Chapter 6 The Overloaded Scam

Gulp.

The moment the thirty Bone-Refining Pills slid down Logan's throat, Julian’s heart nearly stopped. "Logan! Thirty pills at once?! Even a peak Silver-Bone cultivator would turn into a human firework from that much medicinal energy!"

"Relax, Father," Logan said, his voice entirely calm even as his stomach began to glow with a strange, radioactive green light. "To the Nine Heavens Tyrant Script, these low-grade pills aren't explosive energy. They are just high-calorie snacks."

Logan closed his eyes and began to circulate his golden primordial qi.

Normally, breaking through to the Silver-Bone Realm was a meticulous, painful process. A cultivator had to gently guide the medicinal energy to shave away the impurities of their skeleton, turning their bones dense and metallic over months of meditation.

Logan did not have months. He had forty-eight hours, a very loud rainstorm outside, and a severe lack of patience.

BOOM!

Inside his body, the golden primordial qi formed a massive, roaring vortex. It seized the chaotic green energy from the thirty pills, stripped it of all its impure trash, and rammed it directly into his skeletal structure like a runaway freight train.

CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!

Every single bone in Logan's body began to pop and snap with the speed of firecrackers. A blinding silver light began to radiate from under his skin, illuminating the entire dark shack. His ribcage vibrated so hard that the cheap wooden table next to him cracked down the middle.

"Hold on, this is a bit too much structural efficiency," Logan muttered, his eyes snapping open.

Because his god-tier technique was too perfect, it didn't just refine his bones into standard silver. It compressed them. It forged them. The thirty pills were entirely consumed in ten minutes, and the momentum didn't stop. The golden vortex expanded, greedily pulling the natural spiritual energy from the surrounding atmosphere.

Buzz!

A soft, golden fog began to seep out of Logan’s skin. The silver light inside his bones began to condense, turning into a liquid-like liquid mercury that flowed straight into his marrow.

He hadn't just entered the Silver-Bone Realm. The sheer, overwhelming wave of pure primordial energy had violently kicked open the gates of the Qi Foundation Realm!

A powerful, visible wave of golden energy blasted outward from his body.

RIP!

The thin linen curtain hanging in the corner of the room was instantly shredded into confetti. The mud walls of the shack groaned, and the newly replaced front door flew straight off its hinges for the second time in two days, landing face-first in the muddy street outside.

Logan sat in the middle of the room, blinking in the sudden sunlight pouring through the now-empty doorway. He felt lighter, faster, and packed with enough explosive power to punch a hole through a mountain.

He was officially an Early Qi Foundation Master. At sixteen years old.

Julian stared at the shredded curtain, then at the missing front door, and finally at his son. "Logan... you broke straight through two entire realms in one afternoon. And you broke the door again."

"A minor calculation error," Logan coughed gently, looking at the missing door with a slight twinge of embarrassment. "The Tyrant Script is a bit more enthusiastic than I remembered. This is actually a slight problem."

"A problem?!" Julian yelled, throwing his hands up. "You're a monster! What's the problem?!"

"The problem, Father, is that I am currently radiating enough pure, unadulterated Qi to light up this entire town like a lighthouse," Logan sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "If Lord Vance’s scouts come anywhere near this shack right now, they won't think I am a dying quail. They will think a Sovereign-tier beast is hiding in the pantry. The scam will be ruined."

Logan immediately closed his eyes, desperately channeling the Act of the Dying Quail. He pulled his newly awakened Qi Foundation energy deep into the core of his dantian, wrapping it in three layers of hidden arrays.

Slowly, the golden light faded. His skin turned pale. His posture slouched. Within a minute, he looked like a weak, pathetic, sickly teenager again.

But right as he managed to suppress his aura, a frantic face peeked through the empty doorway.

It was Mei. She was holding a large sack of white baking flour and a jar of thick, yellow paste.

"Logan! Mr. Julian!" Mei gasped, out of breath. "I just saw the Mayor’s personal carriage heading toward the town gates! Lord Vance’s vanguard scouts have entered Blackstone Town! They are coming down the street right now to inspect the shack!"

She looked at the missing door, then at Logan’s pale face, and her eyes lit up with tragic determination. "Oh no, the rumors were true! You really are dying from the forbidden pill! Don't worry, Logan, I read in a theater book how to make someone look like they are on their deathbed! We have to fool them!"

Before Logan could even utter a single word of protest, Mei lunged forward.

POOF!

She threw a massive handful of white baking flour straight into Logan's face.

Logan, a legendary Supreme Commander who had dodged god-tier viper venom and caught military crossbow bolts with his bare hands, was completely blinded by a cloud of baking ingredients. He sneezed violently.

"Wait, Mei, that's not—" Julian tried to intervene.

"No time, Mr. Julian! We need realism!" Mei cried heroically. She grabbed the jar of yellow paste—which smelled strongly of rotten onions and ginger—and began slathering it under Logan’s eyes to create "deathly dark circles."

By the time the heavy, rhythmic stomping of armored Imperial horses echoed from the end of the dirt lane, Logan was sitting on the straw mat.

He was covered in white flour, smelling intensely of rotten onions, with massive yellow streaks painted across his face. He looked less like a dying martial arts patient and more like a poorly baked, highly distressed pastry.

"Mei," Logan whispered, his voice deadly calm as a bit of flour fell off his nose. "If we survive this... I am assigning you to the vanguard infantry."

"Shh! Act sick!" Mei whispered frantically, diving behind a pile of firewood just as three high-ranking imperial scouts in black armor stepped up to the completely open, doorless shack.

The three imperial scouts stepped over the splintered remains of the front door, their iron boots clicking loudly against the dirt floor. They were all elite cultivators at the Mid-Iron Skin Realm, their chests covered in blackened steel breastplates stamped with the Imperial Crest.

The leader of the scouts, a man named Captain Juan, scanned the small, cramped shack with a sneer of deep aristocratic disgust. His eyes passed over Julian, who was intentionally trembling and coughing into a rag, and finally landed on Logan.

Juan froze. He blinked once. He blinked twice.

Logan sat perfectly still on the straw mat, slouched over, staring blankly ahead. The thick layer of white flour on his face made him look like a chalk statue. The yellow rotten-onion paste under his eyes had begun to dry, cracking into weird, crinkly scales. The pungent aroma of ginger and spoiled vegetables radiated off him so strongly that the two scouts behind Juan simultaneously covered their noses.

"What in the heavens..." Juan muttered, taking a half-step back. "Is this the brat who supposedly defeated Mayor Silas?"

"Captain," one of the scouts whispered from behind a leather glove, "the Mayor said the boy took a volatile, life-burning pill. Looking at him now... I think the pill was past its expiration date. He smells like a corpse that's been left in a soup kitchen for a week."

Logan internally took a deep breath, fighting the overwhelming urge to activate his Qi Foundation power and blast these three idiots into the upper atmosphere. Peace, Logan, he told himself, channeling his century of military discipline. Think of the gold. Think of the Imperial treasure chests.

He let out a weak, pathetic, high-pitched wheeze.

"Water..." Logan croaked, his voice cracking so realistically that even Mei, peeking from behind the firewood, felt a twinge of pity. Logan let his head wobble limply, causing a small cloud of baking flour to puff off his hair and drift through the air. "Please... the fire in my veins... it burns..."

Juan sneered, his fear completely vanishing. He walked over and poked Logan’s shoulder with the sheathed tip of his iron sword. Logan allowed his body to flop sideways onto the dirt floor like a sack of wet potatoes, letting out a miserable groan.

"Disgusting," Juan spat, wiping the tip of his sheath against the table to get the flour off. "He’s completely spent. His meridians are shattered, his dantian is leaking, and he’s clearly losing his mind. He won't survive the night, let alone three days."

"Should we just end him now, Captain?" the second scout asked, drawing a sharp dagger. "Save Lord Vance the trip?"

Behind the curtain, Julian’s hand secretly tightened around the hilt of a hidden hunting knife, his eyes flashing with lethal intent.

But Juan waved his hand dismissively. "Why waste the blade? If we kill him now, Lord Vance doesn't get the satisfaction of executing a Vanguard descendant in front of the whole town. Let the trash rot for two more days. When the Lord arrives in his golden carriage, he can use this boy's head as a stepping stool."

Juan turned on his heel, gesturing to his men. "Let's go. Report back to Lord Vance. Tell him the 'Ghost Commander’s' bloodline has officially turned into a paste. There is no threat here. Tell him to bring his finest robes; this isn't an execution, it's a cleaning chore."

The three scouts laughed loudly, turning around and marching out of the doorless shack, their heavy boots splashing through the mud as they headed back to the town gates.

The moment their footsteps faded into the distance, the silence in the shack broke.

Pfft! Hahaha!

Mei tumbled out from behind the firewood, rolling on the floor as she clutched her stomach, laughing so hard no sound was coming out of her mouth. "A soup kitchen! They said you look like an expired pill!"

Julian let out a massive sigh of relief, though his lips were twitching violently as he looked at his son. "Logan... I must admit, your 'Act of the Dying Quail' is... incredibly effective. Though I don't remember the ancient Vanguards using quite so much baking material."

Logan slowly sat up from the dirt floor, his face completely expressionless under the white flour. He raised his hand and wiped a clump of yellow onion paste from under his eye.

"Mei," Logan said, his voice dropping back into the deep, terrifying tone of a Supreme Commander.

Mei instantly stopped laughing, freezing mid-roll on the floor, her eyes wide. "Y-Yes, General?"

"Next time," Logan murmured, a tiny, menacing spark of golden primordial qi flickering in his eyes, "use less ginger. It's getting in my nose."

He stood up, his body effortlessly shedding the slouched, weak posture. With a single shudder of his skin, a soft pulse of Qi Foundation energy rippled outward. The white flour and yellow paste were instantly vaporized into fine dust, blowing out of the open doorway and leaving his skin perfectly clean and glowing with health once more.

Logan looked out toward the town gates, a cold, calculating smile spreading across his face.

"Two days left," Logan whispered, clenching his fists as his silver-infused bones hummed with power. "Two days until the Capital sends us our first major delivery of gold."