The both of them were completely silent for a while, the atmosphere between them captivating as well as tense. Tang Wan-er’s heart pounded. How come this scoundrel was so talkative normally but was silent now?

“You… why aren’t you talking?” Tang Wan-er finally found the courage to break the silence. But she didn’t have the courage to turn back to face him.

“I’m still thinking,” said Long Chen. But as soon as he said it, he regretted it, wishing to give himself a slap on the face.

“You…” Tang Wan-er glared at him, her tears slowly flowing. She thought Long Chen was mocking her.

“No, I have no intention of laughing at you. Everyone has some bitterness suppressed in their hearts. But at the very least you had a complete childhood,” said Long Chen quietly.

She saw that when he said that, there was a bit of sadness within his eyes, as well as a feeling of being lost. That caused her heart to shake.

This kind of emotion rarely ever surfaced on Long Chen’s face. Tang Wan-er wiped away her tears and asked, “Long Chen, can I hear about your past?”

“Nope.” Long Chen shook his head.

“Tch, petty. I told you about mine, so you have to tell me!” demanded Tang Wan-er.

Long Chen rolled his eyes. “It’s not like I asked you to tell me.”

“Even so! Since you heard it, you must tell me about yourself too!” She stood in front of Long Chen, her posture saying that she wouldn’t let him leave before telling her.

Long Chen smiled slightly, and his heart warmed inside. “Thank you.”

Tang Wan-er’s heart pounded faster when she saw Long Chen looking at her so gently. Not daring to meet his gaze, she asked, “Why are you thanking me?”

“Thank you for treating me as a friend. You’re asking this to understand me more. Fine. I also had a couple of friends by my side. However, I had to abandon them.”

Long Chen’s quiet voice was heavy. Shi Feng, fatty Yu, Shi Hou, and all the other’s images surfaced in his mind. Perhaps he would never be able to have another chance at another great feast and drunkfest like what they had had before he had left.

“Why did you have to abandon them?” asked Tang Wan-er curiously.

“Let’s chat while walking.”

Long Chen and Tang Wan-er slowly strolled as he quietly told her about his youth. “You had a complete childhood, but I only had half a childhood…”

He told her about everything from his childhood. Perhaps he had repressed his emotions for too long and finally needed to release them, but he told her all about how he had been constantly bullied, how he had narrowly escaped from death several times, telling her everything, only keeping the Pill Sovereign memories secret.

Tang Wan-er had never imagined Long Chen had experienced so much misery and pain. No wonder she always felt his intelligence was far greater than others.

That had been forced. If Long Chen hadn’t gained that intelligence that surpassed others, he would have already died under someone else’s schemes.

Compared to Long Chen, she had had an absolutely delightful youth. As Long Chen told her about his own misfortune, she couldn’t help but feel ashamed.

It was as if an emperor was complaining to a beggar about how his meat didn’t taste good and wasn’t refined enough for him.

“Long Chen, don’t you feel wronged to have to experience so much?” asked Tang Wan-er.

“Of course, I feel wronged. But I haven’t found a suitable shoulder to cry on.” Long Chen glanced at Tang Wan-er’s shoulder.

She jumped, hastily taking a step back, guardedly saying, “Don’t mess around.”

“How is that messing around? Didn’t you cry while hugging me just now? Now it should be switched around.”

Tang Wan-er’s face immediately turned red. She evasively said, “That’s not the same. I’m a woman.”

Long Chen mumbled, “Petty,” before finding a clean boulder to sit on. Looking into the distance, who knew what he was thinking about.

Seeing Long Chen didn’t forcibly complain about it, Tang Wan-er relaxed. She also sat next to Long Chen.

“Now that you’ve joined the monastery, what are your plans?” she asked.

“Eat plenty, drink plenty, play plenty, and become a completely new and improved scoundrel,” laughed Long Chen.

“Ugh, I’m serious here!” Tang Wan-er rebuked. “It’s just like you said: our peaceful comfort is only temporary. A cruel competition is about to start again.”

“What kind of competition?” asked Long Chen.

“It’s still unknown. For each generation, they have a somewhat different competition. But it will always be very intense. We should make our own preparations. Otherwise, if we can’t grab enough resources, our factions’ strength will fall far behind the other factions,” said Tang Wan-er worriedly.

“No way right? With us two here, it can be said that we are the strongest of all five factions. How could we fall behind?” asked Long Chen.

Tang Wan-er explained, “Although I don’t know why you are so strong, I can guess it definitely has to do with your cultivation technique.

“The stronger the cultivation method, the slower you will advance levels. I’ve known you for this long, but you still haven’t broken through to the late Blood Condensation realm. That says everything.

“All of us are essentially at the peak of Blood Condensation. We’re just waiting for the trial rewards to use Ten Thousand Beast Essence Blood for our final blood condensation. Then we’ll all directly advance to the Tendon Transformation realm. At that time, your superiority will completely vanish.”

Only now did Long Chen realize that problem. Currently, amongst this group of geniuses, he could be considered a hegemon.

But once everyone entered the Tendon Transformation realm, let alone the monster-class geniuses, even those ordinary inner disciples wouldn’t be much inferior to him in combat strength.

“Furthermore, there aren’t only five new factions in the monastery.”

“Oh?”

“The Xuantian Monastery is not the same as other sects. Their disciple selection is split across different areas.

“They are split into the eastern, western, southern, northern, and central areas. We are in the central area. We still don’t know how many core disciples are going to come from the other four areas. So the competition will definitely be extremely intense,” explained Tang Wan-er.

This time she really did give Long Chen a fright. Just the thirty thousand people he had seen at the beginning of the trial had been shocking enough.

He really would never have guessed that there had been five such places undergoing the trial at the same time. The Xuantian Monastery’s power sphere was far too large.

“So you especially should cultivate as fast as possible. Otherwise, your superiority will quickly disappear.

“Fortunately, now that I and sister Zhiqiu have revived our ancestral marks, our bloodline strength is beginning to awaken. The runic power within our bloodline is becoming stronger every single day.

“So Lei Qianshang and the others aren’t on the same level as us anymore. But if they had too many people work together, we still wouldn’t be able to defeat them alone. The situation isn’t very optimistic,” said Tang Wan-er.

Long Chen sighed bitterly. He also wanted to cultivate a bit faster, but as his cultivation base rose and his physical body grew stronger, the speed at which he advanced became increasingly slow.

It had already been a month, but his blood essence had yet to completely reach saturation. He had no way to undergo the next blood purification and enter the seventh Heavenstage.

He recalled how difficult it had been for him to break through within the Qi Condensation realm. Now as soon as he reached the mid Blood Condensation realm, his speed had slowed down greatly.

Long Chen had a premonition that the difficulty in breaking through to Tendon Transformation wouldn’t be any less than when he had broken through to Blood Condensation.

But he was also helpless about that. The technique known as the Nine Star Hegemon Body Art was incredibly profound. He had only seen the tip of the iceberg. He had no idea how to increase his cultivation speed.

According to Long Chen’s estimations, if he could condense the second star, the Alioth Star, then with both stars’ superposition, it would be possible to increase his cultivation speed.

But to condense the Alioth Star required him to refine the Alioth Pill. He had yet to gather many of the Alioth Pill’s required ingredients. He could only take it one step at a time.

But Long Chen wasn’t particularly worried about that yet. That was because he still had a trump card. That would be the Flame Salamander’s Neidan he had found on the way here.

As long as he absorbed the Flame Salamander’s Neidan, he would be able to use the existence that was ranked ninety-seventh on the beast flame rankings. If Long Chen could control that beast flame, then with his powerful Spiritual Strength, his combat strength would once more reach a new level.

For now, he would have to put aside the matter of seeing Chu Yao. It was more urgent for him to quickly increase his strength. In Long Chen’s mind, there were two things he needed to do.

First was to gather the ingredients to absorb the Neidan. That was a bit more simple. He was fully confident that those ingredients could be gathered within the monastery.

But the other thing he needed to do was gather the medicinal ingredients required for the Alioth Pill. That was more difficult, but it was also absolutely necessary. He would have to gather as much as he could.

The main problem with that which caused Long Chen some panic was that to condense the Alioth Star, he would require a huge number of Alioth Pills.

One or two pills was absolutely nothing, completely unable to completely condense it. Thinking back to how he had used up over a thousand FengFu Pills for the first FengFu Star, he knew he would require an accordingly terrifying number of Alioth Pills.

“You don’t need to be too worried. With me and sister Zhiqiu here, there won’t be any problems for a short time. So you also don’t need to feel that much pressure,” consoled Tang Wan-er when she saw Long Chen just pondering and muttering to himself.

At the same time, she also felt a bit embarrassed. She was the head of their faction, but she had placed the pressure onto him. She couldn’t shift the responsibility and duty like that.

Originally, that pressure should have been hers, but she had a trust and dependence on Long Chen that even she didn’t completely understand. And so she hoped Long Chen could help her.

“Right, what name should we call our faction?” Tang Wan-er purposely changed the subject.

“Peak Tang Gate?”

“No, that name’s too unbridled. And Tang Gate sounds like it’s my family’s. Something else.” Tang Wan-er shook her head, clearly not liking that flamboyant name.

“Black Dragon Group?” Long Chen gave another suggestion.

“No, that makes us sound like a gang of hooligans. It’s not elegant enough.”

“Then let’s just call it the Peak Tang Black Dragon Group.”

“Ugh, this is not a joke! Be a bit more serious.” Why had Tang Wan-er even worried about him feeling too much pressure? This scoundrel fundamentally didn’t even know what it meant to feel pressure.

The two of them discussed it for a while, finally coming up with a both domineering and resounding name just before the sun set: Heaven Earth Faction. Thus, Tang Wan-er became the Heaven Earth Faction’s leader.

No one yet knew that from that day on, the Heaven Earth Faction would become a name forever remembered in the history of the Xuantian Monastery.