Chapter 455: The Formation on the Fasting Pill

Nie Qianyu and Fei He had no idea about Zhang Xiaohua’s grand ambitions. They simply thought he was being sincere and both tried to comfort him. Zhang Xiaohua smiled, holding the mud-stained herbs in his hand, bid farewell to Fei He, and since Nie Qianyu lived in the Peach Blossom Hermitage and it was getting late, she didn’t return to the inner valley with Zhang Xiaohua. They agreed on a time to meet the next day, and she reluctantly left.

Upon returning to the pill room, Zhang Xiaohua wasn’t in a hurry to start alchemy. Instead, he carefully studied the pill recipe for the “Fasting Pill” sent from Spring Rebirth Valley, pondering over the various herbs aside from Huangjing. The more he examined them, the more he felt they fit the theory of the five elements. However, since all plants are of the wood element, it was rather difficult to consider any herb as being of the metal element.

Of course, this was a problem that no one had solved for thousands of years, and Zhang Xiaohua wasn’t about to unravel its mysteries in a single moment of inspiration. It would require slow and careful research.

Zhang Xiaohua took out a jade slip, inscribed the recipe for the “Fasting Pill” onto it, and added some of his own insights. He tucked it away safely, then approached the earth fire. While gathering Huangjing earlier, he’d already thought of refining a jade box to store precious herbs, so now was the perfect time to do it.

He took out the piece of green jade coffin lid from his money pouch—the one he’d already cut a piece from—and examined it closely. Previously, he’d only suspected that it was a formation artifact, but now, seeing the patterns and faint traces of Yuan Qi on it, combined with his newly acquired artifact-refining skills, he was certain it was indeed a formation artifact crafted through artifact refinement. Although he didn’t know what kind of formation it was, since it was one that could harm lives, no matter how precious, it had to be destroyed.

Zhang Xiaohua took out his small sword, drew it across the jade slab, and a piece of jade fell off. He wrapped it with his divine sense and sent it into the four slots, then put away the small sword, tossed the jade slab aside, opened the earth fire, and began forming hand seals to refine the box. Refining the jade box wasn’t too troublesome; only the array patterns carved onto the six sides were a bit tedious and required careful attention. After all, the box needed to preserve the spiritual energy of the herbs—otherwise, what use would it be?

Before long, Zhang Xiaohua finished the hand seals, and a square jade box was complete. With a wave of his left hand, he summoned it over, opened it for inspection, and was very satisfied. Then, with his right hand, he formed a more complex hand seal—not one from the “General Principles of Artifact Refinement”. Once finished, he struck the seal onto the lid of the jade box. Instantly, a brilliant light flashed over the lid, as if water was soaking into the jade, enveloping the entire box. When the light faded, the lid had vanished, leaving what looked like a solid block of jade—identical to the jade box Zhang Xiaohua had found in the Piaomiao Sect’s library that once contained the “Carefree Heart Sutra”.

This incantation was precisely a type of restriction left behind by the True Person Fire Dragon, a method used to seal jade boxes.

Ever since Zhang Xiaohua obtained the jade slip on restrictions, he realized that the jade box from the Piaomiao Sect had been sealed by someone else. He had always wanted to make something identical, but had suffered from not having a refined jade box. Now that he understood artifact refinement and had the materials, how could he not hurry to make one to his heart’s content?

As for whether using such a restricted jade box to store herbs was too extravagant, that wasn’t something Zhang Xiaohua cared to consider. “This young master has plenty of jade boxes. I’ll refine two—one for herbs, one for storing treasures. Why not?” Zhang Xiaohua formed another incantation with his right hand, tapped a certain spot on the jade box, and the box’s surface rippled like waves. With a flash of brilliance, it reverted to the lidded, five-sided box from before. Zhang Xiaohua nodded slightly—this was truly the technique of the immortals.

After putting the refined jade box into his money pouch, Zhang Xiaohua glanced at the jade slab with its damaged corner. He simply picked up his small sword and split the jade slab in two, putting one half back in the pouch and tossing the other onto the earth fire. Then, sitting cross-legged, he continuously formed incantations with both hands, striking the earth fire and the melting jade liquid. In the time it took to eat a meal, Zhang Xiaohua had mass-produced more than a dozen jade boxes of various sizes, then waved his hand and stored them all in his pouch.

With the jade boxes finished and still some time left, Zhang Xiaohua walked over and moved the cauldron, which had been set aside, onto the four slots. Once the cauldron was hot, he placed his right hand on its protruding part, slowly controlling the temperature. According to the recipe from Spring Rebirth Valley, he tossed in Huangjing and several other herbs one after another. Then, placing his other hand on the protrusion, he sent his spiritual sense into the cauldron and began refining the Fasting Pill. Before long, the essence of those herbs was extracted and blended into a powder, exactly as the Spring Rebirth Valley recipe described.

Looking at the fragrant medicinal powder in the cauldron, Zhang Xiaohua couldn’t help but laugh to himself. “This is clearly just medicinal powder—‘Fasting Powder’ sounds fine. Why go to the trouble of shaping it into balls and calling it ‘Fasting Pill’?”

Having finished refining the “Fasting Powder” from Spring Rebirth Valley, Zhang Xiaohua couldn’t be bothered to clean up and simply left the cauldron there, casually extinguishing the earth fire.

He walked to the bedside, where the straw meditation cushion still remained. Sitting down, Zhang Xiaohua swept his divine sense outside, then took his own pill furnace from the pouch. Stroking the now-shrunken pill furnace, Zhang Xiaohua couldn’t help but recall the days of practicing alchemy in the past. In the blink of an eye, he hadn’t refined pills for several months.

He placed the pill furnace on the empty space before the bed, formed a series of incantations with both hands, and struck them onto the furnace. The furnace rumbled softly and gradually enlarged until it was the proper size, at which point Zhang Xiaohua stopped the incantations.

However, Zhang Xiaohua frowned slightly. Back on the deserted island, the sound of wind, water, and birds had masked the low rumble of the furnace, so he hadn’t minded it. But in the silence of the pill room, the sound now seemed rather out of place.

He pondered for a moment, then took out several jade talismans from his robe and cast them into the four corners of the pill room, activating a formation to shield the chamber. Only then did he feel at ease enough to form another series of hand seals, igniting the alchemical fire within the pill furnace. Familiarizing himself with a few of the immortal path’s pill-refining incantations, he recalled the process for crafting the Fasting Pill. With a wave of his hand, the Huangjing and other herbs at his side flew into his grasp. Following the recipe, he added the ingredients one by one into the furnace.

As soon as the herbs and earth were exposed to the pill fire, their impurities were instantly burned away, turning into wisps of blue smoke, leaving only the purest essence to churn within the furnace. Seeing this, Zhang Xiaohua sent several more incantations into the furnace, causing the medicinal powder inside to spin in a slow, orderly spiral. At this point, his divine sense observed even more closely: the various herbal essences had become difficult to distinguish, yet the embryonic forms of the five elements could faintly be seen, constantly generating and overcoming one another. The Fasting Pill was gradually taking shape.

Zhang Xiaohua dared not be careless. After only a brief observation, he focused his attention on the pill’s gestation. After a while, the medicinal fragrance wafting from the furnace began to recede. Knowing this was the moment to draw out the pills, he acted with mind and hand as one, sending a few more incantations in. With a subtle mental chime, the slowly rotating mother pill was instantly divided into four perfectly round, evenly sized little pills. Once the pills were formed, Zhang Xiaohua did not use his divine sense to retrieve them, but instead employed an artifact-refining technique to summon them with a wave of his hand. The four pills immediately flew into his palm.

Examining these exceptionally round pills closely, Zhang Xiaohua couldn’t help but reveal a wry smile. It was clear at a glance that such pills could not have been made by ordinary means—he could not give these to Nie Qianyu. Bringing one to his nose, he found the fragrance extremely faint. He then took out one of the Fasting Pills he had previously refined for comparison. The two pills looked identical, but the one made solely from Huangjing was so fragrant that its scent could be detected without even bringing it close.

Upon seeing this, Zhang Xiaohua’s heart stirred. He released his divine sense to carefully compare the vitality within both pills. As expected, the previously refined Fasting Pill leaked traces of Yuan Qi, though not much; it was still dissipating. The newly refined pill, however, barely leaked any energy at all. Delving deeper with his divine sense, he discovered a faint, formation-like structure enveloping the pill, which must have been what sealed in the vitality and fragrance. The earlier pill had a similar formation, but it was clearly flawed, allowing energy and fragrance to escape through the gaps.

Perhaps… this was the innate Five Elements Formation formed during the pill-refining process?

Zhang Xiaohua naturally began to harbor doubts.

After comparing the pills, he placed the newly refined Fasting Pills into a jade bottle. Seeing that there was still some Huangjing and a few auxiliary ingredients left on the ground, he reignited the alchemical fire in the furnace and used up all the remaining herbs, refining them into over a dozen Fasting Pills, which he also stored in the jade bottle.

Finding that it was still early, Zhang Xiaohua decided not to refine any more pills. Instead, he sat cross-legged, calming his mind to comprehend the Dao of Heaven and carry out his daily cultivation practice.

At dawn the next day, Zhang Xiaohua awoke, placed the cauldron onto the four slots, dismissed the formation, and walked out of the pill room.

With the morning sunlight streaming in, the inner valley was filled with the calls of birds, all up early and chirping incessantly. Although there were no dense forests around the pill room, birdsong still filled his ears.

Zhang Xiaohua expanded his divine sense to check that no one was nearby, then assumed his stance and began practicing the Big Dipper Divine Fist, completing eighteen rounds of flowing internal energy before finishing. However, he felt unsatisfied—he was used to practicing eighty-one rounds, and now, after just eighteen, the effects had already faded.

But if he didn’t practice his fist technique, what else could he do?

Practice flying sword techniques? That nameless sword art only had a dozen or so moves, and he had long since mastered them. Besides, practicing with the flying sword in Spring Rebirth Valley would be openly declaring himself a cultivator of the immortal path.

Thinking of sword techniques, Zhang Xiaohua suddenly recalled that during the martial arts tournament at the Piaomiao Sect, a monk from Dalin Temple had promised, after losing to him, that in a year’s time he could go to Dalin Temple’s Law Enforcement Hall, where Monk Chang Geng would teach him the temple’s Dharma Sword Technique.

However, that year had long since passed, and the Piaomiao Sect had been destroyed by Dalin Temple. Would Monk Chang Geng still honor his promise?