False Justice

LI Zhu walked to Phoenix Peak, ready to buy the spirit pills that Yu Hui had made for him. Two days had passed since he had heard the news of the Heir Tournament in Heavenly Dragon Empire, and he was eager to gain strength.

He had a long path ahead of him, but spirit pills could help hasten his progress, and allow him to catch up to the young talents of the continent who had by now left him in the dust.

Yu Hui's house was quite close to the alchemy trade hall, and Li Zhu reached it in a short time. This time around, when he saw the garden on the side of the house, Li Zhu curiously looked at which spirit plants were being grown.

"Boiling Blood herbs... Flaming Sun Fruit... Death-Frost vines... all relatively common spirit plants" Li Zhu was not surprised to see no particularly rare spirit plant.

As he was about to enter the house, though, Li Zhu froze, recalling something.

'Flaming Sun Fruits have red spikes, not orange ones... could it be a fake?'

His interest piqued, Li Zhu turned his attention back to the plants, analyzing a patch of flame covered fruits, which were growing off of a short tree.

As he looked more closely at the garden, Li Zhu began noticing strange details, which defied his knowledge of spirit plants.

Confusion was all that could be seen on his face, as he tried to make sense of these weird incongruences.

'Are they mutated plants? Or maybe they are different due to the environment they grew up in?'

Li Zhu brainstormed possible reasons, deep in thought, with his hand rubbing his chin.

All of a sudden he had a shocking realization and to confirm it he closed his eyes, and sat down cross-legged. He tried to sense the heavenly energy around in the garden, to see if his theory was correct.

'As I suspected, those plants are just illusions, although a bit inaccurate. There is a formation masking the real appearance of this garden! This Yu Hui just becomes more mysterious the more things I find out about him. I guess he's like me, with a hidden identity."

There was no heavenly energy in the fruits, rather a large spread out barrier of energy. This clearly indicated to Li Zhu that he was simply looking at a formation.

With this realization, Li Zhu finally entered the house, without even attempting to see the actual plants growing in the garden. First of all, he was probably not even capable of breaking through the formation, since the energy he had felt in it was beyond his cultivation. Furthermore, breaking the formation would be an invasion of privacy for Yu Hui, and if there was something that Li Zhu had learned in the years he was exposed to the most powerful experts of the continent, it was that it was better to never offend mysterious figures.

Yu Hui was standing in his workshop, observing the spirit plants in his hands. Noticing Li Zhu's entrance, though, he headed to a shelf, from which he grabbed a bottle full of small pills.

"Here Li Zhu, these are your pills, personally crafted by me. There are twelve spirit pills of different types, and the making of them will cost you a thousand spirit stones. This price is already generous, since their quality is quite good, and for an alchemist to make them they would need to be rank two, as I am."

Spirit Alchemists had their own ranking system, which was heavily dependent on cultivation. The reason for this was that the further one went in the path of alchemy, the more heavenly energy was needed to create spirit pills, making a high cultivation essential for a good alchemist.

A rank two alchemist was quite rare in Crouching Tiger Kingdom, and only about twenty people had reached that level in the sect, with only the peak lord of Phoenix Peak and the Grand Elder having surpassed this, and achieved the third rank.

Although such a young rank two alchemist was somewhat surprising, Li Zhu had seen even more impressive talents, so he did not doubt the truth behind Yu Hui's confident statement.

"Okay, I do have spirit stones, but only 950... will that be enough? I can repay you in the future." Hua Shu had decided to leave the final 950 spirit stones to Li Zhu, after he had used most of their earnings to buy the blue egg. He had promised her to repay her, and she had no use for them anyway, since her family gave her thousands of spirit stones every year, to spend as she wished.

Yu Hui did not care, as he replied, "Sure, why not. I don't really do it for the money anyway, but for the experience. Just make sure you repay me eventually, since I may need them for buying alchemy materials."

Li Zhu was pleasantly surprised at Yu Hui's attitude, since even 1000 spirit stones was a cheap price indeed, and the young alchemist had no need to accept Li Zhu's offer.

"Okay, then I will thank you, senior brother Yu Hui. I will now head off to cultivate, may we meet again soon."

"Sure, be sure to come to me anytime you need spirit pills!" replied Yu Hui, not losing his chance at gaining a future customer.

Heading back to the outer sect housing, Li Zhu stared at the bottle of pills in his hands stopping to observe them more in detail.

'How can it be, these are close to perfect rank two pills! To think that someone in such a small kingdom can achieve such purity in a pill!'

Spirit pills were divided by ranks, which were aligned with those of alchemists. That said, there could be a huge difference in purity between two pills of the same rank, and this purity determined the skill of the alchemist.

The purer a pill was, the more energy it contained, which increased the strength of its effect.

'Yu Hui must have a great master, if he can make pills of such high purity at his age!' thought Li Zhu, though at this point nothing about this young alchemist could surprise him.

"Stop, disciple!" at that moment, a man appeared before Li Zhu, acting aggressively and blocking his way.

The man, who was wearing the robes that showed him being an elder, had a accusatory expression, as he yelled, "You, disciple, have stolen pills from me! I demand that they are given back, and you will be punished for this!"

Li Zhu was speechless in being randomly accused of a crime he did not commit.

"Elder, I think you are mistaken, I bought these pills from an alchemist just a few minutes ago!" Li Zhu tried to defend himself, thinking the elder had simply gotten the wrong guy.

"Do not talk back to me! I saw you steal these pills with my own eyes! And do you expect me to believe you have such high purity pills? No, because they are mine! Now come with me, and we shall head to the judgement hall, to choose your punishment!" the elder would not budge, seemingly unwilling to listen to reason, and set on punishing Li Zhu.

Realizing this, Li Zhu finally understood who this man was. "Ahh, you got outbid by a disciple and now you're striking back, huh? How shameful!"

During the auction, Li Zhu hadn't seen the face of the elder he had offended, and without a doubt that man was the one in front of him, using a made up excuse to get him punished by the sect.

"How dare you speak to me like that!? I could kill you for that, but I will do the right thing, and bring you to Judgement Hall, and let others choose your fate." replied the elder, faking a just expression, as though he was doing a favor to Li Zhu by wrongly accusing him.

As he finished his words, the elder wasted no further time, before grabbing LI Zhu by the arm, and flying into the air.

It all happened too fast for Li Zhu to react, and he was now in the sky, where if he fell death would be guaranteed.

Once cultivators reached the golden core realm they could fly using heavenly energy, though it generally could only last for a few minutes.

Li Zhu was now in a helpless situation, since if he struggled he would fall to his death, and if he stayed put, he would be punished for a crime he did not commit.

'I underestimated the power that elders have here in the sect!' thought Li Zhu, as he tried to find a solution for this crisis.

'In the end, if I am weak, anyone like this elder can bully me without consequences! If I survive this ordeal, I will get my revenge!' at this moment of fury, revenge was all Li Zhu could think about, yet he subconsciously knew that this had been caused by his carelessness of having underestimated his enemy.