Chapter 98: Refining Before the Guild Master

"Guild Master, what—"

Belen had never seen his Guild Master lose composure like this.

Not once in the twelve years he had served under him.

Aldric didn’t even acknowledge the voice.

His entire world had narrowed to the six luminous pills resting in his hand.

He turned his back on Belen entirely and fixed his deep, penetrating gaze onto Rhain.

"Did you refine these?" Aldric asked with a tone of disquiet.

Rhain gave a simple nod.

"Now you might know why your roof has a hole in it, and why your cauldron is in pieces," Rhain replied calmly.

Aldric drew a slow, measured breath.

He glanced upward at the gaping hole in the ceiling, then looked back down at the ruined bronze cauldron.

It was unbelievable.

A pill with a pattern—a Pill Vein!

A pill vein meant that the person standing before him had to be a Grandmaster Rank Alchemist at the very least.

A Pill Pattern doubled the efficacy of whatever pill it adorned.

An Uncommon-Grade pill with a pattern would rival or even exceed certain Rare-Grade pills in potency.

It was, without exaggeration, the single most coveted indicator of transcendental alchemical skill.

Even most Grandmaster Rank Alchemists could not refine a single patterned pill after hundreds of painstaking attempts.

Aldric had been fortunate enough in his youth to travel to the Inner Province. He had witnessed actual Grandmaster Rank Alchemists refining pills with his own two eyes.

Yet, even those revered figures could not produce such highly pure pills with patterns on them.

But this man had refined six.

All with flawless, one-hundred-percent purity and perfect pill veins.

Aldric’s mind reeled.

Could this man be beyond Grandmaster?

Could he possibly be an Emperor Rank Alchemist?

The moment the thought formed, Aldric hastily reined his wild thoughts back in.

That would be ridiculous.

Even the King of the Dynasty would be overwhelmingly respectful to such supreme beings!

If an Emperor Rank Alchemist needed anything, the entire dynasty would grovel at their feet, mobilizing armies just to fetch a single herb.

It was utterly impossible for someone like a Grandmaster, let alone an Emperor Rank Alchemist, to wander into Mirravele City, unranked, and rent a basic chamber.

That was why Aldric rather wanted to believe that his old eyes were deceiving him, than believing that what he was seeing was actually true.

He took a deep breath, forcing his wildly beating heart to steady.

"Sir," Aldric spoke, his tone entirely stripped of its former authority, replaced by an extremely cautious respect. "This is a very critical situation. If you do not mind... I need confirmation."

"If you could refine a pill again right now... you will not have to pay for any of this damage, and you will be completely free to go as an esteemed guest of our guild."

The crowd at the doorway erupted into hushed whispers.

"The Guild Master is waiving all damages? For that lunatic?"

"What in the world did he see in those pills?"

"Did he say the man could just... leave? After assaulting an Expert Alchemist and destroying guild property?"

Belen’s face had turned an ugly shade of purple.

"Guild Master!" Belen couldn’t hold it any longer. "You cannot seriously be entertaining this farce! He is an unranked—"

Aldric’s head turned, and his eyes met Belen’s.

The single glance made Belen’s jaw snapped shut so hard his teeth cracked.

He didn’t utter another syllable.

Aldric returned his attention to Rhain, waiting.

Rhain studied the old man for a brief moment.

He knew exactly what Aldric was doing. It was a test to see if the pills he had given were real and refined by him, or some kind of scam.

But Rhain didn’t mind.

It would only take him a few minutes to refine another batch.

"Fine," Rhain replied. "Bring me a cauldron that won’t explode, and a few herbs to make Rare-Grade Essence Condensation pills."

Aldric didn’t hesitate for a single second.

With a swift wave of his hand, a flash of light burst from his spatial ring.

A magnificent, heavy dark-gold cauldron materialized, landing solidly in the center of the ruined room.

Standing four feet tall, covered in intricate reinforcement arrays that glowed with a soft luminescence.

The craftsmanship alone marked it as a Epic-Grade artifact, designed to withstand the most volatile refinements a Master Rank Alchemist could attempt.

Immediately following it, several stalks of Rare-Grade herbs appeared.

"This is my personal cauldron," Aldric said respectfully, taking a step back. "And these are the finest Rare-Grade ingredients I have. Please."

Rhain stepped up to the dark-gold cauldron, entirely unfazed by the dozens of eyes watching his every move.

He sat crossed leg, all the herbs hovered before him in the air.

Rhain closed his eyes for a brief moment.

Then he raised his right hand, palm facing upward.

A single spark ignited above his fingertips.

The flame was a deep, mesmerizing blood-red, dancing lazily above his palm elegantly.

Thin wisps of scarlet light curled off its edges like the petals of a flower unfolding in reverse, and at its centre, it burned so brightly it hurt to look at directly.

Aldric’s eyes widened to the point of tearing.

He had spent decades around fire.

His own personal refining flame — a Level 7 Spirit Beast flame painstakingly extracted from the core of a Molten Ridge Basilisk — was considered among the finest in the entire Outer Frontier.

He had been enormously proud of it for over thirty years.

But the wisp dancing on Rhain’s fingertip made his treasured beast flame feel like a guttering candle held up against the sun.

The heat alone was terrifying.

Even suppressed to what was clearly a negligible fraction of its true intensity, the radiant warmth rolling off the blood-red spark was deeper, purer, and more penetrating than anything Aldric’s beast flame could produce at full power.

What... what rank of flame is that?! Aldric screamed in his mind.

It was vastly, unfathomably superior to any flame he had ever seen in his life.

He couldn’t even begin to comprehend its grade.

In that single fraction of a second, the last lingering shreds of Aldric’s doubt were incinerated by that flame.

The man sitting before him was an elite.

A few feet away, sweat poured down Belen’s forehead in buckets, soaking his pristine white robes.

His mind was finally starting to comprehend the extraordinary nature of the man before him.

Rhain paid no attention to the turmoil rippling through his audience.

With a gentle exhalation, the blood-red wisp slipped from his fingertip and glided beneath the dark-gold cauldron.

The cauldron’s reinforcement arrays instantly activated, glowing brilliant white as they struggled to contain and regulate the scorching heat.

Rhain opened his eyes.

He extended his left hand, and the first herb drifted forward from its orbit.

For a normal Expert Alchemist, extracting the essence of a Rare-Grade herb would require hours.

Under the Heavenly Flame, the herb was purified of all impurities in three seconds, leaving behind a droplet of perfectly shimmering silver liquid.

He followed it with the second herb then the third, layering the ingredients one after another without a single second of break.

Aldric watched with unblinking eyes, his jaw hung slightly open.

He was entirely spellbound.

Rhain’s simple hand movements appeared deep, and enlightening to his Master Alchemist’s eyes.

It was a technique so exquisite, so flawlessly harmonized with the laws of alchemy, that it looked less like pill refining and more like a masterful painting.

Aldric couldn’t understand even a tenth of the moves Rhain was making.

The grandmaster-level alchemy techniques embedded in Rhain’s mind were simply too advanced, operating on principles of essence manipulation that Mirravele City had never seen.

But the fragments Aldric did understand struck him like thunder.

When Rhain seamlessly merged the violently opposing cold and hot properties of two Rare-Grade herbs using a specific, oscillating hand seal, Aldric was left mesmerized.

So that is how you balance the elemental clash! I have been doing it wrong for forty years!

Epiphany after epiphany washed over the Guild Master.

Decades-old bottlenecks in his own alchemical understanding cracked and shattered just from watching Rhain’s hands move.

To Aldric, this wasn’t a demonstration; it was a divine sermon.

Clang!

The heavy dark-gold lid slid into place, sealing the cauldron shut.

The initial extraction was complete.

Now came the most dangerous phase: the final condensation of the pill.

This time, Rhain was far more cautious. He activated his Eyes of Truth, his gaze piercing through the Epic-Grade metal, perfectly guiding the swirling Rare-Grade essence inside.

Inside the cauldron, Rhain watched as seven perfectly spherical pills solidifying at the base of the vessel.

He maintained absolute control over the Heavenly Flame, compressing the violent energies with a masterful, iron-clad grip.

He knew exactly what was coming.

And just as he had expected...

A roaring sound like that of a dragon tore through the air.

A blinding, destructive pillar of lightning tore down from the sky.

It smashed straight through the guild’s roof—obliterating yet another layer of reinforced stone ceilings—and struck the dark-gold cauldron with devastating force.

BOOM!

The entire Alchemy Guild trembled as if hit by an earthquake.