Chapter 97: Pill Tribulation

Hearing the shouting guard, Rhain finally came back to his senses.

"I didn’t intend to harm the property," Rhain said, his disguised voice calm. "Whatever the cost of the cauldron and the roof, I am ready to fully compensate the guild for the loss."

The guard captain’s face twisted into a furious sneer.

"Compensate?" the captain spat, gripping his spear tightly. "You disrupt the sacred peace of the Alchemy Guild, destroy our property, and you actually think you can just pay some money and walk away? You must be dreaming! You’re coming with us to see the master, and you will accept whatever punishment he deems fit. Seize him!"

"I really don’t have time for this," Rhain sighed.

The half-dozen guards, all radiating the aura of the Essence Condensation Realm, charged at him simultaneously.

To an ordinary Essence Condensation Realm, they were fast and coordinated, like an inescapable net of death.

But to Rhain, they were moving in slow motion.

He didn’t even bother circulating his essence.

Relying purely on the monstrous physical strength of his Abyssal Sovereign Physique, Rhain stepped forward.

Bam! Smack! Crash!

It was a one-sided thrashing.

In the span of three seconds, Rhain casually slapped, kicked, and tossed the heavily armored guards across the room like discarded ragdolls.

Their weapons clattered to the floor as they collapsed, groaning in agonizing pain, entirely incapacitated.

Rhain brushed a speck of dust off his sleeve and looked down at the terrified captain, who was clutching a fractured leg, and grimacing in pain.

"Go," Rhain said indifferently. "Bring your master here. I will wait for them."

The commotion from the explosion and the brief, brutal fight had already drawn a crowd.

Dozens of customers, and guild attendants clustered around the bronze doorway.

Their faces wore identical expressions of disbelief.

"He dared to attack the Alchemy Guild’s guards? Inside the guild itself?

"Does this man have a death wish? Even the Three Great Clans don’t cause trouble here!"

"Look at the ceiling — there is a hole punched straight through three floors of reinforced stone! What kind of explosion could do that?"

A few moments later, the dense crowd parted hastily.

A heavy, oppressive aura rolled through the corridor, instantly silencing the whispers.

He was a lean man in his late forties, with sharp, angular features and thin lips pressed into a severe line. His white alchemist robes were immaculate, and pinned prominently on his chest was a gleaming silver badge—the insignia of an Expert Rank Alchemist.

His aura was at the first level of the Spirit Manifestation Realm.

The man surveyed the groaning guards and the blasted ceiling before locking his furious gaze onto Rhain.

"You have some nerve causing a scene in my guild," the man demanded, his voice sounding with authority. "I am giving you one chance. Surrender yourself to guild custody immediately, or I will have to subdue you with force."

Rhain simply shook his head.

He reached into the rubble near the shattered cauldron and casually picked up the six glowing pills that had survived the catastrophic blast.

He held his palm out.

Resting on his hand were perfectly round, flawless pills.

But what was truly mesmerizing was the faint pattern swirling across the surface of each one.

"I refined a perfect pill," Rhain explained calmly, pointing at the pattern. "It formed a pill vein and attracted a Pill Tribulation. That is what destroyed your ceiling and your cauldron. I did not harm your property knowingly."

The Expert Rank Alchemist stared at the pills, then let out a harsh, mocking sneer.

"A Pill Tribulation?" He jabbed a finger at Rhain, "Do you take me as a fool."

"You think you can trick me with such ridiculous lies?" the man spat, looking at Rhain as if he were an idiot. "These are just Uncommon Grade Pills. I have studied the alchemical arts for decades, and I have never heard of a ’Pill Tribulation’! You’re just lying to cover up your own pathetic incompetence that caused a cauldron explosion!"

Hearing this, a look of trouble appeared on Rhain’s disguised face.

An Expert Rank Alchemist who hadn’t even heard of a Pill Tribulation?

The alchemical standards of Mirravele City were far lower than he had anticipated.

"Are you the guild master of this branch?" Rhain asked, his tone dripping with sheer disappointment.

The man’s face flushed with violent anger at the dismissive attitude.

"You ignorant fool!" the man yelled, his voice vibrating with rage. "I may not be the guild master, but I am one of the few esteemed Expert Rank Alchemists in all of Mirravele City! My name is Belen Ashvele! What rank of alchemist are you to dare speak to me with such insolence?"

From the back of the crowd, the thin, sharp-eyed attendant who had originally issued Rhain his key stepped forward on trembling legs.

"M-Master Belen!" the attendant stammered, pointing a shaking finger at Rhain. "He... he is just an Unranked Alchemist! He has no title! I swear, if I knew he harbored such harmful intentions, I would never have given him the key to the chamber!"

"An untitled piece of trash?" Belen sneered, looking down his nose at Rhain. "It seems our guild has grown too lenient. We should immediately stop allowing such unranked garbage from entering our halls."

Belen’s amusement faded, replaced by frenzy as he fully released his Level 1 Spirit Manifestation Realm aura.

"I have wasted enough time on you. This is your final—"

His voice stopped abruptly.

The moment the surname Ashvele reached his ears, the mild indifference in Rhain’s eyes vanished, replaced by the cold fury.

Rhain moved, treating Belen’s pressure of Spirit Manifestation Realm as a gentle breeze.

SMACK!

A crisp slap echoed through the chamber.

Belen’s body spun through the air, and slammed against the far wall on the left.

The crowd at the doorway collectively stopped breathing.

A Spirit Manifestation Realm expert... slapped away like a bothersome fly?

Before Belen could even groan, Rhain was already standing over him.

Rhain ruthlessly planted his heavy boot directly onto Belen’s chest, pinning him to the floor under bone-crushing pressure.

Belen’s eyes were wide, unfocused, swimming with equal parts agony and disbelief.

Rhain didn’t even look down at the man beneath his foot.

Instead, he lifted his indifferent gaze to the petrified guard captain.

"I am not a very patient man," Rhain stated, his voice chilling the room to freezing point. "Go back and bring your real Guild Master here."

"You have exactly five minutes. If he is not standing in front of me by then... I will kill him."

The captain’s body jolted, momentarily forgetting the pain of his fractured leg.

"Y-Yes! Immediately!"

He turned and limped out of the room.

On the floor, Belen struggled beneath the boot.

He gritted his teeth, his face cycling through shades of crimson and purple as he attempted to roll his body sideways.

"I am an Expert rank alchemist of Ashvele Clan!" Belen snarled, his hands clawing at Rhain’s boot. "You dare—"

Crack.

Rhain mercilessly pressed his foot down just a fraction harder, causing a crunching sound from Belen’s bones.

"Arrggh!" A sharp gasp of agony escaped Belen’s lips.

"I told you I am not a patient man," Rhain said, his disguised voice devoid of any emotion. "Move again, and your Guild Master will only find your corpse."

The concentrated killing intent in those words froze Belen’s blood.

He immediately stopped struggling.

Outside the shattered bronze doorway, the dense crowd of onlookers stood silenty, hearing their own heartbeats hammering in their ears.

A few agonizing minutes passed in this tensed atmosphere.

Then, a series of footsteps echoed down the corridor.

An old man with a flowing white beard walked into the chamber.

He wore a pristine, silver-trimmed white robe, and pinned to his chest was a dazzling golden badge of a Master Rank Alchemist.

His temperament was calm, and deep, with the distinctive pressure of a Core Formation Realm expert.

Behind him trailed three other elderly men, all possessing similarly oppressive late-stage Spirit Manifestation auras.

The guard captain hobbled nervously at the very rear, pointing a trembling finger into the ruined alchemy chamber.

The crowd bowed instinctively.

"Guild Master Aldric..."

The leading old man, Aldric, didn’t stop to acknowledge the crowd, and stepped into the room.

His deep, profound gaze swept over the shattered ceiling, the destroyed cauldron, and finally landed on the middle-aged man pressing his boot into Belen’s chest.

Aldric’s expression didn’t change much as he ordered calmly, "Release him." 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Rhain evaluated the old man for a brief second.

Although he had a commanding voice, atleast he didn’t ask Rhain to surrender as soon as he arrived.

’Good. At least the true master of this place has a functioning brain,’ Rhain thought inwardly.

Rhain gave a slight nod and lifted his boot, taking a step back.

Freed from the crushing pressure, Belen scrambled to his feet, clutching his chest, and gasping for breath.

Right in the center of his pristine white alchemist robes was a glaring, dirty footprint.

For an esteemed Expert Alchemist, it was a mark of unforgettable disgrace.

His face burned with shame and volcanic fury as he pointed a shaking finger at Rhain.

"Guild Master!" Belen shrieked, his voice cracking with rage. "This unranked piece of trash deliberately destroyed our guild’s property and then trampled on me, an esteemed memeber of Alchemist Guild, I demand that you execute him immediately to uphold our guild’s honor!"

Aldric ignored Belen completely.

His deep, piercing eyes remained entirely locked onto Rhain.

"I am the Guild Master of the Mirravele branch, Aldric," the old man said steadily. "Explain yourself. Why have you caused such destruction in my halls?"

Rhain didn’t bother wasting words on empty justifications.

With a casual flick of his wrist, he tossed the six glowing pills directly toward the Guild Master.

"These might be sufficient explanation," Rhain replied indifferently.

Aldric reached out and effortlessly caught the pills in his palm.

Initially, his expression remained perfectly neutral.

But as he lowered his gaze to inspect the Uncommon-Grade pills resting in his hand, his eyes narrowed.

A flawless, luminous aura radiated from the pills, devoid of even the microscopic trace of impurities.

But what truly seized the old man’s breath was the faint pattern swirling across the surface of each pill, resembling the veins of a leaf.

Aldric brought the pills closer to his face, trying to confirm that what he was looking at wasn’t his imagination.

His body suddenly shook as if he had been electrocuted.

"T-This... this is..." Aldric’s voice cracked, losing its previous serene composure. "P-Pill Veins? One hundred percent purity!"

Seeing the Guild Master acting so strangely over a handful of pills refined by an unranked nobody, Belen gritted his teeth in frustration.

"Guild Master, do not be tricked by this charlatan’s parlor tricks!" Belen stepped forward urgently, his face twisted with disdain. "He used some cheap illusion! He even had the audacity to claim that he summoned a ’Pill Tribulation’ to destroy the ceiling! It’s nothing but a pathetic lie to cover up his cauldron expl—"

"SHUT UP!"

A thunderous roar exploded from the old man’s lungs, carrying such a terrifying burst of essence that the sheer soundwave knocked Belen off balance.