In the end, Long Chen still decided to make Hua Biluo a Celestial. After all, her current situation was because of him. A man should take responsibility.

But Long Chen didn’t directly give her a Heavenly Dao Fruit. Instead, he decided that he would refine the Heavenly Dao Fruit into a medicinal pill first.

One reason was because he didn’t want her to know about the heaven-defying Heavenly Dao Fruits he had. He couldn’t reveal this to anyone he didn’t have absolute trust in.

The other reason was that this was beneficial to Hua Biluo. She would be able to refine it even faster.

That night, Hua Biluo slept in Long Chen’s room. Although she was already a Xiantian expert, she had been tormented mentally for many days. She was exhausted. Having finally had all her burdens relieved, she slept peacefully on Long Chen’s bed.

On the other hand, Long Chen didn’t sleep. He was busy thinking of a follow-up plan. From the top to the bottom, there was no one good in the Huo family. This time, he would pull them out by their roots.

His original plan had to be put on pause. From the Tower Ancestor’s words, it was obvious he wouldn’t allow them to do anything during this time. He would have to wait until after the competition, until after the Tower Ancestor and the others had left.

Fang Mingyuan had told Long Chen that although their two families were not as strong as the Huo family, they still had the ability to fight them. The only problem was that the Huo family had too many guests. They were their henchmen, and they possessed terrifying strength.

However, if Long Chen could take first place, the situation would reverse. Those people siding with the Huo family would likely change sides to become neutral. Before they knew who the final winner would be, they wouldn’t rashly choose a side.

“Tch, seems like I really must get the first place. But I still don’t know what the prize is… I really look forward to it.” Long Chen sipped his tea. Only now did he realize the day had already brightened. Seeing Hua Biluo was still peacefully sleeping, he knew just how much she must have suffered these days. He didn’t disturb her.

Gently opening the door and closing it behind him, he took a breath of fresh air. He went to go find Fang Chang.

But he had only just left his room when he saw Fang Chang and Chai Liehuo sitting there, chatting.

“Fang Chang, do you know? Yesterday, I did it five times with Zhenzhen. Zhenzhen practically soared into the heavens,” said Chai Liehuo arrogantly. Whenever men mentioned this topic, they always felt so confident.

“That’s nothing. I did it seven times yesterday, and Shuihua worships me to death. She said I’m the most amazing man in the world.” Fang Chang naturally wouldn’t show weakness. Who knew whether or not he was telling the truth, but he was plenty confident.

Suddenly seeing Long Chen walk over, Fang Chang called out, “Third master, how many times did you do it last night?”

Long Chen knew the two of them were teasing him intentionally. “Once.”

“Really, just once? How embarrassing.” As expected, the two of them immediately laughed.

Long Chen sat and sighed. Staring into the distance, he helplessly said, “I know. We only did it once. But when the sky brightened, she begged me to take a break.”

“...”

The two of them were silent for a long while before Fang Chang finally patted Long Chen on the shoulder. “Third master, your show-off abilities truly are unrivaled. The two of us need to continue learning.”

Long Chen said, “Let’s stop talking nonsense. There isn’t much time until the finals. I’m going into seclusion to practice my alchemy.”

“You’re going into seclusion again? You really are a monster.”

“I have no choice. Although my Spiritual Strength is powerful, my foundation isn’t even half as good as you two. I’m lacking alchemy experience. So I have a great deal of room for improvement. Even if it’s right before the competition, I have to increase my skills. Each little bit is a greater chance that I can defeat Huo Wufang. I don’t have time to waste.”

Fang Chang and Chai Liehuo felt a deep veneration for him. Refining pills was an extremely boring, extremely bitter process. You had to stay completely focused the entire time and be filled with trepidation as you waited to see if you succeeded or not.

Fang Chang and Chai Liehuo had also gone into seclusion for a few days, practicing their alchemy until they wanted to puke. Seeing how devoted Long Chen was to alchemy, they couldn’t help but lament. Perhaps if they had Long Chen’s work ethic, the two of them wouldn’t be that much weaker than Huo Wufang.

“Can you give me a private room, preferably a bigger one? I want to go into seclusion with Hua Biluo. After all, I don’t want him to snatch my woman away again. And as for the other reason, hehe, when I’m tired from refining… you understand,“ laughed Long Chen.

“Of course, we understand. We’re men. Hehe, Long San, this creativity of yours really is good. I think I’ll try it next time too. When I get tired of refining, I can also relax.” Fang Chang smiled mischievously.

Chai Liehuo also nodded, a worshipful expression on his face. “Yes, I definitely have to try that too. If it works, maybe we’ll go down in history as innovators. Yes, yes, I’m going to go into seclusion and try it right now.”

As a result, Long Chen obtained an extremely spacious room for himself. The thing that made Long Chen smile bitterly was that there was a huge, gorgeous bed in the room.

“Those two big bros really put in a lot of effort,” sighed Long Chen.

“What is this bed for?” Hua Biluo couldn’t help questioning this luxurious bed. It was her first time seeing a seclusion room with such a bed.

Long Chen hastily spouted some nonsense to conceal the matter. He then began to refine pills.

The first pill was very simple. It was just drawing out the energy contained within the Heavenly Dao Fruit and condensing it into a pill. He gave it to Hua Biluo, and she quickly entered a meditative state.

Long Chen then took out over a hundred precious medicinal ingredients. These were for the Enlightenment Palace Pill. He had gathered them all once Huo Wufang had given him the last one.

However, too many things had popped up during this time, and he hadn’t had any time to refine. Now he finally had the chance and couldn’t help getting excited.

With each star of the Nine Star Hegemon Body Art he condensed, his combat strength would undergo heaven-toppling changes. For example, when he had condensed the third star, the divine ring had actually been able to resist the Cry of the Heavenly Daos.

It was unknown what would happen once he condensed the fourth star. Long Chen carefully began to refine the ingredients.

A blue flame soared in Long Chen’s hand. Its power caused him to be pleasantly surprised. “Huo Long, you got even stronger!”

A blue flame dragon flew out of Long Chen’s hand. It was three feet long, looking like a tiny serpent. It coiled around Long Chen’s arm intimately.

Long Chen saw that Huo Long had become an even denser shade of blue compared to before. Its power had also greatly increased.

Most importantly, its control over its own strength had risen a great deal. It wasn’t as berserk as before.

“Nice! With your help, I’ll be able to refine several times faster.” Long Chen laughed. The stronger Huo Long became, the more beneficial it would be to him. He quickly refined the ingredients into powders.

Huo Long was truly amazing now. Each ingredient was refined in just a few breaths’ time. Furthermore, it was also much easier for Long Chen to control the flame now.

Slowly adding the powders into the pill furnace, Long Chen paid constant attention to the merger. The Enlightenment Palace Pill was something that didn’t exist in the outside world. The outside world had no pill formula for it, and so there was also no tier for it.

Although the ingredients required for it were all sixth tier ingredients, its difficulty was extremely high. Even amongst sixth tier pills, it would be counted as an extremely difficult one.

Those that could refine sixth tier pills were known as Pill Ancestors. They were people on the level of Huo Changsheng, Fang Mingyuan, and Chai Gaoyang. They were people who had refined pills for a lifetime. Only then did they earn such an appellation.

Because alchemists focused on cultivating their core flame, their cultivation bases didn’t advance quickly. So once alchemists reached the Xiantian realm, their cultivation bases would advance slower.

Bang!

“Ah!” Long Chen sighed. Looking at the ashes in the pill furnace, he felt helpless.

The Enlightenment Palace Pill’s formula that had appeared in his head did not go into detail. It was different from the previous FengFu Pill, Alioth Pill, and Life Fate Pill. Therefore, he had to study how to refine it properly on his own.

“It seems the Pill Sovereign memories are actually lacking a great deal.” Long Chen felt helpless. He still had no idea why only such a small portion of the Pill Sovereign memories would be in his mind.

“Pill Sovereign… you can forget the rest of your memories, but don’t forget the pill formulas for the Nine Star Hegemon Body Art…”

Long Chen said his prayers. Without a true Dantian, and his Spirit Root, Spirit Blood, and Spirit Bone having been taken, then if he also didn’t have the Nine Star Hegemon Body Art, he’d have long since reincarnated.

“Again.” Long Chen clenched his teeth. In any case, he had as many medicinal ingredients as he needed.

BANG!

Again, a pile of ashes appeared in his pill furnace.

Long Chen took out a piece of paper and wrote, “The Seven Star Grass cannot be directly merged with the Mythic Reap Fruit.”

This was Long Chen’s first time refining such a difficult pill. He had to rely on himself. He knew of the taboos between the ingredients, but once three or more were merged, the medicinal properties became muddled.

Long Chen tested it over and over, writing down his conclusions. He needed to pile up his experience first before merging the powders.

His page was already filled with countless pieces of data from his countless failures. But he knew that each failure brought him one step closer to success. Failure eliminated one faulty process. The more he failed, the closer he got to the right process.

When the page’s front and back had been completely filled with his data, Long Chen finally sighed. He had found the right method to merge the ingredients.

Long Chen had only just sighed when a rumbling noise came from the distant Hua Biluo.

“She’s finished?” Long Chen was startled. She had actually finished so quickly.

Just as Long Chen was awoken from his research, a line of red words appeared on his wall: the finals are about to start.