Chapter 244: Grandmaster’s Extravagance
Chapter 244: Grandmaster’s Extravagance
"And why are you so sure about that?"
Carmilla’s playful, melodious voice drifted over the table as she and Myrielle stopped gracefully beside them.
Seris offered her Master and the Dean a seated bow, Liana wanted to get up, but Carmilla warmly gestured to stop her.
Her bright, mischievous eyes immediately shifted, locking squarely onto Rhain.
Rhain didn’t answer right away.
Instead, he met Carmilla’s gaze, and offered a counter-question.
"Why do you think he would come, Dean?"
Because it is basic logic," Carmilla reasoned, a confident smile playing on her lips. "If this Grandmaster Korryn wishes to expand the scale of his business, there is absolutely no better time or opportunity than tonight. Look around you."
She gestured gracefully toward the opulent hall.
"Nearly all of Stormveil City’s elites, patriarchs, and wealth are gathered in this very room. Crown Prince himself is sitting just a few dozen feet away. A single public appearance tonight would instantly solidify his empire across the entire Solathane Dynasty."
Rhain simply shook his head.
"Your logic applies to an ordinary merchant, Dean," Rhain replied, his voice flat and analytical. "It does not apply to him."
Carmilla raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"
"If Grandmaster Korryn truly wanted to expand his network or meet the elites of this city," Rhain continued, his tone carrying an unshakeable certainty, "he would have dictated the time and the place himself. He would not wait for Patriarch Thorian to throw a banquet, nor would he show up simply because an invitation was sent."
Rhain leaned back in his chair.
"A man who can casually produce flawless Epic-Grade pills does not need to curry favor with anyone. It is clear that he has no desire to meet the powers of this city. That is precisely why he has only appeared once all this time."
Hearing his perfectly sound, incredibly rational breakdown, Carmilla’s confident smirk faltered slightly.
She stared at Rhain, her mind involuntarily turning over his words.
It made an infuriating amount of sense.
Beside Rhain, Seris raised a delicate hand to cover her mouth, desperately suppressing a sweet giggle.
’Husband is so good at talking about himself in the third person,’ she thought.
As Carmilla and Myrielle lingered to chat with Seris, the hours in the grand hall began to tick by.
Food was served, and rare spiritual wine flowed like water, but the anticipation in the VIP hall slowly turned into restlessness.
At the VIP tables, Patriarch Caelan tapped his fingers impatiently against his armrest.
Matriarch Seraphine’s sharp eyes continuously drifted toward the golden doors.
And Lucius’s amber eyes narrowed with visible annoyance every time a mere minor noble stepped through the doors, instead of the legendary alchemist.
The whispering among the aristocrats grew louder.
"Is he really not coming?"
"Did the Thunderwood Family overplay their hand?"
Just as the tension threatened to reach a boiling point—
Suddenly, a heavy commotion erupted near the entrance.
An imposing group of people walked through the gate.
In an instant, the entire grand hall went completely silent.
Every single dignitary, from the minor nobles to the Domain Master Patriarchs, instinctively stood up from their tables.
The group that had just entered belonged to the Celestial Elixir Pavilion.
Leading them was the towering, muscular figure of the manager, Vulcan.
Flanking him on either side were Luka and Dex.
And escorting them personally, with a face full of hearty laughter and utmost respect, was Patriarch Thorian himself.
"It’s Manager Vulcan!"
"The Celestial Elixir Pavilion is here! But... where is the Grandmaster?"
The whispered gasps rippled through the hall as people desperately craned their necks, searching for the middle-aged alchemist they had all been waiting for.
But there was no one else behind the three mercenaries.
Vulcan strode confidently to the center of the grand hall.
Facing the gathered titans of the Solathane Dynasty, he formally cupped his fists and bowed.
Hs gaze briefly swept past Rhain’s table without lingering for even a fraction of a second.
"Honored guests, Patriarchs, Matriarch, and His Royal Highness," Vulcan’s deep, booming voice echoed through the silent hall.
"Grandmaster Korryn sends his deepest regards to you all. However, Grandmaster is currently in a critical phase of secluded refinement. He cannot break his focus, and therefore, he will not be attending tonight’s banquet."
A collective groan of bitter disappointment ripped through the aristocrats.
It was as if a bucket of ice water had been dumped over the entire hall.
Countless nobles who had prepared massive fortunes and rehearsed flattering speeches felt their hopes instantly shatter.
Carmilla’s bright eyes narrowed slightly in mild frustration.
Patriarch Caelan and Matriarch Seraphine looked visibly frustrated, their hopes of evaluating the mysterious Grandmaster dissolving into thin air.
Lucius’s amber eyes narrowed into dangerous slits, his grip tightening around the armrest of his chair.
He had extended his stay in this city and sat through hours of mundane pleasantries entirely for nothing.
Unable to maintain his composure, Lucuis couldn’t help but speak.
"Manager Vulcan," Lucius said coldly, his amber eyes locking onto the towering mercenary. "I have extended my stay in this city, dispatched my royal envoys to your Pavilion three separate times, and even graced your establishment in person. Yet, I am repeatedly given the exact same excuse."
An oppressive pressure threatened to leak from his tone.
"Exactly how long does this critical phase of refinement last? When, precisely, will the Grandmaster be free for an audience?"
The grand hall went dead silent again.
Crown Prince was openly pressing the issue.
Vulcan remained entirely unfazed by the Lucius’s questioning.
He simply turned and offered a respectful, yet completely unyielding bow toward Lucius.
"His Royal Highness," Vulcan replied, his deep voice neither haughty nor subservient. "The path of alchemy is unpredictable. I dare not guess the depths of my Master’s focus. He will meet you as soon as he comes out of his seclusion. Until then, we can only wait."
Lucius’s fists clenched.
The answer was a blatant, unapologetic stall, but in front of the entire city’s elite, he was forced to swallow his boiling fury and offer a stiff nod.
Vulcan then turned his massive frame back toward Patriarch Thorian.
"However," Vulcan continued, his voice rising a pitch higher, "to honor our profound deal with Lady Elara and the Thunderwood Family, my Master has instructed me to deliver an extravagant gift to Patriarch Thorian to permanently solidify the Celestial Elixir Pavilion’s alliance with your esteemed family."
With a respectful motion, Vulcan retrieved an exquisite, beautifully carved jade box from his spatial ring and presented it to Thorian.
Thorian laughed heartily, accepting the box with both hands. "Grandmaster Korryn is far too polite! A gift was entirely unnecessary!"
"Our Master insisted," Vulcan replied, "Please, Patriarch."
Thorian unlatched the seal and opened the jade box.
FWOOSH—!!!
The moment the lid was lifted, an intoxicating, unimaginably profound medicinal fragrance exploded outward, instantly filling the entire grand hall.
The essence density was so overwhelmingly pure that several Spirit Manifestation cultivators in the crowd felt their bottlenecks loosen just by breathing the air.
Inside the jade box, resting on a bed of red silk, were ten perfectly round, glowing pills.
"Ten flawless Mystic-Grade pills," Vulcan announced, his voice striking the hall like a descending meteor.
The entire hall was struck dumb.
"M-M-Mystic-Grade?!" an elderly alchemist from the Valemere delegation shrieked, his eyes bulging as if his soul was leaving his body.
"Ten of them! And they are entirely flawless! Zero impurities!"
"Even one flawless Mystic-Grade pill is a legendary treasure. All three Noble families have only one Grandmaster Alchemist, and they can at most produce a single batch of Mystic grade pills. And none of them have the purity exceeding 40%."
The sheer extravagance of the gift was so logic-breaking that even Patriarch Caelan and Matriarch Seraphine felt their heart shaken.
Their eyes burned with naked, unsuppressible jealousy.
None of them had ever known how a flawless Mystic grade pill tasted.
If they had known Grandmaster Korryn possessed the ability to casually refine flawless Mystic-Grade pills, they would have agreed to any terms just to secure that partnership!
Patriarch Thorian, a towering giant of a man who rarely showed anything other than boisterous confidence, actually felt his massive hands tremble slightly as he held the exquisite jade box.
He stared down at the ten glowing, flawless spheres resting on the red silk.
As the Patriarch of Thunderwood Noble family, he had consumed countless treasures in his lifetime, but the sheer purity and perfection radiating from these Mystic-Grade pills was something that he might have only dared to imagine in his dreams.
"This... this is simply too precious," Thorian breathed.
He hurriedly snapped the lid of the jade box shut, terrified that even a fraction of the medicinal essence might dissipate into the air, though the intoxicating fragrance had already permanently branded itself into the memories of everyone present.
Thorian looked up at Vulcan, his expression carrying a gravity and reverence that no one had ever seen him display toward a mere Core Formation.
"Manager Vulcan," Thorian spoke, placing his right hand over Vulcan’s shoulder. "Words are insufficient to express the weight of this gift. Please convey my deepest gratitude to Grandmaster Korryn. Tell him that the Thunderwood Noble Family will forever remain the most trustful ally of the Celestial Elixir Pavilion. Whoever dares to stand against him, stands against the entirety of my family’s might!"
"I will personally deliver your words to the Grandmaster," Vulcan replied with a nod.
The surrounding aristocrats watched the exchange with bloodshot eyes.
Lucius watched the entire spectacle unfold.
Ten flawless Mystic-Grade pills.
If he could acquire an alchemist capable of producing such divine treasures, his path to the Domain Master Realm would be practically guaranteed.
"I must have him,’ Lucius screamed in his mind, ’Grandmaster Korryn must be brought under the royal banner. No matter the cost.’
But Lucius was a master of political calculation.
He knew perfectly well that forcefully demanding an audience now, or attempting to pressure the Celestial Elixir Pavilion in front of the entire Stormveil elite, would be a catastrophic misstep.
A Grandmaster capable of this level of refinement was an entity that even the Emperor himself would treat with the utmost courtesy.
Until Lucius knew the true depth of Korryn’s cultivation and backing, the man was entirely untouchable.
"He is out of reach for now,’ Lucius concluded rationally, forcing the boiling rage down into his stomach. ’I will have to employ more subtle methods to draw him out later.’
But Lucius was not a man who enjoyed leaving a hunt empty-handed.
If his primary target was hidden behind the veil of a closed-door seclusion, there was still another prey in this city.
A target whose value had also skyrocketed to an astronomical degree over the past few days.
Lucius’s amber eyes slowly drifted away from the center of the hall, panning across the sea of fawning aristocrats and stunned nobles, until it finally landed on a prime table situated perfectly in the middle of the room.
His eyes locked squarely onto the white-robed youth sitting there with a placid expression.