The very day he finished refining Bone Connecting Pills, Long Chen had Meng Qi, Chu Yao, Tang Wan-er, Lu Fang-er, as well as Gu Yang consume them. They would borrow that medicinal energy to establish access to each of their bones through their tendons.

Tendons connected to each bone in the body. However, they only linked to the outside of the bone, while the only things that managed to reach the core of the bones were blood vessels.

But in order to temper bones, especially complete tempering, just the energy that could flow in through the arteries was far from enough. Cultivators had to create a new channel with their tendons that reached the depths of the bone.

This way, medicinal energy could directly pour into the core of the bones through the tendons. That was the fastest way to nourish the bones. It was over a hundred times faster than just what could be provided through blood vessels. So, all cultivators had to create new channels with their tendons to temper their bones.

Ordinarily, they would go temper their bones one by one. And so they would only need to form one tendon channel at a time. That was why they could use even the most garbage Bone Connecting Pills and it would still be enough.

However, complete tempering was different. In just one go, you had to create every single tendon channel. That was why Long Chen had gritted his teeth and used a Qilin Fruit as the main ingredient for Bone Connecting Pills. Otherwise, if there wasn’t enough medicinal energy to connect all the bones in one go, it would become troublesome.

However, with the Phoenix Sparrow violet flame as well as the Qilin Fruit, Bone Connecting Pills Long Chen had refined were all the highest possible quality amongst middle grade fourth tier pills. They were even comparable to high grade fourth tier pills, and so it was enough for them to create their tendon channels.

As the five of them went into seclusion, Long Chen also didn’t waste any time and began to cultivate.

Consuming a huge amount of Three Connecting Flower Tendon Pills, he also activated his divine ring to absorb spiritual qi.

Three days later, Meng Qi and the others finished refining the energy within the medicinal pills. As for Long Chen, his cultivation base made great advancements, allowing him to realize that focusing on cultivating while consuming medicinal pills allowed him to advance twice as fast with half the effort. Unfortunately, he didn’t have that much time to focus on cultivating.

As for Meng Qi and the others, nothing unexpected had happened, and they had all perfectly formed their tendon channels. This was all due to the Qilin Fruit’s powerful medicinal energy.

In the past three days, Guo Ran had also broken through to Bone Forging. However, he had only just broken through, and so Long Chen told him to stabilize his foundation first. If he were to consume a Bone Connecting Pill now, it could cause flaws in his foundation.

As for Wilde, Long Chen had stealthily given him the Violet Phoenix Sparrow’s and Barbaric Wind Beast’s corpses. He told him to hide himself further away and consume them. He absolutely could not allow the little Violet Phoenix Sparrows see him.

Wilde excitedly took those two corpses and ran. Long Chen told him to first consume the Violet Phoenix Sparrow to wipe out that evidence before consuming the Barbaric Wind Beast.

Those two were both powerful fifth rank Magical Beasts, and they both possessed an ancient bloodline. Also, they were much stronger than the outside world’s Magical Beasts. They were precisely what Wilde needed at the moment.

Although time was pressing and Long Chen didn’t have time to closely examine Wilde’s body, he could sense that some kind of energy was gradually awakening within him.

That made Long Chen even more sure that Wilde was a member of the barbarian race. They didn’t need to cultivate; just through constantly eating, they could become the strongest warriors.

Perhaps only the barbarian race would have such a heaven-defying ability. Back then, the reason Long Chen had gone all-out to gain those two huge Magical Beast corpses was also because of Wilde’s need for powerful flesh.

He gave Wilde all the flesh of the two beasts, but he kept all their bones. Their bone marrow was a must-have ingredient to refine Bone Tempering Pills.

The bone marrow of Magical Beasts contained a berserk energy. Long Chen needed to filter out that berserk aspect and leave behind the essence energy when he refined Bone Tempering Pills.

The quality of Bone Tempering Pills was something closely related to the quality of the main ingredients used in refining them. Long Chen trusted that Bone Tempering Pills refined from the essence of two ancient Magical Beasts’ bone marrow would be much stronger than Bone Tempering Pills that were on the market.

As Long Chen took out that bone marrow and refined out its essence, he also gave the others an important task. He gave the six of them seven medicinal formulas and told them to see which medicinal ingredients they had for each formula.

These seven pill formulas were all for Bone Tempering Pills from his Pill Sovereign memories. If that news spread, it would cause the entire world to go crazy. There was only a single formula for Bone Tempering Pills in the world, which made the medicinal ingredients in it very precious. All the various sects did their utmost to grow them, but it still wasn’t enough. The price of Bone Tempering Pills had remained high from start to end.

This was also why most Bone Forging experts would only temper one or two bones. The price of Bone Tempering Pills was just too high, so high that people couldn’t accept it.

Because there was only a single pill formula, the medicinal ingredients required were used up too quickly, and the supply had never met the demand despite everyone in the world doing their best to grow more.

The medicinal ingredients for the Bone Tempering Pill all required over a hundred years to grow. Otherwise, the medicinal energy within the ingredients would not have reached a sufficiently high level to refine.

So, Long Chen’s seven pill formulas would definitely shake the entire alchemy world if the news of it spread out. But these people were all the people Long Chen trusted the most. He wasn’t afraid of this secret leaking.

“Boss, of the seven formulas, we could only find ingredients for three of them. According to the amounts you need, there probably won’t even be a thousand portions,” reported Guo Ran worriedly.

Although Guo Ran didn’t understand pills arts, he knew the common knowledge. For most alchemists, refining two to three pills from a single portion of medicinal ingredients was already not bad.

Only grandmasters were able to refine four to five pills per furnace, and that required some luck. Furthermore, those so-called grandmasters were all old fellows that had refined pills for a lifetime. They only had such a high success rate because of their immense experience.

Furthermore, since there was a success rate, there was also a failure rate. And a failure meant that everything in the furnace was trashed, and perhaps even the furnace would be broken beyond repair.

So for a thousand portions of ingredients, refining even three thousand pills was an incomparably shocking success rate.

Three thousand Bone Tempering Pills was enough for one person to refine eight bones. But Long Chen wanted everyone to undergo complete tempering. This small amount of pills was just a drop in the bucket. So, everyone’s mood was very heavy now.

“Haha, everyone, you all don’t need to worry about that. I’ve already said that it’ll be my job to refine the pills. You all should just cultivate with your minds at ease. Perhaps three thousand ordinary pills are nothing, but what if they were all high grade fourth tier pills?” laughed Long Chen.

“High grade fourth tier? Can you do that?” Guo Ran was startled.

“Little fellow, in the future, remember not to question whether or not I can do something. That’s a great insult to a man,” warned Long Chen. “These Bone Tempering Pills are much easier to refine than Bone Connecting Pills. I have the assurance to refine high grade pills. Tch, if my pill furnaces weren’t complete garbage, making it so I can’t use my full skills, I’d even have the ability to refine ‘ringed’ high-grade pills.”

Although he still had several pill furnaces, those were all very low grade pill furnaces. He couldn’t bring out his full strength for fear of causing a furnace explosion.

Furthermore, Long Chen had yet to reach the level of being able to use the Pill Flame as a furnace. Without a pill furnace, he wouldn’t be able to do anything.

“I’ll begin refining pills as fast as I can now. Other than Guo Ran, the five of you should go into seclusion with me. You can immediately start tempering your bones with the Bone Tempering Pills I refine,” said Long Chen.

“Then what should I do?” asked Guo Ran.

“You’ll be in charge of guarding us. Other than that, there might be some other brothers from our monastery who rush over here. You’ll be in charge of receiving them.”

Gu Yang suddenly interjected, “Maybe I should guard with Guo Ran. If enemies really do come, it’ll be better for there to be two people. I can sense there are people spying on us.”

Long Chen thought about it for a moment and nodded. “That’s good too. I sensed those spies long ago, but you don’t need to bother with them. They’re just spies, and they’ll only continue watching. They won’t dare to actually take action. If they dare try to provoke you, remember a single word: kill. Kill them without any mercy. From today onwards, directly kill anyone who maliciously provokes us. Whether they are from the Righteous or Corrupt paths, don’t hold back. Kill them all!”

“Alright boss. I was just waiting for you to say that. Fuck, those damn bastards, we really need to give them a lesson. Otherwise, they’ll just keep treating us as some pushovers.” Guo Ran rubbed his fists in anticipation.

Long Chen glanced at him and reminded, “Don’t mess around at this time. Don’t go out to provoke others. If you have the time, focus on stabilizing your realm.”

“Hehe, boss, it seems you think that I, Guo Ran, am someone who can’t differentiate between serious and trivial matters.” Guo Ran laughed.

However, he really did have a guilty conscience inside because he had been thinking that once Long Chen went into seclusion, he could draw out those spies one by one. But with Long Chen’s warning, that thought died out. Now, he would be bored with nothing to do.

“Gu Yang, look after this little fellow. Now isn’t the time to waste on nonsense. A huge battle will start soon, one that will determine whether or not we’ll be able to leave the secret realm alive.”

“Don’t worry boss. I’ll look after him.” Gu Yang nodded. Nowadays, he called Long Chen boss just like Guo Ran. This kind of appellation was more intimate.[1]

“I still have four Bone Connecting Pills here. If any brothers come, tell them to create their tendon channels first. By that time, Meng Qi and the others should have tempered a portion of their bones. Then they can switch out with you, guarding as you temper your bones. Everyone can alternate so we don’t waste any time,” said Long Chen.

“Understood,” said Guo Ran and Gu Yang.

Long Chen brought the four women into a tent. This tent was very spacious at thirty meters wide.

Tang Wan-er already had experience with helping Long Chen refine pills, and she told the other three how to help and how to separate the various medicinal powders he refined into bottles.

With their assistance, Long Chen didn’t need to bother with anything other than turning medicinal ingredients into powders.

Those were mostly fresh herbs, and not much of their essence had been lost yet. With his powerful violet flame, Long Chen locked all that medicinal essence into powder form.

Almost a thousand portions of medicinal ingredients took Long Chen a full day to purify.

This was all because he had the new violet flame. If it were his old beast flame, then even a month might not have been enough. Furthermore, a great deal of the medicinal essence would have been lost. Long Chen was very pleased with this violet flame.

After all the powders had been purified, Long Chen rested for just an hour, raising his mental state to the peak, and began to refine Bone Tempering Pills.

[1] 老大 boss is the same word for eldest brother.