Chapter 262 - Bewildering
Chapter 262: Bewildering
Chen Chen stayed in the city for an entire day.
A day later, Nan Pinghai delivered a storage ring to Chen Chen, looking rather distressed.
Previously, he had handed over a huge sum of money to the Jade Tripod Alchemy Clan, but not only did he not get any elixirs he was also made to buy all the elixirs that were circulating in the market of the Endless Sea islands.
The costs were undertaken by him and a few other ship owners who forked money out of their own pockets.
However, they didn’t dare to complain.
Chen Chen took the storage ring and retrieved all the elixirs in it. There were more than a thousand elixir bottles strewn all over the ground.
Each elixir cost millions of Spirit Stones, so the value of all the elixirs on the ground could be imagined.
“Lord, can you tell which elixirs belong to the plundered batch?”
Nan Pinghai seemed to understand Chen Chen’s intention and asked in astonishment.
Even though he was getting a little dizzy from staring at the thousand-odd bottles of elixirs, let alone identify each of them. There were more than ten types of elixirs there.
“Do you think we alchemists are incompetent? These are just the basics.”
Chen Chen said indifferently while carefully sniffing around and occasionally opening the elixir bottle to observe. He seemed to be differentiating between the elixirs carefully.
“System, where is the elixir with the shortest refining time within a ten-meter radius?”
“30 centimeters to your left, Host.”
Hearing this answer, Chen Chen took out the bottle of elixir that the system had pointed out and placed it aside.
Due to the great war between the two races, all the elixirs in stock at the Jade Tripod Alchemy Clan were sent to the battlefield long ago. Hence, all the elixirs that had been sent to the Boundless Sea were from the batches that were refined recently.
Chen Chen wasn’t afraid that there might not be a new bottle of elixirs there.
The reason being, he had already taken out a Foundation-Building Elixir that he had refined half a month ago from his storage ring before using the system.
Hence, as long as the system didn’t point to the Foundation-Building Elixir, he could be certain that the pills had been refined in the past two weeks.
Just like that, Chen Chen kept searching using the system. Soon, he found more than ten bottles of newly refined elixirs.
Nan Pinghai had already labeled the bottles of elixirs with their respective sources.
Chen Chen glanced at them and sneered, “There are only more than ten bottles of elixirs and they come from four different islands. There is definitely more than one culprit, and the entire force must be behind this. Only when they work in a group, can they spread this batch of elixirs to such a large area in such a short period of time.”
Nan Pinghai was in great admiration of Chen Chen.
‘He managed to identify the elixirs that got plundered after just sniffing and looking at them. How capable is he?’
‘He has such meticulous thoughts too…’
“Lord, could it be that there are elixirs that you’ve refined, among the ones here?”
Nan Pinghai asked curiously.
Chen Chen put away those dozen of elixir bottles and said with slight contempt, “Elixirs of such grade are not worthy of my effort.”
Nan Pinghai smiled with growing admiration. Chen Chen seemed nobler to him.
“Let’s go to the Windy Islands and see where this elixir store got the elixirs from.”
Chen Chen ignored Nan Pinghai’s gaze of admiration and walked away.
However, on second thought, he felt that there was something wrong.
“Nan Pinghai, find more people to join us on the trip to the four islands.”
“Yes!”
…
Two hours passed.
Chen Chen arrived at the elixir store in Windy Island with a group of people.
Windy Island was just one of the islands in the Boundless Sea. It was rather mediocre, and the strongest person on the island was only the peak of the Nascent Soul realm.
There was only one elixir store on the entire island, which belonged to the island owner who was a peak Nascent Soul realm cultivator.
Seeing that Chen Chen and his company had come aggressively, the shopkeeper almost got on his knees in fear.
Chen Chen walked into the elixir store and placed four bottles of elixirs on the counter with a cold and hostile expression.
“Tell me honestly, where are these four bottles of elixirs from? I won’t make things difficult for you.”
When Chen Chen spoke, his divine senses provided a deterrent effect. The store owner was so frightened that he started shivering. He stammered, “It was sold to me at a low price by an itinerant cultivator on Windy Island… I accepted it when I saw that the quality was good… Lord, that matters really has nothing to do with me!”
At this point, the store owner had already knelt down.
Clearly, he also knew about the matter of the cultivator of the Jade Tripod Alchemy Clan who got killed.
Chen Chen pulled him up and said in a deep voice, “Cut the crap, take me to that itinerant cultivator.”
“Yes! Yes!”
The store owner hurriedly agreed, closed the doors of the store, and then led Chen Chen away from the back door.
Soon, they arrived in front of a seaside compound.
“Lord… he lives here.”
Hearing his words, Chen Chen looked overusing his divine senses. Soon, he discovered that there were four cultivators in the compound, the strongest of whom was at the mid Nascent Soul realm. The others were all Qi Refinement realm cultivators who were pretending to be maids and disciples.
After making sure that they were present, Chen Chen barged right in and captured the Nascent Soul realm cultivator.
After learning of Chen Chen’s identity, the Nascent Soul realm itinerant cultivator turned pale, his eyes full of despair.
Chen Chen sneered when he saw that.
‘With my wisdom, what in this world can escape my eye?’
“Haha!”
“Where did these four bottles of elixirs come from? I can spare your life if it has nothing to do with you.”
Chen Chen’s tone became dangerous when he stared at the Nascent Soul realm itinerant cultivator.
Despite saying so, that person clearly had a guilty conscience. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have looked so dismayed.
He was a Nascent Soul realm cultivator, not a weakling, like the owner of the elixir store.
“It’s…it’s from…” the cultivator stammered with shifty eyes. Immediately afterwards, a strong fluctuation emanated from his body. He was about to kill himself!
However, Chen Chen naturally wouldn’t let him have his way.
A huge pressure erupted from Chen Chen’s palm, directly suppressing that fluctuation.
“Who gave you the elixir!?!”
Chen Chen’s gaze became very sharp, and the Divine Condensation Pearl in his head turned a little, shocking the Nascent Soul realm cultivator’s gaze to become deadpan as if he had lost his soul.
“Yes…it’s Ship Owner Zhao of the merchant alliance!”
Hearing this answer, Chen Chen let go and allowed the Nascent Soul realm itinerant cultivator to fall on the ground.
To be honest, Chen Chen did not expect to hear that answer.
Before coming, his first suspicion was, of course, the mysterious force that seemed to be gradually disappearing. Yet, it turned out to be someone from the merchant alliance…
“I underestimated the complexity of this matter.”
Chen Chen muttered, then took out the communication token to contact Nan Pinghai.
“How is it on your side?”
A moment later, Nan Pinghai’s chagrined and self-reproachful reply came from the communication token.
“Lord, I was too incompetent… When we found the source of the elixir bottles on the three islands, the cultivators had already been killed and silenced.”
Hearing these words, Chen Chen glanced at the Nascent Soul realm itinerant cultivator who was lying motionless on the ground and continued to ask Nan Pinghai. “Nan Pinghai, do other people in the merchant alliance know about your relationship with me? Or, does anyone know that I am the owner behind the merchant alliance?”
“No, the people of the Boundless Sea generally think that the backer behind me is a sea demon in his human form… I didn’t explain much nor did I tell the other ship owners.”
“Did they not suspect anything about the fact that you’re being so polite to me this time?” Chen Chen asked again.
“Lord, the Jade Tripod Alchemy Clan is an existence that we cannot afford to offend in the Boundless Sea. We are very polite to all emissaries so there’s nothing suspicious about this.”
“Lord… do you suspect that it’s the doing of the other ship owners? If that’s the case, pardon me but those several ship owners are all my acquaintances, and I can guarantee that they would never do such a thing.”
Chen Chen did not say anything else and instead, put away his communication token calmly.
He had not encountered any cases of murders in Windy Island before. Yet, the cultivators who sold the elixirs on the three other islands that the merchant alliance was in charge of, had died.
It definitely wasn’t a coincidence.
It was either that the merchant alliance had done it behind his back, or there was a traitor in the alliance.
Of course, in addition to that, there seemed to be another possibility.
Thinking of this, Chen Chen looked at the Nascent Soul realm itinerant cultivator who was lying on the ground, still in a trance. There was a slight trace of hesitation in his gaze.
After a long time, Chen Chen sighed.
Who would have thought that a matter which seemed easy to resolve, would turn out to be so complicated?
‘It seems that the power of this mastermind is far greater than I had imagined.’