Chapter - 10

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[Alchemists' Guild]

Director Yang Xin of the alchemists' guild yawned as she walked out of her room and into her large study, not forgetting to tightly knot her ample blue robe to cover her curvaceous, voluptuous body and her large, soft breasts to try to ward off the morning chill, before heading over the curtains to let in the sunlight.

"Oh, what's this?" hummed the pretty brunette with interest as she made her way to the desk and saw a single envelope sitting in the center of it. "Post already? Then let's see what's inside," she sat down behind the desk and opened the envelope to see what was inside.

"Zoysia grass?" she raised an eyebrow, and couldn't help but chuckle when she read it, with obvious amusement on her small lips.

There were a myriad of different uses written on the letter for the herb. From using it in the standard soul pill to increasing the effect by up to thirty percent. A paralytic poison that could take down even silver-ranked demonic beasts. Used in the production of medicine used to, there were easily three dozen or more uses for the thought of being useless grass.

"This must be a joke." Yang Xin shook her head in puzzlement. But she could only bite her lip. But what if it wasn't? Then the future of alchemists this would all fall on her hands....

Standing up, the dark-haired beauty headed to her ingredient shelf and pulled out the ingredients for a series of soul pills, before opening the one small jar she had of zoysia herb and heading to the small soul pill refining station and dropping down in front of it.

Half an hour later, her eyes widened when instead of the six soul pills her had expected, eight were ejected from the opening in the refining station, each of them glowing warmly with a bright green glow. And her eyes almost popped out of her head when her tested one and felt the mass of cultivation rising through the force of her soul after swallowing it.

"He was telling the truth!" Yang Xin screamed in shock as her could not believe her eyes! Finally, alchemists would once again become a force to be reckoned with!

[Interlude]

The next morning, Li Ming woke up early, had a quick breakfast and did a short, intensive workout with his body that he could feel was close to the power of a gold grade.

"State"

[Name: Li Ming

Age: 13

Race: Human

Physique: Heavenly Evil Physique

Spiritualist Rank: 1 Star Silver Rank

Fighter Rank: 5 Star Silver Rank

Soul Realm: Indigo

Soul Attribute: Attributeless

Soul Form: Yin Evil Lotus

Merit Laws:

● Ten Thousand Beast Totem

Aspect Totem:

1) Beast Marks of Death "Horned Sheep" - "Fanged Panda" - "Silver Tiger") [Embryonic Form].

● Revolving Crescent Sun Merit Law

● Secrets of the Grand Dao

● Notes of the Array Dao

● Dragon Mammoth Sea-Forming Scripture

Law/Dao: ---------- ]

Li Ming a nodded slightly at the small state screen that had appeared in front of him and without any more remaining duties headed toward the apprentice class, he was very pleased with how his cultivation was progressing.

Thanks to the cultivation technique he had chosen "Dragon Mammoth Sea-Forming Scripture" he could feel his foundation becoming stronger and stronger every second and as a result his body and soul strength were growing to monstrous levels.

Moreover, there was another good reason why his cultivation was still only at the silver rank, while it could have been higher... Since he had awakened in this world, Li Ming had felt different. Regardless of the circumstances, he only wanted to do one thing: destroy the self-esteem of others and crush the pride of stronger people. In this world they always think they are sure to win, so they like to defeat them and trample them down until there is nothing left of their confidence. Only despair will remain.

Moreover, Li Ming was confident that with this method, if he suffered a deep wound in the future by an unfortunate coincidence, his cultivation would become even stronger than before after healing!

However, it was still half an hour before class started. Li Ming opened the door to his classroom and entered, closing the door behind him. He saw a seductive Shen Xiu sitting at his desk examining some scrolls; he was about to leave but seeing orange hair in his peripheral vision stopped his steps.

And there, sitting in the seat adjacent to where he sat yesterday, was Ning'er who was very carefully reading the scroll that had within it the cultivation technique he had imparted to her earlier.

The cultivation technique "Inheritance of the Wind Lightning Emperor" was really scary as it allowed the user a way to increase their cultivation very quickly by drawing on the Qi of the elements of lightning, wind, and water, but it also gave a great understanding of these elements to be able to cultivate their own law or even their own Dao in the future if they were talented enough.

Honestly speaking this technical technique of cultivation, it was in several ways far superior to his Totem of Ten Thousand Beasts... But in the end it depended a lot on the user in question, In addition he had neither affinity for lightning nor water would be wasted in his hands.

But the speed that Ning'er would have when it came to cultivation would be incredible. Honestly, he had even been impressed when he first saw her cultivating the technique!

Even if he no longer intended to seduce the beautiful girl or anything like that, that did not mean he was happy to let that idiot Shen Fei have a girl like her. He would just make sure she had the strength to put the fool in his place.

After hearing the door close, Ning'er looked up from the roll and met her eyes. A bright and warm smile spread across her face, "Oh, good morning Li Ming." her greeted.

"Morning," nodded Li Ming, stopping at his desk, "How are you feeling?" he asked with some curiosity, after all, not even his physique could devour the physical and mental exhaustion her had undergone to get to the bronze rank.

"Much better," continued Ning'er beaming, "Your help last night soothed most of the pain and your advice that you said not to cultivate under the moon took care of the rest."

"That's fine," smiled Li Ming, "It would be a waste for a girl like you to die so young, especially with your talent finally showing."

"Ah!" Ning'er gasped, her face flushed from the compliment and could not help but chuckle softly, "And it's all because of you."

"No big deal," Li Ming replied with a shrug of his shoulders, "I just wanted to tell you that I'm going to hunt for Earth Devours today instead of staying in class."

"Are you sure? The Earth Devours, although not incredibly powerful, can take a lot more damage than any demonic beast inside the training ground," Ning'er couldn't help but ask with obvious concern making its way onto her beautiful face.

"Don't worry, I have prepared some trump cards in advance to take them down," Li Ming waved at her, "Besides, I hope they give me some fun."

"Do you want to come?" asked Li Ming of her, "There's not much you'll learn here either."

Ning'er blinked, "Um, is that okay?" she asked, looking toward him with obvious hesitation, she didn't want to make trouble after all she had a difficult enough situation to handle.

"You shouldn't worry too much about your engagement with Shen Fei," Li Ming merely huffed contemptuously, crossing his arms, "If he tries to start trouble with me..." he paused for a moment as a smirk spread across his face as he licked his lips, "Then I'll rip out his demonic spirit and keep it for myself. That should teach him that dogs should not joke with their betters."

Ning's eyes widened at her statement while a smile could not help but appear on her face that brought out her beauty.

"It doesn't matter about that idiot, if he gets angry or something like that I will take care of it along with his whole family if they get in the way," Li Ming reassured her, with ease and without any concern for having the whole sacred family as enemies.

Shen Fei might have been a one-star gold rank, but the vast majority of his power came from the abundance of soul pills and elixirs that had been given to him over the years by his family; he had not gained much of his strength.

Weaker than him or not when it came to soul strength or even just physical strength, Li Ming was confident that he could put it back in place, moreover if he had to be completely honest he also hoped that it would start something, after all if he could push it to attack his soul realm, it could speed up his cultivation immensely.

"So are you coming?" asked Li Mig again to an indecisive Ning'er, who was considering whether or not she should make this decision....

Finally, the orange-haired girl looked at him hesitantly for a few moments before nodding, "All right." She smiled slowly again, accepting his offer, standing up and storing her cultivation roll inside her space ring.

Ning'er could not help but lay eyes on Li Ming's defined and muscular form as they walked along the main road leading away from the Sacred Orchid Institute.

She could only help but think that he was such an interesting person. His past was well known to the nobility and his name was on everyone's lips after his appearance yesterday. Yet despite all this, what did she really know about him as a person?

Like her, he had chosen to sit away from everyone else at the beginning of class. But she had not paid attention to the lectures, had spent her time during class cultivating, as if there was nothing to learn from the apprenticeship class. Thinking about it now, after meeting with him last night, this might be true. The kind of experience she should have had to put in to have a cultivation technique like that, to the point where cultivation this morning for a few minutes led her to have a growth spurt in her soul realm was unimaginable.

Ning'er felt that she could have broken through the two-star bronze rank as early as today if she had not made an effort to give her meridians a chance to heal more.

"Hoh?" Li Ming hummed, and Ning'er watched him as he watched a street seller unloading his wares. Putting small spherical orbs on display atop his stall, demonic spirits.

Though not very powerful from what he could see. Only those made from common demonic beasts, those so weak that they were usually kept as pets and were rather useless for a demonic spiritist besides giving a stronger form to take, very few of them even had any special ability or power.

It was a common sight. The road leading to the Sacred Orchid Institute was always lined with vendors selling goods that would only be used by peasants. It was the best place for them to make money, considering how many children of nobles attended the institute.

Li Ming approached the vendor, "Hey, old man," he greeted him familiarly, "How much do you sell them for?" he asked, pointing to the row of six demonic spirits the man had ended up displaying.

"Ah, young master," the seller rubbed his hands together and smiled, "These are for sale at a low price, only five thousand five hundred demonic spirit coins each."

"Ah, so for each demonic spirit produced he makes about five hundred, huh?" stated Li Ming with interest, "and then uses the profits to earn even more over a period of time. Pretty decent idea, I'm sure the nobles are the first to buy them to show off their wealth."

Well, few bought them to merge with them. But Ning'er knew that it was common practice for noble children to buy and collect them. He had actually seen that annoying Shen Yue buy all six of the demonic spirits that this same man had put up for sale yesterday after class, trying to show off his wealth to Ye Ziyun to try to curry her favor.

"Indeed the young master is wise for his age," complimented the seller, "So would you like to buy some?" asked the old man in a respectful tone, not daring to disrespect a possible buyer.

"Unfortunately I can't right now, despite how great the help would be," Li Ming replied with a shrug, "But I will definitely look for you in a few days uncle, once I have more money and buy as many as you have then."

Honestly, Li Ming could afford all the demonic spirits for sale without too much trouble, only he already had some major plans in mind on how to spend his demonic spirit coins, but he certainly could not afford to be reckless at this time.

But he wanted to make his Aspect Totem grow faster by devouring more Demonic Spirits in his soul realm. From embryonic form, to formative state and finally to full form, it could undergo mutations and evolve. It was not known what his Aspect Totem would look like when it mutated.

But there was no restriction on the elemental properties of the demonic beasts of ten thousand that had to be killed. Since elemental laws came in all kinds of forms, the Aspect Totem that was mastered would not have a specific form. Its power and laws differed from person to person and had endless possibilities.

Whether the "Ten Thousand Beast Totem" was cultivated correctly was based mainly on the number of Aspect Totems. According to the information he had received, cultivating three or four Aspect Totems was considered excellent, while five to six Aspect Totems was the result of a proud child of heaven. Seven to eight Aspect Totems would be the result of an unparalleled Great Emperor.

Of course Li Ming wanted to surpass this unparalleled achievement and cultivate at least 13 Aspect Totems!

"Ah, right. Li Ming couldn't have had much money," Ning'er thought, being an orphan who had practically raised himself.

She knew he had been hunting demonic beasts in training camps since he had enrolled in the academy, the rumors about the population of horned sheep being slaughtered by a ton had been talked about a lot at the institute, and she had realized last night that it must have been him.

Before Ning'er realized what she was doing, she was already talking, "In that case," said the orange-haired girl, "I'll take two." Her weekly allowance was fifteen thousand demonic spirit coins. She had enough for two of them, and it was a small price to pay if Li Ming wanted them.

A strong but gentle hand rested on her shoulder and Li Ming gave her a small nod to shake her head, "You don't need to buy them for me Ning'er," he told her, "I will have more than enough demonic spirit coins in a few days."

Ning'er's face blushed. The weight of his hand on her shoulder and the way he smiled made her heart race. "I want to do it, though," she replied, stammering a little, "think of it as a small gift of gratitude after what you did for me."

"I didn't do it for free," Li Ming pointed out. "... But if that's what you want, I won't insult you by refusing the gesture."

The smile that widened on Ning'er's face was so wide that it almost hurt: "Then choose what you want," she said in return. However, something occurred to her, "Why do you need them?" They were so weak, they could not be used as a fused demonic spirit by a person of Li Ming's talent. And why would she need more of them?

".. Eh," Li Ming murmured as he put on a thoughtful expression for a moment before sighing and nodding he head, "How about we tell you once we get out of here?"

"That works for me." Ning'er nodded, continuing to smile she wasn't sure why but she was very happy today.

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