Mu Qianjue looked at Chen Liu. “As long as your Haoling Province refines pills honestly, I guarantee your flame stones won’t go out. Of course, you can use the exotic flame too.”
Chen Liu stared blankly at the flame at the bottom of the pill furnace, slightly doubting his own existence.
This world was truly damn fantastical!
How could Mu Qianjue possibly ignite the flame stones on his side?
The two judges were no less shocked than Chen Liu—Mu Qianjue could actually control Haoling Province’s flame stones.
One of the judges was deep-thinking. Wasn’t Mu Qianjue’s action just proof that he had interfered with Haoling Province’s competition earlier?
“Mu Qianjue, are you still going to say you didn’t maliciously interfere with Chen Liu’s pill refinement? What were you doing just now?” the judge questioned.
Mu Qianjue spun his folding fan in his hand. “I was merely isolating the exotic flame’s influence on them. Is that also wrong? If you’re not satisfied, then I’ll just snuff—”
“Forget it, just refine pills properly. This matter ends here.” Baili Kesheng directly cut off Mu Qianjue’s words.
Hearing Baili Kesheng’s words, the two judges had no choice but to let it go.
A flash of excitement flickered deep in Baili Kesheng’s downcast eyes.
Only those who had obtained an exotic flame knew what Mu Qianjue’s maneuver meant.
It was an inevitable rule that higher-tier exotic flames suppressed lower-tier ones.
No one could eliminate the level suppression between exotic flames.
But there was one category of exotic flames that could control the suppression attribute—the top thirty-six ranked exotic flames.
These flames possessed fire spirits.
Having a fire spirit meant that the exotic flame could actively devour other exotic flames.
Baili Kesheng had deliberately interrupted Mu Qianjue because he didn’t want others to notice that Mu Qianjue’s exotic flame had a fire spirit.
The more people who guessed this secret, the more enemies he would have when he tried to seize the exotic flame in the future.
Mu Qianjue naturally understood the ambition in Baili Kesheng’s eyes, but he didn’t care. A Spirit Transformation cultivator was nothing to fear.
“Brother Mu, eight parts heat… the temperature, the temperature.” Fang Cheng’s face was bright red as he refined the Spirit-Melting Pill step by step according to the recipe, paying no attention to anything else.
Fang Cheng knew himself well—he wasn’t good with words. He could safely leave matters of argument to Mu Qianjue.
Mu Qianjue envied Fang Cheng’s state of being completely oblivious to his surroundings. Fang Cheng probably hadn’t even noticed that he was in the middle of an epiphany.
A pill refiner’s epiphany was millions of times harder to achieve than a cultivator’s epiphany.
Cultivators might accidentally enter a state of epiphany.
But a pill refiner’s epiphany was never accidental. It required years of accumulated immersion in pill refinement, moving heaven and earth, receiving heaven and earth’s blessing—only then could one enter this state of epiphany.
Baili Kesheng also became interested. Watching Fang Cheng refine pills, he no longer paid attention to Chen Liu.
After all, Chen Liu was skilled at refining Spirit-Melting Pills, and the exotic flame could be ignited now anyway.
But this Fang Cheng was quite good. He didn’t have a closed-door disciple yet. He had traveled across the nine provinces before and never found anyone satisfactory. Now this Fang Cheng had stirred his desire to take on a disciple.
Fang Cheng was clearly only a third-grade pill refiner and had never refined a Spirit-Melting Pill before, yet he still refined the pill step by step according to the recipe.
He was far more patient than Chen Liu, and Fang Cheng’s technique for handling spiritual plants was also quite good.
The more Baili Kesheng watched Fang Cheng, the more satisfied he became. Once this competition ended, he would have Fang Cheng acknowledge him as master.
“Six parts,” Fang Cheng said coldly, staring at the pill furnace with full concentration.
Mu Qianjue raised his wrist to adjust the temperature, and incidentally glanced up at Baili Kesheng.
Fang Cheng’s single sentence had alerted Baili Kesheng to something unusual. Baili Kesheng stood up, his eyes revealing astonishment.
Several others on the high platform stood up at the same time.
One of them was Zhu Ningchuan, a ninth-grade pill refiner from Diling Province. He stared at Fang Cheng with a solemn expression, his eyes deep and unfathomable.
A disciple beside him asked curiously, “Master? What’s wrong?”
“Everyone watch Fang Cheng refine pills carefully and learn his pill refinement technique,” Zhu Ningchuan’s authoritative voice reached every person in Diling Province.
The people of Diling Province first looked at Zhu Ningchuan, then at Fang Cheng.
An ordinary third-grade pill refiner—why should they all watch him?
“Master, what’s so special about him?” the disciple asked what everyone was thinking.
“He has entered a state of pill refinement epiphany,” Zhu Ningchuan said with a solemn expression.
The disciple was shocked. “What! How is that possible? Isn’t it only saint-grade pill refiners who have a chance to enter an epiphany?”
Zhu Ningchuan glanced at his disciple. After all, this was his only closed-door disciple, so Zhu Ningchuan rarely bothered to explain: “That’s just an excuse to deceive the world. Not a single pill refiner on the Nine Provinces Continent has ever entered a state of epiphany, which is why they made that up.”
Everyone: …
Master, you could have said that privately, you know!
Being so direct—where did that leave the pill refiners’ dignity?
Only someone like Zhu Ningzhi would dare to speak such truth, probably.
Hearing Zhu Ningchuan’s words, Luo Wuji’s cold eyes flickered with a faint light. Fang Cheng entering an epiphany was both good and bad for Haoling Province.
The cultivation world had a rule: once a person enters a state of epiphany, no one may awaken them.
Some people’s epiphany might last hundreds or thousands of years, others decades, and the shortest still required at least a year.
