Jing Mingfeng was blown away by the look of confusion on Bai Yunfei’s face. He gave Bai Yunfei an incredulous look as soon as he made sure Bai Yunfei wasn’t pretending not to know. “Really? You don’t know about the Extreme King Pill?! Why’d you come running all the way here then?!”

Bai Yunfei smiled in embarrassment. “Well....to make a long story short, I accidentally ended up here. I was only just heading on back to meet with my companions.”

“Oh, well where are they then?”

Bai Yunfei pointed towards the Black Cloud Mountain Ranges and then to the south. “They’re in Black Cloud Valley. I was heading back in that direction.”

The Underworld School being in Black Cloud Valley was a rather big secret to those not in the know, so Bai Yunfei decided not to divulge the secret himself.

“Black Cloud Valley?! Don’t tell me you came from within?!”

“Haha. I did. But how I came out....I don’t really know myself, to be honest.”

It took Jing Mingfeng two seconds to think before he responded. “Don’t tell me....you went to the Underworld School?”

“Eh?” Bai Yunfei drew back in surprise, “You know about it?”

Seeing that his answer was spot on, Jing Mingfeng smiled. “Hehe, there’s not many people that know about the Underworld School being there, but I’m one of them.

“So what did you do in there?”

“That’s a story for another time, I guess.” Bai Yunfei sighed, “It’ll take too long to explain...”

But seeing the curious expression on Jing Mingfeng’s face, Bai Yunfei relented. Starting with the events of Formagua City, Bai Yunfei retold the events that led to him going to the Underworld School.

The story was listened to by Jing Mingfeng with wide-open eyes from start to finish. “Now I get it....” He sighed. “I was wondering what in the world happened there. People said everyone in the city was killed and that a group of people were doing some sort of dark ritual. So it was the Soul Refining School.”

“Let’s not talk about me,” Bai Yunfei decided then, “tell me, what’s all this about the Extreme King Pill? From what you said earlier, it’s what everyone else is here for?”

He pointed off to the side where it seems most of the soul cultivators were waiting in.

Knowing that Bai Yunfei really was clueless about the going ons happening here, he nodded. “Yeah. The area all around Crushed Stone River is filled with people. They’re all here for the same reason: the Extreme King Pill.”

Bai Yunfei’s eyes sparkled as he guessed the reason why such a pill was being so sought out for. “This ‘Extreme King Pill’....is it a legendary medicine of some sort?!”

“Yeah. It’s not your every day pill, I’ll tell you that.”

The fact that such a pill was able to catch the eyes of so many Soul Kings was already proof that it wasn’t an ordinary pill. “What does the Extreme King Pill do?”

“The Extreme King Pill....should tell you a good bit on what it does just from the name alone. The point of this pill....is to allow the person that ingest it a shortcut to the Soul King realm! To breakthrough and become a Soul King!! Even an early-stage Soul King can become a mid-stage Soul King after eating one, and a mid-stage Soul King can gain the same amount of power as from twenty years of training from what I heard!”

“What?!” Bai Yunfei’s eyes flew wide open in shock. “Such a pill like that can even exist? But how!”

“For someone of your strength and status, should you really be surprised about something like that? There’s all sorts of treasure in this world, and the world of soul cultivators has always been filled with goodies like that, you know? As good as the Extreme King Pill is, it’s not exactly as ‘inconceivable’ as you might think, right?”

Jing Mingfeng’s laughter reminded Bai Yunfei that his reaction was a bit too out of composure for him. Coughing once, he tried to recompose himself. “Medicinal pills.....what kind of sorcery are they? Wasn’t the Alchemy School wiped out years and years ago? How could any Extreme King Pills suddenly show up now?”

“The Alchemy School may have disappeared, but that doesn’t mean their pills have.” Jing Mingfeng laughed. “Pills from their school have been popping up every dozen years for the last thousand years. They’re always found in the hidden caves of several soul cultivators before our time along with their treasures. But it’s been nearly a thousand years since the Extreme King Pill last appeared. Only a pill like that could cause the entire continent to be worked up into a frenzy like this.”

“So....where is this Extreme King Pill? Do you know?”

“No one knew at first. I heard it was the Beast Taming School that heard about it first. I don’t know when it started or how it came to be with all the rumors, but long story short: There’s a pocket somewhere near Crushed Stone River. The Extreme King Pill will be in that pocket.”

“Crushed Stone River?” Bai Yunfei repeated. The name felt familiar to him, but where had he heard it before?

Vacancy Inn!

Boss Lei had asked him before if he was planning to go to Crushed Stone River!

That was the time news of the pill was spread throughout the continent, it would seem. It wasn’t strange for Boss Lei to know of the Extreme King Pill since he was both a native of the province and Soul King. And for that reason, it wasn’t weird for him to ask if Bai Yunfei and his group was headed for Crushed Stone River.

“The Beast Taming School found it first?” Bai Yunfei asked. “No wonder I saw Lin Dongxiao back there then. Then....was he trying to force himself into the pocket?!”

“What?” Jing Mingfeng replied. “Lin Dongxiao tried to break into the pocket again?”

“Again?”

“Yeah,” Jing Mingfeng laughed, “they were the first to find it, so they’ve been here all this time. There were all sorts of people here by the time I got here, and he was said to have been trying this entire time without success.

“Actually,” He leaned in secretively, “I tried a few times too, never got anywhere though.”

“What exactly is this pocket? If people can’t get in, how do we know there’s an Extreme King Pill in there?”

“They say that an image of the inner contents appears once in a while from the mirages that comes out. They also said that a beast tamer was the first to realize that within one of the mirages was an Extreme King Pill!”

“Is the pocket so strong that even Soul Kings can’t get in?!”

“It’s the opposite actually. The pocket’s so weak that Soul Kings don’t dare enter it. If anyone beyond the strength of a Soul Exalt enters, then the pocket will collapse. The collapsing of the pocket means the space in there will fold in on itself, and that’s bad news for everyone in the pocket.”

“I see....” Bai Yunfei nodded in understanding. He opened his mouth to say something, but then he froze up as if he had just realizing something.

What he thought of was of when he was teleported from Black Cloud Valley and apported into that one area right before he was brought back out to Crushed Stone River....

He didn’t find anything there, but that wasn’t the important part. The important part was when he called out the permafrost mastiff. The entire area started to collapse in on itself when it came out, and that was when he was ‘thrown’ out.

“What is it?” Jing Mingfeng asked.

“Ah, it’s nothing.” Bai Yunfei shook his head. “So if Soul Kings can’t go in and Soul Exalts can’t open the pocket, what can be done then?”

Jing Mingfeng shrugged. “Don’t know. But from what I know....there’s a rule to this pocket. It’s probably going to open by itself....”

“From what you know?” Bai Yunfei asked, “How do you know that then?”

A smile appeared on Jing Mingfeng’s face, “Someone told me.”

Bai Yunfei didn’t bother to chase the question and changed the topic instead. “But....isn’t this a little too ridiculous still? For people close to becoming Soul Kings like you and I, an Extreme King Pill might be tempting, but not so much like this. Why are there so many people from so many factions here? Even the Soul Kings wouldn’t try this hard for the next generation to get an Extreme King Pill, or bring so many people with them, right?”

“I never said there’s just one Extreme King Pill, did I....?” Jing Mingfeng chuckled.

“What?” Bai Yunfei turned his head back towards Jing Mingfeng, “How many are there then?”

“Hehehehe....” Jing Mingfeng laughed. This was a situation he liked to be in.

“An entire furnace worth!!” He declared.