The sound was extremely light, almost imperceptible, but Long Chen smiled. He knew that his guest had arrived.

Activating his divine sense, he could instantly see everything within several miles. He clearly saw a figure concealed within a corner of his residence.

That figure was like a lizard, crawling on the wall. Because of the darkness of night, even if someone walked right past them, they wouldn’t notice them.

Furthermore, that person had concealed their aura perfectly, making themselves appear just like a lifeless rock.

That person continued to hide for a quarter hour before slowly beginning to wriggle.

If Long Chen hadn’t been personally watching it, he definitely wouldn’t have believed that there was such a movement technique. The person was like a snake, wriggling themselves forward, looking like they didn’t have any bones in their body. The odd movement didn’t cause any sound.

“This is what it means to be a professional.”

Long Chen couldn’t help feeling some praise. That person wriggled their way in, glanced into Long Chen’s room, and began to rush towards the corner.

His foot had only just touched the ground when he felt something like a thin string, and without hesitation, he turned and fled.

However, three arrows shot out, and one of them struck him dead-on.

Realizing he had fallen into a trap, he was about to flee when his body suddenly stiffened, and he collapsed to the ground.

Long Chen opened the door and walked into his room, putting away the corpse and setting up the mechanism again. Then, patting his hands, he once more began to consume medicinal pills.

Time passed quickly. Long Chen spent all day consuming pills and setting up his mechanism. In the blink of an eye, ten days had passed, and he had tempered a total of one hundred and twenty-eight bones.

His cultivation base had also reached the seventh Heavenstage of Bone Forging. During these days, he had also obtained eleven corpses. Without exception, they were all Bone Forging experts with a bronze badge.

Those assassins had raised Shui Wuhen’s alertness, and she had personally gone to tell Long Chen that these were simply the Bloodkill Hall’s amateurs. The Bloodkill Hall had sent them after Long Chen merely as some tempering.

Within the Bloodkill Hall, there was a mission distribution system, and assassins could pick their own missions. If a mission was failed too many times, the Bloodkill Hall would increase the rank of the mission.

Once the mission rank was increased, then higher-ranked assassins would come to kill him. Right now, he was merely encountering the weakest bronze-rank assassins of the Bloodkill Hall.

The Bloodkill Hall’s assassins were ranked bronze, silver, gold, and dark gold.

She did tell him one thing that comforted him a great deal. The Bloodkill Hall had their own integrity. They never assassinated anyone of a lower realm than them. What they sought was using their assassination arts to kill those stronger than they were.

Assassinating targets in the same realm as them was their bottom line. In other words, Long Chen would not encounter any Meridian Opening assassins.

So he decided to turn down Shui Wuhen’s good intentions and focus on refining and consuming pills. Occasionally, he would go check on the current state of the Dragonblood Legion.

Long Chen was extremely grateful towards Zheng Wenlong. The medicinal pills had been coming in a steady supply. This time, he had sent him ten million Bone Tempering Pills.

He had directly told the sender that they didn’t need anymore. This was enough for everyone to undergo complete tempering.

At the same time, Zheng Wenlong sent Long Chen news that they had already set their plan fully into motion half a month ago. On the same day, all the Huayun Sect’s auction houses announced that the Huayun Sect could also refine Bone Tempering Pills, and that their effect was twice as high as the Pill Tower’s.

The thing that made Long Chen clap in praise was that the Huayun Sect wasn’t selling them in an auction style, but selling them at a ten percent lower price than the Pill Tower.

The entire cultivation world was greatly shaken. For countless years, only the Pill Tower had possessed the formula for the Bone Tempering Pills. They had monopolized all the profit. Now, the Huayun Sect had somehow developed their own formula.

Although the appearance and pill fragrance were all the exact same as the Pill Tower’s, the effect was double. That had caused countless sects to send people to the Huayun Sect. What kind of joke was that? Double the effect for only ninety percent of the cost? Only an idiot wouldn’t go.

It went without saying that the Huayun Sect truly knew how to do business. They didn’t immediately release too many of the pills. They only gave people a taste to let them see the pill’s effect.

They first created contracts for the various sects. Once those sects signed, they gained a large down payment for a long-term purchase order. Those contracts were all for at least a hundred years, and some sects even signed thousand-year contracts, which required an immense down payment.

One reason was because Bone Tempering Pills were too hard to obtain. Who wouldn’t turn greedy when facing one with double the effect at a fair price?

The other reason was because of the Huayun Sect’s reputation. After doing business for countless years, they had never conned anyone. Their spotless reputation was worthy of trust.

However, the only ones to make those long-term contracts with the Huayun Sect were the smaller sects. The larger sects were still hesitating.

Due to their size, they needed even more medicinal pills. The majority of those were bought from the Pill Tower. That didn’t just include Bone Tempering Pills. It was simply that the Bone Tempering Pills were used up the fastest.

For just a small advantage, they might end up offending the Pill Tower. If the Pill Tower cut them off from their medicinal pills in their fury, then that would be extremely troublesome. After all, the Huayun Sect did not specialize in medicinal pills, and there were many pills that the Huayun Sect didn’t have.

However, the old leaders of some sects were not all useless. Some of the smarter ones stealthily sent their own people to create their own sect.

Using that sect’s name, they agreed to purchase medicinal pills from the Huayun Sect. In any case, as long as they did it covertly enough, not letting the Pill Tower obtain any proof, it would be fine.

As a result, countless tiny sects sprang up within the cultivation world, like bamboo after the spring rain.

The most marvelous thing was just how tiny some of those sects were. Within the entire sect, there was only one member. The sect leader was also the disciple.

However, whether or not that kind of conduct was just deceiving themselves, the Huayun Sect had at least started off beautifully. Just the down payments they had received were equivalent to a year’s worth of income for them.

That achievement made Zheng Wenlong incredibly excited. He said that in less than half a year, a huge sum of money would enter Long Chen’s pocket.

While Zheng Wenlong was excited, the Pill Tower was dumbfounded. This blow was too vicious. The entire cultivation world was shaken.

Even Pill Valley, who kept themselves isolated from mundane affairs, ended up disturbed. When they saw the Bone Tempering Pills the Pill Tower was selling, they were completely infuriated.

When they saw they were selling fake medicine, they immediately started an investigation to find out who did it.

As a result, they realized all three of the Pill Tower’s families had participated in this scheme. For some profit, they had cut the medicinal effect in half.

The extra profit from the fake pills had been divided evenly by the three families. When the investigators from the Pill Valley found out, they almost blew up with rage.

However, the three families truly did have their own methods. They ended up giving those investigators an irresistible sum of money so that they would say some kind words on their behalf.

In the end, to dissuade the world’s suspicions, the Pill Tower announced that they were completely committed to the development and refining of medicinal pills, and that it was impossible for them to sell fakes.

As for the problem of the medicinal effect, the Pill Tower’s explanation was that there had been a small problem with the new formula they had developed which had caused the medicinal effect to drop.

To express their sincerity, they announced that the Bone Tempering Pills they were now selling were one hundred percent the genuine product, and for their old buyers, they offered a twenty percent discount.

In a show of their determination to fix things, they had even thrown millions of the defective Bone Tempering Pills into the garbage.

However, doing this was still too late. The Huayun Sect had long since expected that reaction, and so their long-term contracts with those sects were extremely profitable.

Furthermore, that contract clearly stated that if they wanted to back out, they would lose their down payment. That tightly bound countless sects to the Huayun Sect.

Let alone a twenty percent discount, even a forty percent discount wouldn’t be able to pull those sects back. If they did, they would end up losing a fortune.

Furthermore, there were also many people who had long since grown tired of the Pill Tower’s arrogance. Even when buying pills from them, when giving them their money, they still had to act so subserviently.

When compared to how courteous the Huayun Sect was, how they never put on airs no matter what their cultivation base was, they felt much more comfortable with them.

The Pill Tower was completely dejected, and yet they were unwilling to end things here. They actually made a new announcement: a few days ago, the formula for the Bone Tempering Pill had been stolen. They were clearly implying it was done by the Huayun Sect.

The Huayun Sect’s reply was extremely direct: if someone stole the pill formula from you, wouldn’t they be refining the same fake medicine as you? You should think before you speak.

As the Huayun Sect and the Pill Tower fought, Long Chen had no time to pay attention. Over the past few days, he hadn’t had time to cultivate. He was focused on refining pills because within the Dragonblood Legion, Gu Yang was the first to completely temper all his bones, and Long Chen was focused on urging on the primal chaos space. The Meridian Opening Spirit Cliff Trees finally gave birth to the first batch of fruit.

Half a month later, Long Chen was bursting with joy. Other than him, everyone had now advanced to the Meridian Opening realm.

Today, Long Chen and the others finally exited their seclusion to eat and drink, partying as hard as they could.

But their party was interrupted halfway. A powerful explosion suddenly rocked the monastery.