Yue Longsha was determined to acquire the Divine Lightwings. She hadn’t previously considered any of the pill masters to be a threat and was confident that she’d be able to defeat even Master Gu Zun, an adept who could refine supreme rank pills. However, two unexpected threats had emerged in her way—Lu Yun and Wayfarer.

……

Thus commenced the second auction. The participants were to extract the essence of all thousand and eighty herbs.

For most pill masters, that was a much more difficult task than identifying ingredients, since each herb required a different extraction method. Knowing what it was didn’t mean one could distill it. More importantly, the Panorama Pavilion had set a new rule: only those...