Chapter 279
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Chapter 279: Ten People, Nine Explosions
Although everyone has different understandings of medicine, the steps for making medicine are generally the same, divided into three main steps.
The first step is burning.
Different ingredients are burned at high temperatures in a specific order to remove impurities and keep only the necessary medicinal properties.
The second step is mixing.
All the liquid medicines are mixed together.
The third step is forming pills.
The flame’s temperature is gradually lowered to shape the mixed liquid into pills, powders, ointments, or solutions.
The whole process may sound simple when talked about, but it’s actually very complicated when you do it.
For example, in the first step, melting herbs with high temperature seems like something everyone can do, but different herbs have different melting points.
Some herbs can melt at low temperatures, while others may require extremely high temperatures.
This requires precise control over the flame’s temperature.
If the temperature is too high, the herbs will turn into gas directly, and if it’s too low, the herbs won’t fully burn into liquid medicine.
Moreover, during the burning process, you need to try your best to bring out the medicinal properties of the herbs.
A small error can lead to a big mistake!
Even if it’s just a single type of herb, the effectiveness of the medicine can be affected if its properties are not fully brought out or if they are brought out too much.
There is a high possibility that a life-saving medicine could turn into a deadly poison.
Not to mention mixing various medicinal herbs together, the distribution of medicinal properties is also very particular.
Altogether, these complicated steps combined together lead to a great difficulty in successfully refining elixirs.
Guan Yiming and others who started working more than half an hour before Jiang Yun, when Jiang Yun began refining, the fastest among them had already completed the burning step.
Just after Jiang Yun threw the first medicinal herb into the Sanhua Cauldron, not long after, there was a sudden deafening noise not far from him.
Suddenly, an alchemical furnace of a third-grade pharmacist exploded!
The pharmacist’s face immediately turned extremely pale, because it meant that everything he had done for more than an hour before was all in vain, and he needed to start over from scratch.
Although there was a certain distance between the ten people in the fifth round of the competition, there was no isolation formation around each person.
Therefore, all the other nine people could clearly hear such an explosion.
This was, of course, intentional.
As a pharmacist, usually making medicine in a special room, rarely affected by outside forces.
However, a true pharmacist must have strong mental strength to remain calm even in the face of danger.
Nine people heard the sound of the furnace explosion, but seven of them did not react.
However, immediately after, there were two loud bangs, and two third-ranked pharmacists’ alchemical furnaces exploded.
Obviously affected by the sound, they made mistakes due to mental shock.
Although the two pharmacists whose furnaces exploded later were furious at the first pharmacist, they didn’t have time for that.
They quickly took out another cauldron and started refining again.
Furnace explosions are a common situation for pharmacists.
If a pharmacist has never had a furnace explosion, they would be embarrassed to call themselves a pharmacist.
Therefore, in big sects like the Grand Medicine Sect, the pharmacists usually have several alchemical furnaces ready in case they are needed.
Jiang Yun paid no attention to his surroundings, his mind completely focused on the herbs in front of him.
The Replenishing Heaven pill requires a total of twenty-one different herbs, which is not a lot but definitely not a few either.
Luckily, Jiang Yun was familiar with all twenty-one herbs, so he quickly selected a few with similar melting points and began burning them with flames.
Even though Jiang Yun was the last one to start, he took the longest time to prepare, but his foundation was the most solid.
His strong divine sense and control over spirit energy allowed him to complete the first step faster than the others.
After half an hour, Jiang Yun carefully burnt all the herbs into liquid medicine, each one releasing its unique properties.
Next, it’s time for fusion!
This is the step where explosions are most likely to happen!
Just like how Jiang Yun was able to figure out the conclusion with the help of his medicine analysis in the previous third round.
Different types of herbs have properties that can either enhance each other or clash with each other. If the clash is stronger than the enhancement when they are mixed together, it can explode. So, there needs to be a proper order and balance when mixing them.
As Jiang Yun was blending the medicine liquid, dull sounds, similar to firecrackers, kept ringing in his ears.
Apart from the three people who had exploded earlier, the other six, including Guan Yiming and Xiao Zheng, also ended up exploding!
Out of the ten people, nine exploded!
This astonished the onlookers, but it raised a suspicion in Jiang Yun’s mind.
Even though explosions were common, all nine people, who were experienced in refining third-grade pills, should not have all exploded except for himself.
"Could there be something strange happening during the blending process?"
This thought made Jiang Yun curious to see the expression on Elder Han’s face now. If someone else had given him this pill formula, he might not have had this thought.
But Elder Han may have different thoughts!
From the other side using the alchemical furnace as a type of herb to judge the medicine’s temperature, it’s clear that the other person is quite casual in character.
Anyway, with the nine pharmacists before him using the blast furnace, Jiang Yun became more cautious and focused, merging the medicine slowly.
Although this approach lowered the possibility of success with the blast furnace for Jiang Yun, it naturally extended the time spent.
While the other nine had completed the burning step of the second refining, Jiang Yun had not finished merging the herbs.
However, the testing time was nearly two hours.
Even Elder Han was worried for Jiang Yun in secret, because if Jiang Yun didn’t succeed on the first try, there wouldn’t be enough time left for a second refinement.
But Jiang Yun, at this moment, seemed pleased instead of anxious.
"I understand now, it’s this mysterious Beast Core!"
"There are male and female distinctions in the vast beasts, but the Beast Cores of the two are exactly opposite in attributes."
"However, female Beast Cores are too rare, so in the pharmacist’s common knowledge, whenever they see a vast Beast Core, they will mistakenly think it is a male one, leading to explosions during fusion."
Realizing this, Jiang Yun quickly changed the fusion process of this vast Beast Core, and indeed, there was no explosion.
Before he could relax, the Sanhua Cauldron suddenly shook violently.
Jiang Yun’s expression instantly turned cold, the flames controlled by spirit qi instantly turned into snowflakes, freezing the entire Sanhua Cauldron, avoiding a disastrous explosion.
However, the medicinal liquid inside the cauldron was completely wasted.
The first attempt failed!
Ten people, on their first alchemy attempt, all failed!
"While I did realize that the vast Beast Core is female, I didn’t expect that the medicinal properties of the female vast Beast Core are one-tenth less potent than the male ones!"
"Again!"
Jiang Yun turned the snowflakes into flames again and started the second round of refining.
But at this moment, the time left for him was less than an hour!
