Fei Yu was the same as always, showing no restraint with her words, causing Yang Kai to feel exasperated and embarra.s.sed all at once, yet helpless to hit back while she sat back and laughed at him.

Cang Yan and the others also rushed over to meet Yang Kai when they heard he was back, eager to inquire about the group of Demons he had led away and to once again caution him not to be deceived or taken advantage of by them.

Once more feeling the care and concern his Martial Aunt and Martial Uncles had for him, Yang Kai felt his heart warm up.

From Cang Yan and the others, Yang Kai also learned that a lot of masters had come to Soaring Heaven Sect some time ago to ask Chu Ling Xiao about the Ancient Demon clan, many of them angrily clamouring for him to clean up his Sect by executing Yang Kai for colluding with the enemy.

Chu Ling Xiao didn’t even want to bother answering them and simply entered secluded retreat, refusing to meet any outsiders.

The masters who had come to Soaring Heaven Sect stayed for a while but seeing no hope of moving Chu Ling Xiao, after a while, they could only resentfully leave.

However, as Nine Heavens Holy Land’s reputation began to spread, no one came to bother Soaring Heaven Sect again, none of them daring to offend Nine Heavens Holy Land anymore, or else they might lose the chance to obtain Alchemy services from the mysterious Grandmaster.

Later, Yang Kai went to visit the Ancestral Founder, Chu Ling Xiao.

Knowing that Li Rong and her people were conducting themselves prudently, almost always remaining inside the nine peaks, Chu Ling Xiao nodded with satisfaction, but even so, he still warned Yang Kai against becoming lax with them, the same as his other Martial Seniors.

After spending three days in Soaring Heaven Sect, alleviating the fatigue he had acc.u.mulated from constantly performing Alchemy and cultivating, Yang Kai set off for the nine peaks again.

Over the past year, Yang Kai had almost always been improving his Alchemy proficiency, refining numerous pills every day without rest.

This time, after a coincidence brought him out of the nine peaks and allowed him to take a break, Yang Kai suddenly felt that his cultivation had improved and consolidated.

It was at this moment that Yang Kai realized just how important occasionally relaxing was; his acc.u.mulated sentiments and insights had only fully blossomed and allowed his strength to grow after this brief period of rest.

Less than a day later, Yang Kai returned to Nine Heavens Holy Land.

Just as he entered the nine peaks, Li Rong called out to him with her Divine Sense, “Master, that Monster Race woman wishes to see you!”

“Monster Race woman?” Yang Kai came to a halt, frowning for a moment before pa.s.sing a message back, “You mean Cai Die?”

“Yes, her!”

“What is she doing here?” Yang Kai asked, confused.

“She didn’t say. If Master doesn’t want to see her, I can send her away,” Li Rong responded quickly.

“No need, I’m on my way.”

A moment later, Yang Kai appeared on the peak the Ancient Demon Clan was occupying.

Walking into the biggest palace, Yang Kai saw Cai Die, with her seven coloured wings on full display, sitting there silently like a statue, a cold and unfriendly look upon her face as if everyone here owed her a great deal of money.

Yin Ya and Xue Ji, who were also sitting in the hall, appeared somewhat awkward as they felt great pressure from her.

This ice-cold Monster Race master, although possessing an incredibly beautiful appearance perfectly highlighted by her seven coloured wings, was beyond Yin Ya and Xue Ji’s skills to conquer, and they knew it.

Simply sitting close to her sent chills up their spines…

Seeing Yang Kai enter the hall, Cai Die’s beautiful eyes finally moved, quickly settling on him.

Li Rong quickly nodded her head in greeting before whispering into Yang Kai’s ear, “She has been here for three days already yet she hasn’t moved from that spot at all. Even when we spoke or greeted her she would ignore us. She only spoke once when she arrived, saying she would wait here until you come back.”

“En,” Yang Kai nodded lightly, “It’s been hard on you.”

Saying so, Yang Kai stepped forward, smiled and cupped his fists, “Ms. Cai Die.”

Cai Die nodded back, returning his greeting while maintaining her cold and unfriendly expression as she continued, “I’ve been waiting for you for quite some time.”

Yang Kai laughed awkwardly, silently grumbling that he hadn’t forced her to sit here like this. Keeping such thoughts to himself, he adjusted his expression and asked, “Is there something Great Senior needs of me?”

Cai Die bluntly stated, “Yes, Great Senior requests that you come to Thunder Tree Palace.”

“Has something gone wrong with your Beast Transformation Pond?” Yang Kai frowned; this was the only reason he could think of for why Great Senior would be looking for him.

“There’s no problem with the Beast Transformation Pond… Stop asking so much. Once you arrive at Thunder Tree Palace, Great Senior will naturally explain the situation to you.”

Yang Kai was dumbstruck, unable to respond for a moment as the Ancient Demon Clan’s nearby leaders all rolled their eyes.

Rather than Cai Die coming here to invite him, it was more like she was giving him an order.

Han Fei’s expression quickly became gloomy.

Both of them were cold beauties with similar temperaments while also possessing Second-Order Saint realm cultivations, so naturally, they repelled one another somewhat. Since long ago, Han Fei had not had a good impression of Cai Die and was just waiting for an opportunity to teach this little girl a lesson so she would learn to show proper respect towards Yang Kai.

Perceiving the rising tension in the air, Yang Kai quickly said, “Since Great Senior is specifically looking for me, it must be for something important. I should at least meet with him. Alright, Ms. Cai Die, please wait here a moment, I’ve just returned from the outside so there are some things I need to arrange first before we leave.”

Cai Die nodded slightly before no longer speaking.

“Master, allow me to accompany you,” Li Rong said immediately.

Yang Kai glanced over at her and although he felt that it was impossible for Great Senior to act against him, he quickly nodded and said, “En. Prepare whatever you need.”

Leaving the mountain, Yang Kai immediately rushed to the Holy Master Court.

When he last left here, Yang Kai hadn’t expected to actually be gone for several days so he was quite anxious to see how Du Wan and the other Grandmasters were doing.

For the past few days, all the pills coming out from the Holy Land had been refined by them.

Just after entering the pill room, Yang Kai saw the five Grandmasters sitting in front of their respective pill furnaces, a set of herbs placed next to each of them.

The five Grandmasters were all staring at a freshly refined pill in their hands, a silent and dignified aura surrounding them.

Yang Kai couldn’t help feeling worried and quickly asked, “Several Grandmaster, what happened?”

Hearing Yang Kai’s voice, Du Wan and the other Grandmasters all seemed to wake from their meditation and turned smiling faces towards him.

Yang Kai was stunned.

“Nothing happened. Us old fogies just discovered that our Alchemy skills have improved noticeably…” Du Wan smiled and explained.

“En, a truly significant promotion,” Chang Bao echoed.

“As such, every time we finish refining a pill, we take a moment to reflect on our various gains and mistakes,” Kong Ruo Yu said with a chuckle, “It was what we were doing a moment ago.”

“So that’s it…” Yang Kai breathed a sigh of relief. He had thought that after several days of intense Alchemy the Grandmasters had been overwhelmed.

“Little brat, you may not be the best master, but we are some of the best disciples…” Hong Fang laughed, “Before now, whenever we refined a Saint Pill, we would need to invest at least two hours of time and would use up a great deal of True Qi and Spiritual Energy; but now, we can all refine Saint Pills in half the time while consuming far less of our strength. This is all thanks to the insights we’ve obtained from observing and imitating your Alchemy process.”

The other four Grandmasters smiled and nodded in agreement.

During these past few months, although they would occasionally engage in Alchemy, they had never engaged in a continuous round of pill refining, so none of them had understood how much progress they had made, but for these past few days when Yang Kai was out, they had taken responsibility to refine all the materials which were delivered to them.

After refining a few pills, they managed to confirm many of the gains they obtained from observing and emulating Yang Kai’s methods, and everyone discovered that their skills had noticeably improved.

Whether it was in the speed of refinement or the quality of the end product, both had seen a significant promotion.

Du Wan was even confident that he could now refine a Saint Grade Mid-Rank pill!

If he really was able to achieve this, it would mean he had ascended to the rank of Saint Grade Mid-Rank Alchemist.

Observing and emulating Yang Kai’s Alchemy process for a few months had brought them greater gains than decades of self-study, causing all five of the Grandmasters to be jubilant. These days they had spared no effort in Alchemy, maintaining a steady pace of refining twenty pills a day.

However, it took five of them working together to refine twenty pills each day whereas Yang Kai was able to refine twenty all by himself.

In regards to this point, the five Grandmasters had no choice but to admit their inferiority as well as marvel at the amazing boost an Alchemist would receive just by having a Conflagrated Knowledge Sea.

“Unfortunately, during these days, we have each had a few failures and wasted lot of good materials,” Du Wan commented, somewhat apologetically.

Alchemist not only took refining pills as their life’s calling but also saw medicinal herbs as true treasures that were not to be wasted if at all possible, so every failed refining was quite distressing to them.

On top of that, they had not once witnessed Yang Kai fail a refinement.

“It’s fine, the Holy Land is now so rich in materials that paying some small compensation here and there is not an issue,” Yang Kai smiled, “Several Grandmasters seem to have each harvested much.”

“Good, you’ve come back at just the right time, we were hoping to discuss something with you,” Du Wan smiled.

“If Grandmasters have anything to ask, please feel free to speak.”

“Could you increase the number of pills to be refined each day? You can still refine the original twenty pills while giving us the rest to use to refine. We’d like to continue observing your techniques here while also using some of the materials coming in to verify our findings.”

“En,” He Feng nodded repeatedly, “Such a chance is simply too rare, us old folks really would like to spend some more time here.”

“We were just worried you’d grown tired of us old fogies hanging around…” Chang Bao smiled.

“Nothing of the sort…” Yang Kai immediately shook his head and said, “It just so happens that I have something I need to attend to outside so I will be gone for a while. If it is alright with several Grandmasters, the daily twenty pills can be handed over to you to refine.”

“Oh?” Du Wan brow rose, “Going out again? Where are you headed this time?”

“The Monster Domain, the nearby Monster Race Great Senior has something he wants to speak with me about,” Yang Kai answered truthfully.

The five Grandmasters all exchanged slightly shocked looks, not quite knowing what to make of this but still quite pleased that Yang Kai had felt confident enough to tell them the truth.

“Then you should set out and come back quickly. We only came here to observe and emulate your Alchemy techniques, you can’t be thinking of just letting us work for free right?” Chang Bao joked.

“What nonsense are you spouting, after several months of observing and learning, this is a perfect opportunity to consolidate our gains,” Kong Ruo Yu smiled, “I’m quite looking forward to this actually. Boy, you don’t need to pay him any mind, just go take care of your business, it won’t be too late to return after you finish it.”

“En, but be careful, the Monster Race is still the Monster Race after all!” Du Wan warned.

“Good, then I’ll have to trouble several Grandmasters,” Yang Kai cupped his fists and bowed before quickly departing.

On his way over, Yang Kai had been wracking his brain about what to do with the Alchemy requests when he left. If he couldn’t convince the five Grandmasters to help him, he could only stop accepting Alchemy requests until he got back.

The five Grandmasters volunteering to help him was a big pleasant surprise for Yang Kai.

After finding Xu Hui and leaving a few instructions with him, Yang Kai returned to the Ancient Demon Clan’s peak and, under the leaders.h.i.+p of Cai Die, he and Li Rong departed for Thunder Tree Palace.