A muffled bang came from Long Chen’s pill furnace. A helpless expression appeared on his face.

“It’s been so long since I did any alchemy, I feel out of practice.” He looked at the pile of pill dregs in his pill furnace. Not even a single pill had formed.

The Seven Stamen Seaheart Fruit was a seventh tier medicinal ingredient, while the Sea Merging Pill was a seventh tier pill. And even amongst seventh tier pills, it would be one of the most difficult to refine.

For most alchemists, their cultivation bases would have to reach Sea Expansion or above just to refine a sixth tier pill.

Last time in the Pill Tower’s competition, he had refined the Overflowing Sea Expanding Pill. Although it was a sixth tier pill, it was something used by Sea Expansion experts. Because the requirements and difficulty in refining it were too low, it could not be counted as a seventh tier pill.

A medicinal pill’s tier normally corresponded with a cultivator’s cultivation base: first tier - Qi Condensation, second tier - Blood Condensation, third tier - Tendon Transformation, fourth tier - Bone Forging, fifth tier - Meridian Opening, sixth tier - Xiantian, seventh tier - Sea Expansion.

But there were also some special existences amongst medicinal pills. A prime example was the Overflowing Sea Expanding Pill.

The Overflowing Sea Expanding Pill was one of the common medicinal pills for Sea Expansion experts. Its price was relatively low. Other than the Overflowing Sea Expanding Pill, there were also quite a few other popular medicinal pills with better medicinal effects. But their price was also multiple times higher.

The Sea Expansion realm was also a money-burning realm just like Bone Forging. Borrowing the energy within medicinal pills, it was possible to expand the qi sea even further.

The better the medicinal pill, the greater the medicinal energy. As for the Sea Merging Pill Long Chen was attempting to refine, it was a priceless treasure that Sea Expansion experts would long for even in their dreams.

But in the outside world, he hadn’t heard of the Sea Merging Pill. It seemed that the world no longer possessed this medicinal pill, or perhaps the Seven Stamen Seaheart Fruit was already extinct, so the medicinal pill had also disappeared.

After failing a furnace of pills, Long Chen smiled slightly. He wouldn’t get discouraged by something so reasonable. If the outside world learned that he dared to refine seventh tier medicinal pills with his Xiantian cultivation base, it would definitely frighten many old alchemists to death.

Even alchemists whose cultivation bases had reached Sea Expansion wouldn’t necessarily be able to refine a seventh tier medicinal pill. And even if they could, it would be the comparatively lower level ones, not ones like the Sea Merging Pill. Those that could refine that level of pill would be grandmaster alchemists.

Long Chen rested for two hours before attempting it a second time. In any case, he had a large pile of medicinal ingredients, and he didn’t feel any pressure about failing.

In the end, he failed seven times before succeeding, allowing him to sigh with relief.

In truth, this failure rate was a large blow to him. He was someone who had received the inheritance of a Pill Sovereign. Failing seven times in a row was too embarrassing.

Of course, if people knew that he had refined the Sea Merging Pill with his Xiantian cultivation base, it would definitely shake the entire alchemy world. There were three questions they would ask: Where did he get that much spiritual yuan? Where did he get that much soul energy? And where did he get such a powerful Pill Flame?

Long Chen didn’t just have all three of those requirements, but he also had his Pill Sovereign memories with profound alchemy experience. It would have been strange if he couldn’t refine it.

In the alchemy world, ordinary alchemists could only refine pills one tier below their cultivation base. If they could refine pills on the same tier as their cultivation base, they would be a genius. As for someone who could refine a pill with a higher tier than their cultivation base, there was one word for that: nonsense. No one would believe such a thing.

“Three one-ring pills and the rest are middle grade. They’re pretty much useless.” Long Chen threw away the middle grade ones, leaving behind only the three one-ring Sea Merging Pills.

He directly swallowed one of them. While swallowing it, he bound it with his spiritual yuan, not letting it immediately dissolve.

That was a seventh tier medicinal pill, one that was used to forcibly increase the size of the qi sea once it had already reached its limit. The amount of energy within it was immense.

If a Xiantian expert ate it, it would be suicide. Once the pill dissolved, the terrifying medicinal energy would directly cause their qi sea to explode. If they were fortunate, they would just immediately die instead of being half-dead from their destroyed qi sea.

Even Long Chen wouldn’t dare to just directly allow it to dissolve in his body. He wasn’t using it to expand his qi sea, but to transform it into spiritual yuan to increase his cultivation base.

There were seven flower marks on the Sea Merging Pill, the same marks that were originally on the Seven Stamen Seaheart Fruit. That was where the fruit’s essence was condensed.

Long Chen tested absorbing the medicinal energy bit by bit. But its medicinal energy was too powerful, and it was like gunpowder to him. As soon as he started refining it, its medicinal energy surged through his meridians.

His meridians swelled as if a river was pouring into a canal. But Long Chen was relieved to see that his meridians were fine. It seemed he had been worried for nothing.

But there was no way around that. His luck really was just so bad that he had no choice but to carefully advance.

After bearing the first wave of medicinal energy, Long Chen was confident. He continued to release the medicinal energy. The energy was like a surging sea crashing through his body.

This energy, which should have been used to push the limits of the qi sea, had now been used to increase his cultivation base.

That was an exceedingly brazen method, but its effect was remarkable. Long Chen could feel his cultivation base rapidly advancing.

In the blink of an eye, half a month passed. Wilde and Little Snow were roving around every day, and the surrounding Magical Beasts had all been consumed by them. Wilde was currently hesitating over whether he should go further.

BOOM! Suddenly, the mountain Long Chen was in exploded and a powerful aura surged into the sky. Long Chen was surrounded by runes as he floated in the air, his eyes shining with a divine light.

“Hahaha, the Sea Merging Pill really is too powerful!” Just two pills had allowed him to reach the twelfth Heavenstage. He was just one step from the Sea Expansion realm.

His laughter echoed throughout the land, filled with delight. The Sea Merging Pill had an even greater effect than he had imagined.

He had reached the peak of the Xiantian realm now. It had been three months since he had entered the Immemorial Path, and there were still three months until the spiritual qi eruption in the Immemorial Path would occur. That was the best time to advance to Sea Expansion.

But suddenly, Long Chen thought of a problem. The Sea Expansion realm referred to expanding the qi sea. But he didn’t even have a Dantian. Where was his qi sea?

He then suddenly laughed. He really had begun getting afraid over nothing. When had the Nine Star Hegemon Body Art ever disappointed him?

“Brother Long, you’ve advanced to Sea Expansion?” Wilde ran over excitedly. The fact that Wilde even knew about Sea Expansion could count as amazing.

Little Snow also ran over, intimately rubbing his head against Long Chen. Long Chen lightly rubbed his head and laughed, “How could that be possible? I’m just at the peak of Xiantian right now.”

But Long Chen had advanced two levels since fighting Leng Yueyan. His spiritual yuan was much more robust, and his body had been greatly strengthened. His combat power had definitely increased immensely. He had an urge to find some true experts to fight. In fact, he even formed the slightest urge to go find Leng Yueyan to have a fight, so that they could see just who was stronger in the Xiantian realm.

But then thinking about how Leng Yueyan had her Spirit Blood and could summon that terrifying figure, he became a bit less confident. Then thinking of her practically perfect face, he was speechless. That beautiful, crazy woman said that she would kill him the next time they met. If he wasn’t strong enough, he would be cut down.

He checked the primal chaos space. When he saw that the huge block of Phoenix Blood Black Gold had shrunk a great deal, he jumped in fright. He also saw that Blooddrinker was still stuck in the ore, motionless. But the runes on it had begun to automatically circulate. A terrifying aura was rising. Although it wasn’t moving, the space around it was twisting. Even from a distance, it was possible to sense a great pressure.

“What a terrifying aura. Just this aura is enough to make others piss themselves. Good, good! When the time comes, just how badass will it be to roam around the land with this saber on my shoulder?”

Seeing Blooddrinker’s amazing power, Long Chen was incomparably excited. Once Blooddrinker awakened, it would definitely be unimaginably powerful.

Taking a deep breath, he suppressed his excitement. With supreme willpower, he pulled his divine sense out of the primal chaos space. He had almost gotten completely engrossed with just staring at Blooddrinker.

Right now, Blooddrinker was at a critical juncture. Long Chen swore that he definitely wouldn’t disturb it until it awoke on its own.

“Wilde, Little Snow, did you encounter any powerful fellows outside? I want to test my new power on some powerful Magical Beasts,” said Long Chen. His hands were itching for a fight.

Little Snow immediately roared, saying that he knew a place that should have a powerful existence.

Long Chen and Wilde were delighted, and they immediately set off, with Little Snow leading the way. On the way, Long Chen examined Wilde’s body and found that almost all his cells had awoken. There were less than three percent still slumbering.

He was delighted to see that. Once all of his cells revitalized, Wilde’s power would leap to an even more terrifying level. In fact, he might even be able to fight using the Barbarian Blood Bronze Body for an extended period.

Thinking of that, Long Chen felt some apprehensiveness. Wilde’s power was truly too terrifying. That power practically couldn’t be described with words. It wasn’t based on magical arts, nor was it based on a cultivation base. It was just brute force. But that brute force was so powerful that it was chilling.

However, Long Chen also thought of another problem. His power might increase, but once all his cells were fully activated, it meant that all his cells would need food. Thinking of that, his scalp turned numb.

They were still advancing when a furious roar suddenly shook the sky. Everything within thousands of miles was trembling. Long Chen hastily raised his head in horror.

“Little Snow, you’re trying to get me killed!”