Battle Through the Heavens: Starting with Cao Ying as an apprentice

Chapter 377 Goodbye Yao Chen and Xiao Yan!

Medicine Clan · Medicine World!

Cao Ying and Little Fairy Doctor have been staying here for two days.

The Medicine Clan Chief, Yao Dan, treated these two disciples of Su Baichen with great courtesy, specially assigning the clan's prodigy, Yao Ling, to personally receive them and arrange for them to stay at the "Hundred Herbs Pavilion" on the east side of the Medicine Realm.

The Hundred Herbs Pavilion is surrounded by spiritual herbs, and the air is filled with their fragrance. The pavilion is built with thousand-year-old spiritual wood, and dried rare herbs hang under the eaves, swaying gently in the wind.

"Miss Cao Ying, Miss Little Fairy Doctor, in three days it will be our clan's grand medicine fair." The Medicine Spirit poured the two specially made refreshing tea, her tone filled with envy and admiration.

"If there are any medicinal herbs you need, just tell me. The medicine world has a rich collection and will surely be able to find them for you."

As Yao Ling spoke, her gaze subtly swept over Cao Ying.

When they last met in the Heavenly Tomb, Cao Ying had already shown her full potential, but now, her aura was as deep and restrained as the ocean, and she was no longer someone Cao Ying could fathom.

Such a rate of progress is among the best, even among the eight ancient races.

"Thank you for your kindness, Miss Yaoling." Cao Ying gently shook her head, her long, black hair cascading down her shoulders like a waterfall.

"We have prepared everything we need in the White Dust Realm before we came, and we dare not trouble the Medicine Clan any further."

Little Fairy Doctor sat quietly to the side, nodding slightly, which could be considered as agreeing with Cao Ying's words.

A hint of disappointment flashed in Yao Ling's eyes. She had hoped to take this opportunity to get closer to these two extraordinary women of the world. If she could take them to the Treasure Pavilion of the Medicine Realm to select medicinal herbs, perhaps they could forge a deeper friendship.

"Well... if you need anything else, just let me know," Yao Ling said with a forced smile, about to try and find another topic to talk about.

Just then—

Boom!

A loud bang came from outside the Hundred Herbs Pavilion, causing the pavilion to tremble slightly and the herbs hanging under the eaves to rustle.

The three women looked up at the same time, their eyes flashing with wariness.

Cao Ying and Little Fairy Doctor exchanged a glance, both looking at each other with a question in their eyes—within the world of medicine, who dares to be so presumptuous?

"Let's go out and take a look." Cao Ying was the first to stand up, her skirt swaying as she reached the window.

Yao Ling followed closely behind, her expression somewhat grim.

Now she's in charge of receiving distinguished guests, and if something goes wrong on the eve of the pharmacopoeia, it will be difficult to explain to the clan leader.

The three pushed open the window and saw two groups of people standing facing each other in the square outside the Hundred Herbs Pavilion, the atmosphere tense and ready to fight.

In front of a stick of incense——

Yao Wangui, accompanied by four guards from the Yao Clan, went out for a stroll to demonstrate his status.

Moreover, he was in a particularly good mood today—three days later, the pharmacopoeia would be published, and three more young members of his lineage would be qualified to enter the "ancestral land" for baptism, further solidifying their position within the clan.

But just then, a familiar yet unfamiliar figure entered his field of vision.

Medicine dust!

Yao Chen was accompanied by a young man with a heroic air about him and a huge black ruler on his back. This young man was none other than his disciple, Xiao Yan.

Yao Wangui's pupils suddenly contracted, and he stopped in his tracks.

"Medicine dust?"

"You, an outcast expelled from your family, dare to step back into the world of medicine?"

His voice was filled with disbelief, which quickly turned into intense contempt and disgust.

Yao Chen turned his head at the sound, and the moment his eyes met Yao Wangui's, the surrounding air seemed to freeze.

"Yao Wangui, it's been so many years, you're still as disgusting as ever." Yao Chen's voice was terrifyingly calm, but those who knew him well could hear the suppressed anger within it.

"Insolence!" shouted one of Yao Wangui's guards.

Yao Wangui raised his hand to stop him, a cold smile curling at the corner of his lips: "Yao Chen, the clan has already reached a conclusion on what happened back then. You were expelled from the Yao Clan for stealing spiritual herbs out of greed. Do you still have the face to come back now?"

"A definitive conclusion?" Yao Chen laughed, his smile full of sarcasm.

“Yao Wangui, you know the truth of what happened back then better than I do.”

"It's nothing more than your good-for-nothing brother Yao Feng being mediocre. Seeing my extraordinary talent, you feared I would threaten his position in the clan, so you plotted to frame me."

He paused, his gaze sweeping over the Medicine Clan members who were gradually gathering around him: "The so-called 'stolen' spiritual medicine ended up in your brother's hands, where it was refined into pills to help him break through the Dou Zun bottleneck in one fell swoop, didn't it?"

Yao Wangui's face darkened, and he said, "Nonsense! The evidence for what happened back then is irrefutable. How dare you distort the truth!"

At this moment, several elderly members of the Medicine Clan came upon hearing the noise.

Most of them were clan elders, quite old, and a few of them had complex expressions in their eyes when they saw Yao Chen.

Yao Chen looked at the elders and raised his voice a few decibels: "Elders, that so-called 'trial' back then was full of loopholes."

"The forbidden area where the spiritual herbs were stored had seven layers of barriers. How could I, a disciple who was only at the Dou Zong level at the time, have sneaked in silently? And how was my so-called 'aura' on the evidence 'discovered' in full view of everyone?"

The elderly people avoided eye contact; some lowered their heads and remained silent, while others pretended to look elsewhere.

Of course they knew the truth. Back then, Yao Chen was a genius. Before he was even thirty, he had already become a seventh-grade alchemist, far surpassing the younger generation.

Yao Wangui's younger brother, Yao Feng, was of mediocre talent and only had a slight status because of his elder brother's power in the clan.

To protect his younger brother's future, Yao Wangui conspired with several elders to set up this scheme.

However, at that time, Yao Chen's lineage was small, his parents had died early, and he had no one to rely on in the clan.

Yao Wangui was already a powerful elder, and his father was the Grand Elder at the time.

After weighing the pros and cons, the clan leader Yao Dan's father—the old clan leader at the time—had no choice but to expel Yao Chen "based on the evidence."

That wasn't the end of it. Even after Yao Chen was expelled, Yao Wangui was still uneasy and secretly sent people to hunt him down.

Even more cruelly, he used the excuse that "the relatives of a sinner are not worthy of being buried in the clan cemetery" to remove the coffins of Yao Chen's parents from the clan cemetery and hastily bury them in the desolate mountains.

These are irreconcilable hatreds.

Seeing the old people remain silent, Yao Wangui felt even more smug.

Over the years, he has managed his affairs effectively within the clan and is now at the early stage of the Four-Star Dou Sheng realm, wielding real power.

Even if the clan leader knows part of the truth, would he punish an elder who is of great use to the clan for the sake of a discarded son who has long been expelled?

"Yao Chen, stop spreading these absurd rumors!"

Yao Wangui sneered, "If you know what's good for you, get out of the Medicine Realm immediately, and I might spare you out of consideration for our past kinship. Otherwise..."

"Otherwise what?" Xiao Yan, who had been silent all along, suddenly spoke, his voice clear but carrying a chilling edge.

He stepped forward and stood shoulder to shoulder with Yao Chen, his gaze sweeping over Yao Wangui and the elders like a knife: "I can see that all of you elders are perfectly clear-headed, yet none of you dare to speak the truth."

"What? Is the entire Medicine Clan just a bunch of sycophantic cowards?"

"presumptuous!"

"You ignorant brat, how dare you insult my Medicine Clan!"

The elderly men's faces flushed red, and they shouted angrily.

A cold glint flashed in Yao Wangui's eyes: "You brat, who do you think you are, daring to spout such nonsense here?"

Before he finished speaking, the pressure of a four-star Dou Sheng surged toward Xiao Yan like a tidal wave!

The oppressive aura was so solid that the bluestone slabs cracked inch by inch wherever it passed. The onlookers retreated in all directions, and those with weaker cultivation turned pale and had difficulty breathing.

However, Xiao Yan remained unmoved, stubbornly resisting the oppressive force.

"Yao Wangui!" Yao Chen stepped forward, his gray robe fluttering without wind, and a powerful aura, slightly weaker than Yao Wangui's, suddenly erupted!

The two powerful auras of Dou Sheng clashed violently in the air—

boom!

Amidst a deafening explosion, a shockwave surged outwards from the two individuals, uprooting several ancient trees outside the Hundred Herbs Pavilion and violently shaking the pavilion's windows.

Some of the Medicine Clan members who were nearby were thrown back by the shockwave and landed in a sorry state.

"What?!" Yao Wangui's expression changed drastically.

"A three-star late-stage Dou Sheng?! How is that possible?!"

He stared intently at Yao Chen, his eyes filled with disbelief.

When Yao Chen was expelled, he had only just entered the Dou Zun realm. How many years has it been since then?

Moreover, I heard that this guy was betrayed by his apprentice and his whereabouts are unknown. Could he have had some kind of extraordinary encounter?

Yao Chen slowly gathered his aura, which only made the terrifying pressure more concentrated. He looked at Yao Wangui and suddenly laughed, his laughter full of mockery:

"Yao Wangui, Yao Wangui, so many years have passed, and you really haven't made any progress at all."

"Back in the clan, you relied on your father's influence to act arrogantly and domineeringly. Now, so many years have passed, and you have consumed countless resources of the Medicine Clan, yet you are still lingering in the early stage of the Four-Star Dou Sheng."

He shook his head, his tone as dismissive as he would a roadside weed: "Honestly, your talent is worse than a pig's. If I were you, I would have already smashed my head against a block of tofu and died. Why stay in this world and make a fool of myself?"

"You—!" Yao Wangui trembled with rage, pointing at Yao Chen, but unable to utter a complete sentence.

Chapter 378 The Adaptable Medicine Spirit!

For a moment, the square fell silent.

The disciples of the Medicine Clan who were watching were dumbfounded, and the elders looked at each other in disbelief. Shock filled the air.

No one expected that Yao Chen, who was expelled from the Yao Clan back then, would now be a Dou Sheng powerhouse, and his cultivation had reached the late stage of a three-star Dou Sheng!

Moreover, although Yao Chen's words were sharp, they were all true.

As a powerful elder of the Medicine Clan, Yao Wangui has enjoyed the clan's top resources for hundreds of years—a cultivation meditation room in the Medicine Realm, a fixed monthly quota of high-grade pills, and millennium-old spiritual herbs that he can access at any time.

And what about Yao Chen? After being expelled, he wandered to the Central Plains, struggling his way up from the Dou Zong realm. The life-and-death crises he experienced along the way were probably more than what Yao Wangui had ever seen in his entire life.

In the current situation on the mainland, every Dou Sheng is an invaluable strategic resource.

There are very few publicly known Dou Sheng level experts on the mainland.

The combat power of a Dou Sheng (Battle Saint) cannot be simply built up with resources.

Some powerful individuals, despite barely reaching the threshold of Dou Sheng with the help of pills and rare treasures, have weak foundations and are often crushed by powerful individuals of the same level in actual combat, or even challenged by some exceptionally talented half-saints.

That is what is known as "having the cultivation level of a Battle Saint, but lacking the strength of a Battle Saint".