Sovereign of the Three Realms

Breaking through to the spirit realm wasn’t a difficult task. If Jiang Chen wanted to, he had an eighty to ninety percent chance of doing so within a month.

Although Jiang Chen wished to make it quick, he didn’t want to be overly rushed either.

The pill that he was refining this time was called the “Five Dragons Opening Heavens Pill”.

The name was quite domineering. In actuality, this was a pill that could cleave open and shape the spirit ocean.

Jiang Chen naturally had even better pills, but with the Skylaurel Kingdom’s current conditions, the Five Dragons Opening Heavens Pill was the limit of his abilities.

Jiang Chen wouldn’t be able to gather the ingredients for any better pills, and he wasn’t assured of success in refinement.

The Five Dragons Opening Heavens Pill was the most appropriate pill that Jiang Chen currently thought he could refine successfully.

The fine items that he’d swindled from Lu Wuji last time were precisely the materials needed to refine the Five Dragons Opening Heavens Pill.

Jiang Chen also knew very well that the success rate of this pill wasn’t that high, and so he’d made an exorbitant demand for enough materials for ten tries. This way, he’d have sufficient capabilities to fail.

The so-called five dragons of the Five Dragons Opening Heavens Pill actually referred to the five elements: metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. These five elements were innately present in the human body, and corresponded to the five organs.

The five dragons, as they implied, were to train the five types of qi and induce them into becoming dragons.

Opening Heavens was to cleave the spirit ocean open.

The pill was for coalescing the five types of qi into dragons and cleaving open the spirit ocean -- thus was the origins of the name of the Five Dragons Opening Heavens Pill.

Jiang Chen was well aware that even within the Skylaurel Kingdom, the Five Dragons Opening Heavens Pill should not have existed.

If this pill were to make an appearance, it would absolutely cause a public uproar and riots.

Of course, Jiang Chen wasn’t so foolish that he would introduce this kind of pill into the market.

It was different from the Heavenly Karma Pill and Vast Ocean Pill. Those pills only served a complementary purpose.

But the Five Dragons Opening Heavens Pill was completely different. From many aspects, taking this pill was a mandatory step in entering the spirit realm.

For one, this pill could ensure, with ninety nine percent surety, that a true qi practitioner would have no accidents while assailing the spirit realm.

If being able to guarantee that no accidents would occur when assailing the spirit realm, then this would absolutely overturn everything if it appeared within the Skylaurel Kingdom.

One had to know, practitioners at the peak of the true qi realm were as many as the hairs on oxen within the Skylaurel Kingdom, but less than one out of a hundred successfully assailed the spirit realm.

Some didn’t dare to make an attempt. They were afraid that if they failed, they would be dead and their training erased.

Some had missed the age to make an attempt and they knew that they wouldn’t possibly succeed, and so they gave up.

Some made the attempt, but they failed. They were either crippled or dead.

Those few lucky ones successfully made it through their attempt and shook off the mortal coils to become spirit, becoming a spirit realm practitioner that all true qi practitioners admired and looked up to.

If true qi couldn’t transmute to spirit qi, then one was a worm in the end.

This was the true meaning of martial dao.

The spirit realm represented breaking free from the mundane and reaching a higher level in one’s studies.

Remaining in the true qi realm meant that one hadn’t shaken off the mundane shackles and were still ordinary mortals in the end. As strong as their martial prowess was, they were still limited after all. Their lifespan was still curtailed compared to a spirit realm practitioner’s lifespan.

Therefore, this simple function from the Five Dragons Opening Heavens Pill would be enough to make everyone go utterly crazy for it.

However, for the pill itself, guaranteeing the success of assailing the spirit realm was only a basic function.

Its most important function was to stimulate the five inner qi types and induce the qi to become dragons, sculpting the spirit ocean, assailing the spirit ocean, and excavating the potential of the spirit ocean in the body.

This function was where the Five Dragons Opening Heavens Pill proved to be the greatest.

From Jiang Chen’s interactions with the disciples of the Purple Sun Sect, he could tell that a spirit dao practitioner had overwhelming advantages over the true qi realm.

But from their moves, it looked like their crafting of the spirit sea hadn’t been too successful. The excavation of their potential had also been very singular focused.

From beginning to end, he had seen the Purple Sun Sect disciples demonstrate the potential of almost only the water attribute.

The water attribute was only one of the five types of qi.

In the greater world and a greater plane of existence, if someone was able to unearth one or two areas, they would almost be the lowest level of existence and a non-mainstream practitioner.

Even if they’d entered the spirit realm, their potential was usually the worst, their birth the lowest, and their qualifications would be the same as a poor practitioner.

If these poor practitioners didn’t have the ability to obtain good pills and cleave the spirit ocean open from their own hard work and training, they were often seen as the lowest level of existence in the world of training.

The saying of ‘those who specialized in the civil subjects would be poor, and those who specialized in the military subjects would be rich’ was not a random saying out of nowhere.

If one didn’t have a strong family background and plenty of disposable wealth, falling behind even one step due to a lack of strong economic support meant falling behind for the rest of one’s life.

Only exceedingly few geniuses with astonishing potential would be able to trample over scores of practitioners with their breathtaking abilities. This kind of unsurpassed genius did exist amongst poor practitioners, but they numbered very, very few. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack and it was something that would come about by luck and not through search.

The current Jiang Chen, when compared to the sect disciples, was indeed a poor practitioner.

Born of a small duke in a common, ordinary kingdom, he lacked a strong family background, a patron, strong economic support, and he didn’t enjoy an endless supply of resources.

But, he had the potential that he’d brought from his past life. It was definitely worthy of the title of being a breathtaking and astonishing genius!

“Whether it’s the Eastern Kingdom or Skylaurel Kingdom, they are all stops along my way of martial dao. While life goes on, there is no rest on the path of martial dao. It looks like I must hasten my pace.”

...

Old man Fei did indeed have many strongholds within the capital. It was akin to a cunning rabbit having three holes to his burrows.

“Young Chen, this is one of the best pill rooms in the capital. There are no disturbances from the surroundings and its location is more isolated. What do you think? If you don’t like it, I’ll take you to another one.”

“No need, this is fine.” Jiang Chen understood that the conditions of the Skylaurel Kingdom were like this, so he couldn’t be more demanding.

“Then… ” Old man Fei hesitated, a fawning look to please on his face, but he stopped after opening his mouth. “Young Chen, I’m quite curious, what pill are you refining?”

“What, you’re curious?”

Old man Fei nodded his head like a chick pecking rice. “Yes, yes! Young Chen, your moves are powerful and unrestrained with talent, full of mysteriousness and unexpectedness. I’m curious about anything that is young Chen.”

“Don’t natter at me. This pill has no use for you, so don’t waste too much time thinking about it. Right now, patrol the surroundings for me for the next ten days to half a month. Remember, don’t let any strangers approach within a hundred meters of this place.”

Upon hearing that this pill would be of no use for him, the old man’s curiosity more or less subsided a little. Hearing that Jiang Chen wished for him to survey the surroundings, the old man didn’t turn it down, but he was rather raring to go.

What did this mean? This meant that Jiang Chen was going through the initial steps of accepting him!

Young Chen was a genius under the protection of a mysterious expert. Old man Fei felt that it was his honor to be acknowledged and accepted by young Chen.

“Please be at ease young Chen, I will haul off anyone who dares to disturb your pill refinement and chop him into pieces to be fertilizer for the Qingyang Valley. Ah, it’s a pity that I cannot observe young Chen refining pills. It is indeed a pity.” The old man implored him with a pathetic look.

Jiang Chen chuckled as he knew that the old man was most skilled at pushing his luck. He didn’t engage in a conversation with him and walked directly into the pill room.

Although there was no pill refining formation, one had to say, old man Fei was still quite competent. This pill room had been prepared quite well, with all needed items in full readiness. Jiang Chen didn’t need to prepare anything. He only needed to bring his own raw materials to get started.

The Five Dragons Opening Heavens Pill had five types of ingredients that corresponded to the five elements of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth.

There were more than eighteen supplementary ingredients.

The process of refining this pill was quite complex and detailed, and the refinement process was also quite long. It would take an incredible amount of energy and concentration, thus Jiang Chen had wanted to leverage the pill refining formation.

Jiang Chen sat cross legged in front of the pill cauldron and he used the God’s Eye to carefully observe the cauldron’s quality, ascertaining that there were no problems with it.

He then observed the other refining tools, for instance, the firestarter and tinder.

They were all the basics tools of a pill master, and these were necessary steps before refining pills.

Not a single bit of an accident was allowed to happen during the process of pill refinement. The pill would be a complete failure and waste when an accident happened, and the materials would be wasted in vain.

These ingredients had been difficult to obtain. It would’ve been impossible to gather them all in the Skylaurel Kingdom if one didn’t have certain avenues, and it would’ve been difficult to buy them all in a short amount of time even if one did have the money to.

“At the end of the day, I have to thank that idiot Lu Wuji. If it wasn’t for him resolutely and steadfastly committing stupid acts and enraging Elder Ning and Shi Xiaoyao, this matter likely wouldn’t have been so smooth.”

Jiang Chen revealed a mischievous smile at the corner of his lips as he looked at the superior ingredients. Lu Wuji was truly Santa Claus!

Even Jiang Chen hesitated. Was it better to destroy this opponent, who appeared smart on the surface but was actually as dumb as a pig, or was it better to leave him alive?

On careful consideration, it seemed to be a rather fine thing to keep this kind of opponent around as Santa Claus.

The first firestarter was lit, then the second, third, fourth, and fifth.

There were five flames in total.

There was also an art to flames. A correspondingly relevant flame was necessary depending on what kind of pill was being refined. There was a vast difference between the fire of metal, the fire of wood, and so on and so forth.

Jiang Chen lit the flames according to the relationship between the five elements and warmed the pill cauldron.

He’d proceeded cautiously in all these steps and according to how he should progress in all of them.

Jiang Chen had gone over these steps of refinement many times in the past few days. He could be certain that nothing would be missed.

The five main ingredients were then added to the pill cauldron in accordance to their proper order, with the supplementary ingredients afterwards. They were mixed together according to their proper fires, slowly simmered with the relevant flames…

Even though Jiang Chen had simulated all sorts of details countless numbers of times beforehand, he too felt that there were a great deal of them and it was quite exhausting.

This was Jiang Chen -- if it was any pill master below the spirit realm, they’d probably spit out blood before they’d made it through one process.

Having trained in the “Boulder’s Heart”, Jiang Chen’s mental concentration was more than ten times that of an ordinary person’s. Even so, he still felt slightly weary after following through with these steps one by one.

It was a good thing that after following these steps, it was manual operations next. This was a test of his control over fire. This needed skills of manipulation and observation. With his level of God’s Eye, that shouldn’t prove to be too much of a problem.

Time passed by in seconds and minutes. Jiang Chen looked as green smoke started rising from the pill cauldron. This green smoke had actually been steamed out of all the ingredients, and it was the dross and waste matter from the spirit ingredients.

Upon seeing that the green smoke was becoming fainter and fainter, Jiang Chen knew that the flames were about ready. This was the tail end of the process, and it was already set in stone whether or not the pill had succeeded.

In this instance, even someone as calm as Jiang Chen felt the faint sensation of blood thrumming in his veins. This was the first time he’d so gravely refined a pill.

As a pill master in his previous life, Jiang Chen felt tragic that he’d been reduced to fretting over whether or not the Five Dragons Opening Heavens Pill had succeeded, but also felt a boundless strength to fight on.