With the Heaven Devouring Battle Law—an heaven-defying cultivation technique—he had advanced to the 9th layer of the Earth Rank a full month ago, just one step away from the Heaven Rank. Yet a month had passed, and he remained stuck at this threshold.
It wasn't for lack of cultivation resources. He had been refining and devouring hundreds, even thousands of pieces of black jade every day. Accumulated over a full month, the sheer volume was staggering and should have been more than sufficient to fuel his advancement.
Nor was it a matter of insufficient aptitude. The identity the Divine Weapon World had bestowed upon him was of middling talent at best, but Yang Kai was originally a Sixth-Order Open Heaven cultivator—aptitude was never something that could constrain his forward progress.
The root of the problem was a single missing pill.
In the Divine Weapon World, advancing from the Human Rank to the Earth Rank was straightforward enough. With sufficient effort, decent aptitude, and an abundance of cultivation resources, one could essentially make the jump.
But advancing from the Earth Rank to the Heaven Rank was an entirely different matter.
One absolutely needed a specific pill known as the Ten-Turn Wuxin Pill. Without it, no amount of extraordinary talent or lavish resources would make the slightest difference.
Yang Kai had initially tried to brute-force his way past this bottleneck relying on his vast experience from years of cultivation. Only after a full month of effort did he realize it was utterly futile.
His cultivation was now bound by some invisible shackle, and that formless restraint carried the faint flavor of heavenly law.
In truth, the force preventing his advancement to the Heaven Rank was the Divine Weapon World itself. Unless he possessed the power to contend with the entire Divine Weapon World, there was simply no way to break this chain.
Advancing from the Earth Rank to the Heaven Rank required a Ten-Turn Wuxin Pill, while advancing from the Heaven Rank to the Spirit Rank required a Hundred-Turn Wuxin Pill. The former could only be refined by a Heaven Alchemist, and the latter only by a Spirit Alchemist. Correspondingly, the Ten-Turn Wuxin Pill was classified as a Heaven Pill, and the Hundred-Turn Wuxin Pill as a Spirit Pill.
Through the memories the Divine Weapon World had granted him, Yang Kai already knew that alchemists held an extraordinarily high status in this place—higher than in any world he had previously encountered.
Because whether it was the Ten-Turn Wuxin Pill or the Hundred-Turn Wuxin Pill, both required an alchemist to refine. In other words, a martial artist's path of advancement often hinged on a single small pill!
It was almost absurd.
In the outside world, while many pills could assist advancement and improve the odds of a successful breakthrough, none were truly indispensable. Even without them, a martial artist's own efforts could still carry them through.
But in the Divine Weapon World, that was not the case. The Ten-Turn Wuxin Pill and the Hundred-Turn Wuxin Pill held a stranglehold over martial artists at the peak of the Earth Rank and the peak of the Heaven Rank respectively.
This in turn elevated alchemists to a status beyond compare. Many powerful experts were willing to serve as bodyguards to alchemists of equal rank, and they considered it an honor.
Such a thing would be inconceivable in the outside world, but here in the Divine Weapon World, it was perfectly commonplace.
Yang Kai's attainment in the Dao of Alchemy was extremely profound. The Tianyuan True Seal Pills that the Void Land disciples now consumed to advance to the Open Heaven realm had all come from his hands. Of course, he had long since passed that responsibility to his Eldest Junior Sister Xia Ningshang and the Wonderful Pill Great Emperor.
With his mastery of alchemy, refining a single Ten-Turn Wuxin Pill was naturally no trouble at all. Were it not for his cultivation limitations, refining the Hundred-Turn Wuxin Pill would pose no problem either.
The catch was that he didn't have the pill formula.
That was a frustrating and entirely practical problem.
The Void Spirit Sword Sect, when measured against the whole of the Divine Weapon World, was a nothing sect. It had enjoyed glory a thousand years ago, but had long since fallen into decline. The sect didn't even have its own alchemist, let alone any rare pill formulas.
The Wuxin Pill—whether the Ten-Turn or Hundred-Turn variety—was extraordinarily valuable, and its formula was never lightly shared. The formulas varied widely; every alchemist's version was somewhat different, each with their own secret methods and compositions. Yet at their core, they all accomplished the same thing: regardless of which alchemist refined it, the Wuxin Pill helped martial artists break through to the next rank.
The only difference lay in minor variations in refinement techniques and ingredients, which produced slight differences in efficacy.
If Yang Kai wanted a Ten-Turn Wuxin Pill, his options were to refine it himself or to pay a handsome price to procure one.
But across the land, countless martial artists were stuck at the peak of the Earth Rank, desperate to advance to the Heaven Rank. Setting others aside, Tiger Roar Sect Master Zhuang Juhe, the former Manor Lord of Tianluo Manor Shu Wancheng, and Grand Elder Li Zhengqing had all remained at the peak of the Earth Rank precisely because they lacked a Ten-Turn Wuxin Pill.
Both Zhuang Juhe and Shu Wancheng had spent lavish sums to commission Heaven Alchemists to refine the pill. But those alchemists had schedules packed to the brim. The generous gifts the two had sent were accepted without a shred of politeness—yet when it came to actually receiving the Ten-Turn Wuxin Pill, they were told to wait.
Zhuang Juhe had to wait four years before his turn came for the Heaven Alchemist to refine his pill. Shu Wancheng fared even worse—he faced a full ten-year wait.
Yang Kai certainly couldn't afford to wait that long. Moreover, by conservative estimates, he would be stuck in the Divine Weapon World for a hundred years. Struggling alone for that long would be exhausting. He needed to recruit some capable subordinates. Earth Rank cultivation was too low; Heaven Rank was barely sufficient. Without the incentive of a Ten-Turn Wuxin Pill, who would willingly risk their life for him?
After turning the matter over in his mind, obtaining a pill formula seemed like the safest path. As long as he could refine the Ten-Turn Wuxin Pill himself, both cultivation resources and Heaven Rank followers would come easily.
However, because alchemists in the Divine Weapon World enjoyed such exalted status, every one of them was surrounded by large numbers of bodyguards. Yang Kai couldn't very well resort to underhanded tactics. He would have to find another way.
This Gao Xinpeng was the Heaven Alchemist who had accepted Zhuang Juhe's generous gift and agreed to refine his pill in four years. According to Zhuang Juhe, Gao Xinpeng belonged to a sect called the Mysterious Pill Sect—a sect founded on alchemy that had been passed down for untold ages, its ranks filled with formidable experts. Heaven Rank cultivators were plentiful, and Spirit Rank cultivators were not uncommon either.
Moreover, the Mysterious Pill Sect was now one of the Ten Great Sects of the entire Divine Weapon World. The reason was that the current Sect Master of the Mysterious Pill Sect had claimed one of the Ten Great Divine Weapons in the struggle for divine artifacts—the Medicine King Cauldron!