Early the next morning, Ye Yiming was summoned by Old Master Ye. After all, the commotion caused by his matter with Wu Yaolin had spread throughout the city. How could Old Master Ye not address it?

In the small pavilion of Old Master Ye's courtyard in the Duke's mansion, Ye Yiming was called in and immediately subjected to Old Master Ye's silent scrutiny. For a long time, Old Master Ye didn't say a word, simply staring at Ye Yiming until he felt uncomfortable.

Finally, Old Master Ye slowly spoke, "I heard you accepted a challenge letter. Is that true?"

"Yes!" Ye Yiming nodded, readily admitting it.

"Oh? I also heard the challenger is the Third Young Master of the Prime Minister's Mansion. Is that correct?"

"Yes!" At this moment, Ye Yiming was so eager to avoid being scolded that he was acting exceptionally obedient.

This display of obedience irked Old Master Ye. Given the situation, this brat still behaved as if nothing were amiss. Couldn't he at least show some nervousness?

Old Master Ye's mustache twitched as he huffed, "You did, did you? Do you realize he's an advanced warrior? And you, are you even a warrior? You think accepting his challenge is child's play? Nonsense!"

As he spoke, Old Master Ye grew increasingly agitated, eventually standing up and pointing at Ye Yiming's nose, shouting, "Can you ever give us some peace of mind? You're not a child anymore, yet you still act so recklessly. When I saw your performance in court the other day, I thought you'd changed. But I was wrong..."

Old Master Ye's disappointment deepened, and he finally let out a heavy sigh. "Forget it. You won't be going the day after tomorrow. Leave the rest to us. You can go now!" With that, Old Master Ye turned away, not looking at Ye Yiming again.

Staring at the elderly figure, even more frail than before, a strange feeling arose in Ye Yiming's heart. It was a feeling he had only felt once before when his mother, Wang Yulian, had fed him ginseng soup. This feeling was family love.

Despite Old Master Ye's criticisms, Ye Yiming understood they were for his sake, especially the instruction not to go the day after tomorrow. If Ye Yiming didn't show up for the duel, it would be the Duke who lost face.

Steadying his emotions, Ye Yiming firmly said, "Grandfather, I will definitely go the day after tomorrow!"

Not for any other reason but for this rare familial love, he had to go!

As soon as Ye Yiming finished speaking, Old Master Ye whipped around, glaring angrily at him. Just as he was about to speak, Ye Yiming quickly interjected, "Grandfather, don't worry. I will defeat Wu Yaolin. I won't disgrace the Ye family." He then repeated the excuse he had told Wang Weilong the day before about his extraordinary encounter.

An old man? A divine book? Alchemy?

If it weren't for the dozens of advanced warrior pills and Ye Yiming's near-advanced warrior cultivation, Old Master Ye would never believe his story.

Yes, it was a story! Who was Ye Xiangtian? The Duke of Tianyang Kingdom! What kind of people hadn't he seen?

An encounter with an elder who gifted him an alchemy book? Hah, why not say a divine being visited him in a dream and made him invincible?

Old Master Ye's first reaction was that Ye Yiming was talking nonsense. But then, what about these pills? And Ye Yiming's cultivation?

Old Master Ye was puzzled. Looking at Ye Yiming's grinning face, he began to believe his story. Perhaps it really was a reclusive master!

...

When Ye Yiming finally left Old Master Ye's courtyard, he breathed a huge sigh of relief. A whole hour! Even though Ye Yiming had sworn repeatedly that he was telling the truth, Old Master Ye still questioned him for an entire hour.

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In the end, after Ye Yiming's persistent persuasion, Old Master Ye believed him and even agreed to solve a problem for him: convincing his mother, Wang Yulian, to approve of the duel.

However, the condition was that Ye Yiming had to come back the night before the duel for Old Master Ye to check his cultivation. Ye Yiming agreed without hesitation.

What Ye Yiming didn't know was that soon after he left, Steward Zhao appeared out of nowhere. Old Master Ye and Steward Zhao discussed Ye Yiming's situation for a long time. Eventually, Steward Zhao nodded and left the Duke's mansion.

Unaware of Steward Zhao's departure, Ye Yiming resumed his alchemy endeavors.

Although Ye Yiming didn't spend the whole night refining pills as he had the previous night, he still worked until dawn before resting. Combining this with the pills he refined during the day, Ye Yiming had now produced over 500 advanced warrior pills.

Unfortunately, despite refining so many pills, no mutated ones appeared. The minuscule mutation chance of 0.02% proved to be exceedingly rare. He had refined about 600 pills with no success, but his alchemy proficiency had risen to 927 points, just 73 points short of 1000.

Seeing this, Ye Yiming hesitated. If he could upgrade his alchemy to intermediate level and use the Immortal Spirit Ring's function, he could reach advanced alchemy, speeding up his pill production.

However, this would leave him with insufficient cultivation points to improve his cultivation. He had less than 900 points. Upgrading alchemy would leave him with less than 200 points, far from the 1000 needed to advance to an advanced warrior.

Ye Yiming wished the Immortal Spirit Ring had granted an additional cultivation boost upon reaching intermediate warrior level. But no, it merely doubled his space and increased daily cultivation points by 4, totaling 5, with alchemy proficiency still at 1 point per day.

Shaking off these impractical thoughts, Ye Yiming made a decision. He focused on his attribute interface and silently commanded:

"Upgrade Alchemy!"

"System Notice: Current proficiency for basic alchemy is 927 points, insufficient for upgrading. 73 points short. 730 cultivation points required to upgrade to intermediate alchemy. Proceed?"

"Yes!" Without hesitation, Ye Yiming agreed. As soon as he did, the system's prompt sounded.

"System Notice: Congratulations, host! Consumed 730 cultivation points to upgrade basic alchemy to intermediate alchemy."

Advanced Alchemy (bound) (0/10000): With a recipe and materials, you can now refine human, earth, and heaven-grade pills. Human-grade pill success rate is 95%; earth-grade 30%; heaven-grade 3%. Mutation chance is 0.05%. 10% chance to recreate a recipe when examining pills.

0.05% mutation chance? Still rare, but seeing the 95% success rate for human-grade pills cheered Ye Yiming up.

Although it wasn't the 100% success rate he hoped for, 95% was still excellent.

With this in mind, Ye Yiming threw himself into alchemy with renewed passion.

A day passed like this. Despite not sleeping, Ye Yiming was exhilarated by the nearly flawless success rate. Since lunch yesterday, he had been refining pills continuously, experiencing the power of a 95% success rate firsthand.

By now, Ye Yiming had only failed three times! Almost an entire day of refining, and only three failures. Who would believe that?

The result was that Ye Yiming had now produced over 2000 advanced warrior pills, using less than two-fifths of the herbs from the two large wooden boxes.

If this trend continued, those herbs could yield 5000 advanced warrior pills, maybe more. This prospect thrilled Ye Yiming, though he was slightly disappointed that no mutated pills had appeared after refining 1000 pills.

Never mind. I'll finish this batch and then rest.

Just as Ye Yiming decided this, an unexpected system prompt sounded in his ear.

"System Notice: Congratulations, host! Successful refinement! Mutation function triggered, resulting in five mutated advanced warrior pills! Alchemy proficiency increased by 50 points."

Mutated pills! Hahaha! I finally did it!

Overjoyed by the system's message, Ye Yiming examined the mutated pills' properties.

Mutated Advanced Warrior Pill: Human-grade lower-tier pill. Intermediate warriors can advance to advanced warriors, gaining 3000 cultivation points. (Note: This mutated pill has no side effects. The host gains 3500 cultivation points upon consumption.)

3500 points?

Amazed, Ye Yiming couldn't believe the mutated pill granted 3500 cultivation points!

Such a powerful, perfect pill!

Without hesitation, Ye Yiming consumed one.

"System Notice: Congratulations, host! Consumed one mutated advanced warrior pill, gaining 3500 cultivation points."

With 3500 points plus his current ones, Ye Yiming's cultivation points now totaled 3885. Seeing this, he didn't hesitate and commanded:

"Upgrade!"

"System Notice: Congratulations, host! Advanced to advanced warrior, consuming 1000 cultivation points. 10000 points needed to advance to human-grade warrior."

With 2885 points remaining, Ye Yiming hesitated briefly but, recalling Wu Yaolin's smug face, coldly smiled and swallowed three more mutated pills, then instructed the system to upgrade.

"System Notice: Congratulations, host! Consumed three mutated advanced warrior pills, gaining 10500 cultivation points."

"System Notice: Congratulations, host! Advanced to human-grade warrior, consuming 1000 cultivation points. 100000 points needed to advance to earth-grade warrior."

Upon hearing the system's prompts, Ye Yiming beamed with joy.

Haha! I'm a human-grade warrior now!