Death... and me

That question came as a surprise to the twins. After all, they were just trying to kill each other a few moments ago. "Eight flowers, seven if we count the one our demon beast is protecting." Naturally, Rean still told him since he wouldn't mind buying the rest.

Foliel nodded, saying, "To be honest, I was collecting the flowers to use in alchemy. I'm planning to make a cultivation-related pill with it, but not as direct as others would use them. My Citaxin Sect isn't very famous or big, and we're even less known for our alchemy. However, you're probably part of a big power that definitely has access to good alchemists. How about this? Would you be confident in concocting Fire Element Meridian Stabilizing Pills?"

Rean knew nothing about pills, so he immediately looked at Roan. Roan, on the other hand, had taken a look at this pill back in the Alchemist Guild in Valantior. "That's a Golden High-level pill, a very hard one to concoct at that. You know that, right?"

Foliel nodded, telling him, "I know, and that's part of the reason why I decided to stop this battle. I figured that your elders might be able to concoct it, so why not negotiate?"

Roan pondered over it for a bit and understood what Foliel was going to do. "It seems like you were trying to gather as many flowers as possible and then try to brute force the concoction. Even though many concoctions would fail, perhaps one of them would succeed. With that being said, you only need one batch of such pills, am I right?"

Foliel didn't deny that, nodding in response. "That's correct. To be more specific, I need three of those pills. As I mentioned before, I'm not a genius or anything like that. I had to put a lot of effort into reaching this level, and I did a lot of things wrongly in the process. One of them was overflowing my meridians with way too much Fire Element. Of course, I'm currently paying the price for it. I need those pills to stabilize them again. Only with that will I have a chance to break through into the next stage."

Rean only cared about the flowers, though. "So, what do you propose?"

Foliel quickly explained, "I have gathered a total of eleven flowers. As long as you succeed in one batch, I can give you the rest. The pills are worth several times more than the flowers for me at the moment."

Roan nodded after hearing that. "That's obvious. Due to the pill's difficulty, even twenty flowers would not be worth the price of a single batch of pills." Then again, Roan was more than eager to try. "Very well, we accept the deal. In the end, we also need those flowers, and we can't find anyone else selling them."

Foliel was more than happy to hear that. "So, should I meet you back in Disgaio City? You can ask one of your elders who can concoct the pill to meet me there. I wouldn't mind forking the Divine Stones necessary for the teleportation either."

Roan shook his head, saying, "No need, just wait here while I concoct the pills for you." Before Foliel could say anything, Roan disappeared from his sight.

"What?!" Foliel was shocked by that. How did Roan disappear right in front of him? That shouldn't be possible as even his spatial detection couldn't sense anything. He just disappeared in thin air. "How did that happen?!"

Rean raised his hand and smiled at Foliel, telling him, "Oh, don't worry. He'll be back eventually." Naturally, Roan entered the Soul Gem Dimensional Realm, where his Alchemy Workshop was located. It had the Soul Gem Tools that could make concocting a lot easier and more efficient.

Another reason why Roan entered the Soul Gem Dimensional Realm was to test whether the system considered it to be a dangerous situation or not. Fortunately, it turns out it didn't, which proved that Foliel had never been a risk to the twins' lives in the first place. Otherwise, the system would have blocked its entrance.

Roan had the Molten Divine Rock Flowers that the twins had gathered so far, so he could use them. That's why he didn't ask for Foliel's flowers since he was certain Foliel also wouldn't give them away. He would only trade his flowers for completed pills and not for a promise of a successful connection. At the very least, that's what Roan would do in Foliel's place.

'From what I remember, this is a Fire Element Pill. The problem is that you would normally need a Fire Element cultivator to concoct this pill. However, such a thing isn't a problem for me since my neutral pills can achieve the same effect.'

Roan then went to his medicinal garden, which was quite big and had many rare herbs growing there. It was so good that the Wood Element in the area around it stood out from the rest of the Soul Gem Dimensional Realm. Well, Roan had Celis's saplings helping with its maintenance. What would be better than a Divine-level Demon Plant to take care of a garden?

Roan quickly gathered the herbs he needed for the Fire Element Meridian Stabilizing Pills. After all, it wouldn't work to simply use the Molten Divine Rock Flowers alone. More things were necessary. Following that, he didn't go to the alchemist workshop. Instead, he went to see Celis and told him, "Hey, Celis. Give me some of your old dead branches."

"Hmm?" Celis, who was cultivating as always, looked at Roan. "What do you need them for?"

"I'm going to concoct a few quite difficult pills. Divine Tree Wood would make the best fire."

Celis felt like giving Roan a beating after hearing that. "Are you trying to buy a fight?"

"Don't start it. We both know that you constantly renew your body and a few branches end up falling off. It's part of your evolution process. You have no use for them, and they would only become fertilizer if left alone."

Celis didn't like how Roan worded it. "Even so, your words make me feel like you're using my body as some kind of material."

Roan nodded in agreement. "Exactly." Sure enough, Roan didn't care about anyone's feelings, much to Celis's anger.