Hua Luoxuan was babbling, his body trembling with excitement. His booming voice echoed through the Alchemist Association’s main hall, stunning everyone present.
"What’s going on?"
"Isn’t that President Hua Luoxuan? What’s he going crazy about now?"
"Shhh! You got a death wish? This is the Alchemist Association! If he hears you, no one will even be around to collect your corpse."
The baffled customers in the hall stared blankly at the wildly gesticulating Hua Luoxuan, their mouths twitching.
Hua Luoxuan ignored the crowd’s murmuring and laughed heartily. He had never been able to figure out the Awakening Potion, but now, after seeing Ye Xuan’s answer, it was as if he’d had a sudden, profound epiphany.
He didn’t know for sure what would happen when he tried to brew it again, but given his mastery of Alchemy, he was confident that by following the instructions on the paper, his chance of success would be over eighty percent.
He found it hard to believe that a problem that had plagued him for so long could be solved by a mere boy.
If the Bone Marrow Cleansing Liquid had made him intensely curious, seeing this answer had elevated that feeling from mere curiosity to absolute shock.
Ye Xuan’s answer might have looked simple, but as a Third Grade Earth-level Alchemist, Hua Luoxuan knew that a boy who could so thoroughly analyze the threefold medicinal effects of Dark Night Grass had to have reached an astonishing level of mastery in Alchemy.
Unlike the others who were merely confused, Zhou Huarong, who was still dangling unceremoniously in Hua Luoxuan’s grip, was utterly stunned.
’Judging by what President Hua Luoxuan is saying, did Ye Xuan really solve his problem? This... what kind of joke is this? The president is a Third Grade Earth-level Alchemist! Who in all of Blue Moon City could possibly answer his questions?’
Zhou Huarong’s mind descended into chaos.
Tossing Zhou Huarong aside like a sack of potatoes, Hua Luoxuan grabbed Chen Jia and roared, his eyes bloodshot. "Quick! Tell me, whose questions did he answer besides mine?"
Chen Jia was lifted so suddenly she could barely breathe. With a sob in her voice, she stammered, "President, I... I don’t know! I went to buy the Soul-Revealing Pill for him."
"Useless!" Hua Luoxuan dropped Chen Jia and roared at Zhou Huarong, "Quick! Open the cabinets for me! Open every single one!"
As the Chief Steward, Zhou Huarong naturally had the keys to all the cabinets in the request area. He moved with unprecedented speed, unlocking all of them in the blink of an eye.
Besides the answer in Hua Luoxuan’s cabinet, number 01, there were also answer sheets in cabinets 02 through 05.
"Huh? Isn’t cabinet 05 for the question I wrote about the Calm Pill? Could it be that he solved it, too?"
Zhou Huarong hurriedly grabbed the answer from cabinet 05 and read what was written on it: "The main purpose of the Calm Pill is to suppress the rampaging Profound Qi caused when a Martial Artist suffers from cultivation deviation, while also increasing the resistance of their Profound Veins to said rampage. It has two primary effects: suppressing berserk Profound Qi and increasing Profound Vein resistance. Thus, the concoction process is critical. As for your procedure... it’s a complete mess. You clearly haven’t grasped the pill’s effects at all. Not only is the order in which you add the Spirit Medicines a total disaster, but your fusion timing is also riddled with errors. Following your method, you wouldn’t be making a Calm Pill, you’d be making a Killing Pill. You’re a complete idiot. It’s a good thing you never succeeded, or you would have unleashed a scourge upon the world. The proper method for refining a true Calm Pill is as follows..."
Below this critique, the detailed refining process for the Calm Pill was written out at length.
"Ah, so that’s how it is! This is how you’re supposed to refine a Calm Pill! No wonder I never succeeded! I’m an idiot! I really am an idiot! HAHAHA, I’m an idiot!" Zhou Huarong stared at the refining steps, also falling into a state of frenzied excitement.
Lu Yue and the others standing nearby watched on in exasperation. ’It’s over,’ they thought. ’First the president, and now Chief Steward Zhou has gone mad too.’
"Ha! So the Celestial Heart Pill uses that Spirit Medicine too! Of course, why didn’t I think of that?"
"Whoa, refining it like this... let me think... it’s a stroke of genius! Holy crap, how can someone be this smart? This step... only a true genius could have ever imagined it!"
Hua Luoxuan and Zhou Huarong devoured the answers Ye Xuan had written, becoming completely engrossed.
After reading all five answers, both men were utterly floored. This was especially true for President Hua Luoxuan. As the saying goes, the higher you stand, the farther you see.
He could appreciate the brilliance of Ye Xuan’s answers far more profoundly than Zhou Huarong could. These weren’t just answers; they were the notes of a top-tier Alchemy Master, a peerless treasure.
Forget Blue Moon City—even the most elite court Alchemists in the Royal City might not have a more thorough understanding of certain aspects than the person who wrote these answers.
’This boy, Ye Xuan... I must find him.’
Hua Luoxuan vowed to himself. In his gleaming eyes, there was not only shock but also a trace of reverence.
「In the days that followed, the entire Alchemist Association sprang into action.」
Chen Jia and Zhou Yu were fired on the spot. The Alchemist Association began intensive training for all its employees, and Zhou Huarong personally stationed himself at the front desk, terrified of a repeat of today’s incident should Ye Xuan ever return.
As for President Hua Luoxuan, he buried himself in his refining room, obsessively practicing the techniques Ye Xuan had pointed out in his answers.
Meanwhile, Ye Xuan, the unwitting instigator of this whole affair, had no idea what a massive uproar his casual actions had caused at the Alchemist Association. Having purchased the Soul-Revealing Pill, he went straight back to his dorm.
Inside the dorm room, Chen Xing was sitting cross-legged on his bed cultivating. Faint fluctuations of Profound Qi emanated from his body. When he saw Ye Xuan enter, he opened his eyes.
"Well, well, Chen Fatty. Look at you, actually cultivating for once," Ye Xuan teased.
As far as he knew, Chen Xing’s talent was actually quite high. He was just lazy and rarely spent time cultivating, which was why he was still stuck at the Four Vein Realm. Otherwise, with his aptitude, even if he wasn’t in the advanced class, he should have had no problem opening six Profound Veins by now.
Chen Xing flipped him the bird. "Don’t pin this on me, Young Master Xuan," he grumbled. "Even ’trash’ like you has opened Three Profound Veins. If I don’t start trying, all the pretty girls will have their eyes on you! How could I, Third Young Master Chen, show my face then? Tsk tsk, and here I am, a man destined to build a harem of three thousand."
"How ambitious. Well, work hard then. Don’t let me open five Profound Veins while you’re still stuck with four," Ye Xuan said with a grin. He knew, however, that Chen Xing had remained at the Four Vein Realm not just out of laziness, but also to stay in the same dorm as him. After all, dorms were reassigned upon entering the intermediate classes.
"Hah! Just you wait! It won’t even take me half a month to break through to the Five Vein Realm. When that happens, Young Master Xuan, you can prepare to worship me!"
Ye Xuan gave a noncommittal smile and walked into the inner room of the dorm—a private cultivation chamber that every room had. Shutting himself inside, he swallowed the Soul-Revealing Pill.
GULP!
The moment the purple liquid entered his body, a potent medicinal energy dissolved in his stomach and began to slowly spread throughout his body along with his Profound Qi.
As an Eighth Grade Soul Emperor and a Ninth Grade Alchemy Master in his past life, Ye Xuan naturally knew how to maximize the effects of the Soul-Revealing Pill. He circulated the Profound Qi from his Three Veins, pushing the pill’s potency into every corner of his body. The energy spread evenly, diffusing little by little as its effects gradually activated.
"Soul-Displaying Skill!"
Ye Xuan’s eyes were shut tight as he activated a unique Soul Skill he knew from his past life. In an instant, a distinct fluctuation of Soul Power radiated from his mind and swept through his entire body.
Observing one’s own Martial Soul usually required the assistance of a Soul Refiner, but Ye Xuan, who had been an Eighth Grade Soul Emperor in his past life, had managed to do it all on his own.
His Dantian began to grow faintly hot, and a tiny black dot slowly appeared within it.
This time, the image of the black Martial Soul was clearer than ever before. Ye Xuan could finally see it properly. The so-called black dot wasn’t a dot at all, but a slowly spinning vortex, like a black hole that could devour anything. With each rotation, it absorbed a portion of the Profound Qi from his body.
’A vortex Martial Soul that can absorb Profound Qi?’
Ye Xuan’s brow furrowed slightly. On the Celestial Profound Continent, black-colored Martial Souls were not actually rare. There were powerful ones like the Dark Night Martial Soul, the Death Martial Soul, and the Shadow Martial Soul, as well as weaker ones like the Black Flow Martial Soul, the Ink Grass Martial Soul, and the Ironwood Martial Soul. But a vortex-shaped Martial Soul... even the widely-traveled and knowledgeable Ye Xuan of his past life had never seen such a thing.
But one thing was certain: this vortex Martial Soul was terrifying. His own soul could faintly sense a feeling of dread emanating from it.
Huh?
Just as Ye Xuan was focusing his full attention on the black Martial Soul, a strange anomaly in his chest suddenly caught his attention.
There, near his heart, as his Profound Qi pushed the potency of the Soul-Revealing Pill through his body, he felt a slight obstruction.
Ye Xuan’s heart skipped a beat, and a look of wild joy immediately crossed his face. There was usually only one reason for the Soul-Revealing Pill’s potency to be obstructed: a dormant, unawakened Martial Soul was lying in wait there.
He extended his Profound Sense toward it and immediately felt a faint yellow light, hidden deep within his heart. It was completely still, as steadfast and unmoving as the earth itself.
Patient as a mountain, unmoving as the earth, profound by nature, and deep as an abyss.
’Could this be... the Ye family’s inherited Martial Soul, the Earth Martial Soul?’
The realization struck Ye Xuan like a bolt of lightning.
The inheritance of a Martial Soul was typically passed down through an ancestral bloodline, and the Ye family’s was the Earth Martial Soul. When he first awakened his black Martial Soul, the Ye family elders had simply assumed it was a mutation. They never suspected that the black vortex Martial Soul had nothing to do with the Earth Martial Soul whatsoever, and that the true Earth Martial Soul was still lying dormant in his heart, unawakened to this day.
And he... he was a genius with twin Martial Souls.
On the Celestial Profound Continent, possessing a single Martial Soul made one a dragon among men. But a Martial Artist with two Martial Souls was known as a king among dragons.