The bronze dragons carved along the flanks of the Nine-Dragon Flame Furnace didn’t just radiate heat. They breathed a pale crimson mist that smelled faintly of ancient ozone and melted iron.
Adam Hale sat cross-legged on the jade-embedded mat, his eyes reflecting the flickering flames within the cauldron. The isolation array in the walls of Room Seven buzzed softly, holding every trace of spatial energy and heat inside the chamber.
He reached into his sleeve and pulled out the gray leather pouch that held his entire liquid wealth: one hundred and seventeen low-tier spirit stones and five cracked wooden bottles of inferior healing salve stripped from the Blood-Feather scavengers.
’Raw spirit stones are inefficient,’ Adam calculated, his eyes cool and analytical. ’A low-tier stone holds barely three percent pure Qi. The other ninety-seven percent is chalky mineral sediment that clogs the meridians. Cultivators in this outpost buy them because they lack the skill to extract the pure energy.’
He flicked his wrist.
Clank.
Fifty low-tier spirit stones flew into the open maw of the central bronze dragon.
With his God-Grade Alchemy Mastery, Adam didn’t need a recipe scroll, manual hand seals, or hours of fanning embers. The instant the raw stones entered the cauldron, the mineral’s entire chemical blueprint unfolded in his mind.
"Refine," Adam murmured.
BOOM!
The crimson flames inside the furnace flared violently. The nine carved dragon heads roared with a silent, high-pitched hum that vibrated the floorboards.
Inside the furnace, the chalky sediment burned away into gray ash, leaving a glowing pool of liquid blue light. Adam guided it with his mind, using the Primordial Chaos Supreme Physique to draw ambient Qi from the room and compress the liquid into tight, dense spheres.
Ten heartbeats later, the cauldron lid snapped open.
Swoosh!
Ten brilliant, translucent pearls shot out and circled Adam’s right hand. Unlike the cloudy, dirty blue stones he had thrown in, these glowed with a pure, electric turquoise light. The air in the room grew rich with compressed energy.
[Alchemy Success!]
[Recipe: Low-Tier Spirit Stone Extraction]
[Product: Spirit-Liquefying Pills (Supreme Grade) x10]
[Efficiency: 100% Purity (Zero Impurities / No Meridian Clogging)]
Adam caught one of the pills between two fingers.
’In Black-Stone Outpost, a raw spirit stone sells for four silver coins,’ Adam thought, his lips curling into a sharp, cold line. ’A single Supreme-Grade Spirit-Liquefying Pill delivers twenty times the energy, with no hours of meditation to purge toxic sediment. Cultivators stuck at bottlenecks in this dead region will slaughter each other for a jar of these.’
He swept the ten pills into a clean jade bottle he had taken from the scavengers’ pouches. Then he fed twenty-five more stones and all five bottles of salve into the furnace, keeping the rest of his stones in reserve.
For the next hour, crimson flames flickered in the dark room. Adam refined continuously, testing his control over the Nine-Dragon fire and adapting to his Peak Foundation Establishment dantian. When the flames finally died down, he had five more Spirit-Liquefying Pills (Supreme Grade) and eight Blood-Replenishing Bone Pills (High Grade). He poured the new Spirit-Liquefying Pills in with the first ten and sealed the bone pills in a second bottle.
’Raw materials cost roughly seventy-five spirit stones,’ Adam noted, sealing the corks. ’Estimated value at auction, fifteen hundred. A twenty-fold return in sixty minutes.’
He stood, his heavy blue robes falling smoothly over his boots. With a single thought, he recalled the Nine-Dragon Flame Furnace into his system space.
He willed the Hidden Fortune Aura to clamp down once more. The vast, terrifying ocean of energy in his core vanished beneath a mask of frail, sickly Qi. Then he pulled the patched gray cloak over his robes and drew the hood low. To anyone who saw him, he was once again a ragged 1st-Layer Qi Condensation weakling struggling to breathe.
He unlocked the door of Room Seven and stepped into the hallway.
Downstairs, the lobby of the Golden-Spire Inn was noisy. Several rogue cultivators in spiked leather armor drank hot grain liquor and slammed heavy iron broadswords onto the wooden tables.
The fat innkeeper was counting silver coins behind the counter when Adam came down the stairs.
"Ah, young master," the innkeeper purred, his greasy face splitting into a broad, fake smile. "Did the isolation array serve you well? No disturbances, I hope?"
Adam stopped at the counter. He didn’t answer the small talk. Instead, he pulled a single turquoise pill from his sleeve and set it on the dark wood between them.
The innkeeper blinked, annoyed by the cold response, but his eyes drifted down to the pill.
Then his breath caught in his throat.
The pill didn’t just sit there. A faint, mist-like ring of blue Qi swirled around its circumference: a Pill Halo, the undisputed mark of Supreme-Grade purity. The scent of medicinal herbs washed over the counter and cleared the innkeeper’s alcohol-heavy head.
"This..." The innkeeper’s voice squeaked, his fat fingers trembling as he reached out and stopped just short of touching it. "A Spirit-Liquefying Pill? No... the purity is too high! There isn’t a single speck of black sediment inside!"
"Who runs the largest auction house in Black-Stone Outpost?" Adam asked, his voice low and flat.
The innkeeper swallowed hard, looking up with new terror and greed. A youth in a patched cloak producing a Supreme-Grade pill could mean only one of two things: a disguised disciple of an ancient Alchemy Sect, or a grandmaster’s personal messenger.
"The... the Treasure-Gathering Pavilion," he stuttered, bowing lower than before. "Three streets down, at the central square. Manager Lin handles all high-tier pill evaluations!"
"Keep the room key for another three days," Adam said, tossing a single silver coin onto the counter. "If anyone asks who stayed here, tell them a dead man."
Before the innkeeper could process the words, Adam plucked the pill off the counter, turned, and walked out into the cold night street.
The Treasure-Gathering Pavilion was a towering three-story timber building built over a natural spirit vein. Massive red paper lanterns lit the entrance, where four guards in full iron plate armor, all at the 6th Layer of Qi Condensation, stood watch with long halberds.
Adam walked straight past them, his hood low.
Inside, glass cases displayed low-grade iron swords, wolf pelts, and dusty herb roots. Dozens of rogue cultivators argued over prices with floor clerks.
Adam walked to the high counter at the back of the hall, where an elderly man in a green silk robe was examining a cracked spirit herb through a magnifying lens.
"I have items for immediate auction," Adam said, leaning against the counter.
The old clerk didn’t look up. "If it’s lower than Mortal-Grade High Tier, take it to the street stalls outside. The Pavilion doesn’t waste time on small change."
Adam drew a jade bottle from his robe and uncorked it for half a second.
WHAM!
A wave of pure, concentrated spirit aura erupted from the bottle. The temperature in the hall seemed to rise, and every cultivator within twenty feet stopped talking, their heads snapping toward the counter like starving dogs catching the scent of meat.
The old clerk dropped his magnifying lens. His eyes bulged as he stared at the bottle in Adam’s hand.
"Supreme... Supreme Grade?!" the clerk gasped, scrambling out of his high chair so fast he knocked his teacup to the floor. "Young master—no, Senior! Please, step into the VIP chamber immediately!"
The clerk practically dragged Adam into a private room lined with thick velvet carpets, barked at a servant girl to bring the finest snow-tea, and bolted down the hallway to fetch the pavilion manager.
Three minutes later, the door opened.
A tall, sharp-eyed woman in a crimson silk dress walked in, flanked by two heavyset guards at the Foundation Establishment realm. She carried a purple velvet tray and a golden weighing scale.
"I am Manager Lin of the Treasure-Gathering Pavilion," the woman said, her eyes sweeping over Adam’s plain appearance and calm posture. "I hear an esteemed guest has brought something rare to our small outpost."
Adam skipped the pleasantries and set two jade bottles on the velvet tray.
"Fifteen Supreme-Grade Spirit-Liquefying Pills. Eight High-Grade Blood-Replenishing Pills," he said plainly. "I want them auctioned tonight. Payment in low-tier spirit stones or high-tier alchemical herbs."
Manager Lin unsealed the first bottle. When she tipped a single turquoise pill onto the tray and saw the glowing Pill Halo, her sharp composure cracked completely.
"Purity nine out of ten..." she whispered, her fingers shaking slightly. "No, this is ten out of ten! Complete purity! Even the grandmasters of the Cloud-Resting City Alchemist Association manage only seven-tenths at best!"
She looked at Adam, her mind racing. An alchemist who could refine Supreme-Grade pills in a lawless dump like Black-Stone Outpost was either a godsend or a dangerous monster.
"Senior," Manager Lin said, her tone turning reverent as she bowed slightly. "Tonight is our weekly grand auction, and it runs until dawn. If these pills are listed as the finale, the elders of the local families and the Blood-Feather Sect will go wild. We can guarantee a starting bid of fifty low-tier spirit stones per pill!"
"Good," Adam replied coldly. "I’ll take a front-row private box. And I want a list of the rare spirit herbs you currently have in stock."
"Right away!" Manager Lin turned to her guards, her voice snapping like a whip. "Prepare the Crown Box for the Senior! Anyone who disrespects him will have their limbs broken and be thrown into the volcano!"
An hour later, Adam sat in a cushioned chair behind a one-way glass window overlooking the crowded auction hall.
On the main floor, hundreds of rogue cultivators, sect elders, and wealthy merchants shouted bids over iron armor and demon beast cores. In the front row, Adam spotted several familiar faces, among them Elder Lin Kuang of the Lin Clan, now sheltering in the outpost after the beast attack, and the very man who had ordered Lin Chen thrown to the beasts as bait weeks ago.
Lin Kuang sat comfortably, drinking wine and bidding on minor Qi-nourishing herbs for his favorite grandson, Lin Feng.
Adam leaned back in his chair, a cold, dark smile spreading across his face as he swirled his tea.
’Enjoy your wine, old man,’ Adam thought, his eyes fixed on the back of Lin Kuang’s neck like a phantom blade. ’You traded Lin Chen’s life for a few copper coins. Tonight, I’m going to take everything your clan owns.’