Chapter 269: Heaven’s Judgement Finger
Chapter 270: Heaven’s Judgement Finger
After Lyra’s dramatic departure, Rhain stood up and stretched his shoulders.
"I am going to practice for a while," Rhain told Seris and Liana.
He stepped out of the courtyard and walked a short distance to a personal, open-air training ground that Dean Qaylus had specifically allocated for his private use.
It was surrounded by profound arrays that could absorb the sound and noise of the continuous use of devastating martial arts.
Rhain walked to the center of the grounds.
His dark grey eyes narrowed sharply, and the pitch-black essence within his dantian began to surge.
For the past week, whenever he wasn’t refining pills, he had been entirely focused on comprehending the supreme inheritance left behind in the Founder’s Spirit Ring.
Emperor-Grade Martial Art: Heaven’s Judgement Finger.
Rhain raised his right hand, extending his index and middle fingers.
Buzz—!
The air around him violently warped.
A terrifying, pitch-black vortex of highly condensed dark essence gathered at the tips of his fingers.
it felt like the wrath of a tyrannical overlord that could destroy all creation into nothingness.
Swoosh!
Rhain thrust his fingers forward.
A concentrated beam of pitch-black light shot out, moving with an impossible speed that completely bypassed the concept of physical distance.
It tore through the air with an ear-piercing shriek, carrying a destructive, obliterating intent that felt as if the heavens themselves were descending to execute a sinner.
BOOM—!!!
The beam struck the invisible barrier of the training ground.
The spatial barrier rippled wildly, soaking up an impact that would have effortlessly obliterated a small mountain.
Rhain slowly lowered his hand, letting out a measured breath.
"The execution is skillful," Rhain evaluated calmly, estimating the destructive output, "But the essence flow is still slightly rigid. I just need a little more practice... and perhaps a practical application against a real combatant to perfect it."
An Emperor-Grade martial art was fundamentally different from a Mystic Grade one.
While a Mystic grade art required one to comprehend a law to execute its full power.
Emperor grade technique required a perfect harmonization with the laws of the world.
Fortunately, this finger technique was not very demanding in the fields of law, otherwise he might not even have been able to practice it.
Just as Rhain was preparing to execute the technique a second time...
The sound of hurried footsteps came.
Rhain turned his head.
Liana was running toward him, her emerald eyes filled with a mixture of intense anxiety and deep annoyance.
"Rhain!" Liana called out as she stopped at the edge of the white jade tiles, panting slightly.
"What is it?" Rhain frowned.
"They have come again," Liana said, pointing a thumb back over her shoulder toward the main entrance of their guest sector. "They are making so much noise... it’s completely blocking the pathway."
Rhain let out an utterly defeated sigh.
He lowered his hand, the fierce essence gathering at his fingertips instantly dissipating into nothingness.
"I am coming," Rhain said, rubbing his temples.
He followed Liana out of the training ground, making his way back toward the entrance of his secluded pavilion.
Even before they reached the gates, Rhain could clearly hear the deafening, chaotic uproar.
"Move aside, you old ghost! I arrived here before you! Grandmaster must look at my pill first!"
"Bullshit! Your trash pill can wait! I encountered a critical bottleneck after the Grandmaster’s last sermon, and if I don’t ask him my questions today, my furnace might explode!"
"Who are you calling a ghost, you wrinkled bastard?! I will burn your beard off!"
The shouting and cursing were continuous, echoing wildly like a cheap, crowded fish market.
Looking at the scene, no one would have ever thought that this mob of around thirty elderly men and women were the most exalted, revered figures in the entire Valdris City.
Every single one of them was either a supreme Grandmaster Alchemist, or a veteran Master Alchemist who had refined pills for decades and was standing on the brink of becoming a Grandmaster.
Any one of these old men and women could command the respect of Patriarchs and Domain Masters.
But right now, they were shoving each other like desperate merchants fighting over a single gold coin.
The moment Rhain and Liana returned from the training ground, the chaotic uproar was instantly extinguished.
The thirty-something screaming, cursing alchemists froze mid-sentence.
They hurriedly straightened their crumpled robes, smoothed out their white beards, and stood in a perfectly straight, orderly line.
They obediently shut up, looking at the nineteen-year-old youth with expressions of fanatical reverence and worship.
Rhain’s dark grey eyes swept over the silent crowd with a chilling, strict gaze.
"Are you revered Grandmaster Alchemists of the Valdris Royal Academy, or are you street thugs fighting in an alleyway?" Rhain scolded coldly, his voice carrying an unquestionable authority.
The elderly Grandmasters, many of whom were well over two centuries old, lowered their heads in deep shame, not daring to utter a single word of retort.
"Line up," Rhain commanded strictly. "State your doubts one by one. If anyone interrupts another, you will not receive a single word of guidance from me for an entire month."
"Yes, Grandmaster!" the group of elderly elites responded in perfect, terrified unison.
Looking at their incredibly obedient, submissive behaviors of these venerated Grandmasters, Liana couldn’t help but sigh in her heart.
It hadn’t always been like this.
When Rhain had first agreed to Dean Qaylus’s condition to teach the Academy’s alchemists, the initial reaction from these very same people had been one of utter outrage and profound insult.
None of them were like this when they had come for the very first time to learn from him.
All of them were insanely arrogant.
They thought, what could a nineteen-year-old kid possibly teach them about the profound Dao of Alchemy?
They had been studying herbs and controlling furnace flames for hundreds of years!
Rhain wasn’t even born when they were already being hailed as Grandmasters!
To them, being forced to sit and listen to a teenager was no different than a grown man being forced to sit and listen to the meaningless blabbering of an infant.
They had only shown up because the Old Dean himself had issued an undeniable order.
Furious and humiliated, they had collectively decided to completely embarrass Rhain.
They had already prepared the most impossibly obscure, paradoxical, and unsolvable alchemical questions in existence, fully intending to expose him as a fraud and walk out.
But reality had slapped them across the face so ruthlessly that their pride had shattered into dust.
Faced with their impossibly difficult, trick questions, Rhain hadn’t even frowned.
He casually answered every single one of their doubts.
He had deconstructed their hundreds of years of flawed alchemical theories in mere seconds, effortlessly pointing out the exact errors in their essence circulation and temperature control that had bottlenecked them for decades.
It had thoroughly shocked all of them.
Since that day, their blinding arrogance had completely vanished, instantly replaced by an obsessive, fanatical worship.
Now, they came to his courtyard every single day, waiting at his doors like a flock of curious, desperate disciples begging their master for a single drop of wisdom.
"Grandmaster," an elderly woman with silver hair stepped forward respectfully, presenting a jade box. "I tried to apply the essence-layering technique you mentioned yesterday to refine the Violet Spirit Pill, but the medicinal properties still clashed at the final condensation step. Please, point out my flaw."
Rhain didn’t even touch the pill. He simply glanced at it with his Eyes of Truth.
"Your temperature control must have been flawed," Rhain stated flatly. "You are applying the heat evenly across the entire furnace. The Violet Spirit Root requires three times the heat at its core compared to its outer leaves. By heating it uniformly, you are burning the exterior before the core can properly melt, causing the elemental clash during condensation."
The elderly woman’s eyes widened in profound realization. "I... I understand! Thank you, Grandmaster! Thank you!" She bowed at a perfect ninety-degree angle and scurried to the back of the line, scribbling furiously on a parchment scroll.
"Next," Rhain ordered.
One by one, the exalted Grandmasters stepped forward, presenting their pills and asking their questions.
Rhain efficiently and ruthlessly diagnosed their flaws, and they obediently listened to whatever he said, absorbing his words as if they were divine edicts.
After teaching and lecturing for two full hours, Rhain finally felt a dull throb in his temples.
He let out a quiet sigh, feeling a headache with such a repetitive, exhausting life.
"That is enough for today," Rhain announced, waving his hand dismissively. "Leave."
"Thank you for your guidance, Grandmaster!" The thirty elderly alchemists bowed deeply once again, their faces filled with immense gratitude as they obediently turned and departed from the courtyard gates.
Once the noisy crowd was finally gone, Rhain rubbed the bridge of his nose and returned to his inner chamber.
He sat cross-legged on his meditation platform, his dark grey eyes slowly closing as he sank his consciousness into his dantian.
The pitch-black void within was spinning fiercely.
Over the past week, the immense volume of pure essence he had accumulated from refining flawless pills and digesting high-grade resources had reached the breaking limit.
His foundation at the peak of the Spirit Manifestation Realm was now as solid and unshakeable as a primordial mountain.
There was no reason to wait any longer.
Tonight, he will break through to the Core Formation Realm.