The Peacock Great Emperor smiled with interest. "Then what about the superior strategy?"
Everyone perked up their ears, their gazes fixed eagerly on
"The superior strategy, naturally, is to thoroughly defeat them in terms of technique, leaving them with nothing to say in defeat. The greatest advantage of this strategy is that it would shake Pill Fire City's dominance in the world of alchemy. Even if this situation won't come to an end overnight, it can at least undermine their foundation! I believe that a colossus like Glazed Royal City would not be content to be suppressed by Pill Fire City in the field of alchemy, unable to do anything about it, right?"
It had to be said that Jiang Chen's words carried tremendous persuasive power and were incredibly rousing.
If not for the fact that their alchemy prowess was insufficient to compete with Pill Fire City on equal footing, who in Glazed Royal City would want to see such a situation?
Even the entire human domain didn't wish to see Pill Fire City standing alone at the top. After all, such a situation was extremely unfavorable for consumers.
Pill Fire City's monopoly of over seventy percent of alchemy profits was built on exploitation.
The pills produced by Pill Fire City were priced significantly higher than those of comparable quality. Through various channels, Pill Fire City suppressed competitors, leaving none among them that could be considered a credible threat.
Even a colossus like Glazed Royal City could only ensure that its own territory and a few surrounding domains were not invaded by Pill Fire City's pills.
As for other regions, they were essentially all Pill Fire City's domain.
The pill trade was a significant source of revenue for Glazed Royal City — one of its lifelines.
But this lifeline had never been able to grow to its potential, constrained by Pill Fire City's existence, unable to reach the scale they desired.
The root cause was Pill Fire City's overwhelming strength and deep reserves.
Pill Fire City's ancient pill recipes, their system for cultivating Pill Kings, their vast collection of alchemy texts — all of these were three or four times what Glazed Royal City possessed.
This gap could not be narrowed simply by the passage of time.
If anything, the gap might only widen as time went on.
For a long time, therefore, Glazed Royal City's feelings toward Pill Fire City had been extremely complex — a mixture of admiration, hostility, and even jealousy.
To that end, Glazed Royal City had made numerous efforts.
Even the Peacock Great Emperor himself had done much in this regard. But at best, they had merely maintained the status quo, preventing the gap from growing further.
Against such a disparity, simply keeping it from expanding was already considered a victory.
It wasn't until Jiang Chen offered the Myriad Longevity Pill recipe that the Peacock Sacred Mountain side felt they had found an opportunity — a point of entry.
If the Myriad Longevity Pill could be successfully mass-produced and distributed throughout the entire human domain, it would absolutely be a major upheaval for the pill market.
In that case, Glazed Royal City's influence in the field of alchemy and its market share would surely rise accordingly.
However, their plan was still in its nascent stage when they discovered that before they could even begin implementing it, Pill Fire City's suppression had already arrived!
When Jiang Chen's superior strategy was revealed, everyone was genuinely tempted.
But after the initial excitement, they all wore bitter smiles. A technical knockout — how easy was that to achieve?
If Pill Fire City could be so easily toppled, how could it possibly occupy such a massive share in the cutthroat world of alchemy?
Pill Fire City's ability to capture over seventy percent of alchemy profits was precisely because of their crushing technological advantage.
Ancient pill recipes, rare and precious pills, pills that no one else could replicate, ever-evolving alchemy techniques, and deep reserves of alchemy knowledge — all of these were things no other force could hope to match.
And it was precisely because of this that while Pill Fire City appeared to be merely a city, everyone secretly wondered how many of the first-rank sects in the Upper Eight Domains were secretly under Pill Fire City's control.
In the human domain, there were only eight first-rank sects. Forces exceeding the first-rank were fewer than five.
Glazed Royal City, Pill Fire City — these were entities that surpassed the first-rank sects.
But while Glazed Royal City had influence over many sects, it clearly had not reached the level of covert manipulation.
In this regard, Pill Fire City was different.
Pill Fire City's methods were more calculating. They leveraged their immense alchemical influence to infiltrate sect after sect, thereby achieving their goals.