"Who am I? I am… Long Chen!"
"I look down on the very heavens, the arrogant nine heavens' peerless Pill Sovereign - Long Chen? ...I am someone who is cheated and bullied by everyone, a spineless, good-for-nothing cripple incapable of cultivating - Long Chen?"
His mind was a whirl of confusion, and at the same time, severe pain came from all over his body. Long Chen was unable to stop his mind's chaotic thoughts and emitted a pained groan.
"Chen-er, you've finally awakened? Thank god, your mom was worried sick about you! If you want to brag about how strong you are, then fine, but why did you have to go duel with those people!?"
A kind and gentle voice sounded beside Long Chen's ear. That voice was full of happiness and comfort, but toward the end, it also became choked with emotion.
Long Chen slowly opened his eyes. His blurry vision gradually became clearer, and a woman's face appeared before him.
The woman appeared to be in her thirties and she was extremely beautiful. However, at the corner of her eyes were some deep wrinkles that did not match up with her young age.
Currently, this woman was tearfully looking at Long Chen with eyes that were full of love, making Long Chen's heart feel a burst of warmth.
"Child, you scared your mom to death." As the woman spoke, her eyes became even redder and her tears streamed down.
"Mom???"
Long Chen looked at this familiar yet strange face. He doubtingly said this one word, his face filled with confusion.
"Child, don't scare your mom! Don't you recognize me?" The woman's face immediately became panicked.
At this moment, an elderly man appeared beside the woman. He examined Long Chen and he said, "Mrs. Long, Long Chen suffered a blow to the back of his head so it's possible he will need to rest a bit to recover his memories. Don't be too worried; just now I gave the young master some medicine. The medicinal energy still hasn't completely dissolved, so just let the young master rest for a bit longer."
Mrs. Long worriedly looked at Long Chen. Reluctantly, she nodded her head and followed the elderly man out of the room.
Long Chen heard the elderly man advising the woman softly in the distance, "Mrs. Long, the fact that young master Long managed to return with his life is already infinitely lucky. Don't force it too much."
Mrs. Long tremblingly replied, "Master alchemist's meaning is that my son will…"
The elderly man, who had been called an alchemist, sighed, "The young master's hindbrain received an acute shock. To tell the truth, being able to wake up is already extremely lucky; however, the repercussions will definitely still be very severe. Losing his memory is quite possible in this situation…"
The two people gradually walked further and further away so Long Chen could no longer hear them clearly... But what was barely audible to him was the sound of Mrs. Long's sobbing.
Long Chen gazed blankly at the ceiling above as he felt the severe pains throughout his body, especially at the back of his head which was bursting with swollen, aching pain.
Just what happened? I'm Long Chen, and so Mrs. Long is my flesh and blood mother. How could I have such an unfamiliar feeling?
And all these confusing memories, where did they come from? I have memories that I'm an arrogant, exceedingly powerful person… but at the same time, I remember that I'm an often bullied and extorted bitter trash?
Pill Sovereign Long Chen? Trash Long Chen? Which is the real me? Am I the Pill Sovereign's reincarnation? Or am I a fusion of the Pill Sovereign's soul with a trash weakling?
Long Chen's mind was full of endless questions. "Whatever, it doesn't matter. I am Long Chen. Whether I'm Pill Sovereign Long Chen or the old, crippled Long Chen doesn't mean anything right now. The most important thing is that I'm still alive.
"I have two sets of memories that have mixed together; how would I even try to fix this kind of insane problem? Instead, what I need to do now is to let myself recover as quickly as possible."
Sensing his body's current condition, he quickly located many fractures. He had three broken ribs, one arm broken in two places, and most severe of all, his hindbrain was injured to the point where a large portion of his scalp had caved in. He had definitely been the victim of an extremely vicious assault.
"Huh, although I have no way to condense energy, my Spiritual Strength appears to be extremely powerful. I can actually sense everything within thirty meters of my body."
Long Chen was pleasantly surprised. According to his garbled memories, Spiritual Strength was invaluable, especially to pill cultivators!
Profit, profit! Whether he was the reincarnation of a Pill Sovereign or his soul was just a mix containing the Pill Sovereign's memories, the present him had definitely profited greatly.
The Pill Sovereign had lived an entire lifetime already, and now that allowed him to possess an exceptionally strong soul; just what kind of awesomeness was this?
However, when he carefully examined his body, his expression changed. "My Spiritual Root has been taken away. My abdomen's Spirit Bone is also missing a piece that appears to be dug out. And my heart has a hole? Just who would be this ruthless and take my Spirit Root, Spirit Bone and Spirit Blood? No wonder I can't cultivate!" Long Chen was completely infuriated.
His current Spiritual Strength was much, much stronger than his old self. It was now strong enough for him to immediately figure out the mystery of why he was a cripple who couldn't cultivate.
The Spirit Root was located in the Dantian; it was the foundation for all cultivators. Without the Spirit Root, there was no way to sense heaven and earth's spiritual energy, let alone absorb it for cultivating.
Spirit Blood was something that people were born with; it was a trace of blood that gave you innate talent. While basically all people were born with it, the majority of cultivators didn't know anything about it.
The Spirit Bone was found in the pit of a person's abdomen and slightly bulged out. Ordinary people wouldn't have a Spirit Bone. Even amongst cultivators, maybe only one in ten thousand would have one, which marked them as a genius.
However, Long Chen's Spirit Bone was obviously missing a piece and had clear marks of being dug out by someone.
His face became exceedingly unsightly. If his memories were not all mixed up, then how could he not remember who had done this to his body?
Although these three things were precious to him, they wouldn't have any use once they left his body. If they wanted to harm him, why did they have to use such a harsh method? Using this kind of method was practically causing him to live a life worse than death!
However, anger only brought on more anger, and since he was already missing them, being angry did not have any use.
You better not let me find out who did this.
Long Chen couldn't help but gnash his teeth in anger. This was an extremely great blow to him. With him possessing a Spirit Bone, even if he had been an idiot, he would still have been an absolute genius.
But now some despicable bastard had caused him to become a useless person who was incapable of cultivating, causing him to be humiliated and receive condescending looks from practically everyone.
Just when Long Chen was about to furiously erupt, the door of the room was gently pushed open, and a pretty thirteen-year-old maiden walked in. This was Long Chen's maid who was called Bao-er.
"Young master, it's time to take some medicine."
"Medicine? What medicine is it?" Long Chen's nose sniffed slightly as he asked.
"This is something Mrs. Long paid an enormous price for. It's a Tiger Bone Pill that can quickly heal young master's injuries," Bao-er replied.
She opened the small, elaborate case in her hand, revealing the medicinal pill inside. "It is said that this medicinal pill came from grandmaster Yun Qi. The medicinal strength is very strong."
Looking at the thing, Long Chen's face became a bit strange. Even this kind of plaything could be called a pill? Its shape was extremely uneven and seemed more like a meatball.
Even not talking about the shape, its color was completely black and there wasn't even a trace of luster. If it wasn't emitting a very faint medicinal aroma, then Long Chen might even suspect that it was a ball of sheep dung.
After staring at the thing in his hand for a long time, Long Chen finally sighed. Someone who had ended up losing over eighty percent of the medicinal pill's essence could still be called a grandmaster? Long Chen bewilderedly wondered how someone could have created something so soft and mushy.
Pills could be divided into five grades: low grade, middle grade, high grade, top grade, and peerless grade. As for the pill in his hand, it couldn't even count as one of the five grades. Long Chen suddenly realized that this was just a defective good. It was a trash pill. Normally, alchemists would definitely not sell this kind of medicinal pills since they couldn't afford to lose their customers. Oftentimes, they would be turned into medicinal liquids or just directly thrown out.
"Young master, don't daydream. In order to obtain this precious pill, Mrs. Long already sold off her own precious jewelry. You should hurry and take it," urged Bao-er.
Long Chen couldn't help but feel some pain in his heart. His impression of his mother was that she loved him very dearly to the point where it was like he was drowning in love. It had reached the point where his mother would basically never refuse any of his requests.
His mother had done everything and anything for him. She had given birth to him while she was still young. She had been gifted with great beauty growing up, but now she was barely thirty-something years old and already had wrinkles in the corners of her eyes. Seeing those deep wrinkles, Long Chen knew that she had already sacrificed far too much for him.
Looking at the medicinal pill in his hand, he observed that even though it was a defective good, at least the medicinal ingredients inside it were not bad. Impurities took up over eighty percent of it, but it wouldn't have any problems healing his injuries.
Taking the medicinal pill, Long Chen ordered Bao-er to not leak any news of him out, except to his mother of course.
Although Bao-er didn't really understand why, she still trusted Long Chen and obediently nodded.
After taking the medicine, although Long Chen had no way to use cultivation to absorb the medicinal strength, he managed to guide the medicinal energy to his wounds by using his formidable Spiritual Strength, allowing him to recover extremely quickly.
The second day, Long Chen slowly opened his eyes. He had a smile plastered on his mouth as he exercised his muscles.
"Excellent! Although that medicine was pretty bad, the medicinal ingredients themselves were of high quality. Other than my hindbrain, the majority of my injuries have already healed, and the amount of energy left is more than enough to heal me completely."
He slowly walked toward the mirror. Looking at his reflection, he saw a nothing-out-of-the-ordinary, handsome youngster with eyebrows like swords and bright eyes. Long Chen took a deep breath. "From today onward, I, Long Chen, will no longer be the previous Long Chen. I will rise above others."
Although his body was still slightly weak, walking was no longer a problem. Long Chen left the room and saw that the sun had already risen in the east.
After pondering deeply for an hour, he called over Bao-er and gave her a list of medicinal ingredients to go find.
However, Bao-er's expression became a bit embarrassed. Long Chen wondered what it was before quickly remembering that the current Long family was extremely hard-pressed for money, and Bao-er had no method to get a loan.
Otherwise, his mother would not have had to sell off her own jewelry, a part of her exceptionally precious dowry. The present Long family had already fallen into extremely dire straits.
Feeling around in his pocket, he found slightly over eighty silver coins. Although this wasn't a lot, it was enough to buy the medicinal ingredients on his list.
Bao-er worked diligently, and not even two hours later, she had managed to buy the medicinal ingredients. Long Chen immediately set about measuring and dividing them into different portions before boiling them in a large bowl.
Six hours later, a very thick medicinal liquid was releasing a medicinal aroma. As Long Chen looked into the bowl of cheap medicinal liquid, a smile appeared on his face.
"I, Long Chen, will rise above others, starting from this one bowl of medicinal liquid."