Chapter 79: Pill Refining (Part Two)
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“No need to comfort me, it’s fine.” Yue Qianchou walked to one side, took out a mid-grade spirit stone, sat cross-legged, and absorbed the spiritual energy into his body, repairing his slightly damaged divine sense and true qi.
Yan Zixia stood silently to the side without speaking. She put herself in his shoes – if she hadn’t established her foundation yet and had finally obtained a set of spiritual herbs for refining Foundation Building Pills, only to fail in the refining, her feelings could be imagined.
After restoring his body to optimal condition, Yue Qianchou stood up, stretched his arms, expanded his chest, and relaxed his muscles and bones. Under Yan Zixia’s watchful gaze, he pulled out another set of spiritual herbs from his storage bag.
‘He still has more?’ Yan Zixia was slightly stunned and immediately called out, “Wait!”
Yue Qianchou turned back, “What’s wrong?”
Yan Zixia explained, “I don’t mean anything else, but keep this set of spiritual herbs for now! I’ll go beg great-grandmother to have her help you refine them. I think if she takes action, the success rate would definitely be higher.”
Yue Qianchou waved his hand, “No, no, I think it’s better not to let the old lady know about this. Failure is the mother of success – you get used to failing. It’s just one set of spiritual herbs, no big deal.” He thought to himself, ‘Damn it, if I couldn’t find anywhere else to refine pills, I wouldn’t even want to tell you. If that old lady finds out I got spiritual herbs this quickly, who knows what the consequences would be.’
Yan Zixia didn’t think so. The scene of Yue Qianchou kneeling for spiritual herb seeds that day was still vivid in her memory, showing how important these spiritual herbs were to him. She wanted to speak but stopped, ultimately saying nothing more.
The pill furnace blazed hot. Yue Qianchou threw in the spiritual herbs, struck the furnace lid with his palm to close it, and used his divine sense to control the herbs as they separated and refined. When the ‘Impurity Cleansing Grass’ paste was divided, he concentrated with utmost care, but unfortunately, his divine sense wasn’t powerful enough, and he failed once again. If the pill formula didn’t require the eight spiritual herbs to be refined with unified timing, Yue Qianchou really wanted to fuse them one by one.
Yan Zixia bit her lip, silently watching Yue Qianchou clear out the furnace ash and take spirit stones to recover his divine sense and true qi. She couldn’t help but blame him in her heart for not listening to her advice.
When Yue Qianchou took out a third set of spiritual herbs, Yan Zixia’s red lips parted slightly in surprise. This was only possible for a major sect like Floating Immortal Island – if it were any other ordinary sect, gathering three complete sets of spiritual herbs for Foundation Building Pills wouldn’t be easy. A single set of Foundation Building Pill spiritual herbs could sell for quite a few spirit stones in the cultivation world.
When conditions weren’t mature, the consequences of forcing pill refining were predictable. After repeated failures, Yue Qianchou was getting a bit frustrated. He had already destroyed ten sets of spiritual herbs but couldn’t even pass the ‘Impurity Cleansing Grass’ fusion stage. Although he still had ninety sets of spiritual herbs as backup, he couldn’t keep going like this!
Gritting his teeth, he tried two more sets of spiritual herbs, failing each time just when he was almost successful. Thinking carefully about the pill refining process, he realized his mental state was problematic – impatience, nervousness, excitement – his mindset was very unstable. His divine sense wasn’t powerful enough to begin with, and adding these factors that affected his divine sense control was probably the reason for his failures.
Having found the source of the problem, he naturally had a solution, or at least he thought so. He took out spirit stones and slowly absorbed their spiritual energy, gradually recovering his true qi and divine sense. After recovery, he didn’t rush to refine pills but instead relaxed and calmed his mindset, entering a state of emptiness.
Yan Zixia had been watching him, wondering why he needed so much time to recover this time.
After sitting in meditation for a long while, Yue Qianchou slowly exhaled, stood up, and walked quietly to the pill furnace. His face showed no expression as he casually took out a set of spiritual herbs from his storage bag, threw them into the pill furnace, and closed the lid.
Having practiced more than ten times before, his movements were very smooth. His divine sense controlled the spiritual herbs as they refined, and the ‘Impurity Cleansing Grass’ paste was once again divided into eight portions. But he wasn’t in a hurry to fuse them – he carefully sensed the sixteen large and small paste clusters, confirmed his mindset was indeed stable, then calmly controlled the eight drops of paste to move toward the other eight spiritual herb clusters.
His divine sense wasn’t yet powerful enough to directly manipulate objects, so he could only stir the air currents in the pill furnace to drive them. This was the difference between having reached the Foundation Building stage and not having reached it. However, it also consumed more energy and true qi.
With a calm mindset, he finally saw results. The eight drops of Impurity Cleansing Grass successfully fused into the eight spiritual herbs, and the eight clusters grew considerably larger. Yue Qianchou couldn’t help but get excited, but as soon as his emotions fluctuated, the eight spiritual herbs floating in the furnace began to sway. Yue Qianchou was startled and immediately calmed his mindset. Sixteen clusters had become eight, making divine sense control much easier.
The next step was to remove impurities from the spiritual herbs. After the eight paste clusters were infused with Impurity Cleansing Grass, they changed – originally paste-like, they gradually became clear and transparent. His divine sense controlled the air currents generated by high temperature, spinning the eight spiritual herb clusters separately. As the rotation speed increased, bits of impurities were flung out. Just as the eight paste clusters were about to become clear liquids of various colors, Yue Qianchou suddenly felt his true qi running low. Controlling air currents to spin at such high speed consumed too much true qi.
‘Damn it!’ Yue Qianchou groaned painfully in his heart. If only he had grabbed a few spirit stones beforehand. Just when the impurity removal step was about to succeed, he ran into true qi depletion. He didn’t have the energy to split his divine sense to retrieve spirit stones from ‘Utopia.’ This was all due to his lack of experience! He could only watch helplessly as the eight spiritual liquids said goodbye.
Withdrawing his divine sense and opening the furnace lid, this time not only black ash sprayed out, but also a burst of fragrant mist that made Yue Qianchou’s heart ache. Yan Zixia could see this attempt was better than the previous ones. Although she had never refined Foundation Building Pills, her cultivation level was there. She wanted to help, but Yue Qianchou wouldn’t let her, stubbornly insisting on doing it himself.
After restoring his body to optimal condition, he learned from his previous lesson and preemptively took out several high-grade spirit stones, inserting them around his belt for easy access when needed.
When he felt his true qi running low again, Yue Qianchou quickly grabbed a high-grade spirit stone from his waist and absorbed its spiritual energy to replenish his true qi. After using two high-grade stones consecutively, the eight clusters finally transformed into crystalline liquids of various colors, floating beautifully in the pill furnace.
His divine sense controlled air currents to reposition the essences of the eight spiritual herbs, placing Gold-Mixing Grass in the center. Although spiritual herbs had miraculous medicinal effects, they were also extremely potent for the human body. Taking several spiritual herbs at once was very difficult for the body to bear. The function of Gold-Mixing Grass was precisely to neutralize medicinal effects and prevent conflicts between different spiritual medicines.
Air currents struck the Gold-Mixing Grass liquid, dividing it into seven portions that smoothly fused into the other liquids. Next, the liquids from hundred-year ginseng and hundred-year lingzhi were adjusted and fused into one large cluster – both were excellent for replenishing vital energy. The large cluster of nourishing spiritual liquid was again divided into five clusters, separately fusing into the remaining five liquid clusters. This was to supplement the body’s vital energy when the various spiritual herbs took effect in the body, preventing bodily damage.
After completing this, Yue Qianchou didn’t dare be careless. Now came the most critical moment. He absorbed another spirit stone to replenish true qi and recover divine sense. After adjusting his physical condition, except for Spirit-Gathering Grass, the other four spiritual medicines rushed together. Air currents stirred them into one mass until they were evenly mixed, then quickly divided into ten equal portions, all placed in the furnace’s central position for roasting. His divine sense exerted maximum effort to control the high temperature in the furnace, concentrating it on the ten fist-sized liquids while maintaining even rotation of the ten liquid clusters.
Maintaining this level of control consumed true qi and divine sense like flowing water. Yue Qianchou suffered greatly, but fortunately he had the foresight to insert a pile of high-grade spirit stones in his belt. Whenever he felt slightly depleted, he immediately grabbed a spirit stone to absorb and replenish.
Yan Zixia watched in stunned amazement. She had never seen anyone refine pills like this – it was simply piling up spiritual herbs and spirit stones. In just over three months, he had probably used more than two thousand high-grade spirit stones, equivalent to over twenty million low-grade spirit stones! Even she, the young miss of Hundred Flowers Palace, had never used so many spirit stones.
Those dozen-plus sets of spiritual herbs were even more frightening. Even a major sect like Floating Immortal Island could barely gather ten sets every three years, yet Yue Qianchou had already produced fourteen sets, and who knew if there were more in his storage bag.
Looking at his current state, he might actually succeed in refining a batch. Yan Zixia shook her head with a bitter smile. No wonder he wanted to refine them personally – with such a solid foundation, not only could he improve his pill refining skills, but he could also succeed through sheer volume. Where did he get these resources that rivaled an entire sect’s strength?
The ten fist-sized liquid clusters gradually changed from initially transparent to dim, their volume shrinking by half and continuing to contract. When they reached egg size, his divine sense quickly moved the Spirit-Gathering Grass liquid that had been hiding to one side above the furnace, evenly dividing it into ten portions corresponding to the ten initially formed pill spheres below, slowly descending. As they rotated at uniform speed, the Spirit-Gathering Grass liquid evenly adhered to their surfaces.
The function of Spirit-Gathering Grass was precisely to lock in the pill’s medicinal effects and prevent evaporation and loss. For Foundation Building Pill-level medicines, even the slightest loss of medicinal effect could be a devastating blow affecting success or failure for cultivators attempting foundation building.
After completing this, only the final step of roasting and shaping remained – there shouldn’t be any major problems. Ten Foundation Building Pills were right before his eyes. No matter how much self-control Yue Qianchou had, he couldn’t help but feel somewhat excited.
