Even with the pill recipe in hand — without it, Yang Kai doubted he could ever produce such a spirit pill in his lifetime. He had to admit that compared to other pills of the same tier, the refinement of the Heavenly Origin True Seal Pill was extraordinarily difficult.
The hardest part is getting started. Having succeeded once, subsequent refinements grew increasingly smooth, and the success rate climbed higher and higher. One Heavenly Origin True Seal Pill after another emerged from the furnace. By the time Yang Kai had exhausted all his materials, he had produced over twenty pills.
Two hundred batches of materials yielding a little over twenty pills — a success rate of roughly ten percent. By his initial expectations, this was barely acceptable.
But this was only the beginning. After all, he had completely failed with the first hundred or so batches, not producing a single pill. Those twenty-some pills had come entirely from the remaining batches.
Yang Kai was confident that with accumulating experience, his success rate in refining the Heavenly Origin True Seal Pill would only continue to improve.
At the auction house previously, Ye Jian and Teng Wang had driven the price of this pill to over twenty million. But that had been during an auction, with the pill as the only one available.
If he were to actually sell them, twenty million apiece would be on the steep side. But Yang Kai estimated that at ten million, there would be no shortage of buyers scrambling for them.
Even at ten million per pill, twenty-some pills would bring in over two hundred million.
However, Yang Kai had no intention of selling them anytime soon. For one, everyone knew that one of the primary ingredients for this pill — Heaven and Earth Source Liquid — had already gone extinct. If he put these pills on the market, anyone could deduce that he possessed a supply of the liquid. Even with First Inn shielding him from scrutiny, it could still attract unwanted covetous attention. Until he had enough strength to protect himself, the Heavenly Origin True Seal Pill was best kept under wraps.
For another, Lang Qingshan and the others had followed him since the Great Ruins Realm. They had all condensed considerable elemental power and were not far from advancing to the Open Heaven Realm. They would have use for these pills — not to mention that Void Land would have enormous demand for them in the future.
The Heavenly Origin True Seal Pill had to satisfy his own people's needs first; only the surplus would be sold.
So even though Yang Kai now held a massive revenue stream in his hands, he wouldn't be able to convert it into actual wealth anytime soon.
Yue He brought more materials.
Yang Kai refined pills day and night. Watching one Heavenly Origin True Seal Pill after another emerge from the furnace, he felt not the slightest fatigue — if anything, his spirits only grew more vibrant.
When he had accumulated roughly a hundred pills, the sealed chamber door was suddenly opened from outside.
The interruption caused the flame in the pill furnace before him to surge violently. Yang Kai suppressed it in time; otherwise, this entire batch would have been wasted.
He glanced over his shoulder and saw Yue He stepping in, giving him a slight nod.
Yang Kai understood at once — the Blood Demon Grotto-heaven was about to open. Yue He would never have interrupted him otherwise.
He calmed his mind, finished refining the current batch, and only then slowly rose to his feet.
Yue He stepped forward. "Young Master, my sister says the Blood Demon Grotto-heaven is showing signs of opening. She wants you to prepare — we'll be departing immediately."
Yang Kai nodded and strode out, asking as he went, "What about Guo Ziyan and Lang Qingshan?"
"They're all back."
Leaving the chamber and entering the rear courtyard, Yang Kai immediately saw Guo Ziyan and the others standing in two rows. They stood motionless as pines, yet radiated a murderous aura from head to toe.
Spotting Yang Kai, they all clasped their fists in salute. "My Lord!"
Their voices boomed like thunder, their presence overwhelming!
Yang Kai's gaze swept across them. He noticed that many bore wounds, large and small, on their exposed skin. Lang Qingshan's cheek carried a gruesome scar over a foot long — like a centipede baring its fangs and brandishing its claws, the scar ran diagonally from his forehead down to his chin where it disappeared beneath the jaw.
Though Yang Kai didn't know what had caused the wound, he could tell it had nearly cost Lang Qingshan his life.
Since arriving at Thousand Bird Star Market, Guo Ziyan, Lang Qingshan, and the others had stepped into the Shura Arena. Over the past several months, they had fought in countless battles, great and small. The Arena imposed no restrictions on killing — nearly every fight had been a battle to the death.
Lang Qingshan had originally been quite handsome. With this scar, he had lost some of his refinement and gained a fierce, imposing air.
The others were much the same. Compared to a few months ago, they had all undergone tremendous growth. Each one looked like a wild beast that had burst out of some desolate mountain forest, ready to strike at any moment.
Yang Kai broke into a grin. "Looks like you've all had an exciting few months."
Life-and-death combat was always the finest catalyst for growth. Yang Kai himself had clawed his way out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood, and he understood this intimately. Lang Qingshan and his group all had solid aptitude, and with his generous support in cultivation, they all had bright futures ahead of them. What they had lacked was the kind of experience that came from fighting against impossible odds — the sheer desperate resolve to survive at any cost.
Several months battling in the Shura Arena had been enough to fully unearth their potential.
Compared to before, their strength had surely improved by leaps and bounds. When they had first arrived at Thousand Bird Star Market, they were unknowns. Now, every single one of them had left their names on the Heaven, Earth, and Human Rankings of the Arena.