Chapter 181: Stormveil City Shakes
Chapter 181: Chapter 181: Stormveil City Shakes
Chapter 181: Stormveil City Shakes
The rumors spread through Stormveil City like a raging wildfire.
A new pill shop had appeared overnight in the heart of the merchant district, and it was selling flawless Epic-Grade pills.
One hundred percent. Zero impurities.
In a metropolis where even the supreme Master Alchemists of the three great Noble Families could only produce Epic-Grade pills with seventy to eighty percent purity, the sudden appearance of one hundred percent pure, flawless elixirs was nothing short of an earth-shattering earthquake.
By the afternoon, the street outside the Celestial Elixir Pavilion was completely blocked by a frantic, shoving mob of wealthy elites, minor nobles, and powerful rogue cultivators, all waving spatial rings stuffed with millions of Aetherium Crystals.
The scene inside the shop was nothing short of chaos.
"I SAID I WAS FIRST IN LINE! THAT RECOVERY PILL IS MINE!"
"Shopkeeper! I’ll pay triple! TRIPLE! Just give me five of the tempering pills!"
"Do you have any idea who I am? I am the third son of the Valemere Noble Family’s outer branch! You will let me take that pill immediately!"
Behind the main counter, Vulcan stood like a towering mountain, calmly trying to manage the fierce, and agitated crowd.
Even with his decades of brutal experience in the Inner Province, looking at the spatial ring that was rapidly filling with literal mountains of glowing Aetherium Crystals made his heart hammer against his ribs.
"One at a time," he rumbled, his deep voice cutting through the noise like a blade. "There is enough stock for everyone. Form a line, or leave."
The mention of leaving was enough to make even the most arrogant aristocrats swallow their pride and shuffle into something resembling order.
Nobody was willing to walk out empty-handed, not when flawless Epic-Grade pills were sitting right in front of their eyes.
Within a few hours, Celestial Elixir Pavilion had moved through nearly half of its entire initial inventory.
And profits were staggering.
Because the pills possessed such a high demand because of an unprecedented one hundred percent purity — a quality that no alchemist in Stormveil City ever achieved — Vulcan had priced them at a twenty percent premium above the standard market rate for top-tier Epic-Grade elixirs.
And customers paid without a single complaint.
Many begged to pay more, terrified that someone else would outbid them.
By nightfall, the revenue from a single day of sales had exceeded one hundred million Aetherium Crystals.
One hundred million.
In a single day.
For context, the most prestigious pill shop in Stormveil City — the Crimson Cauldron Hall, backed by the Emberford Noble Family — generated roughly eighty million Aetherium Crystals in an entire month of combined sales across all their branches.
Celestial Elixir Pavilion had surpassed a month’s revenue of the city’s reigning champion in less than six hours.
If this pace continued, they would be completely sold out before next day ends.
Vulcan immediately pulled out a glowing transmission talisman and channeled his essence into it.
__________________
Meanwhile, deep beneath the Battle Arts Division of the Stormveil Academy.
Inside the heavily warded, isolated confines of Gold-tier Combat Chamber Number 7, the temperature was hot enough to melt ordinary steel into slag instantly.
Fwoosh!
A massive, terrifyingly beautiful lotus of pure blood-red fire bloomed in mid-air.
"Empyrean Purgatory Bloom — Purgatory Lotus!"
BOOM!
The blood-red flame detonated, sending a catastrophic shockwave of heat crashing against the arrays.
A dark figure blurred straight through the flames.
Rhain’s body was tightly coiled with thin sheaths of concentrated Heavenly Flame.
His fists and legs moved with devastating speed, executing strike after strike, seamlessly weaving the explosive power of the Red Tribulations Heavenly Flame into his physical combat.
Just as he was about to initiate another sequence, a sharp vibration came from his spatial ring.
He pulled out the glowing transmission talisman.
"Master," Vulcan’s respectful voice echoed. "I bring good news and a complication. The shop is a massive success. In just a few hours, we have secured over one hundred million Aetherium Crystals in profit."
Even Rhain’s calm eyes flickered with a trace of genuine surprise.
One hundred million in a few hours.
The purchasing power of Stormveil City was truly on an entirely different dimension from the Outer Frontier.
"But," Vulcan continued, his tone turning cautious, "we have already sold out half of the initial inventory. At this rate, we only have enough supplies to last another two days at most."
Rhain’s brow furrowed slightly.
He had expected the pills to sell well, but this ravenous demand was slightly troublesome.
"I understand," Rhain replied through the talisman. "Do not sell out the remaining stock in a single rush."
"Master?"
"Restrict daily sales starting tomorrow," Rhain instructed, "Cap the number of pills available per day to no more than thirty individual units. First come, first served. No exceptions, regardless of who is buying."
By artificially restricting the supply while demand was exploding, the perceived value of every single pill would skyrocket.
Customers who were already desperate would become utterly frantic.
The wealthy will be forced to bid astronomical prices just to secure a single pill!
It was a brilliantly ruthless commercial strategy.
"Understood, Master," Vulcan acknowledged firmly. "Thirty units per day."
With a flick of his wrist, Rhain stored the talisman, and continued his training.
________________
Next morning, a line had already formed outside the Celestial Elixir Pavilion before the sun had fully risen over Stormveil City’s eastern wall.
The artificial scarcity worked exactly as Rhain had predicted — customers who had missed out on the first day’s purchasing frenzy arrived hours before dawn, setting up makeshift camps outside the shop to guarantee their place in line.
By midday, all thirty allocated pills were sold out.
The remaining crowd could only sigh with bitter disappointment.
Meanwhile, the tremors of the Celestial Elixir Pavilion’s explosive emergence had finally reached the ears of the true powers that governed Stormveil City.
In three separate locations across the city, within three ancient, heavily warded compounds belonging to the three great Noble Families, nearly identical conversations were unfolding.
Emberford Noble Family.
A stern-faced, and white haired old man slammed a report onto a mahogany desk, his expression dark. "A nameless shop, with no known backing, is selling flawless Epic-Grade pills at prices that undercut our Crimson Cauldron Hall while offering vastly superior quality. In two days, they have siphoned away a significant portion of our high-tier clientele. I want to know who is supplying them."
Valemere Noble Family.
A calculating middle aged man with gold-streaked hair drummed his fingers against a polished armrest. "One hundred percent purity. Not a single Master Alchemist in this city can achieve that. Either they have discovered a revolutionary refinement method, or their supplier is someone operating far above the Grandmaster Rank. Dispatch our people. I want a full intelligence report on this Celestial Elixir Pavilion within three days."
Thunderwood Noble Family.
A broad-shouldered patriarch stroked his thick beard, his expression more curious than hostile. "Interesting. Very interesting. Six Core Formation guards for a single pill shop? Whoever is backing this operation has deep pockets and deeper ambitions. Find out everything. And send someone to purchase a sample — I want our own alchemists to analyze the purity claims."
Independently, and without knowledge of one another’s actions, all three Noble Families dispatched investigators toward the Celestial Elixir Pavilion.
The undercurrents beneath Stormveil City’s calm surface were beginning to churn.
But Rhain, sitting cross-legged inside the sealed Combat Chamber Number 7, was entirely oblivious to — and supremely unconcerned with — the political storm brewing outside.
For three consecutive days, he had not stepped foot outside the chamber.
The arrays worked ceaselessly around him, absorbing the residual heat and shockwaves from his relentless training.
In those seventy-two hours, he had accomplished something that would have taken most geniuses years, or decades.
He had fully internalized both forms of the Empyrean Purgatory Bloom — the devastating ranged Purgatory Lotus and the close-combat Ember Serpent Coil — to the point where he could deploy either one in the span of a single breath.
The transition between the two forms was seamless, flowing from area-of-effect annihilation to concentrated close-quarters lethality without a single wasted motion.
But he hadn’t stopped there.
Over the three days, Rhain had worked through more than a hundred of the Epic-Grade techniques he had memorized during his nine-hour session in the Grand Library.
Within these three days, he absorbed their underlying principles, their unique approaches to channeling essence, their combat philosophies, and then added those insights into his own fighting style.
By the time the third day drew to a close, Rhain could freely alternate between dozens of distinct combat techniques mid-fight, blending fire arts, physical strikes, movement skills into an unpredictable, impossibly versatile arsenal.
His enemies would never know what his next strike would be.
And it makes him more lethal than he ever was.
He finally extinguished the Red Tribulations Heavenly Flame and sat down, allowing the residual heat in the chamber to slowly dissipate.
Buzz.
A vibration from his spatial ring interrupted the silence.
Rhain pulled out Vulcan’s transmission talisman.
"Master," Vulcan’s voice carried an unusual edge of urgency. "Current stock is running critically low. At the restricted pace of thirty units per day, we have roughly two days of inventory remaining before we are completely sold out."
Rhain’s dark grey eyes flickered.
Two days.
The demand had vastly exceeded even his conservative projections. The pills were moving faster than anticipated, and his isolated three-day training session had consumed the window he had set aside for restocking.
He needed more herbs. Immediately.
"Understood," Rhain replied. "I will handle the resupply. Maintain the daily cap. Do not deviate."
"Yes, Master."
The talisman dimmed.
Rhain pushed open the heavy stone doors of Combat Chamber Number 7 and left the isolated chamber.