When Tang Yan named his price, a brief silence fell over the shop.

Everyone turned to look at him. The boy had been outrageously flippant from the moment he walked in. Which family's good-for-nothing young master had come to make trouble at the Myriad Pill Pavilion? But the Pavilion held an exalted standing and formidable strength. This wastrel had likely kicked an iron plate.

Three thousand taels of silver... When that price left Tang Yan's mouth, Ge Ming thought his ears were playing tricks on him.

A feeling like a cat being toyed with by a mouse welled up inside him, and Ge Ming nearly lost his temper entirely. He slammed the table and roared, "Boy, what do you take my Myriad Pill Pavilion for? You dare run wild in here?"

"Master Ge, what do you mean by that?" Tang Yan looked at him with feigned alarm. "Don't frighten me. You named a sky-high price, so I bargained right back down to earth. How is that running wild in your shop?"

"A second-grade Pill, bought for a mere three thousand taels? Such a paltry price insults every Pill my Myriad Pill Pavilion sells. If the young master cannot give this old man a reasonable explanation today, I'm afraid these gates won't be so easy to walk out of!"

Hearing the heavy threat in Ge Ming's words, Tang Yan gave a faint, mocking smile. "Master Ge, these Pills all came from a single Pill Furnace, didn't they?"

"This old man already told you. They were all freshly refined, not long ago."

"What I mean," Tang Yan said mildly, "is that this one furnace yielded only these three usable Pills."

Ge Ming, still seething a breath ago, felt his pupils shrink. Disbelief flooded his chest.

The place where he refined his pills was sealed tight, and he worked alone. How could this young man know? He turned it over and over. Aside from a few words exchanged, the only thing the youth had done was sniff the mouth of the bottle.

Could it be... that with a single sniff at the bottle's mouth, the boy had learned he'd botched an entire furnace and salvaged only three?

Crushing down the absurd thought, Ge Ming forced himself calm. "Three second-grade Middle Grade Pills from one Pill Cauldron-isn't that perfectly ordinary? Do you think Middle Grade Pills are sugar beans, refined on a whim?"

"The fragrance is far too thick, with the faintest trace of scorch beneath it. Clearly, in the final step of pill formation, you were a breath too slow drawing back the flame. At that point you had two choices. The first was to press on with the forming, with ninety-nine chances in a hundred of ruining the whole lot. The second was to sacrifice part of the materials and shield the forming pills-fewer pills, and their potency suffers from uneven heat. Master Ge chose the second."

"Word abroad has it that Master Ge is a second-grade high-grade Alchemist, a most honored station. To have refined pills like these... if I bought them for a hundred thousand taels, a kind-hearted man such as yourself would surely feel uneasy, and that unease might fester into an Inner Demon on your road of the Alchemy Dao. So this junior may as well name a low price instead!" Tang Yan reasoned point by point, speaking with easy confidence.

The onlookers felt as though they were dreaming, unsure what was real. The boy had pieced all this together from smell alone?

Within Ge Ming's heart, monstrous waves had already risen. The reason was simple-not one of the young man's guesses had missed.

Looking at Tang Yan's brimming confidence, Ge Ming's heart stirred, and he probed. "This old man is already a second-grade high-grade Alchemist. How could I make a fire-control error refining mere Middle Grade Pills?"

"In the ordinary course, Master Ge would refine Middle Grade Pills as easily as breathing. There are only two reasons for failure. The first is that your body was out of sorts, and you couldn't hold your focus through the refining. The second is that something was wrong with the Pill Furnace."

"And Master Ge's condition is fine right now, so I'd guess the trouble lay with the furnace. You changed to a new Pill Furnace recently, didn't you?" With that, Tang Yan closed his mouth and said no more.

By now Ge Ming's eyes had gone blank. A question he'd tossed out on a whim, and the youth had struck it dead center again? He was certain no one could have spied on him while he refined.

And replacing the Pill Cauldron-that had been only last night. Not even the shop hands knew of it.

This youth's mind was so fine, so sharp. Such a remarkable young man, and yet his Dantian had been crippled? Wait-a crippled Dantian. Could it be the boy had come seeking a pill to mend it?

By his own experience, a pill that could restore a ruined Dantian had to be sixth-grade at the very least. Worse, such pills were a niche craft, brutally hard to refine, their worth standing shoulder to shoulder with seventh-grade pills.

In all of the Myriad Pill Pavilion, there was likely not a single sixth-grade Alchemist.

This young master's wish was destined to come to nothing.

No wonder he'd sensed no ripple of True Qi from the boy at all.

"Young friend, your eyes are as keen as torches. This old man is impressed. These three Pills-I'll give them to you, not a coin asked, as a small gesture of goodwill." Ge Ming sighed and held the porcelain bottle out to Tang Yan once more.

The onlookers stared at that bottle, eyes burning with longing. A few simple words, and the boy walked off with three second-grade Middle Grade Pills for free?

"In that case, my thanks, Elder Ge." Tang Yan cupped his hands, tucked the bottle into his robes, and showed not the slightest hesitation about it.

"Young friend, coming here today, I'd guess you were after a pill to repair your Dantian. For that I must truly apologize-I'm afraid it will be very hard to find." Ge Ming said with a wry smile.

Tang Yan blinked, then laughed. "Elder Ge, I came for something else entirely. I'd like to discuss a piece of business."

"Oh?" Ge Ming studied him, puzzled, thinking privately that this boy was no ordinary sort and that the matter was surely no small trade. He extended a hand. "Please, let us speak in the inner room."

Leaving Xiaocui to wait outside, Tang Yan and Ge Ming walked within, one behind the other.

In a room inside, an attendant poured tea and set it down. Ge Ming smiled and asked, "I still don't know little brother's name."

"This junior is Tang Yan."

Ge Ming started. Tang Yan? Wasn't that the Tang Family's infamous wastrel? Then again, the world was full of people; men who shared a name were hardly rare. This was surely some other family's young master. So he smiled. "And what business does little brother Tang wish to discuss with this old man?"

"I'd like to borrow a Pill Furnace." Tang Yan stated his purpose outright.

"Borrow a Pill Furnace? Borrow it how?" Ge Ming's curiosity only deepened.

"For two hours. I can refine here inside the Myriad Pill Pavilion; there's no need to move the furnace at all. I need to refine one furnace of pills, and I hope Elder Ge might accommodate me."

After a long, thoughtful silence, Ge Ming said, "Pill refining draws on Soul Power, Perception, and True Qi to sustain it. With your Dantian destroyed, a furnace would do you no good."

"There's no need to worry about that. The pill I mean to refine is of no high grade, and the demands it makes on one's own condition aren't so great either."

"Two hours..." Ge Ming cupped his chin and thought, then decided. "I can grant you that. But since this is business, what stands to benefit my Myriad Pill Pavilion?"

Tang Yan ran the figures swiftly in his mind. This time he meant to refine the Initial Spirit Pill, a first-grade Middle Grade Pill. Its potency was gentler than the Qi Gathering Pill's and more easily absorbed. Among first-grade pills, there was likely none better suited to an Origin Rank martial artist.

But what could he offer as payment? The Initial Spirit Pill itself? If he produced such a thing, would the Myriad Pill Pavilion start coveting his pill formula?

He lifted his head sharply-and caught a faint red glow in Ge Ming's eyes. Tang Yan's brow knit. He knew that red glow all too well, and an idea snapped into place at once. "Once the refining is done, I'll pay you. And if the payment doesn't satisfy Elder Ge, you may dock every last pill I refine."