MARTIAL ADVERSITY, VOLUME 5 - Season 5 Episode 8

Using True Qi to create markings inside a jade slip to convey information which was inconvenient to describe in words was a difficult technique, only those with extremely precise control of their True Qi could accomplish it.

So, when Yang Zhen saw Yang Kai take out two pieces of jade, he knew that what was recorded within was certainly of great value.

His Divine Sense swept over the jade slip, examining it carefully.

Suddenly, Yang Zhen’s brow wrinkled as his expression became dignified, and after a while, his eyes became filled with doubt which gradually changed to shock; quickly followed by amazement.

With the rapid changes in Yang Zhen’s eyes, his expression also became excited.

The old men who were going anticipating watching a good show saw Yang Zhen’s expression and couldn’t help becoming interested, wondering what exactly could provoke such a response from him.

A while later, Yang Zhen took a deep breath and slowly withdrew his Divine Sense from the jade. Turned his gaze towards Yang Kai and staring curiously before picking up the other jade slip.

As he examined this jade slip, it was as if the previous event were replaying themselves, the various expression changes on Yang Zhen’s face once again showing themselves in almost the exact same order.

The white haired Elders in the hall finally couldn’t sit still, many of them having gotten up gathered around quietly before anyone had noticed.

In no time at all, Yang Kai was squeezed out from this circle as all these old men gathered around and waited for Yang Zhen to retrieve his Divine Sense.

“What exactly is recorded in these?” An Elder couldn’t help but wonder what Yang Kai had brought back that could actually cause Yang Zhen to pay so much attention to it, as he spoke, reaching out for the other jade slip on the table.

But before he could pick it up, Yang Zhen snatched it back and gave this Elder a sharp glance.

“Little brat, come here!” Yang Zhen waved his hand and calmly pushed the curiously staring Elders aside.

“Disciple obeys,” Yang Kai stepped forward unhesitantly. By generation, Yang Zhen should be a character from Yang Kai’s grandfather’s age so he should refer to himself as Junior, but in the Yang Family, there was generally no familial kinship unless they were on particularly good terms.

Holding the two pieces of jade, Yang Zhen frowned, his old face turning slightly red as he asked aloud, “What are these?”

“You don’t even know what they are yet you’re so interested in them?” One of the white haired Elders blurted out, everyone else in the hall also slowly shaking their heads, all of their expectations suddenly somewhat dampened.

“Two Spirit Arrays.”

“Bloody Hell!” Yang Zhen snorted, “This old master isn’t a fool. Of course I know these are Spirit Arrays, what I’m asking is what these Spirit Arrays are for!”

As he spoke, Yang Zhen’s face grew even redder.

He was a very old man, and his experience was extremely rich, but at this moment, he couldn’t even identify something a junior two generations below him had presented him with, naturally he felt a little shame.

Yang Kai scratched his nose awkwardly before replying, “Spirit Arrays used for Alchemy!”

Yang Zhen was suddenly stunned, “These things are used for Alchemy?”

Shaking his head repeatedly, Yang Zhen continued, “Alchemy indeed uses a lot of Spirit Arrays, this old man has also seen many of them, but none of them come even close to the complexity of these Spirit Arrays. If one wanted to portray this kind of Spirit Array on a pill stove, it would be rather cumbersome and would cost an Alchemist more Spiritual Energy and True Qi than normal. Are you sure these two Spirit Arrays are useful?”

“Definitely!”

“Explain then, what are these used for?” Yang Zhen frowned. He didn’t quite understand Alchemy. Naturally, he couldn’t see through the mysteries of these Spirit Arrays, only able to subconsciously understand that they were extremely complicated and mysterious. Although these were definitely good thing, there were also some obvious drawbacks.

“One of them can improve the success rate of Alchemy refinement,” Yang Kai said flatly, “In other words, if an Alchemist’s chance to successfully refine a pill is only sixty percent, then by employing this Spirit Array, their success rate will improve to ninety percent!”

At these words, Yang Zhen almost jumped out of his seat.

Ninety percent! Even though he didn’t understand the Alchemic Dao, Yang Zhen knew that it was almost impossible for an Alchemist to guarantee a ninety percent pill refinement rate. The average Alchemist would often have a sixty to seventy percent success rate. This meant that for every ten sets of Alchemy materials, they could only refine six or seven pills.

Elite Alchemists could achieve around an eighty percent success rate while disciples from Medicine King’s Valley were mostly around this level. But now, if this Spirit Array really could improve the chances of successfully refining a pill by thirty percent, didn’t that mean that an elite Alchemist who used this Spirit Array could guarantee a one hundred percent chance of success?

Over the months and years, how much material could be saved? How much time and energy could be saved?

In an instant, Yang Zhen realized just how precious this Spirit Array was.

Of course, the premise was that what Yang Kai had said was true.

“What about the other one?” Yang Zhen pressed down the shock in his heart and tried to speak in a calm tone.

“This one gives a certain chance to improve the quality of a pill!” Yang Kai said lightly.

“What do you mean?” Yang Zhen’s brow subconsciously knit as he anxiously asked, his breathing becoming slightly hurried. If his understanding was correct, then the value of this second Spirit Array was even bigger than the previous one!

“If one were to be refining a Heaven Grade Mid-Rank pill, by using this Spirit Array, there is a possibility that the end result will be a Heaven Grade Top-Rank pill,” Yang Kai patiently explained, adding, “This chance isn’t that great, but it is a chance nonetheless!”

All the Elders in the hall sucked in a sharp breath, all of them understood the value of this Spirit Array.

One of them asked nervously, “What if we were to refine a Mysterious Grade Top-Rank pill using this Spirit Array?”

Yang Kai shrugged his shoulders and smiled, “If their luck is good, a Spirit Grade pill will appear.”

Spirit Grade! These two resounded like thunder in everyone’s ears, causing several of the Elders present to stumble, each of them staring fixedly at Yang Kai, wanting to see from his face whether he was cracking a joke.

However, Yang Kai remained completely calm!

These two Spirit Arrays were obtained from the True Alchemic Way, it was obviously impossible for them to be useless.

The entire Elder Hall was deathly silent, the group of old men all stood in place, some of them thinking about the value of these Spirit Arrays, some of them wondering whether Yang Kai’s words were true or false.

Only after a long silence did Yang Zhen suddenly recover, turning his gaze to stare at Yang Kai with a grim expression, “Little brat, do you know what kind of punishment awaits you if you lying to the Elder Hall? Even if you are a direct descendant of the Yang Family, if you dare try to deceive us I’ll make sure you die without burial right here right now!”

“Whether I’m lying or not, all you need to do is find someone who knows how to verify it,” Yang Kai replied, his brow wrinkling slightly.

“Good good!” Yang Zhen sneered, turning to one of the other Elders in the hall and shouting, “Go call Cheng Bai Lian from the Alchemy Hall.”

“En.” A fat Elder replied, his body flickering as he disappeared.

Cheng Bai Lian, the Yang Family’s Chief Alchemist! He was also an Alchemy Grandmaster whose name was famous around the world, but compared with Xiao Fu Sheng, he was still slightly inferior.

Xiao Fu Sheng was a Mysterious Grade Top-Rank Alchemist, the only one in the entire Great Han Dynasty whereas Cheng Bai Lian was just a Mysterious Grade Mid-Rank Alchemist.

Although there was only a single rank of difference between them, but this single rank actually represented a massive gulf, enough so that Cheng Bai Lian could only look up to Xiao Fu Sheng with the utmost respect.

“Brat, it’s too late to regret now, when Cheng Bai Lian comes here and gives his opinion, this old master won’t spare you,” Yang Zhen sneered as he made a final probe.

Yang Kai’s brow wrinkled further, dissatisfaction appearing on his face, “Elder Zhen, I put out these two Spirit Arrays not just because I want two Blood Warriors to follow me, I also whole heartedly wished to give these things to Yang Family so that it can enjoy their benefits. After all, this is the place where I was born. If I had only wanted two Blood Warriors, a single one of these Spirit Arrays would be more than enough, why would I need to bring out two? Whether what I’m saying is true or false, I believe Elder Zhen should understand.”

Yang Zhen stared at him pondered for a moment, quickly thinking that what Yang Kai said made some sense, his expression relaxing slightly as he nodded, “You’re right, maybe this old master is being overly cautious, but in any case, we’ll soon know. If they’re real then your contribution to the family will definitely be recognized, if it is fake… heh heh!”

Finished speaking, Yang Zhen frowned and began looking over the two Spirit Array Jades again, trying to unravel at least some of their mysteries.

An hour or so later, the fat Elder who had rushed out before brought over a roughly fifty years old man.

When this man entered the Elder Hall, he wore a thick gloom on his face.

Once inside, not even waiting for Yang Zhen to speak, Cheng Bai Lian roared angrily, “Yang Zhen! Do you know what you’ve done? This old master was refining a Xuan Qing Pill when you summoned me! This old master was at a critical moment in the refining process when I was disturbed! You better compensate me for that furnace worth of material or this old master swears he won’t give your Yang Family any pills for three months!”

“Fine fine, I’ll compensate you!” Yang Zhen’s face went black, mechanically nodding again and again.

Although he was called by name by someone much younger than himself, and even more so was angrily scolded, Yang Zhen held his temper. After all, this man was the Chief Alchemist of the Yang Family. Many high-quality pills that the family needed were refined by him, so even though the gap in their cultivation and age was huge, Yang Zhen had no choice but to swallow his anger.

One cannot easily offend an Alchemist, especially one of high skill.

Cheng Bai Lian snorted and said, “That was a Heaven Grade Top-Rank pill. Although it wasn’t too expensive, it had cost this old master a lot of thought and effort, but seeing you act appropriately enough, 500,000 will do.”

Yang Zhen’s expression became even darker, doing his best to endure as he quickly changed the subject, “Let’s stop talking about this for now. We need to discuss the reason as to your summon.”

Cheng Bai Lian nodded before glancing at Yang Kai who was standing nearby, “I heard about it on the way. You say these two Spirit Arrays were brought back by this little brat?”

“Good, I want you to see if these things are really useful.” Yang Zhen handed over the two jade slips.

Cheng Bai Lian took the jade slips from him before sneering, “This old master has pursued the Alchemic Way for many years and has studied a great number of Spirit Arrays, but never once have I heard of such a magical Spirit Array. It seems that you’ve grown more confused as the years pass by, actually being so easily deceived. Now that you’ve been tricked you want to drag this old master into the muddy water, if this were to spread out what face would you have left?”

“Enough nonsense, just take a look!” Yang Zhen was enraged by Cheng Bai Lian’s taunting, but he really had nowhere to vent his frustrations, his old face turning purple with anger, secretly deciding that if Yang Kai really was lying to him, he would absolutely not let him off lightly.

Cheng Bai Lian found a place nearby and took a seat, his expression extremely relaxed as he casually released his Divine Sense into the jade examine it.

The entire Elder Hall except Yang Kai stared at him, wondering how he would evaluate these two Spirit Arrays.

But just as Cheng Bai Lian began using his Divine Sense to studying the jade’s content, he suddenly let out a scream, his body which had just sat down jumping up as his face showed an incredible expression.

Everyone who was holding their breath and waiting nervously also jumped in shock at this unexpected display.
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