I'm posting early tonight — high school reunion. If I don't update tomorrow morning, assume they've taken me out.
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The boisterous chatter inside the grand hall fell silent in an instant. Everyone's smiles still lingered on their faces, but each person stared in stunned disbelief at Qiu Yimeng and Yang Kai, suspicion written all over their features, as though wondering whether they'd misheard or whether Qiu Yimeng had simply misspoken.
"So even the great Miss Qiu knows how to crack jokes." Huo Xingchen suddenly burst into laughter.
The others in the hall blinked, then struggled to hold back their own grins. They hadn't expected Qiu Yimeng to have this side to her.
Still, the joke was painfully lame — not even remotely funny. They were only playing along to save her from embarrassment.
Qiu Yimeng's expression remained serene. Her beautiful eyes swept calmly over the crowd, showing no intention of denying anything or gracefully backing down. After a long pause, she finally asked, "Was that funny?"
A few coughs broke out, and everyone straightened up, composing themselves.
"You probably think I'm joking, but I'm telling the truth. What I've distributed to you are genuine Mixed Yuan Pills of Mysterious Grade, lower tier. The pills are in your hands — open them and see for yourselves." Her tone was flat and direct, with absolutely no trace of humor.
"That's impossible!" Huo Xingchen looked thoroughly unconvinced, shaking his head. "I've taken Mixed Yuan Pills before. They're Heaven Grade upper tier. How could they suddenly become Mysterious Grade?"
The gap between Mysterious Grade and Heaven Grade might be only a single tier, but the difference in value was vast. Pills below Mysterious Grade were simply pills. Mysterious Grade pills, however, were already classified as mysterious elixirs.
Every single Mysterious Grade pill was incredibly difficult to refine — not only did one need to gather all the necessary ingredients, but the alchemist also had to pour enormous effort and time into the process.
It had been barely half a month since the group from Medicine King Valley had arrived. Everyone knew perfectly well what caliber those alchemists were.
That they could produce so many Heaven Grade upper-tier pills in such a short time was already enough to earn everyone's respect.
But when Qiu Yimeng told them these were Mysterious Grade Mixed Yuan Pills, nobody believed it. Setting aside the fact that those alchemists couldn't possibly have refined enough Mysterious Grade pills for everyone in such a rushed timeframe — a Mysterious Grade Mixed Yuan Pills simply shouldn't exist in the first place.
As Huo Xingchen spoke, he popped open one of the pill bottles and casually tipped a pill into his palm. His frivolous expression changed in an instant, his eyes going wide with astonishment as he stared at the pill resting in his hand.
The others experienced the same shock. The moment the pills rolled out, a wave of gasps and confused exclamations rippled through the hall.
"Your positions in your respective sects are all fairly high, so I'm sure you've taken Mixed Yuan Pills before and know quality when you see it. Judge for yourselves." Qiu Yimeng smiled faintly, saying nothing more.
The truth was, when she had first seen this batch of Mixed Yuan Pills that morning, her reaction had been identical to Huo Xingchen's — she thought Yang Kai was pulling her leg. But once she had verified them with her own eyes, Qiu Yimeng had been forced to admit that these were genuinely Mysterious Grade lower-tier Mixed Yuan Pills.
"How is this possible?" Huo Xingchen was dumbfounded. A Mysterious Grade Mixed Yuan Pill — that was something that shattered all known conventions.
Still reeling from the shock, young master Huo hastily dumped out all his pills and inspected them one by one, only to discover with growing disbelief that every single one was indeed Mysterious Grade.
"How can this be?" Huo Xingchen's mind was a complete mess, a sense of unreality washing over him.
"Look — these mysterious elixirs actually have markings that look like human meridians!" someone exclaimed in astonishment, as though they'd just discovered a new world.
"Pill veins!"
"Heavens, I have several here with pill veins too!"
"So do I — four of them! Hahaha... I'd only ever heard that pills with pill veins existed in legends. I never thought I'd see them with my own eyes."
And what made it even more remarkable was that these were Mysterious Grade pills displaying pill veins — not just one or two, but a full twenty to thirty percent of the batch had developed them.
Everyone was stunned, their expressions shifting rapidly. But more than the shock, what filled them was excitement and elation.
Pill veins — when an alchemist refined pills at a sufficiently high level of mastery, the pills could develop vein-like markings resembling the meridians of the human body. Those markings were called pill veins.
Once a pill developed pill veins, its value instantly doubled. Pills with pill veins were far more effective than ordinary ones, and no matter how long they were stored, their medicinal properties would never degrade. Over time, the pill veins could even actively absorb the spiritual energy between heaven and earth, nurturing the pill's spiritual essence and making its potency ever greater.
Beyond pill veins, there was supposedly an even more extraordinary phenomenon known as pill clouds — dreamlike wisps of vapor that could settle over a pill, providing effects even more powerful than pill veins.
All of this was mere legend, however. Despite the lofty status of those present, very few had ever seen pills bearing pill veins. It wasn't that their sects couldn't afford them — it was that ordinary alchemists simply couldn't produce them.
Many alchemists who devoted themselves entirely to their craft would, through sheer luck and happenstance, manage to refine only a single pill with veins in their entire lifetime.
The higher the grade of the pill, the smaller the chance of developing pill veins.
Pill veins were the hallmark of a master alchemist, the mark of a supreme-quality pill.
And yet, right now, at least twenty percent of every person's Mysterious Grade pills bore pill veins! That proportion was nothing short of terrifying.