Chapter 852: Grandmaster Luo Chen

The so-called Two Forms are the foundation of the Great Dao, representing Yin and Yang.

Legend has it that when the heavens and earth first opened, everything was chaos, also known as Wuji. Wuji gave birth to Taiji, Taiji gave rise to the Two Forms, and from the Two Forms, the Four Symbols and Eight Trigrams were derived, eventually leading to all things in heaven and earth.

Luo Chen naturally knew these principles, which any young child just stepping onto the path of Qi Refining would know.

But in the affairs of the world, knowing is always easier than doing, and even "knowing" is often not simple.

Luo Chen was only able to understand this concept of Two Forms and Yin-Yang through the process of long-term study and arrangement of arrays, gradually grasping it from the perspective of Feng Shui.

By drawing inferences from arrays, the so-called theory of Yin-Yang opposition naturally exists in other matters as well.

And in the refining of this Two Forms Pill, this concept was applied to the extreme of what Luo Chen had currently encountered!

All kinds of materials must have water and fire in opposition, their grades must be consistent, and sufficient balance must be maintained.

Not only that, unlike the usual refining of pills where various auxiliary materials are processed in advance, the refining of the Two Forms Pill begins directly with the processing of the two major main materials.

The difficulty of this can be imagined.

After all, many things are easier to succeed at when done step-by-step, from small to large, from easy to difficult.

Who would directly increase the difficulty to the maximum right from the start?

But Luo Chen had to do this; only by fusing the two main materials of water and fire into a state of Two Forms balance could it contain all things.

For this, Luo Chen gathered all his spirit, unable to be the slightest bit slack.

First, he used earth fire to warm the cauldron to save magic power; this process lasted for a full three days.

Under Luo Chen's precise control, the cauldron temperature gradually reached the ideal state.

Then, with a flick of his finger, the Withered Source Fire Marrow and the Nether Cold Spring entered the Hunyuan Cauldron simultaneously.

As soon as the two materials with extreme attributes entered, they erupted into the most extreme conflict.

"All things carry Yin and embrace Yang, blending Qi to achieve harmony!"

"To make them coexist harmoniously and reach a balanced, unified state, one must suppress them with even more powerful force!"

Luo Chen's thoughts flickered, and he opened his mouth to exhale.

A cyan and white flame slowly flew out, completely enveloping the entire Hunyuan Cauldron.

It was precisely the Withered Glory Divine Fire!

Once this fire appeared, the entire earth fire hall trembled for a moment.

Chen Mozi, who was refining auxiliary materials, even looked up in shock at Luo Chen.

"What kind of origin true fire is he using? It actually has the power to make ten thousand fires tremble!"

Fortunately, this was not the critical stage of Chen Mozi's pill refining, otherwise, this distraction might have caused all his previous efforts to be wasted.

Luo Chen could not care about others; once the Withered Glory Divine Fire was deployed, the consumption of magic power was immeasurable.

In his usual pill refining, he only dared to borrow a wisp or a thread, unlike now where it was a direct surge!

But the effect was also surprisingly good!

When the Withered Glory Divine Fire enveloped the Hunyuan Cauldron, the conflicting extreme water and fire materials inside immediately quieted down.

Both sides began to be fused together by the pill techniques Luo Chen was performing.

This process was very, very slow, but as long as it went smoothly, everything would be fine!

Luo Chen was willing to wait.

One day, two days... Unknowingly, three months had already passed.

Boom!

In the earth fire hall, a light sound suddenly erupted.

Amidst a puff of smoke and ash, Chen Mozi stumbled backward, covered in dirt.

His expression was gray, but in the end, he could only smile bitterly.

It was a failure after all!

He had envisioned this result; after all, even the pill formula was one he had hastily created using existing materials, with no familiarity to speak of.

But accepting this failure was far more painful than he had imagined.

It was not just the failure of refining, nor that the Pill Saint inheritance was no longer meant for him; it was more that the step he had just gathered the courage to take had been dealt a definitive blow.

"Mr. Xuanyan advised me not to stick to old rules, to dare to innovate, and to be brave in seeking change through extremity. But the affairs of the world always operate according to established laws; how could it be so easy to break conventions!"

The creation of any pill formula requires countless repeated experiments to obtain the optimal ratio.

Wanting to succeed in one go is unimaginably difficult.

He sighed, waved his hand to sweep away the medicinal dregs in the copper cauldron, and prepared to leave in dejection.

But before leaving, he inadvertently glanced at the opposite side.

That cyan and white flame was still burning slowly!

In the illusory space, the focused Luo Chen seemed undisturbed by any external affairs.

But his face was paler than his own, having just suffered a failure.

"What kind of pill is he trying to refine?"

"The first step alone has taken a full three months!"

"It's hard to imagine how much longer it will take."

Chen Mozi shook his head, did not speak to disturb Luo Chen, and left the earth fire hall quietly.

The Pill Saint inheritance was not meant for him; why act like a petty person?

Luo Chen's first step was already so difficult; he feared it would be hard to successfully refine the pill later, and he probably wouldn't see the Pill Saint inheritance.

For Luo Chen at this moment, the Pill Saint inheritance had long been cast to the back of his mind.

What he thought of, what he saw, was only the viscous liquid gradually fusing from the red and blue colors in the furnace cauldron.

His entire spirit and mind were stretched to the limit!

"Why has it been unable to fuse into one for so long?"

"The Withered Glory Divine Fire is enough to suppress everything, but beneath the harmonious surface of the two materials is an internal extreme conflict. In this conflict, the medicinal power is constantly evaporating."

"Where exactly did the problem arise?"

Luo Chen asked himself frantically in his heart.

Fusing the two main materials had been quite smooth at the beginning.

Perhaps because the Withered Glory Divine Fire also contained the principles of Two Forms Yin-Yang, Luo Chen had thought the most difficult step would proceed quite smoothly at first.

But at the final moment, it just couldn't be completed.

For this reason, he was stuck here, only able to watch the two main materials constantly colliding, repelling, and consuming power out of thin air.

Suddenly, a consciousness came, though dim and unclear, its meaning was clear.

"Change the fire!"

It was the Withered Glory Fire Spirit.

Since gaining intelligence, the Withered Glory Fire Spirit had never spoken, but in reality, it already had its own consciousness, though most of the time it was led by Luo Chen.

This was the first time it had taken the initiative to remind him.

Luo Chen was startled; change the fire, change to what fire?

But subconsciously, his instinct had already made him take action.

The cyan-white flame suddenly retracted, and the viscous liquid in the cauldron suddenly boiled.

But before it could boil to the extreme, a golden flame covered this world inside the cauldron!

It was the Nirvana Divine Fire, still in its infancy!

This fire had a higher status, but it was still too weak; even Luo Chen did not dare to mobilize too much magic power to force its activation, lest he scatter it in one go.

But at this moment, as soon as the Nirvana Divine Fire appeared, the boiling liquid in the cauldron immediately quieted down.

Luo Chen looked at this scene in astonishment, and in a trance, he realized something.

The so-called Withered Glory, in reality, its roots remain; it is not an absolute mutual exclusion, just a temporary dormancy.

It is more of the endless power between the transformation of withering and glory.

Using this to correspond to the Yin-Yang Two Forms was only a resemblance in form, not in spirit.

But the Nirvana Divine Fire is different!

It is the extreme transformation between life and death!

Only through Nirvana, seeking life from death, can one reach the peak!

At this moment, Luo Chen entered a state of epiphany, and the law entry regarding 【Withered Glory True Meaning】 on his attribute panel was increasing its progress at a speed visible to the naked eye.

But he had no time to pay attention to these; he only knew that in this state, relying on the instinct of a Pill Refining Grandmaster, he controlled the rapid fusion of the two main materials.

The fusion that had been deadlocked for a full three months this time fell into place in just three days.

Luo Chen suddenly woke up and kept calling it lucky.

If it weren't for his split soul handling the pill refining work, and if it weren't for his powerful instinct, he feared this sudden epiphany alone would have caused him to fall short of success.

But having crossed this step, what followed was simple.

He only needed to add the other auxiliary materials step-by-step, and he could foresee the moment of success.

Of course, the so-called simple was only relative to the first step.

Luo Chen still carefully added various rare materials into it, controlling the formation of the pill. Gradually, the red and blue colors inside began to change, finally forming a presence wreathed in black and Bai Qi.

A few days later!

Only a sound was heard, "Receive!"

In the great hall, Luo Chen, with a weary face but eyes shining with spirit, beckoned with his large sleeve, and a black and white pill flew toward him.

The moment the pill was in hand, before Luo Chen could even take a close look, the golden bird transformed by the Nirvana Divine Fire and the small tree of the Withered Glory Fire Spirit both became restless in his Purple Mansion simultaneously.

Luo Chen smiled dumbly.

Such a scene no longer needed to explain whether he had succeeded or failed.

The attitude of the two powerful flames was enough to explain everything!

It was just that now was not the time to upgrade them.

Luo Chen put away the Hunyuan Cauldron and held up the Two Forms Pill toward the empty earth fire hall.

Hum!

The sound of an array operating entered Luo Chen's keen ears, and then he saw a cloud of smoke attacking, attempting to wrap around him.

Luo Chen did not resist, letting the array operate, carrying him to the location of the next level.

In a daze, when he opened his eyes again, the world had already changed.

"Where is this?"

Luo Chen walked out of the teleportation array in surprise, looking at the world of clear mountains and beautiful waters, and birdsong and fragrance.

A thought emerged in his heart.

"Cave Heaven?"

No!

In an instant, Luo Chen overturned this idea and gave another answer.

"Blessed Land!"

The so-called Cave Heavens and Blessed Lands are often confused by the world.

But the two are completely different.

A so-called Cave Heaven often forms its own space, independent of the world outside.

Like the Mirage Dragon Cave Heaven, or the broken small space specially used by the Medicine King Sect to cultivate, it is either an internal world of a living being or a piece of space forcibly cut out by human means by a powerful person.

A Blessed Land, however, has a close connection with the real world; it appears independent but is in fact inseparable.

There is no distinction between high and low between the two; a strong one like the Mirage Dragon Cave Heaven is transformed from a top-tier Great Wilderness, and the laws and true meanings derived within it have long exceeded ordinary Blessed Lands. But a weak one like the Medicine King Sect's small space, where even a few Nascent Soul powerhouses fighting inside could collapse it, how could it compare to this stable world?

What surprised Luo Chen was that Pill Saint Chu Yan actually had such a Blessed Land.

"No, this Blessed Land should belong to the Mingyuan Sect!"

"So she left, but the Blessed Land remained."

"No wonder the three great ancestors of the Mingyuan Sect haven't worried about the Pill Saint inheritance for so many years, nor have they forcibly taken it, yet they let people participate in the trial again and again."

"They don't care that much about the Pill Saint inheritance; what they care about is reclaiming this Blessed Land!"

"And the Pill Saint trial is the key to opening this Blessed Land."

Hu...

Breathing out a long breath, Luo Chen stopped thinking about these irrelevant things, nor was he in a hurry to find the so-called fourth level.

Instead, he immediately sat cross-legged, adjusted his posture, and began to circulate his cultivation technique.

Previously, refining the Two Forms Pill and vigorously mobilizing the Withered Glory Divine Fire and Nirvana Divine Fire had caused a significant loss of his magic power.

No matter what the content of the fourth level trial was, the top priority was to recover his magic power first.

As he breathed and exhaled, a large amount of pure spiritual energy surged toward him.

Even, because his understanding of the Withered Glory True Meaning was deeper, the influence remained after the epiphany state dissipated.

Some unclear and undefined things were surging toward him.

The stream gurgled, and the white-robed Daoist sat cross-legged.

Spiritual sense leaped, and magic power flowed.

Streams of heaven and earth spiritual energy were absorbed into his body, first refined through the flow between meridians and acupoints, then tempered by the Withered Glory Divine Fire, and finally integrated into the white and chubby Nascent Soul, turning into the purest magic power.

Luo Chen was immersed in it, feeling somewhat "indescribable."

Cultivation is bitter; how could it be indescribable?

But he indeed had this feeling at this moment, because compared to his former self, the efficiency of converting and recovering magic power now was truly much, much higher.

Almost two to three times that of before!

This speed did not come out of thin air, but was accurately calculated by Luo Chen after practicing the "Heavenly Phoenix Nirvana Sutra" on Cangwu Mountain.

He clearly knew that his cultivation had embarked on the most correct path; just the cultivation speed and recovery speed had doubled or tripled.

Previously, he wanted to break through from the fourth level of Nascent Soul to the fifth level, which would have taken at least forty or fifty years. Even with the help of that top-tier fourth-level cave dwelling on Cangwu Mountain, it only shortened it by a portion.

But if calculated at the current speed, he could break through in at most twenty or thirty years.

And at present, by Luo Chen's judgment, relying on this cultivation speed, it would probably only take about fifty years to reach the sixth level of Nascent Soul.

This was even after deducting the blessings of things like the Cangwu Mountain cave dwelling, the Pill Saint Blessed Land, and various pill and array assistance.

Using only ordinary fourth-level spiritual land for cultivation!

If those were added, Luo Chen was confident he could shorten this time to the minimum!

"The late stage of Nascent Soul is beckoning to me."

"The threshold of Soul Transformation also has a great chance to be touched in the future."

"The future is truly infinitely bright!"

As his magic power gradually recovered to its peak, Luo Chen's mood became increasingly joyful.

Suddenly!

He opened his eyes abruptly and looked across the small stream.

An old man with white hair, a face full of wrinkles, and an aura of decay radiating from his whole body was looking at him with a smile.

Luo Chen stood up and said in surprise: "Mr. Xuanyan? You are... this..."

He remembered very clearly that when Mr. Xuanyan appeared earlier, although he was quite old, his aura was robust and his complexion was extremely ruddy; how could he be in such a state of being on the verge of death now?

Mr. Xuanyan did not seem to care about his own changes and said casually: "I had long ago reached the thousand-year lifespan limit of a normal Nascent Soul cultivator. The reason I lingered for another hundred years was merely by relying on the resources of the Mingyuan Sect and life-extending methods. That appearance earlier was just a flash of brilliance before the end."

Luo Chen realized; he had felt that Mr. Xuanyan's performance earlier was completely different from the rumors.

So it was just a flash of brilliance.

But now, why had he suddenly become decadent, and even his entire aura had become increasingly weak?

While he was puzzled, Mr. Xuanyan slowly raised his right hand, and a white token came into Luo Chen's view.

"This is?" Luo Chen was puzzled, a guess vaguely forming in his heart.

Mr. Xuanyan did not keep him in suspense and said directly: "This is precisely the trial of the fourth level, and also something left behind by Chu Yan. Only by solving it can one be considered to have truly obtained the Pill Dao inheritance."

Luo Chen stared at the token with burning eyes, but soon shook his head.

"I don't know what exactly is inside, but the first three levels have already benefited me greatly."

"Since this inheritance is already in your hands, Senior, Luo Chen congratulates you!"

Mr. Xuanyan raised an eyebrow, somewhat surprised by Luo Chen's statement.

After all, this was the Pill Saint inheritance!

But for Luo Chen, the gains from the first three levels were indeed too great.

The first level consolidated his Pill Dao foundation.

The second level created a "Return to Dust Technique" for reverse-refining pills, realizing the essence of medicinal materials.

The third level even refined the Two Forms Pill, a high-level pill that would definitely have great use, and even the success in one go greatly increased his confidence, no longer having any awe toward any strange pills in the future.

Until this moment, Luo Chen truly and genuinely possessed the bearing of a Grandmaster from the inside out!

Even when facing the famous Mr. Xuanyan head-on, he was full of confidence; he might be lacking in experience, but when it came to pill refining techniques, he asked himself that he was not weaker than anyone!

It was just an inheritance; since it had already fallen into the hands of others, why forcibly take it?

Mr. Xuanyan looked at Luo Chen in surprise, his hand held in the air somewhat awkwardly.

"Unexpectedly, you are even more outstanding than I imagined!"

"No wonder Chu Yan would think highly of you, and no wonder those three from the Mingyuan Sect would open the Pill Saint Hall for you in advance."

"Take this item, then!"

Swoosh!

While Luo Chen was stunned, the white token was thrown over lightly by the other party, as if this were not an inheritance left by a Soul Transformation Pill Saint, but merely a worthless Qi-Nourishing Pill.

"Do you know why I specifically came to find you?"

"This junior does not know."

"Because only you have the chance to open this token, and this old man is ultimately a step short!"

Mr. Xuanyan said slowly, his tone somewhat desolate, and his demeanor quite lonely.

Luo Chen did not know why the other party said this, his gaze falling on the warm white jade token in his hand, and all his questions were instantly resolved. (End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 853 =====