Chapter 95: Breakthrough

A biting, icy chill crept across Rhain’s private courtyard.

It came from Seris’s bedchamber.

The temperature in the central hall dropped by several degrees in an instant.

Rhain turned his head toward the bedchamber on the left.

"She is breaking through.’

Over the past two days, his Daily Sign-Ins had rewarded him with two Rare-Grade Essence Condensation Pills.

He had kept one for himself and given the other to Seris before they had retired for the night.

The wave of icy essence radiating from her room told him that she had broken through to the third level of the Essence Condensation Realm.

Rhain didn’t disturb her. She would need some time to consolidate her realm.

He turned around and walked into his own bedchamber.

He had decided to raise his realm as well.

Rhain sat cross-legged on the massive bed, his posture straight and his breathing steady.

He flipped his palm, and a golden pill appeared.

Rare Grade: Golden Bone Elixir.

Without a second thought, he tossed it into his mouth.

The pill dissolved instantly, turning into a stream of searing heat that surged directly into his skeleton.

For an ordinary cultivator, this process would have been excruciating—hours of screaming agony as their skeleton was forcibly reforged.

For Rhain, it was nothing more than a warm prickle.

His Abyssal Sovereign Physique had already tempered his bones far beyond what any Rare-Grade pill could achieve.

The Golden Bone Elixir’s energy was absorbed, refined, and integrated in minutes rather than hours.

When the process finished, Rhain felt the changes within his body.

The improvement was marginal—perhaps one to two percent increase in raw skeletal durability—but it was there.

He exhaled slowly, releasing the tension in his muscles.

Then, he retrieved the second item from his System Inventory.

Rare-Grade Essence Condensation Pill.

Rhain closed his eyes and swallowed it whole.

The instant the pill dissolved, a torrent of pure essence erupted inside his dantian.

His Abyssal Sovereign Physique activated instinctively.

The void-like black hole at his core expanded, greedily devouring the raging flood of energy and compressing it into impossibly dense streams of dark essence.

The barrier to the next stage, which would normally take months of bitter cultivation, cracked.

A surge of pure power flooded through Rhain’s meridians, expanding them slightly and filling every inch of his body with a more refined essence than before.

Essence Condensation Realm, Level 5.

A small step, but a necessary one to bridge the colossal gap between him and the Core Formation Realm experts of Mirravele City

He needed every advantage. Every tool. Every edge.

Which brought his mind to the one resource he hadn’t yet fully explored in this city.

Rhain closed his eyes and focused inward, pulling up the translucent System map that overlaid his consciousness.

The sprawling layout of Mirravele City materialized in his his eyes.

Given the sheer, colossal scale of the metropolis—a place teeming with endless pavilions, ancient estates, and grand arenas—he had fully expected the map to be littered with Location Sign-In nodes.

But as his eyes scanned the glowing grid, he frowned slightly.

Two.

There were only two in the entire colossal city.

The first pulsed steadily in the northern administrative district, nestled within the imposing silhouette of the City Lord’s Pavilion.

The second glowed in the southeastern commercial sector, housed within a grand, towering structure marked with the unmistakable insignia of the Alchemy Guild.

Rhain opened his eyes.

The City Lord’s Pavilion was out of the question for now.

Cassian Valdris was already conducting his own quiet investigation into the events of the auction night.

The Alchemy Guild, however, was an entirely different matter.

Rhain recalled what Fenwick had told him back in Greymist Town.

The Alchemy Guild was one of the untouchable neutral powers of Mirravele City.

They served all factions equally, selling pills and accepting commissions without discrimination.

No clan, no matter how powerful, dared to cause trouble within their walls.

It was, paradoxically, one of the safest places in the entire city for him to walk into openly.

Rhain rose from the bed, straightening his robes.

He stepped out of his bedchamber and into the central hall.

The frost on Seris’s door had already receded, but it was still closed.

These days Seris is practicing day and night relentlessly.

Rhain shook his head and sighed.

He may need to give her a few more pills, or she will drain herself completely like this.

Leaving this matter for later, Rhain took out the Faceless Emperor Mask and changed his appearance to that of a middle aged man, and then walked out of the courtyard.

___________

The streets of Mirravele City were vastly different from the previous day.

Heavily armed patrols bearing the crests of the City Lord’s Pavilion marched through the commercial districts, their eyes scanning the crowds with intense vigilance.

But Rhain walked unconcernedly.

After a thirty-minute walk, Rhain arrived at his destination.

Standing at the end of a wide, pristine plaza was the Mirravele Alchemy Guild.

It was a colossal, seven-story pagoda constructed from white marble.

Massive bronze cauldrons flanked the entrance, each one emitting thin, fragrant wisps of medicinal vapour that drifted lazily into the air.

The scent alone was enough to subtly invigorate the body.

Above the towering entrance, carved in ancient script, were three characters.

Mirravele Alchemy Guild.

Unlike the rest of the city, which was currently suffocating under the paranoia of a looming clan war, the plaza before the Alchemy Guild was entirely peaceful.

Rhain casually ascended the wide marble steps, blending seamlessly with a group of mercenary cultivators.

He crossed the grand threshold, stepping onto the polished jade floor of the guild’s main hall.

The moment his foot crossed the threshold of the Alchemy Guild—

[Ding!]

A crisp, mechanical voice echoed in his mind.

[Location Sign-In Node detected: Mirravele Alchemy Guild.]

[Would you like to sign in?]

Rhain didn’t break stride.

His expression remained the picture of a mildly curious merchant entering a prestigious establishment for the first time.

’Sign in.’

[Sign-In successful!]

[Congratulations! You have received a Mystic-Grade Reward: Grandmaster Alchemist Inheritance!]

[Item can not be stored in the system space. It has been directly integrated into the host’s consciousness.]

Rhain’s foot froze mid-step.