"You… you are an expert in the Dao of Alchemy—an Alchemist?" Madam Wang asked Su Yang, her voice sounding dazed and her face still expressing strong disbelief.
Alchemists or Alchemy Masters are cultivators in the cultivation world with a profession in medicines and creating pills. They are all highly respected and valued people in the cultivation world because of their ability to create pills that could significantly assist others whether it'd be their health or cultivation.
However, not everybody can become an Alchemist as they wish. Just like cultivation, one must be born with the talent to become an Alchemist, as they are required to memorize the countless numbers of plants and medicines that exist in this world. It is said that only one in 100,000 people are born with the capabilities to become an Alchemist, hence their rarity in this world.
Additionally, most Alchemists in this world are at an old age because they had to spend the majority of their life studying the Dao of Alchemy just to become a full-fledged Alchemist. So for Su Yang, who was still so young, to be an Alchemist was something almost unbelievable in Madam Wang's eyes.
"No, I am not an Alchemist." Su Yang immediately denied her suspicions, and he continued: "But I happen to know a thing or two about the Dao of Alchemy, as I used to have a friend who was decent in that field."
"If you're not an Alchemist, then what the hell could you possibly know about the profound Dao of Alchemy?" Madam Wang frowned. She was someone who deeply revered all Alchemists, as she was an Alchemy apprentice herself, someone who'd just started her path to becoming an Alchemy Master. So when Su Yang, someone who was not even an Alchemist, claimed that he knew a thing or two about the Dao of Alchemy, it had greatly annoyed her.
In her eyes, he was not any different than someone claiming to know about sewing when he'd never sewed before.
"Whether I know anything or not, why don't you see for yourself? Do you have one of those Burning Lotus Pills on you right now?" he suddenly said.
"What are you going to do?" she asked with a doubtful expression.
"I have never seen this Burning Lotus Pill ever in my life before, but I will be able to guess its recipe if you give me a minute with it."
"What a joke. If you can tell a pill's recipe just by looking at the pill, then I'd be willing to kiss your feet and call you my master." Madam Wang sneered at his ridiculous claims.
"Then why don't we have a bet on whether or not I can do it? If I cannot guess the pill's recipe, then I will give you all of these Lightning Cats monster cores for free. However, if I win…"
A profound light flickered within Madam Wang's eyes half-way through Su Yang's sentence, and she quickly interrupted him. "If you win, then you can do whatever you want with my body." She said to him with a seductive look.
"..." Su Yang lifted an eyebrow at her offer, and he said a second later: "Why would I want your body?"
His words instantly dumbfounded Madam Wang, who was extremely confident in her charming figure and beautiful appearance. How could he refuse her offer that was a dream of countless men out there? Could he even be considered a man at this point?
After hearing Su Yang's direct rejection, Madam Wang awkwardly cleared her throat.
"Then what do you want?" she asked with a slightly blushing face, feeling embarrassed about what had just happened.
"I want you." Su Yang said in a nonchalant voice, dumbfounding her once again.
"What did you just say?" Madam Wang couldn't help but feel that he was truly trying to make a fool out of her by now. Where did he get the courage to ask for her after refusing her just seconds ago?
"I want you—your status as a Sect Elder for the Burning Lotus Palace, to be precise. I will clearly win this bet, as that's the only reason I'd even bother making this wager in the first place. Did you really think that I'd be stupid enough to make an expensive bet that I wasn't confident in? Or did that not come across your mind at all? How laughable…" Su Yang chuckled.
Madam Wang's jaw dropped slightly from shock. She'd only realized that after Su Yang mentioned it. Because he had used so many monster cores as his wager, it had caught her off guard and made her mind muddled for a moment.
After the realization, her body began feeling hotter than before, almost as if the room's temperature skyrocketed. Just thinking about how she'd almost gave away her body for free made her entire body sweaty.
"Why are you doing this me? Do I really look that easy to make fun of? You may be a customer here, but force and my hands and I will kill you!" Madam Wang gritted her teeth in anger, and her eyes narrowed at Su Yang, her urge to beat him up resurfacing and stronger than ever.
Ever since the beginning, nothing had made sense to her. She felt as though she was being thrown around by Su Yang at the back of his palms— that she was just his plaything.
Seeing her cultivation base at the peak of the True Spirit Realm leaking out of her, Su Yang casually shrugged. "You are an honest woman, so I did not bother coating my words with you. I did not intend on making fun of you, I promise."
Hearing his words and seeing his sincere face, Madam Wang slowly calmed down.
"Continue," she said a moment later.
"Before I continue, allow me to show you my credibility. The Burning Lotus Pill, you have one, right?" he said.
Madam Wang turned silent again.
And a minute later, she stood up and walked to the back of the room, where she retrieved a small glass bottle inside one of the drawers. Inside this glass bottle, there rested one red-colored medicine pill in the shape and size of a perfectly small, round pebble.
"This is the Burning Lotus Pill. Make any funny movements and I'll instantly kill you." Madam Wang placed the glass bottle on the table right beside the monster cores.
Su Yang casually picked up the bottle and inspected the pill inside.
"I will open it to smell it." Su Yang smiled when Madam Wang frowned at his words. "Don't worry, it will only take a second and the pill's quality will remain the same," he said to her as a reassurance, since these glass bottles were made to keep the pills inside fresh or else they'd degrade, just like jade boxes.
After saying that, Su Yang barely pulled the cap off the glass bottle and gave it a quick sniff, before closing it immediately. He then placed the glass bottle back on the table and closed his eyes with a pondering expression.
"This pill was made only recently… precisely 5 days ago. The ingredients used to create this pill was…" Su Yang, still with his eyes closed, began naming a dozen different names for herbs and other things, causing Madam Wang to stare at him with her delicious-looking mouth and beautiful eyes wide open.