“The messenger from the divine families departed after saying that. But they left behind a jade talisman.” Que Yuzhu handed it to Long Chen.

Long Chen saw that it was a soul jade talisman. Entering it with his Spiritual Strength, he saw a map.

“The entrance to the divine families is actually near the Ancient Battlefield?” Long Chen was startled.

The Ancient Battlefield was what separated the Eastern Xuan Region and the Southern Xuan Region. However, most people chose to go around the Martial Heaven Sea-Ring if they wanted to travel between the two regions.

When Long Chen had gone to attend the Skywood Divine Palace’s Jade Lake Pageant, he had passed through that region. But that path was very dangerous, and if he hadn’t been pressed for time, he wouldn’t have gone that route.

Long Chen had been thinking about going to the divine families to see Elder Long and ask about the Star Field Divine World.

Currently, the Dragonblood Legion was in seclusion refining the immemorial essence blood. Only he was free.

After saying goodbye, Long Chen set off. However, he didn’t go to the Southern Xuan Region immediately and went to see Zheng Wenlong instead.

When he arrived, Zheng Wenlong handed him seventeen precious medicinal ingredients that he had asked for. He also gave Long Chen some news. Pill Valley had started to sell twelfth tier medicinal pills.

This news wasn’t particularly surprising to Long Chen. Pill Valley had always been a mysterious existence that had never revealed their full power. Yu Xiaoyun was a crafty schemer.

Pill Valley’s foundation had been built up over countless years, and now they were only starting to expose what was beneath the surface.

Now that they were selling twelfth tier pills, which were priceless commodities, they intentionally spread the word as a show of power.

Of all the people Long Chen had met in Pill Valley, the only one he believed had the power to refine twelfth tier pills was the Pill Fairy. But Long Chen judged that those pills were not personally refined by her.

As Pill Valley’s number one expert, she should be entirely focused on increasing her cultivation base, not wasting her precious time on refining pills.

These pills were most likely from their ancient stock, and their quantity should be limited. The Pill Valley only spread word of this to prove that they were supreme when it came to medicinal pills.

“Long Chen, if you hadn’t mentioned them, I wouldn’t have even believed that twelfth tier medicinal ingredients existed in this world. They are all extremely rare. I did my best, but I could only gather this much,” said Zheng Wenlong.

It wasn’t that Zheng Wenlong wasn’t powerful enough, but simply that medicinal ingredients on this level had long since vanished from the Martial Heaven Continent.

The ones that he had found came from the treasuries of some extremely ancient sects, and some of those sects hadn’t even known about them. They had flipped through their treasuries in order to find these ingredients.

Fortunately, Long Chen had told Zheng Wenlong the characteristics of the ingredients, resulting in him finding an extra two. However, whether those were really the right ingredients remained to be determined. If not, he could only accept the loss.

Of course, Long Chen had said to accept anything Zheng Wenlong deemed believable. If they were fake, Long Chen would be the one losing money. He would rather Zheng Wenlong didn’t waste his time on that kind of thing. Right now, money wasn’t important as time was of the essence.

Long Chen said his thanks and accepted the ingredients. Although there was still not a single twelfth tier pill he could refine, as time passed and he gathered more ingredients, he would eventually be able to refine a few.

If he really couldn’t wait any longer, he would have to think of some way of substituting some of the ingredients. Although the medicinal effect would plummet, it was better than nothing.

From Zheng Wenlong’s place, Long Chen sat through transportation formations to the Southern Xuan Region. During this time, he found that the Martial Heaven Continent’s atmosphere was dead.

People had become depressed. A Sovereign had yet to appear, so they felt that their hopes of surviving the dark era were extremely low. Some had even lost the motivation to keep living. They weren’t interested in doing anything.

Chaos had erupted in some places from the pressure, but it had quickly been suppressed by the large powers. People were growing crazy from the stress.

Quite a few people ran over when they saw Long Chen passing.

“Senior apprentice-brother Long Chen, do you feel like we will be able to pass this dark era?”

The fact that Long Chen had appeared in a transportation formation drew quite a disturbance. Countless experts ran over, surrounding him.

Their eyes were all locked onto him, flickering with hope.

More and more people surrounded him until the transportation formations were blocked. Long Chen couldn’t leave even if he wanted to.

“Why would you ask me this?” asked Long Chen with a smile.

“We… we want to know if there’s any point in trying. After all…” A disciple only in the Life Star realm sighed.

“You truly don’t need to work hard any longer,” said Long Chen.

His reply extinguished the spark of hope within them. Was there no hope for the Martial Heaven Continent?

“All of you have lost the heart of a martial artist. When the fighting starts, you won’t even be qualified to enter the battlefield. The Martial Heaven Continent’s victory or defeat will have nothing to do with you, so you can all do whatever you want until you die,” said Long Chen. He began to making shooing motions with his hands to open a path.

One person asked, “Do you mean that there’s still hope for the continent?”

“Of course there is. Otherwise, why wouldn’t I be lazing at home instead of rushing around like this? I’m busy working, so get out of the way. You can all just give up, because in this world, you can only live for yourselves. I have other people counting on me, so I have no choice but to work.” Long Chen pushed his way through the crowd.

Long Chen’s words were like a wake-up call. During this time, some pessimists had been constantly spreading fake news around to draw people down, casting a shadow on their hearts.

“Senior apprentice-brother Long Chen, what should we do?” A young woman suddenly planted herself in Long Chen’s way, looking at him with hardened eyes.

“Either work hard on cultivating so that you can fight alongside us, making you one of the nameless heroes who sacrifices themselves for the Martial Heaven Continent, or just wait for others to decide your fate for you. If we win, you can tell your descendants that their ancestor was trash who was either a coward who feared death or someone too weak to even step foot on the battlefield,” said Long Chen.

For a moment, everyone was silent. Even powerful people could become ordinary people under the immense pressure that they were under. But Long Chen’s words struck many of them in their weakest parts.

“Senior apprentice-brother Long Chen, I will definitely work hard on cultivating so that I can fight alongside you one day. Even if I die, I won’t frown,” said the young woman decisively.

Long Chen looked at her cultivation base. She had reached the Netherpassage realm, but her foundation was shaky. She was definitely a wild cultivator, the poorest of all cultivators. Her combat power… was very ordinary.

She almost looked like a tomboy. Long Chen patted her on the shoulder. “A low cultivation base can be cultivated. Bad talent can be made up for. But bravery is something impossible to be gained. It can be the foundation upon which a peerless expert is built. I have a medicinal pill here for you that can change your fate. But whether that would be a good thing or not, no one knows.”

Long Chen gave the woman a tribulation pill. Quite a few startled cries rang out amongst those with great learning of medicinal pills.

Top grade tribulation pills were things that could drive people crazy during these turbulent times. Many people grew greedy, but with Long Chen present, they didn’t dare to move.

The tomboyish girl was a wild cultivator who didn’t recognize the grade of this pill. Seeing as it was a gift from Long Chen, she took it preciously.

“Eat it. Otherwise, after I leave, you won’t live longer than three breaths,” said Long Chen.

For something so precious, people would definitely go crazy from greed. With the dark era about to descend, everyone had become crazier. Killing people for treasures was surprisingly common during this time.

The young woman swallowed the pill. In that instant, Heavenly Dao energy whirled around her, and a manifestation appeared behind her.

“Empyrean!”

“She was just a rank eight Celestial! Now, she became an Empyrean, and with a manifestation starting to awaken…”

“Heavens, what kind of pill was that?!”

Startled cries rang out. They felt like they were going crazy. This girl who hadn’t seemed particularly outstanding or lucky had actually won Long Chen’s favor and instantly soared.

The young woman was also dumbfounded. She had thought that it would just be a pill to stabilize her foundation, but it instantly promoted her into an Empyrean. Her mind was blank.

“Many thanks, senior apprentice-brother Long Chen… I…” The girl knelt but Long Chen grabbed her.

“No need to thank me. Without this pill, you might have been able to survive. But now, once you step into the battlefield, your chances of surviving are very low.”

“I’m not afraid. Even if I have to die, I have to die on the battlefield. If I kill one invader, I’ll break even. Killing two would be a profit,” said the woman.

Hearing that, quite a few people were impressed by her bravery. Many of the large men lacked the bravery of this one woman.

Long Chen patted her on the shoulder and stepped onto his next transportation formation.

“Senior apprentice-brother, do you have any confidence toward the battle of the dark era?!” cried out someone suddenly.

“Confidence? No. I never need such a thing. I feel like instead of worrying about me, you should worry about my enemies.”

Long Chen vanished. But his confident words hung in the air. Some of the experts present felt like they had finally seen some light in these dark times.

“Senior apprentice-brother Long Chen must win.”