Ziju Min was a relatively aboveboard man, a traditional and genteel pill dao master. His personal philosophy contained little scheming and trickery. He hadn’t much experience when it came to more unorthodox methods.
The bluntness of Jiang Chen’s proposition was met with initial doubt. Was this doable?
“Will your idea really work, Shao Yuan?”
Jiang Chen shrugged. “I’m not sure, but I feel that we should try it. If I curse, insult, and belittle him to the depths of uselessness, he wouldn’t be able to sit still.”
“He’s very proud indeed. If you challenge him through more normal means, he’d just ignore you to crush your will with cold aloofness. But his arrogance will also be his downfall. If you can incite him to real anger by insulting him, he might very well fall for it.”
Ziju Min a.n.a.lyzed the situation seriously. The more he thought about it, the more he agreed with Shao Yuan’s simple and violent idea.
“Well then, let’s give it an attempt,” Jiang Chen laughed. “Are there any pill dao compet.i.tions to take place soon? Any other exciting events are fine too. Myriad Abyss is a huge place—surely there’s something like that?”
Ziju Min considered it for a moment. “Exciting events, sure, but none are sufficiently high-level. I can’t be sure s.h.i.+ Xuan will attend any of them.”
The current s.h.i.+ Xuan was very different from the man who’d driven Elder Zimu to a maddened death. He styled himself a pill dao giant now, not an up-and-coming junior who could use candidness as a bludgeon. He had come to care more about style and status.
Because of this, s.h.i.+ Xuan wouldn’t necessarily attend an average event.
“So there’s no especially high profile pill dao gatherings in the near future?”
Ziju Min considered it a bit more before shaking his head. “According to what I know, there won’t be any in the next one or two years.”
“How about we host one then?”
“Us? Host one?” Ziju Min blinked. He’d never considered such a thing. Ever since Elder Zimu’s pa.s.sing, the Eternal Sacred Land’s level of pill dao had only deteriorated over time. It occupied an increasingly low position within the Ten Divine Nations.
A pill dao convention held by the Eternal Sacred Land wouldn’t be particularly exciting. More precisely, there wouldn’t necessarily be enough outside interest from any pill dao heavyweights.
Ziju Min smiled wryly. “It’s not easy to host a pill dao convention. If we commanded such respect within the Ten Divine Nations’ realm of pill dao, we could pull that off trivially. But we didn’t have that much authority even when Elder Zimu was still alive, and we certainly lack it now. Even if we’re not last place, we’re definitely in the bottom three.
“Authority is based upon strength and foundations. However, it’s not the only thing that can be the catalyst for such a convening. Even with tremendous authority, no one would attend our meeting with any enthusiasm if it were unattractive.”
“On the flip side, the right kind of attraction means that even a smaller faction’s meeting will be welcomed with surprising enthusiasm. Elder Ziju, do you remember the ancient jade festival held in the Bluesmoke Isles?”
The attraction of that second-rate faction had nevertheless been astonis.h.i.+ngly effective. Bluesmoke Jade had been dear enough to draw countless large factions from all ten of the divine nations. Ziju Min fell into stunned thought.
He drew a sharp breath after quite a while. “Shao Yuan,” he said with some difficulty, “I can’t lie to you about this. The Eternal Sacred Land doesn’t have much that other factions would be interested in, pill dao–wise.”
“What if I can come up with the requisite bait, Elder Ziju? Does the sacred land feel adequate enough to host the meeting?” Jiang Chen’s gaze burned feverishly into Ziju Min.
The senior was beyond shocked. He looked back, amazed at the young man’s declaration. The certainty he saw in the genius’ eyes moved him.
“What kind of bait do you have, Shao Yuan? You’ve piqued my curiosity.”
“What kind of bait do you think would be most attractive, Elder Ziju?”
“In the world of pill dao? Pill recipes lost to time, or maybe pills will marvelous effects. Pills that have never been seen before by mortal eyes…? And other such curios,” Ziju Min mused. “Do you have some kind of legendary pill or recipe, Shao Yuan?”
Jiang Chen smiled gently. “None of that would be difficult for me. My ancestral heritage contain several precious pill recipes, as well as a plethora of lost ones.”
His pill dao skills being an inheritance from a long lineage was his explanation to the outside world. Supposedly, his ancestors had a bloodline pa.s.sed down as well, and more memories than usual had simply happened to awaken within him. This was a plausible way of putting it.
Ziju Min’s eyes lit up. He knew well that the young man’s pill dao knowledge ran impenetrably deep. The matter of the Mirage Introspection Pill had proven that rather pointedly.
“If you can offer an empyrean rank ancient pill recipe, that will be more than sufficient bait. The pill itself will be fine too. The effect will be further amplified if the pill has an effect not currently seen in the market,” Ziju Min affirmed excitedly.
“Give me a day or two to think about it,” Jiang Chen said with a smile, “and I’ll give you the answer after.”
Truthfully, he had plenty of bait in his memories. A nigh infinite supplies of pill recipes and excessive technique for turning them into physical pills, but finding the optimal piece of bait needed a bit more consideration.
It obviously couldn’t be too showy, but it needed to draw widespread attention from as many eyes as possible.
He returned to his residence to ponder the subject.
He had countless recipes for empyrean rank pills in his memories, with even a smattering of variety of similar effects. Like indelible seals, they were imprinted upon Jiang Chen’s consciousness. The differences of time and s.p.a.ce hadn’t diminished them a single bit.
“At the end of the day, Myriad Abyss Island is part of Divine Abyss’ outer reaches. In terms of inherited knowledge and resources, this place is even worse than the other races’ ancient homelands. It doesn’t have much pill dao heritage to speak of. According to what I know, Myriad Abyss doesn’t have a pill to help great emperors break through to empyrean. Even if it did, it wouldn’t be particularly effective, or it would be available in the market. Maybe I can proceed in this direction.
“Another possibility is a pill for empyrean cultivators to unconditionally ascend one level. There’s no way I’d have any compet.i.tion there.”
Jiang Chen was almost certain of this. Before he’d come along, the human domain hadn’t had the emperor and great emperor pill equivalents. Since Myriad Abyss’s heritage was derived from Divine Abyss Continent, it definitely lacked the same.
But that kind of pill did exist in the heavenly planes, even for empyrean cultivators. It was painstakingly demanding in terms of both labor and materials, but it did exist.
Empyrean cultivators found another kind of pill extremely popular as well. In the heavenly planes of Jiang Chen’s past life, pills that could safeguard a cultivator against cultivation tribulations had been widely in demand.
An expert’s lifespan was drastically lengthened in the empyrean realm. However, they would meet with their fair share of heavenly disasters and trials whenever their inner demons acted up, or they offended the heavenly dao when cultivating.
In other words, empyrean experts risked vastly more calamitous trials compared to all the realms before.
Everyone beneath empyrean realm possessed a mortal body. The greatest of great emperors could only claim to have achieved the mundane pinnacle of martial dao. Empyrean and above meant eligibility to enter the heavenly planes as well as being ruled by the heavenly dao.
Empyrean experts’ cultivation required a much higher volume of absorbing spirit energy and making use of the heavenly dao. The increased frequency of a.s.sociated disasters was perfectly understandable.
All trials had premonitions and forewarning, which provided the cultivator they were visited upon with ample time to prepare. Pills were a good way to do so.
Thus, these were the three ideas Jiang Chen came up with:
One, a pill to help peak great emperors reach empyrean realm.
Two, a pill for a free level within empyrean realm.
Three, a pill to help empyrean experts weather their natural trials.
Currently, Myriad Abyss drew blanks in all three categories. Jiang Chen could produce more efficient pills when it came to healing injuries and recovering energy, but they weren’t nearly explosive enough in terms of impact.
Exceptionalism tended to draw many more eyes.
He was confident in the feasibility in any of his three ideas, but wasn’t going to make use of all of them. Two out of the three ideas should be enough. That wasn’t exactly something difficult to pull off.
He came up with a more detailed plan shortly thereafter.
One pill to help peak great emperors break through to empyrean realm was the Taiyi Skymender Pill. The name of the pill gave away its purpose: to help geniuses with insufficient talent to reach empyrean realm—or at the very least, increase their success rate.
Only a broken sky needed to be mended artificially. When a cultivator lacked the essential talent and strength to break through himself, the pill could serve as a capable stopgap to bridge the difference. That was where the name came from.
Another pill, this one for a free level within empyrean, was called the Crowning Empyrean Pill. Its name gave away its effect in this case as well; the pill would serve to ‘crown’ an empyrean cultivator by bestowing him an extra level.
In the third category was a pill to defend empyrean experts against their tribulations. This pill was the most miraculous of all three, with a smattering of requisite rare materials and a finicky process to match. Its name—the Clearweather Pill.