Long Chen was pleased to see the many medicinal ingredients packed into this spatial ring. Elder Sun really was efficient.

What Long Chen didn’t know was how much pain Elder Sun was in. His lifetime savings had been cut by over half for those medicinal ingredients.

“Long Chen, hand over the lower portion of that cultivation technique.” Elder Sun was extremely gloomy, but there was also a trace of excitement and nervousness in his voice.

Long Chen checked the medicinal ingredients and saw that they were the exact ones written on the list, delighting him.

After that huge battle, they had passed down a huge number of points. Tang Wan-er and the other core disciples had gained over a million points. Even ordinary disciples earned hundreds of thousands of points. To those disciples, that was an absolutely enormous amount.

But for Long Chen, they were practically nothing. And that was why Long Chen had placed his sights on a fat sheep like Elder Sun.

The disciples’ points were incomparable to the Elders’ merit points. Some things couldn’t even be exchanged for with disciple points.

Even if they could obtain them, it would be incredibly expensive. The medicinal ingredients in this spatial ring would have definitely cost over a hundred million points, and even then, that was just a rough estimate. It could easily be more.

Furthermore, many of them were unobtainable within the monastery. Elder Sun had gone to the supermonastery for them.

“What, are you reneging?” Seeing how sinister Long Chen’s smile was, Elder Sun’s heart jumped.

This trade of theirs was completely secret. There was no one to witness it as proof. If Long Chen refused to go through with it, that would be extremely troublesome.

“What nonsense. Do you think I’m such a person?” Long Chen snorted. He threw a piece of black zirconium to Elder Sun.

Elder Sun hastily grabbed it. It was the exact same form as that previous black zirconium. On the front side was a complicated diagram of meridians, and there was an ancient character on the back.

Kill.[1]

This new black zirconium had the character for Kill on the back of it. When combined with the previous Rebel character, would it be Kill Rebels? Or Rebels Kill?

But no matter what, those two words were incredibly domineering.

“Hehe, thank you. I’ll leave for now.” Elder Sun was delighted

Long Chen nodded. “Ok, then you can go back. If there’s anything else, you can come find me.”

Long Chen just lightly waved, acting as if he were saying goodbye to a member of the junior generation. That was greatly displeasing to Elder Sun.

“Alright, I’ll definitely come find you in the future!” Elder Sun laughed amicably, but a cold light shone within his eyes.

Although he had managed to obtain the cultivation technique, he had taken a severe blow to his savings, which made him extremely irritated. And now to protect this secret, he would naturally have to go find Long Chen later.

Seeing Elder Sun’s departing back, Long Chen sneered mockingly. I know you’ll definitely come find me again, but it probably won’t be for what you’re thinking of.

Long Chen returned to his immortal cave and saw Tang Wan-er standing at the front of it. She suspiciously asked, “What kind of shady business are you up to again?”

“Slander, this is definitely slander! I’m getting angry because of it!”

“Tch, you think I still don’t understand you? Speak. What kind of secret trade were you and Elder Sun up to?” Tang Wan-er didn’t fall for Long Chen’s little act at all.

Tang Wan-er had just exited seclusion. When she had looked down the mountain, she had happened to see Long Chen and Elder Sun ‘amicably’ discussing something.

“There’s nothing. You also know that I’m a highly principled man, a highly righteous man who would never hold a grudge.” Long Chen smiled.

“As if anyone would believe you. You don’t hold grudges because you always get all your revenge on those people immediately, so of course there are no grudges to hold anymore! Hurry up and tell me what Elder Sun came for.” Tang Wan-er glared at Long Chen. She definitely wouldn’t let him off before telling her.

“You really want to know?” Long Chen seemed somewhat troubled.

“Hurry up and tell me.”

Long Chen helplessly sighed. Women really were troublesome sometimes. He supposed it was best for him to tell the truth. “After this huge battle this time, Elder Sun saw that my bones were pure, that my forehead was full, that I was a rare martial genius found only once in ten thousand years-”

“Get to the point.” Tang Wan-er frowned. She already knew Long Chen was messing around again.

“Fine. He wants to take me as his master.”

Tang Wan-er immediately hit Long Chen with a fist and rebuked, “Stop being flippant! Tell the truth.”

“It is the truth! He even sent me a gift for accepting him as an apprentice. I said I’d think it over and told him to leave for now, but I didn’t feel like it would be right to also reject his gift. If I didn’t even accept his gift, I’d definitely feel apologetic to him.” Long Chen seemed so embarrassed to talk about that. He even handed over the spatial ring to Tang Wan-er.

Tang Wan-er had been holding back a laugh, but then seeing the mountains of precious medicinal ingredients piled within that spatial ring, her smile disappeared. She covered her mouth, her eyes filled with shock.

Although Tang Wan-er wasn’t an alchemist, she still recognized a couple of high tier medicinal ingredients. These ingredients had to cost several thousand or even ten thousand points for a single one! But they were piled up like mountains inside this spatial ring.

“Is this real?” muttered Tang Wan-er.

“Of course, it’s true! Who do you think I, Long Chen, am? As long as I make a public declaration, who knows how many people would come begging at my door to take me as their master! If I…”

“It is real!” Tang Wan-er had taken out a medicinal ingredient and smelled it. That scent proved that it was real.

As for Long Chen, he was in the middle of gesturing passionately about how amazing he was when he realized she wasn’t even looking at him. He had no choice but to stop. He looked up at the clouds in the sky.

“Hmm? You aren’t bragging anymore?” Looking at Long Chen acting like this, Tang Wan-er smiled.

“It’s too boring. I’ve bragged to the point that even I don’t believe myself anymore.” Long Chen shook his head.

“Sometimes I really wonder, Long Chen, do you never feel worried about anything? How are you so sloppy all the time?” Tang Wan-er blushed a bit at that last bit, as such a crude word was embarrassing for a lady to say out loud.

But Long Chen didn’t care about that. Looking up at the clouds, he said, “Being sloppy isn’t a bad thing either. Otherwise, if you end up caring about every little thing, wouldn’t you worry yourself to death?”

For some reason, when she looked at Long Chen this time, although she could see his expression was still unworried and uncaring, she could also see a trace of loneliness in his eyes.

Perhaps if it had been the old her who hadn’t absorbed the Dao-mark, she would not have been able to sense that. But after becoming a Favored, she could sense that loneliness from Long Chen.

That kind of loneliness wasn’t about how many people were by his side. It was loneliness that existed despite being surrounded by people. It was as if the entire world was rejecting him. Or perhaps it could be said that he was rejecting the entire world.

Tang Wan-er gently held his hand. “Long Chen, no matter what worries you have, you can tell me. I will share any burden you have.”

Having Tang Wan-er’s tender hand holding his own, Long Chen’s heart filled with warmth. Tang Wan-er was as beautiful as a flower, her pretty face touched with a dab of shyness. She was like the cherry blossoms blooming, so beautiful that people didn’t dare to profane her.

Tang Wan-er had always been beautiful, but looking at her now, in this situation with these feelings, Long Chen felt that Tang Wan-er was more beautiful than ever.

His heart was pounding faster and faster. Tang Wan-er also began to breathe a bit faster. The two of them were pulling closer and closer to each other.

Being stared at by Long Chen like this, Tang Wan-er didn’t dare to meet his eyes. She closed her eyes, her lips opening ever so slightly. Long Chen was unable to resist that beauty and gave her a deep kiss.

Tang Wan-er let out a gentle gasp, involuntarily holding Long Chen tightly, her body limp and powerless.

Long Chen felt as if his head was buzzing. All of his heart and mind were focused on the feeling of those lips.

“Cough.”

Suddenly, a light cough rang out. It wasn’t loud, but to the two of them, it rang out like thunder.

The two of them instantly separated, seeing Qing Yu helplessly looking at the two of them. Tang Wan-er’s face was twisted with embarrassment. She lowered her head, quickly running into the immortal cave and tightly locking it behind her, refusing to come back out.

Even with Long Chen’s thick skin, being caught like this made him blush fiercely.

“Ah, sister Qing Yu, hehe, how coincidental!” Tang Wan-er might be able to run, but Long Chen couldn’t. As a man, he had to face this.

“Sister Qing Yu, don’t misunderstand. I’ve been a bit unwell these past few days, and I ended up with a few sores on my tongue. I was just asking Tang Wan-er to help me take out the blood from those sores. There really was nothing!” explained Long Chen. But after that explanation, not even he felt that anyone would believe him.

Qing Yu shook her head and sighed. “You two… You’re both grown up now and know how you should act. I know you two like each other. But the relations between a man and a woman are like dry firewood that can ignite with a single spark. If you two can’t hold back, you’d end up hurting Wan-er. Understand?”

Long Chen nodded, completely serious. “Sister Qing Yu, I understand.”

“I know you two will hold back and not take that final step, but something like this could still impact your Dao-hearts. You might lose your way, stalling your cultivation. So don’t blame your sister Qing Yu for being long-winded,” admonished Qing Yu.

If a woman lost her chastity before reaching the Xiantian realm, she would be unable to maintain her pure Yin body. No matter how good her talent had been, it would be wasted.

This was the first time Long Chen didn’t feel that Qing Yu was long-winded. At the same time, he also scolded himself. This was the result of playing with fire. On the off chance he couldn’t hold back, he would regret it for a lifetime.

Six hours later, who knew whether Qing Yu had gotten tired or whether she felt Long Chen had been properly scolded, but she finally returned within the immortal cave.

But when Long Chen saw Qing Yu knock on Tang Wan-er’s door, he saw that Tang Wan-er refused to open the door no matter what. In the end, she had no choice but to drop the subject. Perhaps she would have a chance to make up this lesson to Tang Wan-er in a few days.

Long Chen returned to his room and began to refine those medicinal ingredients into powder, storing them inside jade bottles with tags.

That would be much more convenient when he refined them in the future. He could save a great deal of time when he finally refined these powders into pills.

Two days passed as he refined these medicinal powders before Elder Sun angrily called for him.

[1] 弒 Shi