“Foundation Establishment Pill?”
Looking at the young man before him, whose aura was pure and whose cultivation had already reached the peak of the Qi Refining stage, Ye Qingxuan felt a flicker of confusion.
This young man in front of him—judging by his aura, he didn’t seem like the type of cultivator who relied on pills to directly boost their cultivation through medicinal power, did he?
Perhaps Ye Qingxuan’s scrutiny made the young man a bit uncomfortable. He looked somewhat nervous and couldn’t help but ask again:
“Boss, do you not have any Foundation Establishment Pills for sale either?”
He had already visited quite a few shops.
Unfortunately, in the current Dì Xuán Realm, Foundation Establishment Pills were far too niche. There were very few alchemists who knew how to refine them.
After all, in the Dì Xuán Realm, refining Foundation Establishment Pills was time-consuming and labor-intensive, and on top of that, it was hard to find buyers.
That’s why very few alchemists were willing to go out of their way to learn how to refine Foundation Establishment Pills.
Because of this, most shops simply didn’t stock them.
Even the shops that had connections to obtain them rarely had them in stock—they’d have to spend a large number of spirit stones to hire an alchemist for a custom refinement.
But that kind of expense was far beyond what he could afford.
Seeing the young man ask again, Ye Qingxuan let out a soft laugh:
“I do have Foundation Establishment Pills. However, I wonder how many spirit stones you’d be willing to offer?”
Back when he was helping the two brothers Ye Zhaoheng and Ye Zhaoyu refine pills that could directly boost their cultivation, Ye Qingxuan had practiced his hand with Foundation Establishment Pills.
So he actually did have a few of them sitting around, gathering dust in the storage ring on his main body.
But Foundation Establishment Pills weren’t really circulating in the market right now, so there wasn’t a clear market price.
Hearing Ye Qingxuan’s words, the young man, whose eyes had already shown a hint of disappointment, lit up instantly and exclaimed excitedly:
“Really?”
Then he couldn’t help but pull out his storage pouch and pour out all the spirit stones he had, asking nervously:
“Boss, do you think this much is enough?”
Watching the excited young man before him, Ye Qingxuan found it quite amusing.
He glanced at the spirit stones on the ground—only three thousand five hundred and seventy-six low-grade spirit stones.
It was clear that this was probably all the young man had.
Ye Qingxuan didn’t make things difficult for him. In the midst of the young man’s anxiety, he said:
“That’s enough. Wait a moment, I’ll go get the Foundation Establishment Pill.”
With that, Ye Qingxuan walked into the back of the shop.
He activated the realm gate, and his main body, far away in the Qingxuan Blessed Land, sent the Foundation Establishment Pill over.
After retrieving the pill, Ye Qingxuan returned to the front of the shop and tossed the bottle containing the Foundation Establishment Pill to the young man:
“Here you go. This is the Foundation Establishment Pill you wanted.”
Hearing this, the young man caught the bottle excitedly, opened it, took a look, and beamed:
“Hahaha! Thank you, boss!”
After giving Ye Qingxuan a respectful bow, the young man was about to leave the shop.
But just before he stepped out the door, he turned back and asked tentatively:
“Boss, do you have any pills that can directly boost cultivation for sale here?”
Hearing the question, Ye Qingxuan said with a hint of amusement:
“I do! What’s the matter? Do you still have spirit stones?”
The young man looked embarrassed, scratched his head awkwardly, and blushed:
“No, I don’t. But once I earn some more spirit stones, I’ll come back to buy some.”
Even though he felt a bit foolish, hearing Ye Qingxuan say that he did carry such pills made him genuinely happy.
That way, he wouldn’t have to run around looking for pills everywhere anymore.
But just as the joy began to rise in his heart, Ye Qingxuan ruthlessly cut him off:
“I’m about to close up shop. Next time you come, you won’t find me here.”
The young man looked disappointed and asked stubbornly:
“Then where can I go to find you, Senior, if I want to buy pills?”
“Senior?”
Ye Qingxuan felt speechless, but then he thought about the old man image of his mysterious avatar and let it go.
Seeing that the young man wouldn’t give up, Ye Qingxuan grew curious.
Here was a young man, already at the peak of Qi Refining at such a young age, and now he wanted to take pills that directly boosted cultivation through medicinal power?
Though curious, Ye Qingxuan didn’t have the habit of prying into his customers’ private matters.
After a moment of thought, Ye Qingxuan’s eyes twinkled, and a mischievous idea came to him.
Pretending to stroke the beard of his avatar, Ye Qingxuan chuckled:
“Hehehe, little one, if you’re looking for this old man, head over to the Mysterious Emporium in the Xuán Mù Realm in the future!”
With that, he flicked his sleeve and sent the young man right out of the shop.
By the time the young man came to his senses, Ye Qingxuan and the mysterious shop had vanished from where they stood.
“Xuán Mù Realm? Mysterious Emporium?”
The young man murmured to himself without thinking.
Then, his gaze gradually grew resolute, and he said firmly:
“Senior, I, Luo Tian, will definitely make my way to the Xuán Mù Realm to find you.”
Though the Xuán Mù Realm was fraught with danger, as long as he stuck to teleporting between cities, the risk wasn’t too great.
Afterward, the young man named Luo Tian glanced around cautiously.
Once he was sure no one was watching, he quickly moved away from the vicinity of Star Battle City.
Even though the spiritual energy in Star Battle City was much denser than elsewhere, he didn’t have the spirit stones to rent a cultivation cave there.
So Luo Tian chose to leave Star Battle City and head to a secret cave he had carved out earlier.
Back in his own cave, Luo Tian excitedly took out the Foundation Establishment Pill.
After calming himself down, he swallowed the pill and began his assault on the Foundation Establishment stage.
The energy from the Foundation Establishment Pill didn’t spread through Luo Tian’s body.
Instead, the moment it appeared, it all rushed straight into the depths of his dantian.
Deep inside his dantian, there was a rusty bronze fragment that voraciously devoured all the energy from the pill, transforming it into an extremely pure white energy.
Luo Tian’s face lit up with joy, and he began to fully absorb this purified energy.
With the help of this refined energy, Luo Tian broke through to the Foundation Establishment stage with ease.
But even after breaking through, Luo Tian didn’t come out of seclusion.
Although the Foundation Establishment Pill’s energy had been purified by the bronze fragment, cultivation boosted by medicinal power still left behind slight impurities in the spiritual power.
Luo Tian continuously channeled his Foundation Establishment spiritual power into the bronze fragment, allowing it to purify his slightly impure spiritual power once more.
After being refined by the bronze fragment, Luo Tian’s spiritual power became pristine once again, completely on par with cultivators who had never taken any pills to directly boost their cultivation.
This bronze fragment had been passed down in Luo Tian’s family.
Luo Tian came from an ordinary village called Luo Family Village.
His parents had passed away early, and he had grown up eating meals from house to house.
At the age of twelve, Luo Tian was found to have a single-attribute Metal Spirit Root.
But with such low talent, no sect was willing to take him in.
So Luo Tian stayed in Luo Family Village, cultivating an unknown ancestral technique passed down through the village, slowly stepping into the Qi Refining stage and setting foot on the path of immortality.
Later, by chance, the bronze fragment that had been passed down in his family accidentally entered his dantian.
At first, Luo Tian had no idea what the fragment did.
It wasn’t until he took a Qi-Gathering Pill to assist his cultivation for the first time that he discovered the bronze fragment could purify the pill’s medicinal power, enhancing the pill’s effect on cultivation.
In a flash of inspiration, Luo Tian remembered something recorded in the ancient books of Luo Family Village—a type of pill that could directly boost one’s cultivation.
Even though these pills forcefully raised cultivation and caused impure spiritual power—a flaw that had gradually led to their decline in the Dì Xuán Realm—he wondered: with the bronze fragment, could he overcome that drawback and use such pills to speed up his cultivation?
After all, with his single-attribute spirit root talent, his ceiling was already quite low anyway. Why not give those pills a try?
The only thing he really had to worry about was whether his finances could sustain this kind of cultivation method.
But when you’re young and driven, how many worries do you really have?
Once an idea took root in his mind, he set out to act on it right away.
Over the following period, aside from his daily training, Luo Tian spent most of his time searching for those pills that could directly boost cultivation.
Luckily for him, the village chief of Luo Family Village had somehow managed to get him several bottles of Yellow Sprout Pills through some channel.
Each Yellow Sprout Pill contained enough energy to directly increase a Qi Refining cultivator’s progress by 5%.
The boost was big, but so were the side effects.
For a normal cultivator, taking Yellow Sprout Pills to advance their cultivation meant they would never be able to break through to the Foundation Establishment stage in their lifetime.
But at just thirteen years old, Luo Tian was bold and reckless—he didn’t let any of that bother him.
As soon as he got the Yellow Sprout Pills, he took them directly to raise his cultivation.
And the outcome didn’t disappoint him.
With the help of the bronze fragment, he was completely free from the side effects of pills that directly boosted cultivation through medicinal power.
With the aid of the Yellow Sprout Pills and a few years of hard work outside the village, by the age of sixteen, Luo Tian had reached the peak of the Qi Refining stage.
In fact, with how pure his spiritual power was, Luo Tian could have broken through without the Foundation Establishment Pill.
But no matter how refined the spiritual power was, the success rate of a breakthrough was never 100%.
The Foundation Establishment Pill, however, increased the success rate of breaking through to Foundation Establishment by 30%.
So, being able to ignore the side effects of pills, Luo Tian had long wanted to get his hands on the legendary Foundation Establishment Pill to boost his chances.
And that’s what led to the scene at the very beginning.
