Nine Star Hegemon Body Art

BANG! His pill furnace shook violently before slowly calming back down. A bright ray of light shot out when the furnace lid was opened.

Inside the pill furnace was a pearl-like medicinal pill. High grade medicinal pill! He had finally refined a high grade medicinal pill!

Low grade pills were judged by the pill fragrance, mid grade pills by their pill lines, and high grade pills by their halo of light. That light was a sign of the medicinal energy being firmly locked within the pill. Other than grandmaster Yun Qi, there was definitely not a single person within Phoenix Cry who could refine a high grade medicinal pill.

“The light is still a bit faint, most likely meaning that my control over the Pill Flame still isn’t perfect. But the lack of flaws is already enough to make it high grade.”

Long Chen was filled with pride as he looked at this high grade medicinal pill. That pill was called the Flesh Bone Restoration Pill.

The formula had come from his Pill God memories. Although it was just a second tier medicinal pill, the pill formula had already disappeared from this world. What Long Chen had in his possession was one of a kind.

He carefully collected that high grade Flesh Bone Restoration Pill as well as the remaining lower grade ones. He had spent a whole night refining, exhausting himself slightly in the process.

There were still two hours until daybreak. Long Chen closed his eyes and slowly recovered his exhausted spiritual energy.

After refining the beast flame, his Pill Flame had become over ten times stronger. But to control it was greatly exhausting to his soul.

This was also due to him not being very familiar with the beast flame. Thus, the toll was even greater and he needed to rest.

As soon as the first ray of light sprinkled itself over the capital, he slowly opened his eyes.

After eating breakfast, Long Chen brought the medicinal pills he had refined straight to the Huayun Pavilion. Today was the starting date of their yearly auction.

But the auction would only begin at noon. This kind of large auction continued for three days, so there was no one rushing to get there. Long Chen was the first guest to arrive.

The Huayun Pavilion was located in the northern part of the city. But even from other parts of the city, you could see a majestic building hundreds of meters tall. 

As soon as he entered the Huayun Pavilion’s lounge, four pretty maidens came to greet him.

“Welcome mister. May I ask… oh!”

Those maidens were all used to receiving guests, but when they saw it was Long Chen, they all let out a startled cry.

Long Chen was surprised at that. He checked his clothes, but he had just changed clothes right before coming here so there shouldn’t have been a problem.

“Hey, what’s with all the noise this early in the morning? Did you forget all your training… ah, young master Long Chen?”

“It’s been a while, Fu Gui,” laughed Long Chen.

That was the person who had sent Long Chen the invitation to the auction. The reason Long Chen still remembered his name after all this time was because of how peculiar it was.

That was a kind of name that rich families would give their pets. But in any case, this Fu Gui had managed to succeed in making others remember his name as soon as they met. That was enough to say that he was a remarkable salesperson.^[1]

Fu Gui was delighted that Long Chen had come. The most important thing for him was that he had already used up his three quotas.

One had been given to a roaming knight whose power wasn’t bad. The other had been given to a rich merchant. But as the time drew closer to the auction, he found out that those two didn’t have much interest in auctioning anything. In other words, it was likely all his work had gone to nothing.

But there was also nothing he could do. After all, all those high-class clients had already been pulled over by the higher-ups. 

So, now Fu Gui had placed all his hope on Long Chen. But ever since Long Chen had received his invitation, he had never contacted him again.

Fu Gui had already been filled with despair now that the auction was starting today. He had thought that he wouldn’t have any hope of getting any profits this year.

But seeing Long Chen’s arrival now, he quickly became excited.

“Young master Long Chen, I actually thought you forgot about this matter,” laughed Fu Gui excitedly.

“Haha, my bad. I’ve just been too busy recently. By the way, I brought some stuff over. Call over your appraiser and let’s talk about the auction. After all, we’re cutting it a bit close,” laughed Long Chen.

“Good, come with me young master Long Chen.” Fu Gui was overjoyed to hear that Long Chen had brought things to be auctioned. He quickly brought him inside.

The remaining four maidens had all been looking at Long Chen foolishly, all the way up to the point that he disappeared from their views.

“Heavens, I actually saw a person of legends.”

“That’s the number one junior generation of the empire! He was close enough to touch… I could die of happiness.”

Long Chen was led by Fu Gui into a very luxurious private room under their stealthy gazes.

As soon as they entered that private room, a woman in elegant robes walked in and curtsied to Long Chen. She then warmed and steeped some tea with her tender jade hands. She was actually a master in the art of tea.

“Young master Long Chen, try some tea for now. I’ll quickly go find an appraiser. What exactly do you need to appraise?” Fu Gui asked carefully. Each appraiser had their own specialties. 

“Medicinal pills.” Long Chen smiled slightly.

Although Fu Gui had long since expected that, to actually hear it still caused his eyes to brighten. “Please wait a moment. I’ll go find an appraiser immediately.”

“Lord, please have some tea.”

That tea master handed him a teacup. Before the tea had even been poured, the smell of tea had already drifted over.

“Good tea.”

Long Chen took a sip. As soon as it entered his mouth, its gentle warmth spread throughout him and the taste even stirred his spirit.

“It’s a good tea, and the one serving it is even better.” Long Chen looked at the tea master and laughed.

The woman reddened slightly. She began to act in an extremely lovable manner, but as soon as she did, that initial interest Long Chen had had in her immediately disappeared.

That woman’s tea skills were extremely exquisite. Her timing and control of the temperature and pouring caused Long Chen to feel a bit of admiration for her. After all, all craftsmen were deserving of respect.

But when she switched to that act of hers in order to make men fall for her, Long Chen’s admiration turned to disgust. He no longer even drank the tea and simply closed his eyes.

That tea master immediately became embarrassed. She hadn’t thought that her techniques she had honed thousands of times would fail.

She actually didn’t recognize Long Chen as the empire’s number one celebrity. She had already passed the age where she chased after dreams. 

Luckily, that awkward atmosphere didn’t last for long before Fu Gui returned along with a senior in his sixties.

That tea master hastily retreated as soon as the two of them arrived. When the senior came in, he immediately brushed his hand over his chest, an etiquette reserved for alchemists.

“Greetings young master Long Chen. I am Qian Fu^[2], a Pill Apprentice. Please give me some pointers.”

Long Chen was speechless. A businessman was very suited to such a name. He also replied with an alchemist’s etiquette and said, “Senior is too modest. When it comes to refining pills, senior is much more experienced.”

After the two of them exchanged their formal etiquettes, Long Chen got straight to the point. “This time, I want to auction off several medicinal pills. Take a look.”

Long Chen handed over a jade bottle to Qian Fu, and he carefully received it. He put on gloves and also took out a jade plate in which he poured out a pill.

“This is…”

As soon as he saw the pill, he could tell it was a middle grade second tier medicinal pill. But he was then immediately dumbstruck as he actually didn’t recognize it.

Although Qian Fu’s talent was limited and he was only a Pill Apprentice, he had seen countless medicinal pills during his lifetime. Otherwise, there was no way he would have become the Huayun Pavilion’s first-rate appraiser.

But now just a second tier pill had stumped him. He looked at it forever, even taking out a few small testing tools.

After a bit, Qian Fu’s expression became a bit embarrassed. He didn’t know what this pill was, which was a slap in the face to his status as an appraiser.

Qian Fu’s display was within Long Chen’s expectations. This Flesh Bone Restoration Pill was an extremely unknown kind of medicinal pill according to his Pill God memories.

Long Chen had had to refine 217 medicinal ingredients in order to condense it. 

Those ingredients might not have been all that precious, but that pill formula was exceedingly amazing in the manner that it managed to add up the different medicinal ingredients’ energy to form a unique effect.

Sometimes, there were only a couple of things that needed to be refined. Sometimes, there were just a dozen ingredients that needed to be refined into powder and then, combined together in specific ways in order to refine a pill. But the difficulty of this pill was something many people could only lament at.

When he had refined the Flesh Bone Restoration Pill, it was the first time Long Chen sensed how broad and profound the Pill Dao was. Various medicinal ingredients could be refined together to have different effects. To be able to find the correct combinations and processes was a god-like craft.

“Cough, if I’m not mistaken, then this should be a healing pill with shockingly great effect.”

Although he wasn’t able to say the name of the pill, Qian Fu still managed to figure out its effect after examining it for so long. He was not an incompetent appraiser. However, he was unable to tell exactly how great the pill’s effect was.

His face was rather red. If he wasn’t able to say what its effect was, then he wouldn’t be able to bring it out to auction. If even he wasn’t clear on its effect, then wouldn’t it be like cheating others to bring it out to auction? That would greatly hurt the Huayun Pavilion’s reputation.

Qian Fu had spent over thirty years as the Huayun Pavilion’s medicinal pill appraiser. He had read through countless tomes and archives. He knew third tier pills and below like the back of his hand. But today had completely toppled his confidence.

“I’m extremely sorry young master, but I am unable to state the name of this medicinal pill, and I’m not clear on its exact medicinal nature. Therefore, we cannot accept this pill.” 

Long Chen didn’t overly react to this. However, Fu Gui’s face was completely green. If Long Chen had nothing to auction, then his profit this time would fly away. 

“This medicinal pill’s name is the Flesh Bone Restoration Pill. It’s a marvelous medicine for treating outer wounds,” smiled Long Chen.

“I truly am sorry, but even if you say its name, we still can’t accept it.” Qian Fu once more apologized. He had no other choice since he couldn’t risk the reputation of the entire Huayun Pavilion.

After all, it wasn’t as if they could accept whatever he said. If there was even the slightest error, all of Qian Fu’s future prospects would sink.

“No problem. The main thing is that you aren’t able to estimate the medicinal pill’s exact nature, right? I can show it to you,” laughed Long Chen.

“Show it to us?” Qian Fu and Fu Gui were both puzzled.

“Sorry for this.”

Long Chen suddenly took out a long blade and in front of their shocked expressions, chopped it at Fu Gui.

Blood splattered everywhere.

^[1] Recall that Fu Gui essentially means rich. People tend to give their pets literal names; for example, someone might name a cat Maomao meaning furry, just like how in English someone might name a cat Fluffy.

^[2] Qian=Money Fu=Fortune/Plenty, together meaning plenty of money.

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