"Yang Chen, congratulations for refining a Grade 1 Pill! Your talent in Alchemy really makes me exclaim in wonder!"
"What Yang Chen? Call him Senior Brother Yang Chen. He had already taken one of the Alchemy Elders as a teacher, and his status is not something that yours could compare to."
"Of course, of course. With Senior Brother Yang Chen's unordinary Alchemy talent, how could he not gain the attention of the Alchemy Elders? My mistake, Senior Brother Yang Chen…"
A bunch of disciples were crowding around a youth like hens pecking on chicken feed, as they threw unrestrained praises and shameless compliments.
Yang Chen, the main character of it all, did not bother to reply to them, nor he did he tell them to stop. He simply walked ahead with a slight smile on his face, with a trace of pride within his eyes.
Long Chen turned his head to look towards the small commotion, and noticed Yang Chen. He hadn't seen Yang Chen for quite a long time, especially since his cultivation had risen to a height which Yang Chen could not even compare to.
One of the disciples crowding around Yang Chen accidentally bumped into Long Chen while he was not paying attention, and he rather than apologizing, he angrily cursed out, "Who is that idiot who didn't know how to look when he is walking?"
That disciple had not seen Long Chen's face yet, but the rest of the disciples, including Yang Chen, recognized Long Chen.
How could they possibly not? He was the most prominent new disciple in the entire Moonlight Sect, famed for both his talent and looks.
Yang Chen stared at Long Chen for a while, then moved forward towards him.
"Senior Brother Long Chen, it has been a very long time since we have seen each other." Yang Chen cupped his fists as he humbly bowed.
"Same to you too, Yang Chen." Long Chen returned the greeting.
Yang Chen did not seem the least uncomfortable at how Long Chen had addressed him by, and rather his light smile had widened.
"Senior Brother Long Chen is really special indeed. I had become a Grade 1 Alchemist, and had thought my achievements were commendable. But who knew that you would have already been promoted to an Elite Disciple?" Yang Chen glanced at Long Chen with a glint of light flashing past his eyes.
"There is no need to belittle yourself, Junior Yang Chen. Alchemy is also a revered profession, and reaching the standard for a Grade 1 Alchemist is really astonishing, considering your high cultivation talent." Long Chen lightly smiled as he commented.
Yang Chen chuckled in response, "The world is ruled by martial power. I may be an Alchemist, but under absolute strength, this status is not worth much."
Long Chen cast a meaningful glance at Yang Chen, before he shifted his sight towards the disciple who had bumped into him, "Yang Chen, there is no need to degrade your status by keeping these annoying flies around you."
After he threw down a casual sentence, he patted Yang Chen's shoulders, before making his leave.
In response, the disciple who had cursed out at Long Chen, turned ghostly white in fear as his body began faintly trembling.
He had falsely thought that by climbing up the big tree, Yang Chen, he could act all arrogant and might to everyone else by borrowing the power of a Grade 1 genius Alchemist.
Now he had offended somebody who even his 18 generations would not even dare to provoke.
"Throw him out and beat him up." Yang Chen pointed towards that disciple, and coldly ordered, before simply walking away without a care for his circumstances.
Long Chen returned to his courtyard with his storage bag packed with crystals. He had around a total of 1000 Crystals, and currently did not need to worry about his lacking crystals for his cultivation.
Entering the Qi Gathering Formation, he extended his hand into the storage bag and placed 10 Crystals around him.
He recalled that there was a Monster Hunting Competition organized for the new Inner Sect Disciples which was meant to allow them to adapt to the intense environment of the Inner Sect, but now that he was an Elite Disciple, he figured that there was no need for him to go for it.
Closing his eyes, he began his cultivation process.
----------
A week silently passed.
His cultivation had gone smoother than he had expected with the aid of the Crystals.
In just a week, he had gone from the Early-Stage 8th Elementary Realm all the way till the Peak-Stage 9th Elementary Realm.
All he needed was that final push, but he was unable to find it yet.
During this week, he had refined 16 Grade 2 Elementary Pills, with 15 Mid-Tier ones, and 1 High-Tier. As he had expected, the pills were much harder to refine as its grade increases, and even his success rate had been lowered.
However, this was only his first session of pill refining, and he was confident of improving these figures by a fair bit after more practice.
Through the communication jade, Huo Yan had informed him that they had already went to 5 weaker gangs, destroying 2 of them, while controlling the rest of them.
Not only that, all of his subordinates had now broke through to the Elementary Realm, so their overall strength was greatly increased.
He ordered them to split up into two groups, one group to hunt monsters and absorb talent for him, and the other to assimilate the weaker gangs.
As for Huo Yan, he told Long Chen that he had now became a personal disciple of a Grade 4 Alchemist. This was an existence only lower than the leader of the Alchemy Association, and Long Chen ordered him to focus on learning the way of Alchemy, and earn a few crystals along the way.
When all these had been completed, Long Chen walked out of the courtyard, and lightly exhaled.
Since he was encountering a slight bottleneck, he should take chance to challenge the Heaven's Pride Ranking of the Inner Sect to serve as his combat practice, and loosen his slightly sore muscles
He had been practicing most of his combat skills, but it had not advanced to the next grade of understanding yet.
This did not really matter though, because he was focusing on his cultivation during this week, and it was not unusual to reduce his rate of improvement in other areas since he isn't giving them too much time.
Long Chen swiftly made his way to the combat hall of the Inner Sect. Unlike the Outer Sect, the Inner Sect's combat hall was named as the Treasured Combat Hall. They merely added an additional word at the front to make it sound more unique.
And it was vastly different from the Outer Sect's one. In the Outer Sect Combat Hall, they were only 3 Combat Arenas.
Yet, in the Treasured Combat Hall, he could see at least 10 Combat Arenas already, and the number was still growing.
They were dozens of spectators why hyped up the fiery atmosphere, as cheers and encourage roared throughout the entire place.
At the front of the area, he saw a huge and long stele with illuminated golden words. Long Chen walked towards it to take a closer look, as he slightly raised his eyebrows in interest.
This was the Heaven's Pride Ranking list for the Inner Sect Disciples…
Most of the names didn't catch his attention, but one thing he found similar was how they were quite a lot of people surnamed from the 4 Great Families listed up there.
Mu Rang's name was also listed there, and his eyes narrowed when he saw his information.
Rank 11. Mu Rang, 2nd Sky Realm, 30 years old.
He was not surprised by Mu Rang's age, since it was normal for cultivators to age much slower than mortals, but rather by the fact that he couldn't even quality as a Chosen even with his age and cultivation.
A Sky Realm cultivator was already one of the top-tier existences within the Wind Cloud City, not to mention someone only at 30 years old.
If this kind of person could not even qualify to be a Chosen, how terrifying were these Chosens, really?
Long Chen could not help but wonder to himself.
But the main thing that was nagging him, was the question of the Sect Leader's cultivation. He was definitely above the Sky Realm, judging from the natural pressure that he gives out even when he retracts his aura.
The question was, how high was his cultivation then?
He then refocused his gaze upon the top 10 of the Heaven's Pride Ranking. The Elder had told him that the Inner Sect's Heaven's Pride Ranking only consisted of the Elite and Inner Disciples. Meanwhile, the Chosens had a separate ranking all to themselves.
Rank 10. Mo Lang. 3rd Sky Realm, 30 years old
Rank 9. Xie Jun. 3rd Sky Realm 29 years old
…..
Rank 3. Chen Tan Qin. 5th Sky Realm. 31 years old
Rank 2. Xiao Zhang. 5th Sky Realm 31 years old
Rank 1. Murong Wang. 6th Sky Realm 31 years old
Those within the Rank 10 were mostly between the ages of 28 to 31, which was more than twice of his.
Because his cultivation had not managed to reach their heights yet, so after remembering their names within his mind, he lowered his gaze to look towards the disciples further down on the list, and tried to find one that was suitable for him to fight against.