After renting a room at the Mo brothers Wu Chen rests for the night.
Opening his eyes in the morning, Wu Chen wakes up with pain all over his body particularly the chest area, this was caused by the two souls he had refined the night before.
"My body is aching all over, I must gather qi", said Wu Chen struggling to speak getting in the lotus pose.
Upon gathering his qi Wu Chen realises he can only use 70 percent of his power and any more would cause a backlash leading to the scattered energy to damage his internal organs.
" Perhaps it will get better during the day, right now I need to prepare and head to the Imperial palace, Pill Saint Huang Mei must be waiting", said Wu Chen in the lotus pose on top of his bed.
Wu Chen arrives at the imperial palace's hall, there he finds a servant waiting.
"This master must be Alchemist Wu, the pill saint instructed me to show you the way to the royal family's alchemy hall, please follow me", said the Servant.
Outside the hall stands pill Saint Huang Mei and Elder Huang Feng, Infront of them two workstations have been prepared both with the same variety of plants aswell as the same quantity.
"Greetings alchemist Wu, this is my family's elder and alchemist of the Gold Pill Pavilion, he will be our judge",said Huang Mei.
After greeting the Elder and expressing his gratitude for him being the judge, elder Huang Feng responds," you are being too polite alchemist Wu, I should be thanking you, it's been a long time since I have seen my niece this excited", said Elder Huang Feng.
Huang Mei who was now feeling embarrassed composes herself and address Wu Chen, "since you set your conditions yesterday I will set mine",
"We will both each make five different pills starting from level 5 to saint level pills, I don't know if alchemist Wu can handle that", said Huang Mei with a confident tone as she walks toward her workstation.
Wu Chen who has never been afraid of a challenge boldly replies, " then let us begin fellow alchemist".
With excitement in his voice Elder Huang Feng starts the battle, "Very good!! I Pill King Huang Feng declare that the battle between pill saint Huang Mei and Alchemist Wu Chen officially starts" raising his gourd of wine in the air, the signature of the Gold Pill pavilion.
With the two preparing their plants and taking out their preferred refining cauldrons, elder Huang Feng realises they all brought high quality cauldrons, it is clear to him that these two mean to exchange lessons.
Impatient to see how it will all unfold he thinks to himself "looks like this old man will be here for a while, Mei'er has brought the royal cauldron, a high grade artificat, good for retaining heat and extremely durable allowing an alchemist to use more QI without worrying about destroying their equipment".
As he turns to look at Wu Chen's Cauldron he can't help but notice something odd, "this boy is clearly suffering from an internal injury, just sitting from here I can tell he is in pain and yet the way he is using his spiritual fire to purify the plants reminds me of how we were taught fire control back in my youth, using small intense fire but at a constant rate to ensure you can work as long as possible with the little qi you have, but this was because when a person starts cultivation for the first time, they cannot gather alot of QI and as such young alchemists who started cultivation through pill making where taught this method, now that I think about it, why is he also hiding his cultivation ", Elder Huang Feng using the bones of his brain.
With 5 hours already spent, the two have completed the first batch of the pill battle, Elder Huang Feng approaches their workstations to inspect the pills but is stopped by Wu Chen instead, "Elder Huang Feng please relax, we
will make all the pills in each level and you will judge them all at once, when they are refined".
With no obligations Elder Huang Feng sits down.
Pill saint Huang Mei wonders why Wu Chen would ask a thing but decides to start refining her level 6 pills.
Another 5 hours pass, the two start to refine level 7 pills, with neither of them showing signs of slowing down they continue to go another 5 hours.
The competition now still continuing in the night, they begin to refine level 8 pills.
In the history of alchemy some pills were known to cause weather phenomenons when the different high quality spiritual plants combined to form the pill, this was the first sign to symbolise level 8 pills and higher, this lead to such pills being coined heaven defying pills by alchemists.
With the nature of these pills having potent spiritual energy, the nature of qi required to refine them is by an alchemist of a cultivation realm at SPIRIT FURNACE STAGE.
Without paying attention to it Wu Chen uses the qi in the Spirit Furnace stage, utilizing spiritual fire as intense as a fire in a furnace.
Huang Mei already a Spirit Furnace stage cultivator reveals her Heavenly Flame, ranked at 157, the Phoenix rage heavenly flame.
"Pill Saint Mei you sure hid your strength well, but it's just a mere 157th ranked heavenly flame ", said Wu Chen with an antagonising tone.
Elder Huang Feng who would not allow Wu Chen belittle the Huang clan treasure responds " you rascal what do you know, this flame has been in my Huang family for generations, you should be thankful to witness such a historic family treasure".
The first pills begin to form, with the spiritual energy of the plants and the cultivation of the two alchemists, the phenomenons caused by the two pills began to clash, their pills begin to become unstable, it's now a battle of overwhelming one another through skill and momentum.
As they clash with their QI, the combined momentum of their cultivation alone is able to cause a chaotic wave of energy that anyone far away can feel the collision of the two energies, mixed with the fact that the pills were also heaven defying.
cultivators and people alike were disturbed by this, wondering what could be happening in the night, some fearing that the imperial city was under siege.
Those who went outside saw two bright beams of light hitting a group of large spiralling clouds exactly under the palace.
The King senses the momentum he quickly wakes up.
The residents witnessing the beams of light fear for the royal family so they alert other residents to go help.
Rumours spread, the whole city is up at night, everyone is heading to the royal palace.
Regardless of status or cultivation everyone arrives at the palace, with countless of them gathering outside the alchemy hall, you would swear it was the king's crowning ceremony.
To their surprise, the King with the royal family and city residents find two alchemist in a battle of will, neither of them is loosing focus of the task at hand.
It's as if everyone has collectively decided to remain silent and watch two masters at work.
The two alchemists, now have almost all the city residents and all the members of the royal family witnessing their pill battle.
The commotion has attracted the two biggest influential sects in the city along with their sect masters, The Gold Pill pavilion Master Wang Jiang and the Jade Pill Tower Master Mu Qing.
The two newly arrived guests make their toward Elder Huang Feng who was sitting with the king.
Upon arrival they greet the king and the elder as they sit down to join them.
With the royal family seeing Huang Mei so dedicated in her work and even attracting a multitude of people they can't help but feel proud to see her show of her skills.
"Go on!!! Big sister Mei",shouts the young children of the Huang clan.
With the older generation and even the soldiers joining in, "Go on!! princess Mei".
"Seems Elder Huang Feng has trained pill saint Huang Mei well this old man salutes you", said the Pavilion Master Wang Jian drinking a cup of wine.
"Indeed he has, she is a good representation of a true pill saint, unyielding and efficient",said the Tower Master Mu Qing.
The King inspired to see the battle Infront of him and the praises Elder Huang Feng is getting he speaks out "uncle Feng could it be possible for you to teach me too".
The four of them laugh after the king made such a comment.
Pill saint Huang Mei finds strength in the acknowledgement she is getting from the family, she feels as if her family has now truly seen her skills.
"I never thought the day would come, I have undoubtedly created a seat of my own in my Huang family and as such I will also win this for them, as much as I am thankful for this recognition, I will not belittle that arrogant brat's hand in helping me with this, even if it's mostly my own skills but I will still admit he is that worthy of an opponent". Staring at her opponent with slight smile on her face.
Huang Mei who has now started to see Wu Chen as a worthy rival combined with the pride she feels in her own skills and the support from her family, she feels as if a burden has been removed, with the newly gained emotional strength and the fact that she has been using her qI the entirety of the day, Huang Mei feels she has overcome a bottleneck and indeed it was such.
All witness Huang Mei's spiritual furnace transform into a cauldron granting her the Spirit Cauldron Stage and with her rise in cultivation she has started to be the dominant party in the clash against Wu Chen.
Barely able to hold on Wu Chen shouts, "the pill saint is indeed talented, having a breakthrough at this moment is beyond impressive".
The Jade pill tower master seeing Wu Chen's arrogance asks, "this boy is a little on the strange side, he is clearly hiding his cultivation and seems to be injured, I want to say he is going to lose but the way he is so calm is concerning ".
A new voice comments on the issue, " this boy is indeed strange in addition the way he refines, you would swear you looking at an old master work his art". This was the Jin clan patriarch, pill king Jin Hao.
After welcoming the Jin patriarch, pill king Jin Hao joins the otter pill kings in sitting down with the king.
Wu Chen realising he is going to lose the clash and more importantly his injury was worsening due to the fact that he was now engaged in a clash that has been going on for quite some time.
"I won't be able to make it if I keep going on like this", Wu Chen warning himself as he coughs out a bit of blood.
Huang Mei who noticed the blood, taunts her opponent "fellow alchemist if you cannot handle it anymore you can give up there's no shame in loosing to a pill saint".
One elder of the Jade pill tower in agreement, "that's right boy, you are indeed talented, my pill tower is willing to take you in as it's disciple".
Unable to bear the pain Wu Chen is reminded of his grandfather's words he whispers to himself, "grandfather would be scolding me right now, luckily I still have that flag".
Wu Chen was referring to his achievement flag, a gift he received from his grandfather every time he achieved a new rank in his alchemy.
All of sudden a new momentum begins to arise, as Wu Chen releases his true cultivation the arena becomes more chaotic, the swirling clouds begin to lose their form, Wu Chen's body is emanating a domineering presence and his Qi spiritual cloak is growing bigger and bigger.
Low level cultivators begin to scream out in agony.
Huang Mei who is closer to Wu Chen also experiences a very intense burning sensation, she quickly forms a barrier but it's not helping, the qi is slowly eating away her defenses.
Suddenly a loud Gong can be heard multiple times
Gong!!..Gong!! ...Gong!!!
People start to feel even more unsettled, the loud noise is too much to their ears.
"That sound, there is no doubt about it", said Elder Huang Feng.
Wu Chen with arms raised up," King's Cauldron come!".
The last 4th Gong can be heard louder than the rest, it's momentum causes Wu Chen's pills to increase its own momentum leading to spiral to become more chaotic and start to overwhelm Huang Mei.
"To think a boy this young is already at the SPIRIT KING CAULDRON stage, this is unheard of, his future is indeed limitess, pavilion master this is a new disciple who will be joining our Gold Pill Pavilion, is he to the master's liking?", said Elder Huang Feng.
The pavilion master happy to see such a promising recruit he shouts, "in that case this old man will be his personal master, with me educating him, he will surely reach the Pill King rank."
Both Wu Chen and Huang Mei hearing this, the pill saint puts all her energy into fighting against Wu Chen.
Wu Chen who after admiring Huang Mei's strength turns towards her and says, "you are a worthy opponent so do not be angry at me for not showing mercy".
In his storage ring Wu Chen pulls out his 15 feet long flag, he plants it next to him for all to read the characters written on it, they read 'Pill King'.
He reveals his heavenly flame, ranked 20, the Spirit Melting heavenly fire.
He places his palms together and as he does this, the heavenly flames raise the cauldron with the medicine and it rotates at the same velocity as the spiralling clouds above, with it's speed extremely high it's as if the cauldron has disappeared into the smoke.
"The cauldron and the smoke's unity, there is no doubting it, this is the signature of all Pill Kings", said the Jin patriarch.
Once the cauldron stopped spinning it reveals a pill so powerful its fragrance rejuvenate all who recieve it.
The clouds all dissipate as the pill is releasing a powerful light to skies, unable to maintain her cauldron, Huang Mei's level 8 pill has failed, she looks at Wu Chen with no malice but admiration.
She is captivated by the pill's presence, its producing strong energy waves like a treasure being discovered.
Alas the pill is now in sight.
"A level 13 pill!!, a king level pill, this boy is indeed a pill king", said the surprised Jade pill Tower Master as the other Pill kings were rushing to see the pill.
The Pavilion master quickly snatches it and the other masters chase after him like little children.
Huang Mei approaches Wu Chen.
With the desire to thank Wu Chen for helping her breakthrough to the spirit Cauldron stage, she finds herself unable to speak only starring at Wu Chen who was now just 3 feet way from her.
Wu Chen looks at her eyes intensely and thinks to himself, "my second day in the city and all my time was spent with this pill saint, perhaps she can be my first ever friend ".
Under Wu Chen's gaze Huang Mei feels more embarrassed to speak she wonders, "why is he looking at me like this, and why I'm I suddenly getting nervous just to say thank you?".
Wu Chen walks toward her while maintaining the intense gaze, as he approaches ,Huang Mei begins to feel a slight cold enter her body, with every step he takes the sensation gets colder.
"What is he planning on doing, why is he coming too close", Huang Mei asks herself.
After taking the last step, Wu Chen faints in the direction of Huang Mei who catches him quickly and holds him to her chest.
Worried she screams for help and Wu Chen is taken to a guest room to recuperate.
"Mie'er don't worry to much, this boy was already injured since morning, with how long you two were using your internal energy and him releasing his king's cauldron as well as his heavenly flames, this all took a strain in his already damaged body, a few days to rest and he should be fine",said Elder Huang Feng to the now worried Huang Mei sitting beside a sleeping Wu Chen.