemist.
So even if there were such harsh conditions, cultivators were still very willing to come here to request an Alchemist to refine pills for them. After all, it was still better than asking some outside Alchemist, and having them accidentally destroy all of one’s precious materials.
Medicine King’s Valley was so well known, it not only to attracted cultivators from the Great Han Dynasty, even masters from the surrounding countries would often come here to request the Medicine King’s Valley Elders to refine pills for them.
Medicine King’s Valley Elders did not often accept requests. Any time someone asked them to refine a pill, it would at least have to be Heaven Grade, or even Mysterious Grade, and the compensation to be given would also be greater than normal.
Medicine King’s Valley had ten Great Elders, each one occupying one of the ten highest peaks. Each of them was extremely skilled and possessed supreme achievements in alchemy.
Even most Medicine King’s Valley disciples would rarely see these old monsters, these Elder were all over sixty years old and were often in perennial retreat to research alchemy. Only if some particularly rare and expensive materials were offered as a reward would they come out and accept alchemy requests.
In the small valley town, there were shops everywhere, but most of these shops did not belong to Medicine King’s Valley, as over 90% of the world’s great Sects and Forces would set up a branch here.
Here, after all, was the center of this world’s Alchemist, so these forces would set up shops here in order to sell herbs, collect materials, inquire about foreign intelligence, so on and so forth.
However, Medicine King’s Valley itself remained neutral and never sided with any particular force, deliberately showing no favour to any Sect or country, for thousands of years maintaining an aloof and transcendent position.
In the valley town, fighting was strictly prohibited, and even though an endless stream of cultivators came here, inside this city no one dared disobey this rule.
Once anyone started fighting in the city, the people of Medicine King’s Valley wouldn’t even need to lift a finger. Others would be more than happy to slaughter both guilty parties.
But once they left this valley, no matter what kind of grudge it was, Medicine King’s Valley would not intervene.
So the inside thousand-kilometer radius and the outside were two different worlds.
In the mountains and the centre valley, it was lively and peaceful, but for a stretch of tens of kilometers outside the valley, one could see countless battles and deaths. These people had all had some kind of dispute inside the valley, but did not dare start a fight there and then, so instead came outside in order to settle their grudges.
On this day, a carriage from afar came to a stop about fifty kilometers away from Medicine King’s Valley.
The coachman caught his whip and shouted into the carriage, “Little brother, we’ve arrived at Medicine King’s Valley!”
“What?” Yang Kai immediately woke from his meditation, smiled happily, opened the curtain, and looked around but was suddenly stunned, “Where is this place?”
Surrounding him was an empty space; what Medicine King’s Valley? This was clearly the wilderness.
The coachman simply smiled at Yang Kai and said, “Little brother might not know, but the area outside Medicine King’s Valley is extremely dangerous, so we ordinary people dare not approach too close. Whenever there is a customer who wants to travel to Medicine King’s Valley, I can only bring them to this point. If I go any further, it would mean certain death.
Seeing Yang Kai frown, the driver noticed that he was unhappy, and so he carefully explained to him about Medicine King’s Valley’s situation.
After listening, Yang Kai gradually relaxed his brow, understanding that this coachman was really telling the truth and not deliberately ditching him here.
In the end, he stopped worrying about it. In any case, it was only several tens of kilometers further. Readily taking out a silver coin and tossing it to the coachman, Yang Kai activated his Movement Skill and calmly moved towards the distant mountains.
Although the driver had told him that the outside of Medical King’s Valley was very dangerous, it took seeing it for himself for Yang Kai to realize that it was actually far more serious than he had imagined.
As he approached the valley, after passing no more than thirty kilometers, he had already witness four or five battles. These people all had some kind of conflict inside the valley and had then come outside to resolve it.
Walking along the path, Yang Kai even saw a number of corpses still warm.
Seeing all this, Yang Kai was secretly speechless, but as an outsider he did not attempt to interfere in any way, and instead just quietly proceeded onwards.
All of a sudden, from somewhere behind him, a burst of angry shouting and fighting rang out, and the sound of fluttering clothes suddenly drew near.
Wrinkling his brow, Yang Kai turned back to see what was happening.
Just as he did so, he saw a girl wearing a long blue dress dash towards him. The girl was about sixteen years old and looked quite pretty, but at the moment her big round eyes were watery and full of panic, as she dashed forward as fast as she could.
Behind her there were six or seven figures in hot pursuit. Their faces were filled with murderous intent, and all of them had drawn their swords as they spat out various curses.
“Little bitch, stop right there!” An angry voice called out.
However, in response, the girl only ran faster.
“Quick, don’t let her enter the valley; once she’s inside, we’ll never be able to catch her!” Those who saw that the direction the girl was running lead to Medicine King’s Valley couldn’t help but exclaim.
Medicine King’s Valley strictly prohibited fighting. If this girl managed to escape inside, everything would be over!
In the blink of an eye, the girl rushed up to Yang Kai.
Seeing Yang Kai warily observing her, the girl grinned, revealing her pearl white teeth, then with all the strength she could muster, shouted, “Cousin, run away, what are you standing there stunned for?”
Yang Kai brow wrinkled as his expression became cold, but before he had time to react the girl had swiftly rushed past him, leaving behind only a faint fragrance.
“Shit, that little slut has a companion! Quickly, don’t let either of them escape! Kill the man, seize the woman!” One of the people chasing the girl shouted out in rage.
Like a pack of starving wolves, their pace quicken beyond belief.
“Fuck!” Yang Kai’s face filled with resentment as he viciously cursed. Not wasting any time trying to explain the situation to the people behind him, he instead turned and chased after the girl.
Whether it was the girl wearing a long, light blue dress, or the group of big men chasing behind her, their strength was not high. The strongest only had a True Element Third or Fourth Stage cultivation.
This level of strength wasn’t enough for Yang Kai to bat an eyelid. However, being drawn into such a troublesome matter through no fault of his own angered him greatly.
Pushing his Movement Skill, he rapidly shot forward, and in just a few breaths of time arrived beside the escaping girl’s figure.
The girl’s face showed a surprised expression as she glanced towards Yang Kai, only to see him grinning towards her with a grim evil smile.
“Cousin …” Yang Kai smirked as he cried out affectionately.
“Hehe…” The girl’s pretty face looked like she had bit into a bitter gourd. Her skin was instantly covered in goosebumps. She never imagined that this young looking Yang Kai’s speed would be so fast.
Before her awkward giggle ended, Yang Kai’s face became cold as he reached out his big hand to capture the girl.
The girl’s expression suddenly sank as she raised her slender palm to counter.
Yang Kai pushed his True Qi and met her palm head on.
The girl was knocked back and her speed reduced significantly. Before she could react, Yang Kai wrapped one hand around her waist while his other latched onto her wrist, immediately bringing the two of them to a halt.
“You… what are you doing, quickly run!” The girl shouted in panic as she saw the group of people chasing behind her rapidly approach.
Yang Kai coldly snorted, twisted his waist, and tossed her towards the group behind them as she let out a scream.”
“You…” The girl’s eyes flashed with shock, never imagining that Yang Kai would actually use such a trick.