Sage Monarch (Sage Emperor)

Ding!

The pill furnace lid popped off and crimson light spilled out.

“Hand of the One God!” Yang Qi unleashed one of his consummate techniques, causing an enormous hand to appear that crushed down on the red light and entered the depths of the pill furnace to snatch the medicinal pill inside.

It was wrapped up in numerous paper talismans and protected by a spell formation that still had godstones inset to power it and drive away the toxic energy.

‘Right, spell formations!’

Having no time to look at the medicinal pill, he looked around at the hall he was in and noticed that the pillars all had tiny holes in them, most of which were empty, seemingly implying that they had once housed godstones.

Luckily, Yang Qi had plenty of godstones on hand. Pulling some out of his bag, he sent them flying into the holes in the columns, which caused creaking and crunching sounds to echo out.

A clear breeze sprang up in the temple as a powerful spell formation activated, dispelling the toxic mist. Barely more than an hour later, the toxic mist was gone from within the temple.

There were a total of thirty-six pill furnaces in the hall, arranged according to the thirty-six stars associated with the Big Dipper. As for the hall itself, it was fully ten acres in size. Unfortunately, even powering the spell formation with noble caliber godsand, it would clearly remain functional for barely a few hours.

That should be enough. Yang Qi had wasted a lot of godpower from his virtual godhood to get this far, and needed to make up for those losses. Thankfully, he had already acquired a Paramount medicinal pill.

Pulling out the pill to look at it, he murmured, “It hasn’t been devilized.”

It was about the size of a lychee fruit and as red as a burning sun. And from the energy pulsing off it, it was obvious that it had been concocted by someone with Paramount will, perhaps in the mid or late stage.

“Imperial-heaven pre-beginning!” Drawing on his imperial-heaven pre-beginning powers, he analyzed the structure of the godpower in the pill and came to the realization that it actually wasn’t designed to improve godpower. It was never a good idea to casually consume medicinal pills. Some were designed for healing, some to serve as antidotes, some to strengthen vitality, some to increase power, some to fortify the psyche and fleshly body, and some to purify the body and soul.

After his analysis, he realized that this pill was designed as an antidote.

‘Ah what a pity that this Paramount pill is actually just an antidote. Well, perhaps that’s one reason why it’s lasted so long within this miasma. At the very least, I can turn it in to the sect for some merit points. There are always experts out there who get poisoned and have no way to cure themselves.’

A pill like this would be very welcome in the sect.

In fact, it was hard to say how many people would fight fiercely to get an antidote as powerful as this.

With that, Yang Qi moved on to the rest of the pill furnaces. He recovered pill after pill, all of which were antidotes that the disciples here had prepared in order to take a stand against King Hypertoxin. All of them were of extremely high quality.

After recovering thirty-six antidotal pills, Yang Qi still wasn’t very happy. Although he could turn the pills in for a huge sum of merit points, enough to be considered fabulously wealthy, what he really needed were pills to help boost his godpower.

‘I just have to keep searching. I refuse to believe that this is a fruitless effort.’ After all, there wasn’t just a single hall in this temple, but many levels.

After a few more hours, the spell formation ran out of power and the toxic mist returned.

However, Yang Qi had just acquired thirty-six antidotal pills, and the red light they cast kept the toxic mist at bay. The downside was that it would eat away at the medicinal strength of the pills, which meant that he would get fewer merit points when he turned them in later.

But in the end, he didn’t care about that. Continuing on, he eventually found a spiral staircase that led to the second floor.

The second floor featured another spacious hall with a nonfunctional spell formation and a set of pill furnaces. There were half as many pill furnaces as before; only eighteen. However, they were larger and seemed to contain greater medicinal strength.

Yang Qi rested for a few hours to build up some more godpower. Thankfully, the antidotal pills had reduced the corrosive effects of the toxic mists. When he felt ready, he chopped his hand out toward one of the pill furnaces, opening the lid and causing a bright yellow light to spill out.

Reaching out, he captured the yellow light, which was like a yellow dragon that refused to be captured. It pulsed with a shocking power that surprised even Yang Qi, prompting him to draw on the power of the God Legion Seal. Eventually, he got the medicinal pill under control, revealing it to be the size of a bean, and golden in color. It was also covered with complex cloud patterns. Although he wasn't sure what it was for, it didn't seem like something that would increase his godpower.

Yang Qi frowned as he examined the pill. It pulsed with an incredible killing aura and had metal-type properties. As he held it in his hand, he felt as though millions upon millions of swords were piercing into his acupoints.

Without question, this was a medicinal pill for the dao of the sword.

A sword expert who consumed this pill would have their sword energy boosted, becoming much deadlier. In fact, it would be perfect for Sword Seventeen. Such pills were often called sword pellets, and they were extremely powerful.

Unfortunately, Yang Qi couldn’t use it for any sort of breakthrough. And although it would be worth a lot of merit points, he would rather give it to Sword Seventeen. In fact, if he found any more sword pellets in these pill furnaces, he would definitely save them for his subordinates.

In years past, the Lord of the Sword Dao was a subordinate of the Sovereign Lord, and a powerful Paramount God. He slaughtered enemies left and right, including countless devil-gods from hell, and also enemies of the Sovereign Lord. Even other Paramount Gods died by his hands.

Clang, clang, clang!

Yang Qi opened all the pill furnaces and found that they all contained sword pellets. In the end, he was actually pleased. It was quite a windfall, and would definitely ensure that his Sage Monarch Consortium had numerous top sword experts in it.

After performing a final sweep of the second floor and finding nothing, he thought, ‘Alright, time to see what’s on the third floor. Hopefully some more pill furnaces. Preferably ones that increase godpower!’

With that, he flew up the staircase to the third floor. Unfortunately, he was disappointed to find no pill furnaces at all. There was only a toxic mist so dense he couldn’t see clearly. Thankfully, he had the antidotal pills and his own true flame to keep himself safe.

Without such protections, he would have died even if he was a Greater God.

After burning away some of the mist, Yang Qi found that there was a bottle gourd right in the middle of the third floor hall. It had a green exterior that swirled as if it were primal-chaos; apparently, it hadn’t been infected by the toxic mist. It was about thirty meters tall, and very heavy.

‘This thing is big. There must be something good inside. It must be a treasure of some sort.’ Flying up to the top of the gourd, he grabbed the lid and tried prying it open.

To his shock, there was a gravitational force inside that made it impossible to simply pull the lid off. ‘I can’t open it, even with godpower as incredible as mine? How strong is this thing?’

“Begone!” He activated the Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth, which was of course a type of power that was beyond the compare of anything else. Gripping the lid, he tried wrenching it open, causing the entire gourd to tremble.

WHOOSH!

A crack appeared, allowing a powerful medicinal energy to shoot out, along with a gravitational force that grabbed Yang Qi and pulled him inside. The lid slammed shut behind him, preventing any of the toxic energy from getting inside.

‘It’s pulling me inside?’ Unflustered, he dropped down and looked around. It was a small area, filled with a pure light that lacked any darkness. As for the walls, they were a greenish-blue color that resembled the warm embrace of seawater.

All of a sudden, a voice drifted into his ears. “How strange. I never imagined someone would make it this far.”

Looking over, he saw a prayer mat in the far corner, atop which was a medicinal pill. The medicinal energy it emitted created a small, humanoid figure that resembled a daoist priest. The pill pulsed with godpower that Yang Qi instantly identified as the high-quality type that he needed to improve his godpower.

And it had just spoken to him.