As the host of yesterday’s party, Long Chen naturally couldn’t slip away in the middle. After his wild bout of drinking, he didn’t even know how he had returned to his room.

In any case, he seemed to remember holding two soft bodies and sleeping more peacefully than he ever had before.

In the morning, a startled cry roused Long Chen from his slumber. He got up just in time to see Meng Qi and Tang Wan-er running away.

Long Chen was startled, but then he found that a certain place was bulging like a high mountain, looking like it had an urge to pierce heaven and earth.

“Hehe, a natural phenomenon, a natural phenomenon.”

Long Chen laughed and took a deep breath. Calming himself down, that natural phenomenon slowly disappeared.

Jumping off his bed, he still smelled Meng Qi and Tang Wan-er’s scents. The sun was shining on the bed through the window. It was quickly approaching midday.

Lazily stretching, he heard some crackling sounds from his body. He felt full of power, like a volcano that wanted to erupt.

He knew that this was the effect of having just advanced to Foundation Forging and not being able to suppress his aura. Looking within himself, he jumped in shock.

“108,000 original runes?!”

Long Chen saw that there was a small seed in each one of his acupuncture points. Those seeds were slowly developing. They were crazily absorbing heaven and earth’s energy, but he didn’t see them growing.

After some careful sensing, he was startled to find that these seeds were only absorbing one ten-thousandth of the energy they were sucking in. The rest was being rejected.

“So that’s what it is. The Foundation Forging realm revolves around absorbing the world’s purest yuan spiritual energy. No wonder it is said that yuan spirit stones are the lifeline of this realm.” Long Chen suddenly realized what was going on, and why being in possession of yuan spirit stones in the Eastern Wasteland had caused the ancient family alliance, ancient races, and Pill Valley to be so shameless.

“Hehe, fortunately I didn’t sell these back then, or I’d have lost out.” Now Long Chen understood how important yuan spirit stones were.

He looked inside the primal chaos space and saw Lei Long. It was condensed into a ball of light, looking like an egg.

The self-detonation last time had been extremely harmful to Lei Long. Right now, it was using all the thunderforce gained from the tribulation to undergo a rebirth.

Long Chen couldn’t help being stunned by Lei Long and Huo Long’s intelligence. It seemed the stronger they became, the more they advanced in other aspects as well. Huo Long had even awakened its own innate ability.

Huo Long’s innate ability was to summon eight split bodies. He wondered whether Lei Long would awaken an innate ability once it revived through this nirvanic rebirth. He was full of anticipation.

All the Iron Spruce Oaks in the primal chaos space were withered and dead. He had been forced to be decisive back then when he had killed the final lightning incarnation of his tribulation.

The reasons he had been able to escape his death this time were two fold. One reason was how he had caused the tribulation to lose a great deal of its energy by attacking it, making the final lightning incarnation weaker, while the other reason was that the Iron Spruce Oaks contained an ocean’s worth of life energy. If it hadn’t been for that, he would have definitely died.

But now, he didn’t have any Magical Beast corpses for the black soil. He had tried using the corpses of the devil beasts, and while he found that they could be devoured by the black soil, they didn’t provide any life energy. Otherwise, his Iron Spruce Oaks would have long since grown to their peak.

Leaving his room, he saw that Meng Qi and Tang Wan-er had already freshened up. They had prepared a towel soaked in hot water, allowing Long Chen to sit back and relax while Tang Wan-er used the towel to clean his face and Meng Qi combed his hair.

Long Chen felt so blessed that he might die. Two peerlessly beautiful women were helping him clean his face and comb his hair. He didn’t know how many people would die of envy if they learned of it.

“Long Chen, why aren’t you talking? Normally, your mouth spouts so much nonsense,” asked Tang Wan-er upon seeing Long Chen’s infatuated expression.

“This is a rare pleasure. I’m afraid if I open my mouth, you’ll stuff the towel into it. That would be a waste,” said Long Chen with his eyes still closed.

Putting it like this, he elicited laughter from both Meng Qi and Tang Wan-er. It was like the tinkling of silver bells. After laughing, Tang Wan-er grumbled, “Who asked you to be so annoying that people want to choke you after you open your mouth? You deserve all your punishment!”

Long Chen immediately shut his mouth and continued enjoying this warm peace. After being cleaned and dressed, Long Chen felt much more awake.

Looking in the mirror, he couldn’t help but sigh emotionally. Now that he thought about it, it seemed it had been many years since he had looked at his reflection. His eyes might be able to see through anything, but without a mirror, they couldn’t see himself.

His face was still youthful, and still full of vigorous energy. But the depths of his eyes concealed a cold sharpness.

This was his first time looking so closely at himself. Or perhaps it was that he was viewing himself from the point of an observer. He saw something within the depths of his eyes that made even himself afraid.

“What, are you struck stupid by your handsomeness?” teased Tang Wan-er upon seeing him blankly staring at his reflection.

Only then did Long Chen recover. Was he afraid of himself?

“Long Chen!” Suddenly, a woman walked in. The only other one able to freely enter his residence was Qing Yu.

“Sister Qing Yu, please sit.” Tang Wan-er immediately pulled her over to a seat.

Qing Yu was originally Tang Wan-er’s maid, but the two of them were closer than sisters. Although Qing Yu liked to nag, she cared deeply for Tang Wan-er, making it so Tang Wan-er both loved and feared her.

“Why didn’t you come out earlier? There are many things waiting for you to do. Think about how old you are, when will you…”

Long Chen, Meng Qi, and Tang Wan-er all bitterly smiled. Once more, Qing Yu was lecturing them. In truth, she had been waiting for them to come out to get to business.

After all, as a woman, it wasn’t convenient for her to barge into his room. But seeing that it was noon and the three of them still hadn’t come out, she finally entered.

“Sister Qing Yu, what’s so important?” Long Chen quickly interrupted her, or if they let a chatterbox like Qing Yu continue, she could lecture them for three days and nights. Furthermore, not one sentence of her script would be repeated. That was the most painful torture.

“Of course there’s something important! Otherwise, why would I have waited six hours just for you? It’s not that I’m chiding you, but-”

“Sister Qing Yu, the important matter, get to the important matter!” Long Chen quickly brought her back to the main topic.

“Right now, everyone in the Dragonblood Legion is at the peak of Sea Expansion. Many people have already touched the barrier of Foundation Forging, but without your orders, no one dares to break through. Other than the Dragonblood Legion, the disciples from the other factions have already started breaking through. Furthermore, there’s a piece of bad news. The Xuantian Dao Sect’s nine-ring Foundation Building Pills are sold out,” said Qing Yu.

“How could such an important pill be out of stock?” demanded Tang Wan-er. The nine-ring Foundation Building Pill was practically a must-have for Sea Expansion experts attacking Foundation Forging.

With the nine-ring Foundation Building Pill, a cultivator could condense their original rune easier, making their breakthrough much simpler. Furthermore, there were no side effects. It was a very important pill.

Long Chen was also surprised. But he quickly sneered, “Were they all bought by certain people?”

Qing Yu nodded. “Yes, the Divine Beast Mansion and Hegemon Hall both used the excuse of wanting to be completely sure about their disciples’ breakthroughs and bought two sets of Foundation Building Pills for their members. So all the nine-ring Foundation Building Pills have been sold, and if we want any, we’ll have to wait a certain amount of time. Furthermore, if we want a large amount, it probably won’t be a short waiting time.

“The Ten Thousand Insect Guild and Heaven Female Alliance didn’t think Hu Guishan or Fan Song would be so despicable. Even if they try to be frugal, the number of pills they can offer us is far from enough.

“Furthermore, this morning, I went to the Ten Thousand Pill Hall to ask the situation about the refining of more nine-ring Foundation Building Pills, but their reply was extremely cold. All they said was they would need time to refine more, refusing to give a concrete date.

“When I continued asking, that person finally impatiently said that I would have to either wait, or refine it myself!”

Even with Qing Yu’s gentle nature, toward the end, she couldn’t help but get angry. She had essentially been driven away by the Ten Thousand Pill Hall.

“They’re asking for a beating!” Tang Wan-er was enraged. It was unexpected for the Ten Thousand Pill Hall to go so far as to even bully Qing Yu. “Long Chen, go beat them for sister Qing Yu.”

“Alright, it just so happens that I was bored.” Long Chen laughed sinisterly and began to walk out.

It was Qing Yu who stopped him. “You’re already adults, so stop acting like children. The main point is how to resolve our current situation.”

Long Chen smiled. “In truth, this matter is very simple. The Divine Beast Mansion and Hegemon Hall’s idiots are colluding with the Alchemy Pavilion to harm us. If we urgently want the pills, we’ll have to lower our heads and have them rip us off. We’ll have to buy the nine-ring Foundation Building Pills from them at tens of times the cost. Speaking of which, isn’t the Foundation Building Pill an eighth tier pill with several precious ingredients? What is its price?”

“Yes, it’s very expensive. It costs eight thousand points for one. I don’t know if they’re trying to retrieve points from us now that we made so many points, but the price is definitely frightening,” said Qing Yu.

“That’s not out of the realm of possibility, but a Foundation Building Pill truly is that valuable. My guess is that in the past, the price probably wasn’t that high, and they sold them to disciples at cost. After all, the growth of its disciples is the foundation of the sect. Even if they don’t earn anything, it’s better than not allowing the disciples to advance.

“But eight thousand points, eh? After the last battle, the Divine Beast Mansion and Hegemon Hall are down to fifty thousand members. Normally, each person would prepare two nine-ring Foundation Building Pills for themselves, so two sets would be four pills. Then eight thousand times four is thirty-two thousand, and then times fifty is… damn, they spent one billion six hundred million points for this. Did they use everything they had?” asked Long Chen.

“I heard that they got two billion seven hundred million points from the battle, so that’s over half their points,” said Qing Yu.

“Hehe, good, good. They want to con me? I’ll make them lose all the money they invested in this plot.” Long Chen laughed sinisterly.