Chapter 423: Strong Condemnation

News of the battle at Luopan Mountain and Long Chen's killing of monastery disciples in the canyon spread throughout the secret realm.

To verify it, many people hurried to the vicinity of the scene and saw the shocking corpses, leaving them all terrified.

At the same time, countless accusations were directed at Long Chen. People believed he was ruthless and cruel and had committed a grave crime by mutilating his fellow cultivators.

However, such words could only be spoken behind his back, the sort of conduct expressed through solemn declarations and strong condemnation, because after two battles, nobody dared rush out to provoke Long Chen anymore.

They merely expressed their sense of justice behind the scenes. No matter how great the benefits, nobody would go looking for trouble with Long Chen.

The great hand behind the scenes that was driving public opinion had also become powerless. For one thing, the incident targeting Long Chen had basically become transparent. How many cultivators were fools? Most people now clearly understood the ins and outs of the matter.

For another, they tried to stir people's emotions, but most people had now entered seclusion. Who would bother with them?

What did it matter to them which of you was good and which was bad? You were all a bunch of fools with too much time on your hands. In a few months, the secret realm's exit would open.

At that time, an unprecedented melee between the Righteous and Corrupt paths would begin, and those with weak cultivation would have to die in the secret realm.

In these people's eyes, both the First Monastery's side and Long Chen's side belonged among the fools.

War was imminent, yet they still had the energy for internal fighting. If that was not foolishness, what was? Thus, many powerful Righteous experts sneered at Yin Wushuang's relentless propaganda.

And the Corrupt experts had already begun disappearing. Not many Corrupt disciples remained throughout the secret realm. They had already entered seclusion. What they valued most was the final battle.

Don't you like infighting and fighting? Go ahead and fight over it. We will work hard to improve our strength. When the time comes, we will fight desperately to kill the Righteous disciples. Won't the treasures those Righteous disciples worked so hard to obtain end up in their pockets?

Yin Wushuang encouraged a group of people to spread news everywhere, but everyone was in seclusion. Whom were they promoting it to? They could not stretch their necks and shout every day, could they? If they disturbed someone in seclusion, they would be hacked to death on the spot.

After stirring things up for two days without any results, Yin Wushuang had no choice but to have everyone abandon the agitation and quietly enter seclusion.

Thus, this was the quietest period in the Jiuli Secret Realm. Essentially all the experts, except for a few bold masters of their arts or outlaws, marched deeper into the secret realm, entered seclusion, and began sacrificing their bones.

Those disciples who came from humble backgrounds and had no Bone Sacrifice Pills worked hard to improve their cultivation, using their cultivation realm to compensate for their lack of bone sacrifices.

Although it was of little use, it was better than doing nothing. The final battle concerned everyone's life or death. Otherwise, no matter how many treasures they obtained, it would all be in vain if they could not get out.

During this time, Long Chen continued refining pills day and night. Only Guo Ran remained beside him, standing guard and hunting.

Whenever someone sneaked a look from outside, Guo Ran could break the virtual crossbow with one strike. At this point, the only people who would still target them were enemies.

So Guo Ran was like a hunter, quietly waiting for a rabbit to take the bait. But after killing a few people, he had gained nothing for seven days, which left him a little annoyed.

Watching Long Chen perform alchemy was very pleasing to the eye, but even something pleasing to the eye would become tiresome after being enjoyed dozens or hundreds of times a day, however good it looked.

“Boss, how long until you're done refining?” Guo Ran asked. Follow the newest chapters on novelping.com.

“Soon. We have more than 6,000 Bone Sacrifice Pills now. In two days, the medicinal ingredients will be used up,” Long Chen said.

Over these days of refining day and night, Long Chen had accumulated more and more pills, but fewer and fewer medicinal ingredients remained.

Long Chen had placed all the living medicinal ingredients into his life ring. He did not intend to use them to refine pills.

After all, living medicinal ingredients were worth a hundred times as much as ordinary ones. Once he returned to the outside world, Long Chen could exchange these living medicinal ingredients for more than a hundred portions of ingredients of the same rank, and people would rush to trade with him.

Long Chen's life ring was stuffed with all kinds of rare herbs, densely packed together. He did not care whether they were comfortable inside. As long as they were guaranteed not to die, it did not matter if their branches and leaves broke or they were half-dead.

In any case, once they reached the outside world, these things would be treasures. Even half-dead medicinal plants would be treated like ancestors. Those sects would certainly have a way to keep them alive.

What Long Chen had to do was bring as many of these living medicinal ingredients as possible, because many rare medicines were almost extinct in the outside world.

Some major sects still had rare medicines. They guarded those rare medicines more closely than their wives and would never let anyone know.

Even when they traded with outsiders, they traded dried medicine. They would never let people know they possessed living medicinal plants that they could propagate and reproduce themselves.

That meant they could hoard rare goods, greatly raising the price of medicinal ingredients and making enormous profits from them. Thus, there were still many rare medicines in the outside world, but nobody was willing to reveal what they possessed.

So the price of rare medicine kept rising under the control of certain sects. Those small powers could only spend huge sums to buy it, which meant that the larger a sect was, the larger it continued to become, while the smaller it was, the smaller it became.

For example, in Xu Yang's sect, Xu Yang was not even provided with Bone Sacrifice Pills. That did not mean Xu Yang was not distressed enough.

Instead, it wanted to wait until Xu Yang had left the secret realm before nurturing him with all its strength, because Bone Sacrifice Pills were too expensive, and his sect only had the means to nurture one expert.

If all its Bone Sacrifice Pills were given to Xu Yang and he died in the secret realm, his sect would truly be exhausted.

Although his sect was poor, Xu Yang bore the mission of the entire sect. That was why he could not accept Long Chen's kindness.

This was also why there were tens of millions of sects in the cultivation world, yet most resources were held by a few people, and the small sects could only struggle to survive.

Disciples of major sects with deep foundations could challenge elders of small sects across cultivation levels, even if they were only ordinary disciples. That was the gap.

“Boss, if all these pills are absorbed, how many bones can we sacrifice?” Guo Ran asked.

“If they're distributed evenly, each person can receive almost 800 Bone Sacrifice Pills. According to the theory of the cultivation world, you could sacrifice more than sixteen bones,” Long Chen said.

The bone-forging pills Long Chen refined differed from those sold outside. The formula was several times more powerful and could fully activate their efficacy.

Above all, most of the medicinal ingredients Long Chen used were alive. Even those that had already died had only just died, so their medicinal properties had not been lost. Follow the newest chapters on novelping . com.

Those medicinal herbs were at their most active and easiest to absorb, so Long Chen's Bone Sacrifice Pills were at least ten times more powerful than those circulating outside.

Long Chen had seen many Bone Sacrifice Pills in other people's spatial rings. Although the formula of those circulating outside was somewhat poor, it could not unleash their full medicinal potency.

Logically, however, the gap should have been nearly one to two times. Later, Long Chen discovered a secret.

That secret made Long Chen sneer inwardly. He discovered that those Bone Sacrifice Pills had been tampered with to deliberately reduce their efficacy.

At first, Long Chen felt that the person was not crazy. A good pill had been made half-useless.

After thinking it over, he realized that whoever did this must be someone selling pills. With the price unchanged and the pills' efficacy halved, anyone wanting to refine more bones would have to buy more Bone Sacrifice Pills. It was simply a scam.

No wonder a single Bone Sacrifice realm kept most geniuses trapped here for life. This was definitely the work of unscrupulous merchants behind the scenes. To maximize their own interests, they would do anything.

Moreover, Long Chen discovered that both the Righteous disciples' and the Corrupt disciples' Bone Sacrifice Pills had been tampered with.

The medicinal efficacy had been halved, but this tampering could not be seen from the outside. Even when someone swallowed a pill, they could not feel it. The effect would only be halved upon absorption.

Only Long Chen, with his memories of alchemy, could see the trick, because according to the pill's formula and grade, its efficacy was wrong.

The Bone Sacrifice Pills sold throughout the world were all the same, because their supply was monopolized. Essentially all sects ordered them from the Pill Tower.

Thus, Long Chen reached the conclusion that beneath the Pill Tower's sacred robes was actually a pack of black-hearted wolves.

Fortunately, this pack of black-hearted wolves treated everyone equally harshly, which was fair. Otherwise, if they cheated only the Righteous path and not the Corrupt path, the Righteous path would be finished!

At the same time, another thought occurred to Long Chen. The Righteous and Corrupt paths fought, while the Pill Tower remained neutral, helping neither side and merely selling pills.

Then weren't they the greatest profiteers? Moreover, neither side's forces dared offend them. It was truly absurd beyond belief.

“Sixteen? That's the Sixteen Sacrifices realm! Isn't that the same level as the leader? Heavens! Then couldn't our whole group do whatever we wanted in the secret realm?” Guo Ran looked incredulous.

In the Bone Sacrifice realm, every additional bone refined greatly increased the amount of power the bones could hold and strengthened the body. Sixteen sacrifices was the legendary highest level.

Guo Ran had never expected that they could attain the legendary highest level of bone sacrifice. Happiness had come far too suddenly.

“Don't be happy too soon. I said you could sacrifice sixteen bones by the conventional method, but you've all chosen to sacrifice all of them. So even with these pills, you can only sacrifice up to four bones,” Long Chen said.

“N-no... really?” Guo Ran stammered a little. The gap between four and sixteen was far too large.

“There's no way around it. Sacrificing all the bones is that outrageous. If you want to sacrifice one bone, you must sacrifice every bone in your body before the pill's power can be conveyed to the bone you want.

“The Tonggu Pills I gave you earlier were to open all the meridians inside your bones.

“It's like giving steamed buns to a beggar, except you have to feed the two hundred and five beggars in front of him, from first to last, before that beggar gets his turn. Understand?”