In the Phoenix Cry Empire, martial customs were very popular, and so some disputes were unavoidable. Thus, a life and death stage had been built outside the imperial capital where people could resolve their personal differences.

As long as both parties agreed and signed the martial arena contract, then once they entered the martial arena, even if they killed their opponent, they wouldn’t receive any punishment from the imperial capital.

During most days, this place was filled with bustling crowds, and today was no different. However, after a couple matches had ended, two youngsters walked onto the stage and caused an uproar.

“Isn’t that person Long Chen? Why would he come here?”

“Yeah, yesterday he was almost beaten to death. Isn’t it weird for him to be here today?”

“Hmph, I bet he doesn’t want to live anymore and wants to get someone to beat him to death here.”

His father Long Tianxiao might be called the Border Suppression Marquis and was this generation’s military god, but the people who gave him the title ‘military god’ were the poor people who had to suffer through wars and conflicts. 

In the imperial capital, which was filled with rich people, everyone was living in peace and prosperity; therefore, people didn’t place Long Tianxiao, who was born in a commoner family, on the same level as them. And thus, only a few people in the entire imperial capital held respect for Long Chen.

“Long Chen, you piece of trash, why did you come back? Aren’t you just holding up the action for no reason? Who would want to see your martial arts? Hurry up and beat it!”

“Yeah, if you want to kill yourself then find somewhere without people. No one wants to see such a piece of trash, so stop wasting our time!”

In just a moment, the audience of several hundred people were all cursing loudly; none of them hid their disgust for Long Chen.

However, in an unremarkable corner further away, two maidens wearing veils were raptly watching him. 

“Sister, that one is your fiancé? Why does he seem so lacking? There are not even the slightest fluctuations around his body,” observed one of the maidens disappointedly. 

“Hmph, if dad hadn’t been so selfish, he wouldn’t have arranged my marriage back when I still wasn’t even born. It’s truly irritating…” responded the other maiden. 

On the martial arena, Long Chen didn’t even notice the two maidens who were spying on him, and he also did not respond at all to the jeers of the crowd. He merely indifferently looked at Li Hao.

Li Hao pointed out the people’s uproar and sneered. “See? You’re an unwelcome piece of trash, and if you were smart, you would just bash your head in and die.”

Long Chen continued to only indifferently stare at him, not saying a word.

Dong….

The sound of a bell rang out, signaling the start of the duel. When that bell tolled, life and death were separated by a fine line.

Due to the tolling of the bell, the originally rowdy crowd became silent; after all, it was a life and death battle. Who would know just when someone’s life would end?

“Sister, this fiancé of yours doesn’t seem to have any cultivation base while his opponent is at the third Heavenstage of Qi Condensation. Aren’t you worried?” The maiden asked.

“Hmph, what’s the point of me being worried? Him dying is fine. It doesn’t have anything to do with me.” The other maiden indifferently snorted. But although she said these words, she had already taken out an extremely strange and ancient silk net. 

“Heehee, don’t say you don’t care, you’ve already taken out your martial weapon. Looks like you do still care. And you know, although his cultivation talent is trash, he’s not that bad looking. How about this, if you don’t want him, you can just give him to me.” the other maiden laughingly joked.

“How can a person be just randomly given to you? If you like him, you can wait for me to withdraw from the marriage arrangement. After that, you can do whatever you want,” responded the other woman angrily.

“Heehee.”

On the martial arena, Long Chen from the beginning until the end had remained as calm as water. When compared to yesterday’s him who had been gnashing his teeth in complete anger, it was as if he was a completely different person.

“Long Chen, with your death near, you decided to suddenly become calm? Don’t worry, due to the stakes you proposed, I won’t beat you to death today.” Li Hao was extremely arrogant and confident.

“You sure say a lot of crap. Hurry up and come at me, I still have things to do,” responded Long Chen in a slightly impatient manner.

Because the entire audience was very quiet, every single word of Long Chen’s managed to enter the crowd’s ears, and in a split second everyone watching the martial arena burst into jeering derision.

“Li Hao, what are you still waiting for? Hurry up and beat this kid to death! He’s really causing us to feel too embarrassed for him.”

Some of the people present recognized Li Hao, so they called out to him.

A cold sneer appeared on Li Hao’s face, and he was no longer hesitating; the power of his third Heavenstage of Qi Condensation completely exploded out. His foot pressed down slightly on the martial arena, and he immediately shot out towards Long Chen, punching out with his fist.

When Li Hao started attacking, the crowd below burst into cheers; the current Li Hao’s appearance appeared very dashing and handsome.

“Nice attack, it’s the Wind Jade Tree Fist.”

Some of the people recognized the move and cheered. However, the distant two maidens’ expressions were both filled with contempt and ridicule.

Long Chen similarly also sneered. This kind of idiot move—filled with mistakes—could still be used against enemies?

The fist was smashing towards him and a strong wind whistled as it approached, but Long Chen seemed to not notice it at all and didn’t move even an inch.

“Haha, this trash doesn’t even know how to dodge,” sneered some people under the stage.

However, just when that ridicule had just been shouted out, Li Hao’s fist came to a complete stop just an inch away from Long Chen’s face.

The originally ridiculing crowd suddenly came to complete silence. They noticed that one of Long Chen’s legs had struck out and violently kicked Li Hao in the area between his legs.

The originally beaming with happiness and elegant Li Hao now had an expression like a purple eggplant. Long Chen’s kick clearly caused him an extremely severe pain, making his facial features warp and preventing him from moving.

However, he might not be able to move from the pain, but Long Chen could. In just this brief pause, Long Chen grabbed Li Hao’s hair, forcefully pulling on it while also strongly kicking out with his knee.

SLAM SLAM SLAM!

Long Chen completed his actions in an extremely refreshing manner and in a short time, his strong and fast rhythmic actions gave people a very intense show.

The unpleasant sound of bones breaking came out from Li Hao’s body. His nose was already caved in, his whole face was covered in blood, and he himself had already lost consciousness.

For a moment, not even one voice could be heard from the crowd. Nobody had expected that a strong person at the third Heavenstage of Qi Condensation would be beaten by trash, who had no cultivation base, in such a quick manner.

Moreover, he had done it in the cleanest and most efficient manner. This kind of result was a firm slap in the face towards the crowd that had been ridiculing him.

Even the distant two observing maidens were completely shocked. Li Hao was nothing to them and could be easily killed with a wave of their hands…

But Long Chen was not the same as them. From the very start, not a trace of spiritual energy had been used by Long Chen and he had completely relied on an ordinary person’s abilities to defeat Li Hao.

“Long Chen wins.”

A voice came from an elderly man below the stage who was often in charge of the martial arena and its registration. 

Long Chen’s stomach fluctuated rapidly a couple of times, and it was only with great willpower that he managed to stop and suppress the killing intent inside him. Right now was not the time for killing people.

He had been oppressed for such a long time, and now that he had exploded out, it was hard for him to withdraw it. But as the rest of the world saw it, Long Chen’s actions appeared to be from lack of strength like he was gasping for breath.

Long Chen walked off the stage to the elderly man and received the sword that he had used as his stakes as well as a crystal card with five thousand gold coins on it.

The rules here stated that they had to hand in the stakes to the referee before the match; in order to show that it was equitable and also lowering the chance of anyone backing out during the battle.

After receiving the martial sword, Long Chen directly returned it to Shi Feng. Placing the crystal card into his robes, he couldn’t help but become somewhat excited. 

Although five thousand gold coins wasn’t very much, it could help settle a bit of the desperate situation his family was in. It had been very long since they had received a stipend from the empire, and nowadays the Long family was quickly reaching the point where they couldn’t even afford decent food to eat.

Under the attentive gazes of countless people, the two of them unhurriedly left. The two maidens watched Long Chen leave and immediately afterward, they also disappeared.

The news that Long Chen had beaten Li Hao seemed to gain legs as it rapidly spread. In just a short time, the entire imperial capital learned of it. The news puzzled countless people; how could trash who couldn’t practice martial arts possibly have become this difficult to deal with?

But even with so many people personally seeing it as well as the news that Li Hao had to be carried back to his estate, quite a few people were still incapable of completely accepting it.

Long Chen had wanted to split his earnings with Shi Feng, but Shi Feng was completely unwilling. In the end, he quickly made an excuse that he had things to do before hastily leaving, not even asking Long Chen how he had suddenly become so powerful.

Remembering this favor in his heart, Long Chen directly went to the Hundred Herb Market. Entering into the Hundred Herb Market, Long Chen requested a catalog of their medicinal ingredients. 

On it were very clear recordings of the various medicinal ingredients’ names and prices. Long Chen saw the majority of the medicinal ingredients required to refine the FengFu Pill^[1]. It was quite lucky that the medicinal ingredients for the FengFu Pill were not especially uncommon.

However, looking at the price, Long Chen’s heart practically dripped blood. The gold coins he had now were only enough to buy three portions of the medicinal ingredients.

But he couldn’t spend it all on these medicinal ingredients since he still needed to buy a medicinal furnace for refining, as well as to buy some other spare medicinal ingredients. The few gold coins he had were like a cup of water trying to put out a burning cart.

However, not buying it was also unacceptable, so Long Chen clenched his teeth and spent twelve hundred gold coins to buy a bronze furnace of the worst quality.

He also bought one set of the medicinal ingredients for the FengFu Pill as well as a large amount of medicinal ingredients for the Energy Recovery Powder. By the time Long Chen left the Hundred Herb Market, the amount on his crystal card was only five hundred gold coins. 

After returning home, Long Chen went right to his own room. Firmly locking the door, he ordered Bao-er to tell everyone that he was not to be disturbed.

He knew that his mother would hear the news that he had once again gone to compete in martial arts. Afraid that his mother would worry, he purposely told Bao-er to block her. In any case, nothing had happened to him, and his mother shouldn’t become too concerned.

Right now, he had to seize every second of every minute to quickly increase his strength. He was sure that the current Long family’s predicament was not as simple as it seemed, and he sensed the coming of a crisis.

The spiritual energy in Long Chen’s body started moving, and a cluster of flame appeared within his hand. This was a pill cultivator’s agglomerated Pill Flame. But when Long Chen saw this ball of flame, he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry; this flame was far too weak. The Pill Flame was formed from a pill cultivator’s spiritual energy, and through special operating methods it was condensed into a spiritual energy flame. However, the current Long Chen’s Pill Flame’s temperature was extremely low, even when compared to other ordinary Pill Flames.

In addition, Long Chen found that without his Dantian to support him, he couldn’t maintain the Pill Flame for more than a quarter of an hour, which was far from enough time to refine medicinal pills.

Long Chen bitterly smiled. However, luckily he had his backup plan, which was first refining the Energy Recovery Powder. Placing the medicinal ingredients into the furnace, he refined them one by one. This time, he didn’t use his Pill Flame, but instead used a normal fire from the wood.

When all the medicinal ingredients had been refined, he placed them into a jug of water to form Energy Recovery Liquid and after resting for a short period of time, Long Chen took a deep breath and prepared himself to officially begin the refining of FengFu Pill.