Chapter 3: Revealing the Sharp Side
In the Phoenix Cry Empire, martial customs were very popular, and disputes were unavoidable. Therefore a life and death stage was built outside the imperial capital where people could resolve their personal differences.
As long as you had both parties' agreement and signed the martial arena contract, once you entered into the martial arena even if you killed your opponent you wouldn't receive any punishment from the imperial capital.
During most days this place would be filled with a bustling crowd, and today was the same. However after a couple matches had ended, two youngsters walked onto the stage which caused an uproar.
"Isn't that person Long Chen? Why would he come here?"
"Right, yesterday he was almost beat to death, why would he come back here today?"
"Hmph, I bet he doesn't want to live anymore and wants to get someone to beat him to death here."
Senior Long Tianxiao might be a border general and be called this generation's Military God, but the people who gave him the title Military God were all poor people who had to suffer through wars and conflicts.
In the imperial capital, which was filled with rich people all in peace and prosperity, people didn't place the Long Tianxiao who was born in a commoner family on the same level as them. Thus towards Long Chen the entire imperial capital also didn't have respect for him.
"Long Chen you piece of trash, why did you come back, aren't you just holding up the work for no reason? Who would want to see your martial arts, hurry and beat it!"
"Yeah, if you want to kill yourself find somewhere without people. No one wants to see such a piece of trash, stop wasting our time!"
In just a moment the audience of several hundred people were all cursing loudly; clearly they were extremely displeased with Long Chen.
However, in an unremarkable corner further away, two maidens wearing veils were raptly watching the arena's figure.
"Sister, that one is your fiancé? Why does he look so lacking, with not even a bit fluctuations around his body." Observed one of the maidens disappointedly.
"Hmph, it wasn't for grandpa acting selfishly he wouldn't have arranged my marriage back when I still wasn't even born. Seriously infuriating." The other maiden said in an extremely irritated tone.
On the martial arena, Long Chen didn't notice that two maidens were spying on him, and towards the shouts and screams he also did not respond at all, only indifferently looking at Li Hao.
Li Hao pointed out the people's uproar and coldly smiled, "See? You're an unwelcome trash, and if you were smart you would just bash your head in and die."
Long Chen only indifferently stared at him, not saying a word.
"Dong."
The sound of a bell rang out, signalling the start of the duel. When the bell tolls, life and death are separated by only a fine line.
Due to the tolling of the bell, the originally rowdy crowd became silent; after all it was a life and death battle. Who would know just one someone's life would end?
"Sister, this fiancé of your seems doesn't have any cultivation base, while his opponent is at the Third Heavenly Stage of Qi Condensation, aren't you worried?" The maiden asked.
"Hmph, what's the point of me being worried, if he dies then it's fine. It doesn't have anything to do with me." The other maiden indifferently snorted. But although she said these words, in her hand she had already taken out an extremely eccentric silk screen.
"Heehee, don't say you don't care, you've already taken out your martial weapon. Looks like you do still care. And you know, although his cultivation talent is trash, he's not that bad looking. How about if you don't want him you can just give him to me?" The maiden laughingly said.
"You're speaking rubbish, how can such a person be just randomly given to you. If you like him you can wait for me to withdraw from the marriage. After that you can do whatever you want." The other woman angrily responded.
"Heehee."
On the martial arena Long Chen from beginning to end had remained as calm as water, and when compared to yesterday's him that was gnashing his teeth in complete anger the difference made it seem like a completely different person.
"Long Chen, with your death near you decided to become calm? Don't worry, due to the stakes you proposed I won't beat you to death today." Li Hao's face was proud and arrogant as he spoke.
"You sure say a lot of crap. Hurry up and come at me, I still have things to do later." Long Chen slightly impatiently responded.
Because the entire audience was very quiet, every single word of Long Chen managed to enter the crowd's ears, and in a split second everyone watching the martial arena burst into jeering derision.
"Li Hao, what are you still waiting for? Hurry up and beat this kid to death, he's really causing us to feel too embarrassed for him."
Some of the people present recognized Li Hao, so they called out to him.
A cold sneer appeared on Li Hao's face, and no longer hesitating a Third Heavenly Stage of Qi Condensation's power completely exploded out. His foot pressed down slightly on the martial arena, and he immediately shot out towards Long Chen, punching out his fist.
When Li Hao started attacking, the crowd below the arena burst into cheers. The current Li Hao's appearance was very dashing and handsome.
"Nice attack, the Overlooking Wind Jade Tree Fist."
Some of the people recognized the move, however the distant two women were both filled with contempt, with ridiculing expressions appearing.
Long Chen similarly also sneered; this kind of idiot move filled with mistakes could still be used against enemies?
The fist was smashing towards him and a strong wind whistled as it approached, but Long Chen seemed to not notice it at all and he didn't move even an inch.
"Haha, this trash doesn't even know how to dodge," sneered some people under the stage.
However just when this ridicule had just been shouted out, Li Hao's fist came to a complete stop just three centimetres away from Long Chen's face.
The originally ridiculing people suddenly came to a complete silence. They noticed that one of Long Chen's legs had struck out and violent hit Li Hao in the area between his legs.
The originally beaming with happiness and elegant Li Hao now had an expression like a purple eggplant, and clearly Long Chen's one kick caused him an extremely severe pain, making his facial features warp and preventing him from moving.
However he might not be able to move, but Long Chen could. In just this brief pause Long Chen grabbed Li Hao's hair, forcefully pulling on it while also strongly kicking out with his knee.
"SLAM SLAM SLAM."
Long Chen completed his actions in an extremely refreshing manner, and in a short time his strong and fast actions along with the sounds gave people a very intense show.
The unpleasant sound of bones breaking came out, and three consecutive bangs came from Li Hao. His nose bone was already caved in, his whole face was covered in blood, and he himself had already lost consciousness.
For a moment, not even one voice could be heard from the crowd. Nobody had thought that a strong person at the Third Heavenly Stage of Qi Condensation would be beaten by a trash who had no cultivation base, and in such a quick manner.
Moreover he had done it in the most clean and efficient manner. This kind of result was a firm slap in the face towards the crowd that had been ridiculing him.
Even the distant two observing maidens were completely shocked. That Li Hao was nothing to them and he could easily be killed with a wave of their hands.
But Long Chen was not the same as them. From the very start not a trace of spiritual energy had been used, and he had completely relied on an ordinary person's abilities to defeat Li Hao.
"Long Chen wins."
A voice came from below the stage from an elderly man who was often in charge of the martial arena and its registration.
Long Chen's stomach fluctuated rapidly a couple times, and it was only with great willpower that he managed to stop it and suppress the killing intent inside him. Right now was not the right time for killing people.
But he had been oppressed for such a long time, and now that he had exploded out it was hard for him to withdraw it. As the rest of the world saw it though, Long Chen's actions appeared to be from lack of strength like he was gasping for breath.
Long Chen walked off the stage to the elderly man and received the sword he had used as his stakes as well as a crystal card with five thousand gold coins on it.
The rules here were that before the match they had to hand in the stakes to the referee in order to show it was equitable and also lowering the chance of anyone backing out during the battle.
After receiving the treasure sword, Long Chen directly returned it to Shi Feng, and placing the crystal card into his bosom he couldn't help but to become somewhat excited.
Although five thousand cold coins wasn't very much, it could help settle a bit of the desperate situation he was in. It had been very long since they had received a stipend from the empire, and nowadays the Long family was quickly reaching the point where they couldn't even afford food.
Under the attentive gazes of countless people, the two people unhurriedly left. The two maidens watched Long Chen leave, and immediately afterwards they also disappeared.
The news that Long Chen had beat Li Hao seemed to gain legs as it rapidly spread and in just a short time the entire imperial capital learned of it. The news puzzled countless people; how could a trash who couldn't practice martial arts possibly became this difficult to deal with?
But even with so many people personally seeing, as well as the news that Li Hao had to be carried back to his estate, quite a few people were somewhat incapable of accepting it.
Long Chen had wanted to split his earnings with Shi Feng but Shi Feng seemed to be completely unwilling, and in the end he quickly made an excuse that he had things to do before quickly leaving, not even asking Long Chen how he suddenly became so powerful.
Remembering this favour in his heart, Long Chen directly went to the Hundred Herb Hall. Entering into the Hundred Herb Hall, Long Chen requested a catalogue of the medicinal ingredients.
On it were very clear recordings of the various medicinal ingredients' names and prices. Long Chen saw the majority of the medicinal ingredients required to refine the FengFu Pill[i]. It was quite lucky that the medicinal ingredients for the FengFu pill were not especially uncommon.
However looking at the price, Long Chen's heart practically dripped blood. The gold coins he had were only enough to buy three portions of the medicinal ingredients.
But he couldn't spend it all on these medicinal ingredients since he still needed to buy a medicinal cauldron for refining, as well as buy some other spare medicinal ingredients. The few gold coins he had were like using a cup of water for a burning cart.
But not buying it was also unacceptable, so Long Chen clenched his teeth and spent twelve hundred gold coins to buy a bronze cauldron furnace of the worst quality.
He also bought one set of the medicinal ingredients for the FengFu pill as well as a large amount of medicinal ingredients for the Qi Recovering Powder. By the time Long Chen left the Hundred Herbs Hall, the amount on his crystal card was only five hundred gold coins.
After returning home, Long Chen went right to own room, and firmly locking the door he ordered Bao-er to tell everyone that he must not be disturbed.
He knew that his mother would hear the news that he had once again went to compete in martial arts, and afraid that his mother would worry he purposely told Bao-er to block her. In any case nothing had happened to him and his mother shouldn't become too concerned.
Right now he had to seize every second of every minute and quickly increase his strength. The current Long family's predicament was not as simple as what it appeared to be, and Long Chen sensed the feeling of a crisis.
"Huu."[ii]
The spiritual energy in Long Chen's body started moving, and a ball of flame appeared within his hand. This was a Pill Master's agglomerated Pill Flame. But when Long Chen saw this ball of flame he didn't know whether to laugh or cry; this flame was way too weak.
The Pill Flame was formed from a Pill Master's spiritual energy, and through special operating methods it is condensed into a spiritual energy flame. However the current Long Chen's Pill Flame's temperature was extremely low, even compared to ordinary Pill Flames it was much weaker.
In addition Long Chen found that without his Dantian to support him, he couldn't maintain the Pill Flame for more than a quarter hour, which was far from enough time to refine medicinal pills.
Long Chen bitterly smiled, however luckily he had his backup plan, which was first refining the Energy Recovery Powder. Placing the medicinal ingredients into the cauldron, he refined them one by one. However he didn't use his Pill Flame, but instead used a normal fire from wood.
When all the medicinal ingredients had been refined he placed them into a jug to form Energy Recovery Liquid, and after resting for a short period of time, Long Chen took a deep breath and prepared himself to officially begin refining the FengFu Pill.
[i] 风府 (FengFu) is an acupunctural point at the median point where the back of the neck meets the scalp. Literally it means wind pavilion.
[ii] Exhaling noise.
Translator notes
So as it turns out this novel uses a similar world to BTTH. Chapter 4 will introduce quite a few new things: there's Beast Flames, Spirit Flames, and the rankings for alchemist go "Pill Cultivators' ranks were Pill Apprentice, Pill Scholar, Pill Master, Pill King, Pill Emperor, Pill Ancestor, Pill Venerate, Pill Saint, and Pill Emperor God." So the guy was actually a Pill God not Pill Emperor and the words used are basically the same except the first few: Dan Tu, Dan Shi, Dan Shi (this is the one in Dou Shi in BTTH and now onwards all the same), Dan Wang, Dan Huang, Dan Zong, Dan Zun, Dan Sheng, Dan Di, with Dan meaning pill. This would be for "Pill Cultivators." I'm still working on what would sound best for terms, for example he said Pill Master a lot which is a different term from alchemist used in LOYL/BTTH but on the current chapter I'm working on he adds in another word to it that would make it mean alchemist basically.
Now I'm pretty sure this isn't just a rip off for BTTH, but there are only so many ways to describe cultivation stages and so far it doesn't seem similar to the story plot in BTTH, it's just the cultivation terms that are a bit similar along with special flames for alchemists.