Heretic Apothecary Genius - Chapter 29

Chapter 29: The Smiley Old Man’s Shock

Translator: Atlas Studios

Editor: Atlas Studios

Damn it, why did he still need to go to such an extent to kill me? What’s this, bungee jumping? Except there are no safety measures involved.

When he was about seven or eight meters away from the ground Ren Jie suddenly felt a force pulling him upwards violently, which broke his fall. However, he felt himself falling again in the next moment.

Seven to eight meters was a pretty significant height to fall from, and while he might not die from the fall it would definitely hurt. Thankfully, Ren Jie was alert and quickly braced himself with his hands and rolled after he landed so as to dissipate the impact of the fall. Still, the unique pressure in his body as a result of the Jade Emperor Refinement Technique put him in excruciating pain after such intense actions.

“F*ck, what a psycho for doing this!” Ren Jie could not help but curse.

“What, didn’t your grandfather teach you? How dare you curse at a prince like me?” Ren Jie barely finished speaking before a black shadow landed in front of him. The person was dressed in all black and he had a sinister smile that split his face. As he stood before Ren Jie, he exuded a sense of intimidation that was far more intense than what Ren Jie could feel from the Emperor who had the help of his status, position, the palace, and his throne could exert.

This intimidation stemmed from his power to control one’s life and death, his ability to control power and the surrounding air, which resulted in the intimidation and pressure he could exert which made those standing in front of him breathless.

“Prince? What prince? If the Emperor angers me I’ll scold him too, so what if you’re a prince?” Ren Jie was well aware that this man was no prince as he had never heard of any prince having such abilities. Unless it was one of those old and obsolete fellows in the palace. However, this person had a wild aura around him that did not suggest that he served a master.

Ren Jie did not pay any mind to the intimidation or pressure he exerted as even though he had only experienced a bit of Sage’s preaching, after staying there, he realized that others’ intimidation did not do much to him.

Although this person’s intimidation was extremely horrifying to others and also the strongest presence Ren Jie had ever felt ever since he came into this world, even then it had a negligible effect on him. Through his nonsensical babbling, Ren Jie was also using the opportunity to observe the person who brought him out of his bedroom. They were no longer at the Ren’s residence, and while this person looked like he was out to kill, the smile on his face looked completely out of place. He spoke in an unrestrained manner and thus, he did not seem to be from the palace, nor did he look like he was from any of the family clans.

“Pfft, no Emperor is qualified enough to give me the title of prince, don’t compare me to those boring princes. What are you looking at? I bet you haven’t seen anyone as handsome as me, have you? Get over there and start punching away the layers of bark on the tree. If you don’t get to 30 layers by tonight, then I’m going to beat you as you did to those bastards at home. There are 108 trees here, and you better get to at least 30 layers on each of them. Any less and you’re going to get a beating for each layer you did not break. Hurry up, get going.”

“Thud!” The moment this fellow stopped speaking Ren Jie felt a kick on his rear as he flew a dozen meters forward into the air once again. Even though he felt his rear hurt, but just as he was about to fall he felt another force break his fall just like it did earlier. Ren Jie then realized that he was standing next to an entire field of trees. There were a lot of trees that were so thick that two people were needed to hug one of them, yet they were all stripped of their roots and stuck inside the ground like weak saplings.

“Thousand-layer trees.” Ren Jie recognized them at a glance. They were a specialty of the Demon beasts abyss. Every year, the trees would grow a new layer and each layer of bark was hardy and incredibly tough. The layers also gradually increased in toughness and hardiness, which made these trees a coveted item by those who practiced the Body Refinement Realm. Even the disciples of the five family clans could only obtain one once in a while, how did this guy manage to get over a hundred of them?

Ren Jie was at a loss, but his mind was still relatively clear. Firstly, he was able to ascertain that this man did not want to kill him nor harm him, but he was eccentric indeed. Could it be that he wanted to train him? At least that looked like the case now. His voice was unrestrained and he was likely to be pretty old as well. Moreover, he had brought him along as he flew, and that was something difficult to do even for those who had managed to reach the Yin Yang Realm and condensed their Yin spirit.

Which was to say that this person who appeared to be out to kill and gave others a sinister feeling, who also had a terrible temper but a completely out of place smile, was actually very old and did not fear Ren Jie at all. He was at least at the stage of the Yin Yang Realm where he had already condensed his Yang spirit, or even… stronger. This was no longer the Ren residence but probably still within the Jade Capital, but he was not quite sure where yet. There seemed to be some logic behind the placements of these Thousand-layer trees as well. In an instant, Ren Jie had managed to organize his thoughts and came to these conclusions.

“What are you waiting for? Get to it quickly and don’t question me. Don’t you dare complain either, else you’re going to get a beating from me. If you don’t finish tearing through 30 layers of these 108 trees, then you can forget about sleeping, eating or anything else.” The smiley old man shouted angrily when he saw Ren Jie standing there without moving. Without any visible movement, he had already appeared next to Ren Jie and got ready to beat up Ren Jie.

“I won’t be afraid of you even if you keep this up since it’s obvious you’re not going to kill me.” Ren Jie continued to look at the Thousand-layer trees and completely disregarded the smiley old man who continued to look angry.

“…” What did this fellow… say. F*ck, how is he so calm when talking to me? He had kidnapped him at night and almost made him fall to his death, how could he say such things? Was he trying to pretend to be calm or did he see through him? When he thought back about how he deliberately to intimidate him, yet this guy completely ignored it, he began to feel confused.

He was very uncomfortable over the fact that he had lost control over the situation with just two lines of words. No, how could he allow a pesky little kid to take control over the situation? Damn it, let’s see how I’m going to deal with you.

“Hmph…” He hummed in disdain before releasing a chilly, murderous aura. “Do as I say now. If you even make one mistake, you’ll die.”

The chilly aura that the old man exuded was enough to make someone shiver in fear, but Ren Jie paid no regard to it at all as he was very confident in his judgment. Hence, he continued to look at the trees and remained in his spot, ignoring the smiley old man.

Damn it, the smiley old man could not believe it. How was this possible? The aura he gave out was enough to make someone’s insides burst, and even if that person had experienced such scenarios, but if they did not have enough power or cultivation, they should still be scared out of their minds.

This pesky child is showing such attitude and ignoring me, does he think I am putting on a show?

Alright, kid. You want to fight it out with me, huh?

The smiley old man raised his hand slowly and was about to press down on Ren Jie’s head as though he was going to crack his skull, and within his palm was intense Dharmic powers that made others feel like he controlled their life and death.

“Looking at this, I suppose it contains the battle strategies that the Ren disciples have to learn, but I think there are other techniques in here as well since there are more changes. There are more traps than the usual open and close of the original strategies. You’re asking me to beat the bark of the trees probably because you want me to train my body to become stronger as well as learn this set of battle strategies that incorporates all the other techniques. You must have incorporated at least 30 techniques, and they must have reached the level of at least superior-grade techniques, perhaps useable even after reaching the Divine Power Realm. If one is already in the Divine Power Realm, then their combat power would probably be near the ultimate-grade.”

Ren Jie suddenly spoke. He had been looking at the 108 Thousand-layer trees while different scenarios played out in his mind and he quickly saw through everything.

Suddenly, the hand that the smiley old man raised in order to exert pressure on Ren Jie’s head froze in mid-air as he looked at Ren Jie in disbelief.

How could this kid know? This was created by him for today, nobody knew. This kid…

“How did you know that?”

Ren Jie shrugged. “I looked at this placement of trees and ran through the scenario of beating through 30 layers of the Thousand-layer trees a thousand times for a month and realized what you were trying to do, so I know what you were looking for.”

“Nonsense. This is a cultivation technique created by me, how could you tell the effect just by looking through it a few times? You think I’m a fool?” The smiley old man was angered as he glared at Ren Jie.

He was incredibly confident and proud of this modified technique of his, and in his opinion, this was definitely comparable to what the ancient greats had achieved. If this kid could get a sense of it in a month and learn three moves in a year, then he would already be considered one of the most talented of the younger generation in the Jade Capital.

Yet, this kid took one look at it and said such things. Does he think he is choreographing a dance for children? What a joke. However, only he knew of this. Hence, he was incredibly surprised. How did this kid know?

“Holding a larger area down by holding our own, concealing the Yin and Yang at the open and close while concealing the intent to kill at the next open and close. It does not matter whether it is restrained as we only care about the battle’s outcome.” Ren Jie felt even more excited when he saw how worked up the smiley old man was as he had never learned a set of fighting techniques before and they were the most effective attacking method to be used before the Divine Power Realm and could also be used to cast Dharma spells in the Divine Power Realm. He was able to play out this set of cultivation techniques in his mind thanks to the realm he was at; He could feel the extent of power that this set of cultivation techniques had beneath the Divine Power Realm.

As he saw how worked up the smiley old man was, Ren Jie slowly got up. His actions were not vigorous nor were they fast as, although he had just gotten used to the pressure of being at level-3, he was still human. As he stepped in position, his footwork changed a few times while he punched in the air, reciting what he understood from this set of cultivation techniques at the same time.

The smiley old man went from angry to stunned once again as heard Ren Jie speak.

How did he know all this…

As he looked at the set of stances that Ren Jie performed, he realized that that was the cultivation techniques he had come up with. While Ren Jie’s actions were not fast, he still seemed as though he had practiced this for a month and had internalized the steps of this technique.

If not because he had kidnapped him here himself he would have thought that Ren Jie had been practicing these steps for a month.

Strange. Strange, indeed. How could this be? This was impossible. Even if he was a rare talent in the Jade Capital, he could not have been able to perform this ultimate-grade technique to such an extent just by taking one look.

Fighting techniques had to be practiced bit by bit, how could he know it all just like that? Then, why was he still practicing fighting techniques for?

“Hu… Hu…” Ren Jie’s actions were very slow at first, but as he continued doing so, his actions became faster even though he was still weighed down by the array pressure of the Vigor chains comprised of 144 Vigor rings from the third level of the Jade Emperor Refinement Technique. When he was able to execute the movements easily, the leftover vigor in his body became more and more sufficient such that the medicine he had taken earlier was absorbed into his body quickly.

As Ren Jie’s body adjusted quickly, he felt the pressure and weight in his body declining.

No, not the weight, but the pressure. As he performed the refinement technique and made himself stronger through the fighting technique, the energy burst he experienced made his body stronger.

Hence, Ren Jie moved faster and faster as he got more engrossed in it, all kinds of variations in the movements playing out in his mind.

This sense of carefreeness pulled Ren Jie in and he completely disregarded the smiley old man’s existence as he dashed into the Thousand-layer trees’ formation.