Some of the other pill masters paused their motions and stared incredulously at Lu Yun. The boy was distilling all thousand and eighty herbs at the same time! It wouldn’t matter if he failed, but if he were to succeed, he would prove himself to be monstrously talented.
He was the top youth sovereign, the strongest cultivator in the world. How was it possible for him to be a genius in pill dao as well? What a perverse existence that defied the limits of creation!
“That’s Daevic Skyfire! The Profile of Harmony must be in your possession…. Hand it over!” Great power roared from one of the floating gazebos as a peerless immortal made for the center stage, unable to sit still.
“Away with you, cretin!!” answered a tremendous growl from the void. The peerless immortal was blasted back the second he left the gazebo. “Zhao Yinfeng of the Exalted Immortal Sect, this is Panorama Pavilion territory. I will kill you if you put another toe out of line.”
Panorama Pavilion’s dao immortal slowly emerged from the air. He was talking to the peerless immortal, but his eyes were fixed on Lu Yun, closely observing everything the young man was doing.
Forced back into his gazebo, Zhao Yinfeng’s eyes hardened with malice.
“Lu Yun has definitely been to the burial mound! The Profile of Harmony, Portrait of Emptiness, and even Yuying’s Panorama of Clarity are all in his possession!” He grinned wolfishly. “The Panorama Pavilion dares interfere with one of our great matters? Hehehe....”
A little hummingbird appeared in his hand as he spoke, then vanished into thin air with a flap of its wings.
Back on the stage, Lu Yun had already entered and exited the Gates of the Abyss many times. He could hardly distill the thousand and eighty herbs himself, so Yuying had returned to hell to help him.
She possessed remarkable brilliance in refining pills, and her talent hadn’t plateaued. Her potential had instead been expanded to its fullest after becoming one of Lu Yun’s envoys, constantly improving her level of pill dao.
Supreme pills were nothing to her. As soon as she ascended to the golden immortal realm and grasped its principles, she, too, would be able to refine those pills. Only dao immortal pill masters would then be able to rival her in the field.
And as an Envoy of Samsara, her talent was Lu Yun’s talent. Together, they distilled the thousand and eighty herbs with ease.
Bam!
An enormous explosion sounded in the air. The Daevic Skyfire over Lu Yun’s head scattered, leaving behind a thousand and eighty glowing orbs.
Yue Longsha paled, not only because she couldn’t acquire the Divine Lightwings, but also because of Lu Yun’s ridiculous talent! As a natural-born immortal, she was considered the hope of reconstruction for the world of immortals. Yet today, she’d been bested by someone even greater!
This was the first time in her life that her ego was bruised. Previously, she hadn’t thought much of Lu Yun’s title as the top cultivator in the world. But the happenings of today had finally enabled her to truly understand what the moniker ‘Youth Sovereign’ truly meant.
Crimson light glinted ever more voraciously in Wayfarer’s eyes, but thinking of how the other Wayfarer had twice defended Lu Yun against the Qing and House Donglin dao immortals, he refrained from any action. On the other hand, he didn’t even spare a stray thought for the Panorama Pavilion’s dao immortal.
“Here is the essence of all the herbs.” Lu Yun sighed faintly in relief. He and Yuying had each worked on half of the herbs, but the whole ordeal had still taken them eight hours. He didn’t like attracting attention, nor was he interested in the Divine Lightwings. However, he was increasingly intrigued by the pill recipe that the pavilion was attempting to restore.
It must be an extraordinary creation if a world-class merchant guild would use a Skydragon Tendon, Divine Lightwings, and Ten Orientations Stone as bargaining chips.
“The foremost youth sovereign lives up to his reputation, alright.” Qing Xun had shifted her address from ‘Your Excellency’ to ‘foremost youth sovereign’ as an indicator of approval. “The Divine Lightwings is yours, Sir Lu.”
A light wave of her hand sent the treasure into Lu Yun’s hands.
“Lunar Wings, one half of the connate-grade treasure Lunisolar Wings. The Panorama Pavilion does indeed overflow with wealth.” Lu Yun nodded as he accepted the treasure and sent it to the Gates of the Abyss.
Yue Longsha gawked at him. She didn’t expect the young governor to recognize and identify the Lunar Wings too! Since he knew it was part of a connate-grade treasure, it would be next to impossible to obtain it from him.
“Sir Lu is quite knowledgeable indeed, to be able to recognize the fragments of this ancient treasure.” Qing Xun didn’t sound at all surprised; she’d known about the treasure beforehand.
Gu Zun’s eyes blazed with fury. The Lunar Wings were why he was here, but the humiliation piled high on his suffering stopped him from saying anything. He’d been jeering at the boy just moments ago, claiming that cheap tricks wouldn’t help with the second request, but Lu Yun had promptly delivered a face slapping with his impressive demonstration.
The young governor had distilled all thousand and eighty herbs in one go, with the strength of a cultivator. That was a feat never before achieved, much less in front of a watchful crowd. Apart from the dao immortal pill masters, very few could accomplish what he’d done.
Currently, Gu Zun wanted nothing more than to dig a hole and crawl into it.
……
Thus began the third round of the auction for the Ten Orientations Stone. The participants were to refine pills with the thousand and eighty ingredients. Whoever refined the highest ranking pills would win the treasure.
Lu Yun had pointed out before that the ingredients made from corrupted dao principles would yield only poison, but the Panorama Pavilion was after the refinement methods, not the actual pills produced by the refinement process.
“Luck can get you through identifying and distilling the herbs, but refining pills require talent and real strength! Even though you have the Daevic Skyfire, your cultivation will prevent you from refining high-ranking pills!” Gu Zun felt a little more confident.
Even though he’d let the Lunar Wings slip through his fingers, gaining the Ten Orientations Stone would still help Zhao Shenguang gain the support of a great master refiner. That would be enough to redeem his mistakes.
“Yuying refined a first-rank pill as a cultivator a thousand years ago, shocking the entire world. That won’t help you today, even if you did have her talent.” A smile tugged at his lips. He strode forward and grabbed the sixty-four herbs he’d identified. Then he laid claim to another eight ninth-rank ingredients—the ingredients he’d said to have gone extinct!
Clearly, he’d feigned ignorance when he’d claimed to have only read about them in ancient texts.
“Those sixty-four ingredients and eight extinct herbs… Master Gu Zun’s going to refine a Dao Fruit Pill!”
Dao Fruit Pill!
The crowd was on their feet to closely follow Gu Zun’s movements and a red flush marked the face of the pavilion’s dao immortal. While the thousand and eighty herbs they’d brought out for the auction were dead and the dao principles within them corrupted, there were living specimens inside the ancient ruins located within the Panorama Pavilion.
Therefore, even if Gu Zun could only refine a poison pill, as long as his methodology was recorded by the stage, Panorama Pavilion’s own pill masters would be able to refine real Dao Fruit Pills!
Unfortunately, Gu Zun was oblivious to their trick. Since the pills would be nothing but poison, he didn’t even attempt to hide his refining method. He carefully placed the herbs into a pitch-black cauldron one by one, then began the refining process.