A Will Eternal

“The Celestial Sky Society again!?” Bai Xiaochun’s eyes flickered with icy coldness. Clenching his hand into a fist around the black medicinal powder in his palm, he looked around at the Azure Dragon Society cultivators and said, “How well do the Fantasy Pills sell?”

The two orange-robed cultivators were panting, and their eyes were shining brightly. One of them quickly responded, “They sell great! We usually distribute a few hundred pills per month, and that’s just us. If you counted all of the north district, the sales would probably be tens of thousands per month. As for Sky City as a whole, probably 200,000 or more. One Fantasy Pill is worth 50 merit points, so that’s the equivalent of at least 10,000,000 merit points per month!”

When Bai Xiaochun heard that, his eyes almost turned green, and he began to pant. “If the Celestial Sky Society can use my hallucination smoke to earn merit points, then so can I!

“All of you, wait here for me. I’ll concoct some high-quality Fantasy Pills for you to sell!” With that, he rushed into his room and slammed the door behind him.

The Azure Dragon Society members looked over at Master God-Diviner, hearts filled with curiosity over what was to come.

“Master God-Diviner, is it true that our boss really invented the Fantasy Pill?”

“Is our boss really an apothecary? Can he… can he really concoct Fantasy Pills? Heavens! If that’s true, then good times are definitely to come!!”

Master God-Diviner was more excited than anyone, but he didn’t let it show on his face. Looking around, he smiled faintly, and then gave a confident nod.

“Don’t you worry,” he said. “I can’t speak for the boss when it comes to other matters, but I can tell you that my junior patriarch is the best there is at medicine concocting!”

When the Azure Dragon Society heard that, their anticipation grew, and it was almost possible to see them calculating their future profits.

As soon as Bai Xiaochun entered his room, he waved his hand, summoning several dozen pill furnaces from his bag of holding. These were furnaces that he had collected back in the River-Defying Sect, and were all different sizes and shapes. Considering how familiar he was with the hallucination smoke, he didn’t plan to produce just one batch of Fantasy Pills at a time. He was going to concoct multiple batches simultaneously!

The main thing he was concerned about was maintaining a standard of quality. After all, these pills weren’t designed to be used in war, so he needed to control the hallucinatory effects. And that meant he had to control the strength of the pills.

Of course, Bai Xiaochun had invented the hallucination smoke to begin with, so his ability to do that vastly exceeded that of the Celestial Sky Society’s apothecary. He was completely confident that he would be able to concoct Fantasy Pills that were on a whole different level than the trash produced by the Celestial Sky Society.

In terms of how to actually contain the hallucination smoke, the black coating on the Celestial Sky Society’s Fantasy Pills had given him a bit of inspiration. After studying it a bit, he improved it, and then managed to actually fuse the smoke itself with the coating!

Time passed, and outside, the Azure Dragon Society waited in eager anticipation. Three days later, Bai Xiaochun emerged, eyes bloodshot but shining with excitement. Waving his sleeve, he sent out countless violet medicinal pills from his bag of holding. As they piled up on the ground, they formed a small mountain of more than a thousand pills.

The Azure Dragon Society members were shaking with excitement. Then, one of the cultivators clasped hands and bowed to Bai Xiaochun, hurried forward and carefully picked up one of the pills. After placing it into his mouth, he closed his eyes, and within moments, a look of intoxicated pleasure appeared on his face. Throwing his head back, he howled with complete and utter madness.

Clearly, he was experiencing no side-effects. As for the other cultivators, they knew that an important test was being performed, so they watched closely. After the time it takes an incense stick to burn, the cultivator still hadn’t woken up from his reverie, and everyone else started to get very excited.

“The Celestial Sky Society’s Fantasy Pill lasts for the time it takes an incense stick to burn, but boss’s pill lasts for even longer than that!”

“And from the look of it, there are no harmful side-effects whatsoever!!” Even as the Azure Dragon Society devolved into a hubbub, another incense stick’s worth of time passed. Only then did the cultivator’s eyes open.

Although he seemed to be in a bit of a daze, he was clearly satisfied in an unprecedented way. After a long moment passed, he regained his senses. Trembling, he said, “The hallucination was much more realistic than the Fantasy Pills from the Celestial Sky Society! And easier to manipulate! In fact, after a certain point, I completely lost myself! I didn’t need to control the hallucination at all: it did everything I wanted. How pure! How unadulterated. This… this is what a Fantasy Pill is supposed to be like!!!”

The rest of the Azure Dragon Society grew even more excited. Panting, the cultivators looked at the pile of Fantasy Pills and realized that it was essentially a huge pile of merit points.

One of the orange-robed cultivators excitedly said, “Boss, if you let us sell these Fantasy Pills, we can clear the stock in two months at the most!”

As of this moment, Bai Xiaochun truly was like nobility to these cultivators, a grand figure who existed on a different level than them.

Bai Xiaochun was tired, but looked excited, and was clearly pleased with the quality of the Fantasy Pills he had concocted. Looking at Master God-Diviner, he said, “For now, steer clear of the Celestial Sky Society. When the time comes to butt heads with them, I don’t just want a little scuffle….”

Master God-Diviner saw the gleam in Bai Xiaochun’s eyes, and after a moment of thought, nodded. In recent days, he had made some inquiries of his own, and had heard stories of Apothecary Bai from the east district, and the methods the Celestial Sky Society had used in dealing with his Ultra Fasting Aid Pill.

His information had left him ninety percent that Bai Xiaochun and Apothecary Bai were one and the same. As of now, he was completely convinced, and also understood why Bai Xiaochun had disguised his appearance. In fact, he still hadn’t even revealed his name to the Azure Dragon Society.

“Celestial Sky Society….” Master God-Diviner thought, his eyes narrowing. Almost immediately, countless nefarious plans sprang up in his mind, which he began to explain to the rest of the Azure Dragon Society.

Bai Xiaochun remained off to the side, completely satisfied with Master God-Diviner’s performance. With Master God-Diviner at his side, he didn’t feel like a lone wolf anymore.

At this point, he suddenly thought about Xu Baocai and the others. “If only the rest of you merciless betrayers could turn over a new leaf. I can’t believe you just abandoned me….”

Depressed, he went back to his room to practice cultivation.

After Master God-Diviner finished explaining all of his plans, the Azure Dragon Society went to work. They even got their friends and family involved in selling the Fantasy Pills. Considering that the Azure Dragon Society had been around for more than a hundred years, they had good relations with many of the other small organizations in the north district. As such, the Fantasy Pill sales started out with a bang.

Most of the merit points they earned were spent on recruitment efforts. Life was hard in Sky City, so as long as enough merit points were offered, there would be no shortage of people willing to join up.

Bai Xiaochun had plenty to keep him busy. To keep up with demand, he had to concoct more and more Fantasy Pills, until he was concocting them in batches of fifty at a time.

With the Fantasy Pills to support them, the Azure Dragon Society was able to fully call upon its hundred years of connections and history. With the help of Master God-Diviner’s plans and schemes, their numbers grew in shockingly rapid fashion.

As their territory expanded, cultivators came constantly, hoping to join. Fantasy Pill sales skyrocketed, until all of the north district was shaken.

Because of how vice-boss Master God-Diviner had arranged everything, the Celestial Sky Society still hadn’t noticed what was happening. Although only half a month had passed so far, that half month had seen heaven-shaking, earth-toppling changes for the Azure Dragon Society.

Eventually, the Celestial Sky Society finally took note of what was happening. Ten days after that, it had been a full month since the Azure Dragon Society began their big expansion. They had reinvested all of the merit points into their growth plans, and Bai Xiaochun had even decided to go all in by selling his crocodile mount to help out. By that point, the Azure Dragon Society had over a thousand members.

In Sky City, that didn’t really count as anything amazing in terms of membership, but it was big enough that it was a cause for concern for the Celestial Sky Society. Unfortunately, the Azure Dragon Society was large enough now that using force on them wasn’t an option. If any fighting broke out, they might end up breaking the rules of the Starry Sky Dao Polarity Sect.

Not even the Celestial Sky Society dared to push things too far when it came to the official rules of the sect.

Bai Xiaochun was getting better and better at concocting the Fantasy Pills. In fact, sometimes he just set the pill furnaces up and then had Master God-Diviner watch over them until they were ready to be completed.

With more spare time on his hands, Bai Xiaochun was able to focus more easily on cultivation. At the same time, he had returned to his previous extravagant lifestyle. However, he no longer ate the Precious Jade spirit rice. Instead, he favored Heavenspan spirit rice, which was prepared by a special method using Heavenspan River water.

It was the same with the alcohol; he only consumed the best. He had a new mount, too, a blue-eyed qilin lizard. Whenever he went out on that mount, flanked by a hundred followers, he made a very impressive sight.

Time passed. Two more months went by, and not only did the Azure Dragon Society continue to grow, they had expanded their influence into three of the other districts, ensuring that their Fantasy Pill sales only continued to increase. Simultaneously, the Celestial Sky Society’s Fantasy Pill sales were dropping significantly.

After all, the two pills were on completely different levels!

Bai Xiaochun’s life was getting better and better….