Three Nascent Souls Descend Upon Azure Pill Valley

"Continue on!" The teasing voice rang out like clashing metal, echoing incessantly across the inner valley enclosed by the five peaks. The cultivators of Azure Pill Valley, led by Tao Wan, felt as though they were facing a mortal enemy. The grand mountain-protecting array had already been pushed to its utmost limit. Yet the master of the nine-tiered Daoist abbey paid it no heed at all. Outside the abbey, figure after figure stood tall, each lavishly dressed and bearing an extraordinary aura. These were all disciples of Tianfan City—mostly at the Qi Refinement stage, with a good number of Foundation Establishment True Cultivators among them. Vaguely, three Golden Core cultivators could be sensed spreading their divine sense, keeping vigilant watch over the surroundings. Elder Longquan, who traveled abroad year-round and possessed vast experience, recognized the eldest of the three in a single glance. "Sect Leader, it is Grandmaster Huyan Zhuo!" Tao Wan's expression turned somber. Naturally, she too knew of that master artifact forger. Huyan Zhuo! A mid-Golden Core cultivator! He was renowned across multiple domains for his passion for researching and crafting novel magic tools and magic treasures. Countless exotic magic tools, peak-grade magic tools, and low-grade magic treasures had flowed from his hands. Eventually, many black markets and underground auctions took to borrowing his name to drive up the prices of artifacts. Any magic tool of uncertain origin was inevitably stamped as "crafted by Grandmaster Huyan Zhuo of Tianfan City." One could say that among his generation in Tianfan City, Huyan Zhuo might not have possessed the highest cultivation or the strongest combat prowess, but he was without question the most famous! And naturally, such a man had a master of his own. Recalling that mocking voice just now, a frightening thought surfaced in Tao Wan's mind. *Could the visitor be Huyan Zhuo's master, Tianyezi?!* Once an arrow is loosed, drawing the bullseye around it yields a perfect hit every time. Like her, the Golden Core cultivators of Azure Pill Valley who had formed their suspicions looked once more at the nine-tiered palace-temple and its grand retinue. It truly matched the reputed style of Tianyezi, one of Tianfan City's three Nascent Soul Perfecteds. A penchant for sumptuous luxury, an obsession with magnificent ostentation. Setting everything else aside, the nine-tiered abbey he rode upon was none other than the illustrious Wind Thunder Abbey! It held the power of wind and thunder within; once pushed to its peak, its flight speed surpassed the wildest imagination of ordinary cultivators. Its grade was equally extraordinary—a full-fledged high-grade magic treasure! A high-grade magic treasure! In any major sect, such an item would firmly serve as a sect-protecting treasure. Yet Tianyezi used it merely as a conveyance, a traveling palace. Such grandeur was rarely seen anywhere across the Six Eastern Domains! "Our Azure Pill Valley's grand mountain-protecting array might withstand several blows from a Nascent Soul Perfected, but if he strikes with full force, I fear it won't hold for a single breath," someone beside her wailed. This made Tao Wan's heart sink even further. Azure Pill Valley was not a major sect renowned for formations, and the quality of its defensive array was relatively ordinary. Over the past several centuries, to avoid disrupting the layout of the five peaks enclosing the valley, they had basically refrained from inviting prominent outside formation masters to reinforce it. The last time the Jade Cauldron Sword Sect attacked, Revered Yaoguang—a late-Golden Core cultivator—had merely borrowed a single sword strike from Perfected Jade Cauldron from afar, yet it cleaved straight through Azure Pill Valley's gateway, Mount Yuanhua. If Tianyezi were to strike... Amid her terror, just as she was gritting her teeth to step forward and negotiate, the cry of a crane suddenly echoed between heaven and earth. "Hmm?" A soft murmur of surprise drifted from the Wind Thunder Abbey. Then Tianyezi's mocking voice rang out once more: "Sect Leader Tao, your Azure Pill Valley has another distinguished guest! Tsk-tsk, and not just one, either!" Tao Wan's face drained of color. She looked up, seeing white feathers fluttering across the sky. Four graceful white cranes with slender, elegant necks pulled a massive cloud carriage gliding in from the east. With such an iconic mode of travel, nearly everyone realized who was arriving. When the cloud carriage halted outside Azure Pill Valley, the curtain was drawn back, and a young man stepped forth. He appeared remarkably youthful, around twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old. Sword-like brows swept up toward his temples, his jet-black hair bound high in a dark jade crown, and his deeply handsome face was chiseled with near-flawless perfection. His eyes were particularly striking—slender-lidded and shimmering with peach-blossom allure; whenever the corners of his lips curved upward, it felt as though spring and summer blossoms were bursting into bloom, stirring the soul. Dashing and untamed, strikingly handsome. Yet beneath that dignified exterior lay an unmistakable trace of wicked charm. "It really is him... Perfected Yunhe of the Hehuan Sect!" Tao Wan trembled slightly, feeling as though she were plummeting into a bottomless abyss as despair engulfed her entire being. What was worse! If her eyes had not deceived her, when the curtain drew open just now, there had been a female cultivator reclining against a soft divan within the cloud carriage. Could it be that even Perfected Yunhe's Daoist partner—the legendary Demon Crane Emperor—had come as well? Standing atop the cloud carriage, Perfected Yunhe glanced first at the trembling Tao Wan, then turned toward the nine-tiered Wind Thunder Abbey beside him. "Brother Tianye, why have you stopped here?" Tianyezi chuckled lightly. "Naturally because the host does not welcome unwelcome guests like us!" Perfected Yunhe replied placidly, "How could we be unwelcome guests? We are merely here to witness the ceremony. Sect Leader Tao, wouldn't you agree?" Tao Wan opened her mouth to speak, but under that immense invisible pressure, she found herself at a loss for words. It was not just her. Even the grand defensive array cloaking all of Azure Pill Valley shuddered faintly, sending ripples spreading across its surface. Just then, Qingdanzi's precociously mature voice drifted out slowly: "Please invite the three seniors into the valley!" Hearing this, Tao Wan felt an immense weight lift from her shoulders. She immediately ordered the grand mountain-protecting array dispelled and welcomed both retinues inside. Only after Tianyezi and Perfected Yunhe entered the Inner Pill Valley did Tao Wan truly exhale. A single Nascent Soul Perfected was already enough to suffocate Azure Pill Valley. With three Nascent Soul Perfecteds arriving together, there was simply no possibility of resistance. Yet seeing the nine-tiered Wind Thunder Abbey and the crane-pulled cloud carriage brazenly settle atop Mount Yuanhua and Dragon Head Peak respectively, a wave of shame and indignation suddenly welled in her heart. *What was I doing just now?!* *As the leader of a sect, even if there is a gap in our cultivation realms, I shouldn't have lost my composure and floundered so pathetically.* *After my performance today, whether the sect survives this tribulation or not, how will others view me?* She was overthinking things, however. Under the suffocating pressure of three Perfecteds, tens of thousands of Azure Pill Valley disciples fell dead silent like cicadas in winter; none of them fared any better. Who would judge Tao Wan when she was the one bearing the brunt of all three? Yet someone had indeed noticed. It was none other than Azure Pill Valley's sole outsider: Luo Chen. He shook his head internally. In the past, the Tao Wan he knew was always aloof and dignified—perhaps not overbearing, but certainly poised and measured. Yet her display today... *By comparison, she falls short of my Huiniang.* *Perhaps this is the flaw of sect disciples: they share in the sect's glory, but also in its disgrace. When faced with an enemy that the entire sect cannot resist, all their poise vanishes in an instant.* *Back during the defense of Danxia, when faced with enemies several times the number of the Luotian Association and backed by a mid-Golden Core powerhouse like Qin Tairan, Huiniang never retreated half a step. She remained composed, commanding her forces to meet the challenge.* *Contrasting the two, the difference is glaringly obvious.* Naturally, Luo Chen did not look down on Tao Wan. At the end of the day, he had never stood face-to-face with a Nascent Soul Perfected himself, and did not truly know how overwhelming the pressure was beneath the gazes of Perfected Yunhe and Tianyezi. *Still, judging from their attitude, though they are throwing their weight around, they probably won't resort to violence. What they seek...* Luo Chen's gaze slowly shifted upward. Qingdanzi's boyish frame seemed increasingly aged and haggard, whether from days of failed pill refinement, the looming approach of his natural lifespan's end, or the arrival of three Nascent Soul Perfecteds in the valley. The true pressure rested upon this Supreme Elder of Azure Pill Valley! "Continue!" "This time, we refine all seven pills at once!" At those words, an uproar erupted among all the alchemists. Refining all seven pills simultaneously meant decocting all remaining raw ingredients and concocting the Nascent Soul Formation Pills together. Wouldn't doing so make failure even more likely? Yet under Qingdanzi's stern gaze, the murmuring alchemists gradually reined in their minds, focusing on their designated tasks. Luo Chen thought to himself, *The greater the pressure, the greater the drive. Qingdanzi is taking a desperate gamble! Or perhaps through the previous failures, he has finally grasped a measure of certainty?* ... Inside Azure Pill Valley, the atmosphere was suffocatingly oppressive, like stagnant, heavy water. Only in the alchemy grounds of the Inner Pill Valley, where thirty earth fires converged, did the heat rage even more fiercely than before. Two formidable divine senses constantly interlaced in midair. It was Tianyezi and Perfected Yunhe, two Nascent Soul cultivators, conversing in secret. "Truly worthy of being the fabled Phoenix Fall Land! Sourceless fires, so rarely seen in other domains, number as many as four in this tiny sect alone!" "Has Brother Tianye taken an interest?" "Heh, my Tianfan City has no shortage of such low-tier sourceless fires." "Then Yunhe assumed wrongly. Indeed, your esteemed sect's Hundred Streams True Flame ranks at Tier 5; why would you care for these low-tier... Huh? That junior!" Perfected Yunhe paused, his gaze fixing upon the back of a man dressed in a white robe patterned with dark bamboo. If his eyes were not mistaken! The source true fire wielded by that junior already possessed the nascent form of a Tier 4 flame. What was more, this lad did not seem to be an Azure Pill Valley cultivator? "That is the Wither-Bloom Fire, a Tier 4 sourceless fire forcefully cultivated by the Yan Alliance using Ghost-God Valley's spirit-snatching method over three hundred years. Has Fellow Daoist Yunhe taken a fancy to it?" Tianyezi's chuckle drifted over. Perfected Yunhe's eyes flickered. He was not surprised that Tianyezi could identify the flame's origins so sharply. As onlookers, they had seen Tianfan City's covert targeting of the Yan Alliance with complete clarity. They understood Tianfan City's motives just as well. In the past, while the Six Eastern Domains could not be called united in brotherhood, they maintained an unspoken understanding. Each sect had its core trade and would not encroach too heavily upon the business of others. The Medicine King Sect excelled in alchemy, so they dominated the pill market across the six domains. The Divine Talisman Sect excelled in talisman crafting, so talisman commerce throughout the six domains was largely controlled and managed by them. Naturally, Tianfan City, as the foremost power in artifact forging, ought to have monopolized the market for magic tools and treasures across the six domains. Yet they ran into an anomaly: the Jade Cauldron Domain. The master of the Jade Cauldron Domain, the Jade Cauldron Sword Sect, excelled at battle but had little aptitude for commerce and development. Moreover, the domain was a newly conquered territory won only a few centuries ago, so the Sword Sect's grip over the major Golden Core sects within was rather loose. The Sword Sect also harbored its own small ambitions, deliberately indulging internal sects like the Yan Alliance and Azure Pill Valley as they expanded! The Yan Alliance in particular had secretly harbored over a dozen Golden Core cultivators, painstakingly nurtured a Tier 4 sourceless fire, and grown increasingly formidable in the art of artifact forging. Before their downfall, they had nearly begun to suppress Tianfan City's artifact trade. Because of this! Though Tianfan City had refrained from open warfare, they made constant moves behind the scenes! They mobilized sect resources to dump large batches of low-grade magic treasures into the Jade Cauldron Domain, crushing the Yan Alliance's high-end treasure trade. When one thought about it, how could a low-grade magic treasure—which provided immense assistance to Golden Core cultivators—sell for a mere few tens of thousands of spirit stones? In other major domains, a low-grade magic treasure easily started at a hundred thousand spirit stones! The dirt-cheap prices in the Jade Cauldron Domain had been forcibly driven down by Tianfan City. Not only that, Tianfan City had instigated the Luoyun Sect to provoke an internal war, fishing in troubled waters to wipe out the Yan Alliance directly! Clearly, the Luoyun Sect had harbored its own calculations as well. At the time, they had not carried things to the bitter end, leaving a path of survival for the Yan Alliance. Little did they expect that Luo Chen would leave the Yan Alliance no way out, while the Jade Cauldron Sword Sect stood by as an utter bystander. Now, the curtain on the War of Reclamation had risen, and the magic tools and treasures Tianfan City had prepared over many years had found their use. Regardless of victory or defeat in this War of Reclamation, Tianfan City was guaranteed to turn a massive profit. His thoughts had wandered far. Looking at Luo Chen's back, Perfected Yunhe stroked his chin subconsciously. The woman beside him suddenly spoke up: "Are you not planning to establish your own sect and set up a new lineage? This junior is said to be Danchenzi, who is quite renowned in the Jade Cauldron Domain. His greatest backing is merely a Golden Core sect." "If you take him into your fold, wouldn't you gain a capable helper? At the very least, you would never lack low-tier medicinal pills in the future." Perfected Yunhe nodded slightly. "None understands me like my lady!" He indeed had that intention! Yet Tianyezi's playful chuckle made him feel inexplicably uneasy about the notion. He probed, "This lad seems rather extraordinary. Your esteemed sect dominates an entire domain with three Nascent Soul Perfecteds, so accommodating him should be effortless. Is Brother not tempted in the slightest?" Faced with his inquiry, Tianyezi inside the nine-tiered Wind Thunder Abbey mused briefly. Then he answered bluntly, "I advise you not to set your sights on him." "Oh?" "If you don't believe me, feel free to try. I only fear that when the time comes, your newly established sect will bring embarrassment upon itself the moment it opens its gates." Hearing these words, Perfected Yunhe's expression grew suspicious and uncertain. Could this Danchenzi possess some massive backer he knew nothing about? Perhaps he ought to investigate the lad's background thoroughly. "Don't overthink it. It's better to focus on Qingdanzi! If he truly manages to refine the Nascent Soul Formation Pills, splitting a few between us to help our disciples form their Nascent Souls is the proper path." Hearing this, Perfected Yunhe could not help but agree. His purpose in coming to Azure Pill Valley was precisely those Nascent Soul Formation Pills! Taking advantage of the Luoyun Sect's momentum this time, he could smoothly break away from the Hehuan Sect, select another domain, and establish his own sect. This was the intention of his sect's Supreme Elder, as well as the desire of him and his wife. If he could cultivate a Nascent Soul cultivator with a Nascent Soul Formation Pill, the pressure he would face in the new domain would be drastically lessened. Only... *Can Qingdanzi succeed?* He gazed over darkly. Compared to Tianyezi, though fellow cultivators of the same rank, Yunhe had reached the Nascent Soul stage later. Truth be told, Qingdanzi was his true contemporary. He was very familiar with this man's alchemy skills. Formidable! Yet attempting to refine a Tier 4 pill beyond his realm—and the most difficult realm-breaking pill of all—was likely beyond his capabilities. Even with the full foundation of Azure Pill Valley mobilized, how much could his chances truly increase? Under the expectant gazes of Yunhe, Tianyezi, and the other cultivators, the pill-refinement work in the Inner Pill Valley continued to forge ahead. Time slowly slipped by. This session felt exceptionally long. In the blink of an eye, ten days flashed past. On this day, violent winds howled, clouds surged across the heavens, thunder roared, and a torrential downpour cascaded through the suffocating atmosphere. Suddenly, a low shout detonated like thunder: "If not now, then when!" With a sweep of Qingdanzi's wide sleeve, his pill fire blazed furiously. The mother cauldron before him spun rapidly, vibrating with deep hums in midair. Below him, the five men, including Luo Chen, withdrew their source true fires and sat cross-legged on the ground, their auras depleted. The critical moment of pill formation had arrived once more. Could it succeed this time? Luo Chen stared upward with rapt attention, letting the raindrops drench his cheeks. Suddenly, alarm bells blared in his heart, and a familiar sense of danger surged unbidden. *Something's wrong!* *This is the omen of a cauldron explosion!* His expression shifted, and layer upon layer of blue light barriers instantly erupted over his body, with plates of white qi armor snapping into place close against his skin. Almost the moment he executed these maneuvers, A tragic laugh echoed from the sky. "Ha..." Before the bitter laugh could fade, a terrifying burst of spiritual energy detonated violently. Under such horrifying power, Qingdanzi did not retreat; instead, as if gone mad, he lunged forward and slammed a hand down onto the mother cauldron. With his action, That detonating wave of majestic spiritual energy surged downward along the interconnected Azure Pill Great Array. Revered Chiding, Revered Xingyun, Danyangzi, Qingyunzi, and Luo Chen bore the brunt of the impact! Without a second thought, the other four unleashed their powers to protect their secondary cauldrons. Luo Chen, however, gritted his teeth and continuously cast defensive spells. *Bang! Bang! Bang!* ... Muffled explosions erupted in rapid succession, forming a mournful dirge within the Inner Pill Valley. At some point, The muffled detonations ceased. No longer possessing a youthful form, his hair now completely white, Qingdanzi teetered precariously as he looked down upon the scene in the Inner Pill Valley. Blood trickled from Revered Chiding's lips; Revered Xingyun was pale as ash. Qingyunzi was enveloped in roiling blackish-green flames that showed no sign of dying out even in the torrential rain—an outward sign that his source true fire had spiraled out of control. Danyangzi lay unconscious. Luo Chen remained seated cross-legged on the ground, his white robe patterned with dark bamboo shredded to pieces, leaving only jagged plates of white qi armor bristling outward. Aside from them, Among the thirty Tier 2 alchemists caught in the backlash, twenty-one had perished on the spot, leaving only nine survivors. Not only that, secondary cauldrons had shattered one after another, and even among the five low-grade magic treasure cauldrons, one lay in ruins. He parted his lips as liquid slid down his face, impossible to tell whether it was rain or tears. "At least... the mother cauldron was preserved!" As he muttered to himself, The nine-tiered Wind Thunder Abbey slowly drifted away from Azure Pill Valley. The crane-drawn cloud carriage also turned about, lingering in Azure Pill Valley no longer. Watching this scene, Qingdanzi managed a smile that looked uglier than weeping. "Heh... and the sect was preserved, too."