Chapter 456: Chapter 456: A Weird Old Daoist
Translator: GE_Team
After Ning Fan left, Yao Lian headed to another forbidden place of the clan on the same night and reported what had happened earlier to the Eight Ancestors.
Yao Lian did not know that Ning Fan was only pretending to leave. In fact, he had turned invisible and tailed after her all the way. Eventually, they came to a small chiliocosm where the eight ancestors were hiding. Ning Fan stood outside their hiding place with a frown for the entire night.
Ning Fan could not enter that small chiliocosm! Outsiders could only enter the place under the guidance of the people from within.
The Eight Ancestors would obviously not welcome Ning Fan, let alone guide him into the realm.
It was an extremely secretive forbidden place of the clan as it was inside a dilapidated small chiliocosm.
It was pitch black inside that realm. There was a faint flow of formation power but nothing was clearly visible.
The only thing that one could see clearly was eight gigantic pillars which glowed faintly in the dark.
A black figure sat cross-legged on top of each of the stone pillars. Every single one of them had vigorous and boundless qi but none of them was alive. It was really bizarre.
These eight individuals were the eight ancient ancestors of the Giant Devil Clan who had already died in the past. However, they still existed in a strange form inside this small chiliocosm!
Yao Lian’s report did not attract the attention of the eight ancestors.
It was because the two questions Ning Fan asked did not involve anything which would be a threat to the Giant Devil Clan and Yao Lian did not leak any important information as well.
After a brief moment of silence, none of them decided to hold Ning Fan accountable. Only one of the ancestors, Ju Yan, found it rather difficult to understand.
He had met Ning Fan one time. Even though he just had a glimpse of him, he was sure that Ning Fan was similar to him who might seem to be generous on the outside but was meticulous and smart on the inside.
Based on his understanding of Ning Fan, it was rather weird for him to purposely visit Yao Lian tonight and ask her those questions. Ning Fan’s actions were just so unreasonable but he knew that people like him would never do unreasonable things. Thus, just as the saying goes, when things are unusual, something bad must be going on.
On that day they met, Ju Yan had warned Ning Fan not to intervene in Feng Xueyan’s matter.
Inwardly, Ju Yan muttered to himself.
In the questions he asked Yao Lian, he indeed did not mention anything about Feng Xueyan at all… Did this young man really listen to my warning?
However, if it wasn’t for Yan Er, why would this young man look for Yao Lian…
Ju Yan could not figure it out. Eventually, he tossed this matter to the back of his mind.
No matter what, he and the other seven ancestors still had some important matters to deal with.
Since Ning Fan had saved the clan earlier and he did not touch upon any top secrets of the clan, Ju Yan did not think there was need to deal with him yet.
“We shall put aside the matter with Zhou Ming. A Half-Step Void Refinement Realm cultivator like him is of no importance… Yao Lian, tell us about the situation of the Pill Ceremony…”
Beside Ju Yan was another elderly person whose qi was much more forceful than Ju Yan’s. His voice was hoa.r.s.e and it was filled with the malevolence of an evil spirit which made Yao Lian feel rather uneasy.
As soon as he spoke, all of the seven other ancestors went quiet. Clearly, he was the leader of the eight ancestors.
Yao Lian immediately reported to them all the matters regarding the Pill Ceremony. The night pa.s.sed by smoothly.
Ning Fan returned to the west wing of the guest house. He sat in a meditative posture on his bed and sorted out his thoughts in silence.
From Yao Lian’s mind, he managed to obtain a lot of secrets of the clan.
He now knew how strong the Eight Ancestors were. Six of them were Void Inquiry Stage experts while the other two were Void Pierce Stage experts. There was no way Ning Fan could defeat them all. This, without a doubt, was bad news. If Ning Fan wants to save Feng Xueyan from the hands of the Eight Ancestors, he would need greater strength.
Of course, there was something that could be considered as a good news to him.
There was still some time before the day where they had to take out the blood of Mo Luo from Feng Xueyan’s body as it still needed at least another ten years to completely mature.
That is to say that Feng Xueyan would not be in any danger within ten years. Moreover, the Eight Ancestors would secretly protect her like a precious treasure.
However, ten years later, the Eight Ancestors would certainly execute their plan on Feng Xueyan. When that time arrives, unless Ning Fan attains a great improvement in his strength, he would not be able to save her.
“Ten years, huh… Within ten years, the blood wine will be completely brewed. I wonder if I can break through to the Void Refinement Realm when I consume it… Advancing to the Void Refinement Realm is just too difficult. However, attaining the Golden Body Refinement Realm is much easier. I just need to gather the remaining three pieces of stone slates and obtain the devil qi from them, I have confidence of breaking through to the Golden Body Refinement Realm in ten years!”
“No matter what, I can’t let Feng Xueyan call me her brother-in-law for nothing. I can’t allow the eight ancestors of the Giant Devil Clan to harm her!”
Ning Fan remembered that the devil statue slate was currently in the hands of the Eight Ancestors.
I wonder if I can get closer to the devil slate and extract the devil qi within it…
“I can’t enter the small chiliocosm where the Eight Ancestors are hiding. It will still need further investigation to figure out how to get the devil statue slate of the Giant Devil Clan… As for now, the most important thing should be placing all of my focus on improving my pill refinement techniques. In order to attain a breakthrough in my cultivation within ten years, my mastery in pill refinement definitely can’t be neglected.”
Ning Fan was well aware of the fact that he was a person of great notoriety. The reason why a notorious person like him could live until today was because of his strength.
His current strength had already made him famous across the entire Rain World. However, it was still far from enough!
He needed to possess the strength to wipe out the entire Rain World and only then could he be on par with Sovereign Moksha.
The first rays of the morning sun shone through the windows. Ning Fan looked for his women one by one. After pa.s.sing them some messages, he asked Yue Lingkong to take control of the four spiritual puppets and take care of their safety. He then began to make preparations for the tests of the Pill Ceremony.
First of all, he must get into the top three of the compet.i.tion and become one of the three pill refinement masters who would concoct the pill for Feng Xueyan.
He was a little worried. He did not know what the so-called life-saving pill was. Thus, he had to concoct the pill for Feng Xueyan himself in order to make sure that no one was trying to harm her.
Since the Cold Northern Country was the venue of the Pill Ceremony, innumerable famous pill refinement masters of the Rain World had gathered there.
In the province, many old monsters got together in the Eternal Peace Pavilion to trade pill recipes, spiritual herbs and many other items.
The Eternal Peace Pavilion was a property directly owned by the Giant Devil Clan. Hence, all of the profits earned from the sale of spiritual herbs solely belonged to the clan.
In order to satisfy the needs of the pill refinement masters, the Eternal Peace Pavilion had purposely opened up a floor for trading activities that allowed pill refinement masters to set up their own stalls here to buy or sell pills and spiritual herbs.
As the actual date of the Pill Ceremony was quickly approaching, many pill refinement masters were purchasing spiritual herbs in order to prepare for the event. Naturally, there were also many profit-oriented old monsters who just came to sell spiritual herbs, pill recipes and medicine cauldrons.
Some rare spiritual herbs were unavailable here. Thus, pill refinement masters could only resort to bartering among themselves. Well, wouldn’t there be situations where the spiritual herbs that one is lacking are excess items of some other pill refinement masters?
In just a few days, Ning Fan travelled across seventy million li* (500m per li) of the Cold Northern Country.
A few days later, Ning Fan arrived at the Eternal Peace Pavilion in a manner as light as the clouds. Needless to say, he had come to purchase spiritual herbs.
Be it for collecting the main ingredients to concoct the Revered Devil Pill that could raise one’s body refining realm or making preparations for the Pill Ceremony, he still had to come and take a look.
In order to attain the Golden Body Refining Realm as soon as possible, Ning Fan not only needed to gather the remaining three pieces of devil statue slates but also concoct the Revered Devil Pill.
The Revered Devil Pill was a High Grade Fifth Revolution Devil Pill. With Ning Fan’s current pill refinement mastery, he was already capable of making that pill. However, he was still lacking three types of main ingredients.
They were the ten thousand years old Ghost Aconite, ten thousand years old Purple Rock Tripe and ten thousand years old human placenta1.
The Ghost Aconite and the Purple Rock Tripe were still reasonable. Ning Fan had found some of them before but their age did not fit his requirement.
The ten thousand years old human placenta, however…. In order to develop this ingredient, one has to take another’s life using a secret method of the Devil Dao and nourish the placenta for ten thousand years. The process was extremely vicious.
In the first place, devil sects were weak among the eight hundred cultivation countries in the Rain World. Hence, ten thousand years old human placentas were already long extinct.
Even in the Endless Sea where many devil cultivators reside, ten thousand years old human placentas were rarely seen.
As soon as Ning Fan arrived at the Eternal Peace Pavilion, he was immediately welcomed by the master of the pavilion in person.
The master of the Eternal Peace Pavilion was a Peak Nascent Soul Realm cultivator. He was a person with quite an important ident.i.ty in the Giant Devil Clan. He already witnessed Ning Fan’s impressiveness when the latter trampled upon s.h.i.+ Kun and rescued the Giant Devil Clan. Therefore, he held high admiration for him.
Besides, he even received an order from Ju Qing to give Ning Fan preferential treatment. If Ning Fan had come to the Eternal Peace Pavilion to purchase some treasures, no matter what item he wants, he could directly take them away without paying a single cent.
After all, these treasures were nothing compared to Ning Fan’s goodwill in saving their clan.
The pavilion master relayed Ju Qing’s kind intentions to Ning Fan. He spoke nothing about it other than nodding his head. Since he was given such a privilege, he would definitely not hold himself back with the treasures of the Giant Devil Clan. If he sees something that satisfies his needs, he would take it right away.
The Eternal Peace Pavilion had five floors in total. The first floor was where pills were sold. Pill cauldrons and pill recipes were sold on the second and third floor respectively. Spiritual herbs and ingredients could be found on the fourth floor. As for the fifth floor, it was temporarily opened for pill refinement masters and cultivators to set up their stalls and trade items.
The master of the Eternal Peace Pavilion brought Ning Fan to tour the first four floors. All of the cultivators along the way respectfully saluted to Ning Fan as soon as they saw him. After that, they hurriedly retreated. Their faces were filled with humility and fear.
Ning Fan’s ferocity was just too terrifying. How could common cultivators dare to provoke him? They did not even dare to foster a relations.h.i.+p with him.
Facing the veneration that these cultivators had for him, Ning Fan did not bother at all.
None of the pills in the Eternal Peace Pavilion could arouse his interest. As for pill cauldrons, on the other hand, he found many of them that had far better quality than the Dan Fragmentation Cauldron that he had in the past. However, since he was already a Fifth Revolution Pill Master, he could form a cauldron using his divine intent. And so, he did not buy any of them since a pill cauldron was unnecessary to him.
When they arrived at the floor that sold pill recipes, Ning Fan really did not restrain himself at all. After browsing through all of the pill recipes on that floor, he set his eyes upon several types of Fourth and Fifth Revolution pill recipes. Without modesty, the pavilion master immediately asked his people to make a copy of those pill recipes and handed them all to Ning Fan.
On the fourth floor, Ning Fan found the ten thousand years old Ghost Aconite and ten thousand years old Purple Rock Tripe.
To Ning Fan, being able to find two of the main ingredients for concocting the Revered Devil Pill was indeed good news to him.
These two types of ten thousand years old spiritual herbs in the Eternal Peace Pavilion were all taken away by Ning Fan. In total, there were 14 tufts of Ghost Aconite and 17 tufts of Purple Rock Tripe.
The price of these spiritual herbs was extremely high. Even so, the Eternal Peace Pavilion did not dare to ask for a single penny from Ning Fan.
After touring the first four floors, Ning Fan still wanted to proceed to the fifth floor. However, the fifth floor was a place where cultivators traded among themselves. Even if the master of the Eternal Peace Pavilion followed Ning Fan there, he would not be of much help. Therefore, he excused himself and left.
Ning Fan headed to the fifth floor on his own. It was an extremely s.p.a.cious hall.
The size of the hall could hold approximately ten thousand people. Hundreds of stalls had been set up in all directions. Each of the stalls was being taken care of by a pill refinement master. Some of them hung wooden boards that stated what spiritual herb they were looking for outside their stalls while some others had arranged different kinds of spiritual herbs and pill recipes in their stalls waiting for people to come and trade.
There was a group of guards from the Giant Devil Clan maintaining the order on the fifth floor. The group consisted of around one hundred cultivators and each of them gave off deep and strong aura force.
The leader of the guards was a Late Divine Transformation Realm burly man. His forceful aura force was intimidating to each of the pill masters who were conducting trade here. His presence automatically prevented anyone from stealing, seizing and killing on that floor.
Well, in the Endless Sea, old monsters who attained the Late Divine Transformation Realm were powerful experts.
This man had a hint of arrogance in his eyes. From time to time, his eyes which flickered with a cold light would scan around the surroundings. Even those pill refinement masters who were usually supercilious would feel their breathing become heavier whenever they were within his vision. None of them dared to look at him in the eye.
“This man really has a set of piercingly cold eyes! Who is he?!” A pill refinement master who came from the eight hundred cultivation countries asked with a low voice.
“You might not know this, but he is Commander Si Mo1, the commander of the ‘Death Devil Division’ which is the strongest troop of the “Eight Gates of Devil Guards” of the Giant Devil Clan… This man is said to be extremely strong. According to rumors, he once killed another Late Divine Transformation Realm cultivator…” Another cultivator explained.
“W-What?! That man can even kill a Late Divine Transformation Realm cultivator! We must not offend him when we are selling spiritual herbs here. A person at the Late Divine Transformation Realm like him is as rare as the feathers of a phoenix in the Rain World!”
Instinctively, many pill refinement masters had awe and fear in their eyes while they looked at Commander Si Mo.
Commander Si Mo’s cultivation base was very strong. He was a bloodthirsty, cold-hearted man. No one dared to mess with him. Even some of the Divine Transformation Realm cultivators were also unwilling to provoke him.
Countless pill refinement masters tried to extend their greetings to Commander Si Mo and get close to him. However, he chased all of them away indifferently. He behaved in an unfriendly manner and kept every other individual at arm’s length.
However, when Ning Fan appeared on the fifth floor, Commander Si Mo whose face was always cold and serious suddenly turned respectful. He knelt before Ning Fan and expressed his sincere admiration.
“Greetings to Venerated Ming! I’m Si Mo, the commander of the Death Devil Division! Thank you for saving the Giant Devil Clan!”
After he knelt down, the group of guards behind him also did the same in unison and saluted Ning Fan.
“There’s no need for such formality.” Ning Fan nodded with his expression remaining calm.
A dignified Late Divine Transformation Realm old monster had knelt to greet another person. This scene shocked countless people.
When the bystanders saw Ning Fan, they were shocked. They instantly understood why Si Mo who always wore a frosty look would be so polite to him.
Some of the young pill refinement masters who had just entered the Cold Northern Country did not recognize Ning Fan’s appearance. However, they were also extremely surprised from what had happened before them. All of them began to ask their friends and partners.
“Who is that young man in white robes? He could actually make a Late Divine Transformation Realm expert kneel before him!”
“What? You don’t even know who he is?! He is Zhou Ming! He is the man who killed the country lord of s.h.i.+ Le Country!”
“Wait, what?! This man is Zhou Ming?! He is so young. He looks to be just around five hundred years old but he already managed to kill a Void Glimpse Stage expert!”
Voices filled with surprise echoed across the fifth floor.
Some pill refinement masters who did not know who Ning Fan was also took some time to remember his face. Moreover, they reminded themselves inwardly to not provoke this man no matter what.
Inside a stall that was selling spiritual herbs, an old Daoist wearing a set of ragged Taoist robe currently had a look of mischief.
His whole appearance was dirty and tattered. His white hair and beard were messy and untidy. He obviously was a person who was neglectful of his appearance. There was a Third Revolution badge of the Rain Palace hanging on his chest. Apparently, he was a cultivator who came from the eight hundred cultivation countries.
His cultivation base seemed to be at the Late Nascent Soul Realm, but it was somewhat illusory at the same time. Among the spiritual herbs that he was selling, some of them were of high quality while some of them were of the inferior kind. However, all of them were extremely expensive and no one stopped by his stall to ask about these herbs.
“So this kid is the one who has the Indestructible Fire Body? Hmm… His Medicine Soul is not weak. It’s of the High Grade Fifth Revolution. His Dao of Pill, however, seems to be quite multifaceted. There’s the Dao of the Riverboat1, Dao of San Qing and the Dao of Burning Blood… The saying, ‘Jack of all trades but master of none’ is really an apt description for this man. He is still very far away from achieving the Sixth Revolution…”
The old Daoist muttered to himself and shook his head. It seemed like Ning Fan’s Dao of Pills was pretty insignificant in his eyes.
However, his turbid eyes suddenly flickered with surprise. It was as if he had sensed something from within Ning Fan’s body. Then, his eyes sparkled.
All of a sudden, his qi became comparable to that of an Absolute Void Stage old monster but no one on the fifth floor noticed it!
“This is… the Black Devil Flames!”