Cultivation Pet Shop

Lin Fan revealed a faint smile when he saw this.

It seemed like the old snakes moved quite quickly. But not only that, they were also quite decisive.

They had only heard about Lin Fan and Yuki through reports, but they haven't seen their real abilities just yet, so it was still a gamble to welcome them this earlier. Still, they were willing to send people to welcome them which showed their decisiveness.

It was no wonder they were able to become elders of one of the twelve great factions.

Not just that, this was one of the twelve great factions with the greatest internal struggle since this wasn't a family inherited faction or a sect with traditions. This was a place where anyone with talent was able to rise up, so that meant that there were many people struggling for the same position.

The amount of internal struggle was much greater than any other faction.

However, before Lin Fan could say anything to the young lady who came to welcome them on behalf of the seventh elder, there was another young man who came over. This young man was also wearing the robe of an alchemist.

The young man gave a snort before saying, "It seems like your seventh elder faction really likes to sneak around."

Then before giving the young woman a chance to say anything, this young man came forward with a smile and said to Lin Fan, "Young master Lin, young miss Yuki, I am here to welcome you on behalf of the tenth elder. Please come with me, I have already prepared a banquet for your arrival."

This young man completely ignored the young lady from before, standing right in between her and Lin Fan's group.

The young lady was about to lose her temper, but there were two more people that came forward to welcome Lin Fan.

These two people were from the eleventh and fifth elder factions respectively.

This was something that really caught Lin Fan off guard since he never expected this many people to come and welcome him. In a sense, he had underestimated the Alchemy King Hall.

However, even if that was the case, he had already decided what he would do before he even came here.

Lin Fan looked at the people who had gathered here for him who were all ignoring each other and said with a polite smile, "I want to thank everyone for their kind invitations, but we have just arrived, so we would like to settle in first. Can someone please tell us where our assigned rooms are?"

All of the people who came to invite Lin Fan narrowed their eyes when they heard this, but then all of them revealed smiles before offering to take them there.

Lin Fan once again rejected all of their offers and just asked for them to point the way.

All of them clearly had something else to say, but then there was a person who had the clothes of a staff member who came forward to say, "Young master Lin, young miss Yuki, I'll show you to your rooms."

Lin Fan could tell that this one wasn't here with ulterior motives, rather they weren't qualified to have ulterior motives since they were just a normal staff member. They were only here to do their job and show him to his room.

He could tell all this because of the fear that this person showed towards the other four who came before.

Since that was the case, Lin Fan said, "Alright, take us there then."

Lin Fan didn't mind the other four who came and followed this staff member to their rooms.

Along the way, once they were out of earshot of the other four, Lin Fan asked, "I heard that your Alchemy King Hall's Alchemy Master has a disciple. Do you know where she is?"

The staff member was surprised to have this question suddenly asked of him, but he quickly said, "That isn't hard to find out since the Alchemy Master's disciple is the center of attention these days. She lives in the center Alchemy Tower since she's the Alchemy Master's disciple." Then after a pause, he said, "But the Alchemy Master's disciple hasn't been out lately and has rejected anyone who has tried to meet with her. If you're interested, I'm afraid…"

Lin Fan gave a laugh before saying, "I was just curious about the rumours, nothing more, nothing less." Then he said with a sharp look, "After all, soon all the rumours will be about me."

The staff member gave a gulp when he heard this, but he wisely chose not to say anything else since he knew that people who were arrogant like this would either fall quickly or have the ability to back it up.

In either case, this wasn't a person that he should get involved with since he was just a normal staff member. This person knew his place and he knew that he would live longer as long as he didn't overreach.

Lin Fan saw this and didn't say anything else since he didn't care about this person.

It was the same with how he had refused the offers of all the elder factions from earlier.

Right now the thing that he lacked the most was information and without information, he wouldn't be able to make a move. So it was best not to commit to any side first before getting that information.

The other goal that Lin Fan had right now was to connect with Elder Fu.

Elder Fu was the one who had brought Song Shu to the Alchemy King Hall from the Blue Star Planet, but more importantly, Lin Fan had met him before. He knew that Elder Fu was someone who cared about Song Shu, so he knew that he would be able to trust Elder Fu.

Since Elder Fu was one of the elders of the Alchemy King Hall, he would be able to help Lin Fan with his plan.

But the problem with this plan was that he couldn't directly contact Elder Fu without offending the other elders. After all, if he were to contact Elder Fu, the other elders would think that he would be turning down their offers and was approaching Elder Fu's faction.

While Lin Fan didn't know which faction Elder Fu was a part of, he was certain that he would be making some enemies by doing this.

Before he had set up a plan to help Song Shu, it was best to make as few enemies as possible since that would just make things harder later on.

So after being shown to their rooms, Lin Fan immediately started thinking of ways to contact Elder Fu.

One interesting thing to note was that they had been given separate courtyards.

It was clear that they were trying to separate them to make it easier to pick them off one by one, but the courtyards that they were given were much bigger than normal because of their special status. In the end, it was no problem for all of them to live in a single courtyard.

However, before they could even make a move, the others had made a move for them.

They had arrived in the afternoon, so that very night, they had been invited to a banquet that was held to welcome them.

If it was being held by just a single elder, it would have been fine to reject them, but this was a banquet that was held by multiple elders and had several other elders from different factions on the guest list. Even if they didn't want to go, they didn't have a choice.

The banquet was being held by four different elders, the third, the fifth, the eighth, and the eleventh elders, but the number of elders that came surpassed double digits.

With all these elders here, there was a strong hostile atmosphere even though they were clearly acting like everything was fine.

The elders all looked at Lin Fan and Yuki like they were delicious pieces of meat and they couldn't wait to bite into them, but Lin Fan and Yuki just ignored all of this.

After all, this banquet had turned out to be a blessing in disguise since Elder Fu had also come to the banquet.

As it turned out, Elder Fu was actually the grand elder of the Alchemy King Hall, or at least he was the grand elder now.

The previous grand elder had retired and the spot had opened, so Elder Fu had been promoted by the Alchemy Master since he had brought back Song Shu who had become the Alchemy Master's final apprentice.

However, because of what was happening in the Alchemy King Hall, Elder Fu was a person that attracted a lot of attention and he had been surrounded by many people as soon as he had arrived.

But out of the corner of his eyes, he had been paying attention to Lin Fan as well.

He had come because he heard that this was a banquet to welcome Lin Fan, a name that was very familiar to him. He had come to check if this was the person that he was acquainted with and to his surprise, it really was.

However, just like Lin Fan, he couldn't contact him for the same reasons.

He didn't know what Lin Fan was planning on doing, but he had a good idea, so he didn't want to ruin Lin Fan's plans.

What no one noticed was that during this banquet, there was a small rat that ran through the hall to where Elder Fu was.