"YOU BITCH!" Hart's anger erupted like a volcano as he raised his hand to slap Claire when he saw a bolt of lightning fly between his hand and Claire's face.
"That's enough, haven't you heard of a phrase, no means no" the bolts of lightning danced around his fingers as he made a grand entrance to the scene.
"Sect Leader Claire, I can concoct the Heart healing pills in my sleep, you don't need him"
The moment he finished his sentence, they all froze and stared at Ghost, even Gaya looked at him with disbelief at first. Being an Alchemist was not something one can do overnight or not as easy as cultivating.
One needed to be born with a special talent to comprehend the Alchemy knowledge and even with talent and resources, it was extremely hard to concoct a pill or brew a potion without practicing and learning for decades.
So when a 19-year-old youngster spoke these words, they were shocked beyond words.
"I thought he stole those magic healing pills, is he really an Alchemist?" Gaya on the other hand didn't think that he's boasting but actually confused hearing him.
"Brat, who are you?" Hart sneered and said, "you retarded trash, you think you can concoct pills"
"He's dead" Gaya had already marked Hart as a dead body but surprisingly, he seemed calm and cool.
"Yes, I think I can concoct the heart healing pills better than you, any time of the day"
Hart's eyes were full of disdain, and he felt that he was being provoked. He did not expect to be humiliated too after being rejected by Claire.
"If you can't, what then? She'll warm my bed tonight, how is that?" Just like Gaya said, his real intention came to light as he sneered.
"She is not a tool, nor a bet!" he said coldly "If I can't concoct a pill, I will kill myself, how is that?" If he couldn't concoct a pill even after the system etched everything about Alchemy into his brain, he did deserve to die but Micheal knew that he could easily beat him.
"Ghost!"
Elders and Claire tried to intervene but he stopped them with a wave of his hand.
"Kill yourself?" Hart smirked and said with a smile: "Alright! If you are willing to go that far. It's a deal! Begin immediately. If you fail, then kill yourself, trash like you doesn't deserve to live anyways! If you can't do it, I'll kill you myself"
"But what if you lose?"
"Lose? Lose to you? If you concoct a pill with one percent higher purity than mine, I'll run around the kingdom naked"
"Gross" Gaya exclaimed as Micheal shook his head.
"Who wants to see you naked? If I beat you, I'll kill you, how about that?" There was a flash of hesitation in Hart's eyes but looking at Ghost from head to toe for a second, he decided to bet his life because there was no way a kid like him could concoct a pill with higher purity than him.
"No problem" Hart nodded as Micheal took a quill and paper from the desk before him and wrote all the ingredients needed for the pill.
"Gaya, I'll need everything in this list"
They all looked dumbfounded in this scene, especially the three elders, who still couldn't believe that he's an Alchemist. Gaya took the list and a pouch of gold coins dumbfounded as Hart also called one of his guards and gave the list.
Obviously, this was just plain impossible. Hart was forty years old and he was still at this level, it was almost unbelievable if Ghost could actually do this!
Taking the list, Gaya ran outside with eyes full of excitement to see whether he's really an Alchemist or not. In her mind, if he was an Alchemist as he was claiming, she would be one step closer to know the secrets behind how he got the pills that could heal her meridians.
"Jack! Jack you little shit, where are you?!" They were standing in awkward silence hearing Gaya's shout outside. Micheal motioned Sect Leader Claire to lead the way and after following Claire, everyone came to the temporary room, which was originally built for Hart to concoct pills in peace.
***************************
After thirty minutes or so, Gaya and the guards entered the room carrying the ingredients needed to concoct the pills. During this time, the Elders and Sect Leader Claire didn't ask a question to Michael because he pretended to be in meditation. He knew that if he stood there waiting for Gaya, they would ask annoying questions as he would then need to say something to assure them.
It was easier for him to show them what he could do than tell them.
"Ghost, I brought everything you asked" Gaya gave the herbs to Micheal and a furnace, "You forgot to write furnace, here"
"I don't need one" Hart and everyone in the hall was dumbstruck by what he said.
"You idiot, how do you plan to concoct the pill without a furnace?" Hart sneered, his eyes and face showed nothing but disdain towards Michael.
"Furnace is for amateurs, I'm more of a legend when it comes to Alchemy"
"So shameless!" Hart gave a death stare and sat on the floor crossed legs to start the process.
"Human, I bought you an extra badge of herbs, in case you mess it up" Gaya whispered without anyone noticing before Micheal slipped a tiny vial into Gaya's hands.
"Slip this into the guards' drinks"
"Is this what I think it is?" Gaya asked with an evil grin as Michael nodded.
"Let's start shall we?" Hart gave a sneer as an answer and under the curious and worried eyes of Elders, Micheal conjured flames in one hand and took the herbs in the other.
Alongside Michael, Hart flicked his wrist as a furnace was about the size of a clay pot appeared before him. The furnace had many strange inscriptions written all around it and gave off an extremely mysterious feeling.
"Sect Leader Claire, we should stay back" Elder Mark exclaimed as the other two elders agreed with him and took a few steps back from Michael.
Indeed, pill concocting was not a joking matter but an extremely difficult process. The main difficulty of concocting pills was controlling the fire. That was why almost every alchemist would use an alchemy furnace so they could adjust the heat going to the pill through the furnace. However, Micheal had no need for a furnace because the system made him extremely talented in controlling the fire, so until he reached the six-star level where the system required him to buy a Legendary furnace and a mythical fire if he wanted to concoct Legendary pills.
The reason for the Elders to step back was if he did lose control of the fire, he might cause an entire batch of pills to go to waste. Or even worse, he might cause the furnace to explode. Should the furnace explode, they wanted to save Sect Claire and themselves from getting burnt.
"If I were you, I would save myself the embarrassment and run away brat!" he cast a shield around himself and mocked Michael.
"If I were you, I would start begging because I'm going to kill you painfully because of your mouth"
"Let's see who kills whom"
"Sect Leader Claire, how many pills do you need? I can concoct four heart-healing pills with these herbs"
"Oh?! Four...four is enough..." she was overwhelmed by shock as she barely managed to speak these words.
He nodded and did something that made everyone in the hall almost faint. He threw all the herbs into the fire directly while Hart was still refining the first herb with utmost caution.
Elders were at a loss for words. Don't tell me that your pill refining process is done so carelessly? Do you just empty the ingredients into the furnace and hope for the best?
Even though they were not trained Alchemists, they knew that each herb had a different temperature point where they would release its medicinal qualities but everyone around him was stumped.
Was there really such a method?
"This method had been lost a long time ago and is now a lost art. Many 5-Star Alchemists had tried to regain this method, but wasted many ingredients in their failed pursuit and failed to accomplish anything." Elder Miles spoke out gravely in a low pitched voice.
Lost art? I have a system. With the system, I'm going to play God in this world. Just a mere pill refining art, how can it ever pose a challenge to me?
Micheal's narcissistic self put its head out in his mind and he wanted to speak these words loudly but he controlled himself and pretended not to hear Elder Mark.
"If he's unable to exert absolute control over the fire, it will result in an explosion big enough to kill him" Again, Elder Miles whispered this to his colleagues.
"Don't worry Elder Miles, I can brew a potion or concoct a pill with a 100% success rate" Micheal casually replied to Elder Miles.
"NO! Concentrate on controlling the fire" ELder Miles shouted and jumped back when he heard him talking as he feared that he would lose control of the fire and cause an explosion.
"I want to see how long you can keep this farce up!" At this moment, Hart finally refined his first herb and responded to Michael.
Michael completely ignored him and sensed the herbs were almost finished refining.
"Elder Miles, do you think he could do it?" the third Elder who's called Reiner asked Elder Miles as only Elder Miles had some experience in teaching Alchemy.
"He's a freak, we don't know what he's capable of, look at his cultivation level. He just reached the Body refining stage level 1 when we met him but look at him now, he reached level 5 in just two days"
"We can't question his abilities now, for the sake of our sect leader, he must best Hart at this," said Elder Mark.
"Quit whining you oldies, he wouldn't have put his life on the line if he wasn't sure of his abilities" Elders turned around to see Gaya walking towards them proudly like she had done something fabulous. The two Elders and CLaire was shocked to hear her tone but Elder Mark sighed
"Ignore her manners, this girl is a friend of Ghost"
During the conversation, Hart finished refining the second herb and had only six more to refine.
"Haha, How long are you going to make a fool out of yourself? Throwing all the herbs at once in the fire, you really are dumb! Even if you want to pretend, at least make it believable!" Hart pointed at Michael's behavior and laughed.
"Watch this" this time Michael sneered as he put his hand above the fire. Then when he lifted his hand, one by one, colorful shiny beads floated up from the fire. There were eight beads floating above the fire and soon after, he started merging the beads into one fist size ball.
"This, this is impossible… To refine all the herbs at once... you need absolute control over the fire. This is... absolutely impossible!" Hart's face lost all of its colors and turned pale. He thought Michael would fail but he refined all the eight herbs even before Hart could refine three herbs. Also, the beads floating above Michael's fire were shiner and purer than the two beads before him.
[Ding! Congratulations to the host for successfully being a badass. The reward is 200 badass points]
[Ding! Congratulations to the host for successfully being a badass. The reward is 200 badass points]
[Ding! Congratulations to the host for successfully being a badass. The reward is 200 badass points]
...
[Ding! Subordinate Gaya killed a Body Strengthening stage, level 3 cultivator. The reward is 15000 experience points]
The sweet notification bell sound started to ring inside his mind making him grin.