Chapter 18 - A Rare Gem

Ye Xiu had a suspicious look on his face.

The simple thought that this boy, with such an ordinary appearance, could really have such an impressive talent seemed wrong to him. After all, did even Ye Zong or Ye Mo have a talent compared to this? Ye Xiu was then left in doubt about it.

"Okay, boy, know that you don't need to be ashamed of your strength. There's no shame in being a beginner, the first steps are par-"

Before Ye Xiu continued his monologue about how building a solid foundation of strength and controlling one's power was more important than the speed at which one cultivates, Xiangju, with a smile on his face, decided that the best way to convince him would not be with words but by clearly demonstrating it.

FLUSHHH

Spiritual energy began to leak from Xiangju's body. In front of Ye Xiu, it was obviously as if it were the power of less than a single finger of his, but that density, that intensity, that vivacity, the boy wasn't lying; it was the power of a Bronze Rank 5-star.

Ye Xiu... broke into a smile, a big smile.

'This boy... he truly is a rare gem,' the man thought enthusiastically.

Xiangju, for his part, saw the man's expression with a confident smile. He expected good things from this encounter.

"Do you still think I'm lying, sir?"

"Hahaha no, no, boy. You are indeed sincere, that is remarkable."

The man then clasped his hands and began to think.

"What is your name, boy?"

"Zhu Xiangju at your service!"

"Zhu? Are you by any chance from the Eternal Fire Family, boy?" The moment Ye Xiu spoke that name, the words seemed to resonate and echo in Zhu Xiangju's mind. It was another piece of information engraved directly in the original Xiangju's brain, so even though the young boy had never really heard about it, his body knew it was correct.

"Huh... That's right, sir!" Xiangju spoke hesitantly, absorbing all the signals his body was sending before confirming.

Ye Xiu became even more pensive. The Eternal Fire Family was at the minimum limit, with only two Gold Rank fighters, Zhu Hui and Zhu Yan, and not even a significant number of demon spiritualists who surpassed Bronze Rank in their entire history. Thus, Xiangju's existence was even more spectacular.

"You know, boy..." Ye Xiu spoke after pondering for a while.

"What is it, good sir?" Zhu Xiangju put on an innocent face, but inside he laughed with a malevolent voice as everything was going as he expected.

"Young Ye Ziyun usually stays alone around here, I'd like to know if-"

Before the man could continue speaking, Zhu Xiangju raised his hand to ask him to stop, which greatly surprised Ye Xiu.

"I apologize, sir. I will indeed seek to be friends with Ye Ziyun, but I will make her nothing more than a good companion. But don't worry about that, be sure that a very good person who likes Ye Ziyun very much will do this."

Ye Xiu, although surprised, couldn't have liked the boy's words more. He saw an incredible opportunity before his eyes but still didn't stray from his beliefs.

Xiangju was disappointed. He thought Ye Xiu would start training him or affiliating him, but if his connection with the family of the great Lord Ye Zong was only through Ziyun, then he preferred not to have any connection. One thing Xiangju hated was betraying his companions.

"Well, I won't try to convince you much more than that, boy. But, if you really want to be friends with little Ziyun, be sure you can come here whenever you want. Just don't enter her residential area, understood?" The old man said with a playful look. Although he had known the boy for a short time, he was sure the boy wouldn't do something like that.

"No need to say it! Anyway, thank you for the hospitality and again for coming to guard me." As the boy was leaving, he remembered that he didn't know his way around, so he turned back to the old man.

"Hmmm, can you guide me to the entrance?" Xiangju said, embarrassed, and the old man laughed at that.

"Thank you for accompanying me here, Mr. Ye Xiu. I apologize for diverting you so much from your path tonight."

Zhu Xiangju said this with a bow. The old man had not only guided him through the house of the great lord of the city but had also escorted him to the front of the dormitory of the Holy Orchid Institute.

"Delivered." The old man said with an amused look. The conversation they had had until that moment had been very enjoyable for the old man, a break from all the responsibilities and rushes he always had to deal with as one of the main members of the Snow Wind Family.

They soon said their goodbyes, and Xiangju, instead of running directly to his small dorm room, ran in the opposite direction across the school grounds, heading towards the library.

In the boy's mind, one thing was clear: he needed to get stronger, and although his strength was already great, it was still far from enough to at least defeat Shen Fei in the genius tournament, let alone prevent the great massacre that would happen to the citizens of Glory City when they went to the Draconic Ruins Realm.

Xiangju didn't just need to get stronger; he needed everyone to get stronger. He wouldn't accept a victory with losses. He wasn't like Nie Li. Xiangju recognized he wasn't as intelligent as the true protagonist of this story, but he had to do better than him.

When Xiangju arrived at the library, he began pushing all the tables and shelves away from the center. This time he couldn't allow anyone to interrupt his cultivation as his parents had, even though they had technically saved his life. Now there was no room for such failures.

Unfortunately, one thing Xiangju was completely sure of was that to surpass the Bronze Rank 5-star level to the Silver Rank 1-star, he would have to basically double his strength up to that moment. This basically meant there was no possibility of him really enduring the pain, and if he stopped, he simply wouldn't heal and would have to spend a long time without training. So how would he do it?

The answer is actually simple! The pills Xiangju bought guaranteed a significant increase in cultivation speed, but a simple increase wouldn't be enough.

Xiangju had thought of something to get around all these limitations.

In a drawer in the library, he had left 5 bottles of pills, each bottle containing 8 pills, totaling 40 pills. This would normally be enough for someone to train for more than a month comfortably, but that wasn't Xiangju's plan.

'Why had no one ever tried taking more than one pill at a time?'

This was what crossed the boy's mind. He firmly believed that people had always been afraid or something like that, never thought about it. So the boy laughed to himself as if he had made a completely incredible discovery...

He would regret it.

The boy quickly grabbed the 5 pill bottles and went to the middle of that open space he had made in the center of the library. He sat on the floor and opened all the bottles around him, letting the pill's aroma fill the air. Noting that the fragrance was already potent enough to make him feel intoxicated, he began pouring the pills into his mouth, bottle by bottle, until he had swallowed all 40.

Xiangju felt strange. His stomach bubbled violently, putrid burps leaked from his mouth. That was certainly not doing him any good, but that's okay. After all, once he passed the Rank, all his pain would go away, right..?

Soon the hell returned.

Xiangju felt as if he had just stepped on a landmine, but unlike the pain that would last only a fraction of a second, it was as if it were extended towards infinity.

Xiangju felt every cell in his body bleeding. For the first time, exactly as he had predicted, he felt he couldn't endure it, but that's why he had taken that large number of pills.

And then, finally, the pills began to take effect. The temperature Xiangju's body reached thanks to the fire of the Divine Rank technique: Supreme Sun Phoenix made his stomach feel like it was going to be torn apart, the pills rapidly corroding Xiangju's stomach from the inside out.

Again, Xiangju's veins bulged out, but now, unlike all the other times, it was in a much more literal sense. So much blood gushed out of him that it was surprising to imagine there was still some circulating in his body.

His soul realm, which had always been on the verge of breaking, finally couldn't withstand the pressure. Poor young boy, he didn't know that taking more than one pill made them act as poison to the body.

Then, like the final scene of a play, an explosion occurred, destroying not only Xiangju's soul realm but his entire body as well.

BAAAAAM