Chapter 280: Life Furnace? (1/2)

Chapter 280: Life Furnace?

Violet Fate Celestial Land. The holiest place in the Sect.

There were many legends regarding this particular Celestial Land. All of them, however, had something to do with the almighty Reverend Violet East, who had founded the Sect tens of thousands of years ago.

Many years after the Sect’s Founding, this Celestial Land gradually came to be the location where the Violet Fate Sect grew its medicinal herbs. Eventually more types of medicinal plants came to grow there than in the entire rest of the Southern Domain put together.

That was the location of the East Pill Division’s Dao Reserve. Within the Violet Fate Celestial Land, at the far end of the limitless stretches of medicinal plant fields, was a mountain so tall it seemed to have no top!

This mountain, which could be seen from an incredible distance, was known as Violet East Mountain!

According to one legend, in his later years, Reverend Violet East sat atop this mountain and slowly passed away in meditation… afterward it became a place of pilgrimage.

At the foot of the mountain was an enormous pill furnace glowing with a seven-colored light. It looked exactly the same as the furnace on top of Eastern Emergence Mountain, except somehow more real. It emanated an archaic aura.

Suddenly, the air at the foot of the mountain began to ripple like liquid. Multiple figures emerged, and when the ripples faded away, Meng Hao, Chu Yuyan, Ye Feimu and the others were all there.

In front of them was the shockingly high mountain. Starting at the foot of the mountain, ten small paths zigzagged up toward the top. Each path began there, and then took different routes to the top.

As to which path to select, that would be based on the feeling each candidate got from the paths. In any case, it was easy to see that there was little difference in the difficulty of traversing the various paths.

Meng Hao looked up toward the peak of the imposing mountain. Its higher regions were blurry, and it was actually impossible to see the peak itself. Nor was it actually possible to even estimate how tall the mountain was.

Meng Hao wasn’t the only one looking up at it. The other nine people around him, including Chu Yuyan and Ye Feimu, were gazing toward it.

Other than the ten paths, the main thing that filled their vision was the enormous pill furnace!

After some time passed, Ye Feimu’s eyes glittered with determination. He turned to glance over at the others. His gaze did not come to rest upon any of them. His supercilious expression seemed to say that he knew he would become a Violet Furnace Lord, and that none of the other candidates were able to match up to him.

His pride and dignity seemed to fill him with one hundred percent confidence that this title of Violet Furnace Lord belonged only to him!

He shot toward the pill furnace and sat down cross-legged in the spot directly east of it.

Chu Yuyan looked at him and took a deep breath. Her eyes also filled with the glow of determination.

“You might be Grandmaster Pill Cauldron, who I admire so much, but now the time has come for me to go up against you….” Closing her eyes, she sat down next to the Pill Furnace.

After her, Meng Hao and the others approached and selected various positions to sit down. The first phase of the competition had begun; it was time for the candidates to acquire their Life Furnaces!!

Meng Hao had no clue how to actually get the furnace. However, as soon as the ten of them sat down cross-legged around the seven-colored pill furnace, the glow around it began to flicker, and then suddenly shot out toward the candidates.

A tremor ran through Meng Hao’s body, and he suddenly sensed something calling to him, murmuring within his mind. He reached out to touch it with Spiritual Sense, and suddenly his mind reeled, and he felt as if he had lost contact with his body.

He could no longer see the mountain or the Celestial Land. Instead, a strange world stretched out in front of his eyes.

It was boundless and filled with curling mists. A six-colored glow was everywhere, a glow that was missing the color violet. It pierced through the mists, shining everywhere. Meng Hao looked at everything mutely. He couldn’t feel his body, but he was somehow there. He suddenly realized that by concentrating, he could move.

His body was not here in this world, only his will. The world sped by in front of him as he shot through the mists. As he moved, occasional beams of bright light would shoot past him.

It seemed like this place had no end. Everything was a blur….

Inside the Celestial Land, beneath the mountain, next to the pill furnace, Meng Hao sat there cross-legged. His expression seemed to be constantly changing, as if he were lost in a dream. All of the others around him looked exactly the same. Their expressions seemed to flicker with surprise, confusion and thoughtfulness.

Meanwhile, outside of the Violet Fate Celestial Land, atop Eastern Emergence Mountain, ten glowing, richly colored screens suddenly blossomed up out of the pill furnace. Images gradually became clear on the screens, depicting each of the people within the trial by fire.

As they sat there cross-legged, their expressions were clearly visible to all of the alchemists of the East Pill Division who sat on the mountaintop, as well as the representatives from the other Sects and Clans who had come to observe the proceedings.

Each and every action of the ten within the Celestial Land was clearly visible to everyone.