Chapter 178: Pill Method Success, Side Door Ganoderma Pill

Three hundred and forty-six Spirit Pearls.

Twenty-seven jin of Five Elements Divine Sand.

Over forty thousand taels of silver.

Sixteen jin of black jade Spirit Rice, plus one fully matured Corpse Ganoderma; this is the cultivation resource Chen Ci currently has at his disposal. Adding it all up, his total savings exceed four hundred Spirit Pearls. Even for a Dragon Lady, he could afford to keep her for ten days or half a month.

With hands on his hips, Master Chen felt he had stood tall.

But after a moment of calculation, he realized that savings of over four hundred Spirit Pearls could only forcefully push the cultivation of his Five Elements Yin Demon Art by three acupoints, and little Chen immediately wilted.

The thought was nice, but he wasn't allowed to think it again.

Yet, truth be told, whether it be Spirit Pearls, Five Elements Divine Sand, or Spirit Pills and wondrous medicines used to assist cultivation, they all fall under the word "assist." If a cultivator cannot use their own "Essence Qi Spirit" to subdue the True Qi they cultivate and prioritize self-cultivation, then no matter how many acupoints they open or how high their True Qi cultivation is, when the time comes to condense Dharma Power seals and establish their Dao Foundation, the quality of the resulting Dharma Power will always be discounted and fail to reach a Perfected state.

This is what is meant by a solid foundation; even a Treasure Pill like the Qianyuan Acupoint-Nourishing Pill only helps one shed their mortal shell and change their bones, rather than directly increasing one's Way attainment.

However, "grinding" cultivation, even with the help of a Gold Finger, still requires time.

Slurp, slurp.

It is known that ten jin of Spirit Rice can be refined into ten Premium Bigu Pills, costing two Spirit Pearls; the selling price is double the cost.

The only problem is that this shortcut is quite expensive.

If he were to refine his four hundred Spirit Pearls of savings entirely into Premium Bigu Pills, that would become eight hundred Spirit Pearls, then eight hundred becomes one thousand six hundred, one thousand six hundred becomes three thousand two hundred...

Yay! Great! I'm rich!

Besides, this is only an entry-level Spirit Pill; he also has a Yellow Sprout Pill formula and a Nourishing Qi Green Ganoderma Pill formula on hand.

Sigh, trash interface, ruining my beautiful dream.

Chen Ci sat upright in the pill room and sighed. If the cultivation environment in Xishan Prefecture were as calm and peaceful as it was a few years ago, let alone three or five years, he could endure the loneliness for ten or twenty years. After all, he had the temperament of a shut-in when he was a writer in his past life; as long as there was progress and profit, going out or not wasn't much of an issue.

But the current situation in the Liang Kingdom is visibly becoming wrong. He doesn't know how the trend will develop; a few years is not long, but it is not short either.

However, Chen Ci has a vague feeling that his own attainments in pill methods, under the enhancement of the Nether Yin True Qi, are perhaps more than twice as strong. At the very least, the Herb-Ingestion Method and Condensing Pill Method shouldn't be as strenuous as before, where he almost went bankrupt just refining a Yellow Sprout Pill.

By the way, he also managed to listen in on a lecture on pill methods at the Tianhe Daoist Temple, and gained some insights into the Condensing Pill Method.

Therefore, he had originally planned to "grind" the Five Ghosts Possession Method to assist in cultivating the Five Elements Yin Demon Art; only the weak need to pay-to-win, while the strong just grind.

But for the He Mountain Sect or a Golden Core True Person, it is not impossible to scrape together. If one could pile up a cultivator to a Perfected Dao Foundation solely by relying on resources, at least within the He Mountain Sect, there wouldn't be a situation where no one had cultivated the Five Elements Yin Demon Art to completion in an entire kalpa of time.

Moreover, the cultivation Chen Ci has today is entirely due to his own hard work and innate talent. A Gold Finger? It merely provided a meager amount of help.

Small Heavens Qi Absorption Pill Method: Entry/0/4 (Four incantations completed, pill method entered)

"The past is the past, the present is the present. Mere pill Dao, laughable, laughable."

Increasing True Qi cultivation for self-preservation is somewhat urgent for Chen Ci. What "unstable foundation"? Speed-running is the trend now, okay? It's just that his Gold Finger isn't very powerful. He'll take some shortcuts for the next few years, and once his Five Ghosts Wonderful Method is cultivated to success, he can slowly polish his Nether Yin True Qi later.

Tens of thousands of Spirit Pearls are an astronomical figure that a small cultivator like Chen Ci wouldn't even dare to imagine.

Chen Ci closed his eyes slightly, breathing slowly through his nose and mouth. After adjusting his breath for a moment, the True Qi throughout his body became like a single entity. With a thought, he condensed the True Qi in his palm and cast the Herb-Ingestion Method incantation on the portion of black jade Spirit Rice in front of him.

Ever since the Three Yin True Qi in his body all transformed into Nether Yin True Qi and the quality of his True Qi became top-tier, Chen Ci hadn't seriously studied pill methods. He had only cooked Spirit Rice for a period of time at an eatery in the Sea Market, which led to some improvement in his Fire Control Method and Observation Qi Method.

Thinking of this, Chen Ci cracked his fingers.

Chen Ci sucked back the saliva at the corner of his mouth, and with a thought, looked at his Gold Finger interface.

Pop~

Following a soft sound, a small clump of finger-sized, crystalline, moist, black jade-like agar appeared in Chen Ci's palm, while only a small pile of dark gray impurity powder remained on the table.

It really was a one-shot success! Uncle me, I am indeed terrifyingly strong!

Chen Ci examined the black jade essence in his palm and nodded. Hey, I've stood tall again.

He tossed the clump of black jade essence into his mouth. If you want to talk about the best Bigu Pill, it's just fragrant. Chen Ci sighed for a while, rubbed his belly, and felt incomparably satisfied.

This is much more delicious than a Spirit Rice Meal.

But there wasn't much joy on Chen Ci's face. Although the sense of ease when casting the Herb-Ingestion Method incantation in his palm couldn't be faked, it was, after all, only the entry level of the pill method. Although it was terrifyingly strong, it was also limited in its strength.

Herb-Ingestion Method Incantation: Entry/53/100 (Ingesting this Spirit Rice, seven can make one; fifty incantations completed, one can advance)

The success rate has increased by nearly half compared to before. As far as ingesting Spirit Rice essence is concerned, it might still be a considerable distance from "two can make one," but as the saying goes, losing less is earning.

Chen Ci sighed slightly, but quickly adjusted his mindset and comforted himself: the progress of the Herb-Ingestion Method incantation has already passed the halfway mark of the entry level; the good days are still ahead.

"At least the cost of the Yellow Sprout Pill has been cut in half. The future is promising, the future is promising indeed."

Chen Ci rubbed his chin. It seems that the only thing between him and Han Tianzun is a Small Bottle of Heaven.

Hmph, if I obtain the Palm Heaven Bottle one day, I will dare to laugh at "Run-Away" for not being a real man.

Chen Ci chuckled, picked up the Corpse Ganoderma on the table, and prepared to take advantage of his hot streak to see how his Herb-Ingestion Method incantation would perform on this Spirit Material.

One must know that his current choices are not limited to just the Yellow Sprout Pill. Chen Ci also has a Side Door pill formula on hand, which is an auxiliary cultivation Spirit Pill recorded only in the Three Yin Qi Eating Secret Manual passed down by the He Mountain Sect: the Nourishing Qi Green Ganoderma Pill.

Even among low-grade Spirit Pills, there are differences in quality.

This Spirit Pill is the most nourishing for cold Yin True Qi, and the Spirit Materials required are not too many. The main material is just a Corpse Ganoderma with sufficient "fire" (maturity). As for the remaining various Qi-supplementing medicines, human bones, corpse water, placenta, etc., as medicinal guides—eh, anyway, for a cultivator, they aren't considered very valuable. When his predecessor was cultivating the Three Yin Qi Eating Method, he was so poor he didn't even have a tael of Five Elements Spirit Sand, yet he still quietly raised a few Corpse Ganoderma and gathered a few sets of major medicines, preparing to start a furnace to try refining this pill to increase his cultivation.

Being a "noob" is one thing, but one must still have dreams.

The only problem is that this Nourishing Qi Green Ganoderma Pill, just looking at the name, seems quite proper, making one easily mistake it for some orthodox Profound Gate nourishing Spirit Pill, but in reality, it is a Side Door evil pill. It is useful, but it also has quite a few problems.

What kind of decent cultivator uses human bones, corpse water, and placenta as medicinal guides to brew medicine?

Moreover, this pill is rarely seen on the market. Unlike gentle Spirit Pills like the Yellow Sprout Pill, which can be taken by cultivators regardless of their cultivation level or the attributes and style of their Qi-refining methods, the Nourishing Qi Green Ganoderma Pill is only most nourishing for cold Yin True Qi. Calling it "cold Yin" also implies it is "Yin evil." If one isn't a Side Door cultivator, one wouldn't cultivate such Qi-refining methods. Therefore, orthodox pill masters wouldn't waste effort refining such niche Spirit Pills; there is no market for them.

Furthermore, although the Herb-Ingestion Method incantation extracts the essence and removes the dross, the Corpse Ganoderma grows in Yin lands and uses corpses as fertilizer; its medicinal power itself carries some toxicity and evil Qi. After a cultivator takes and refines this Spirit Pill, they still need a means to dispel the evil Qi. Otherwise, if the medicinal properties accumulate too much and one is injured by corpse Qi or filth, their physical foundation will be ruined, and they will become neither human nor ghost.

However, having said that, this minor problem is not considered an issue in the eyes of Side Door cultivators.

There are plenty of evil methods in Side Door inheritances with far greater consequences than this, and everyone still practices them regardless. Even an orthodox-looking Loose Practitioner inheritance like the Baiyang Sword Solution actually causes more severe damage to the body's foundation than some corpse Qi.

But this has also led to the fact that although its main material, Corpse Ganoderma, is a Spirit Material of decent grade, it is rarely circulated among cultivators and has no fixed price. This is because it is not very difficult to cultivate; some Side Door Miscellaneous Cultivators can raise a few in Yin or corpse lands, and most of it is self-produced and self-consumed while attempting to refine pills.

"One Corpse Ganoderma, depending on its Yin nature, corpse Qi, and medicinal maturity, can theoretically yield three to six Nourishing Qi Green Ganoderma Pills."

Chen Ci slowly exhaled a breath of turbid air, striving to adjust his Nether Yin True Qi to its best state.

Although the Nourishing Qi Green Ganoderma Pill is a Side Door pill with many limitations, it is also very difficult to refine. This "Corpse Ganoderma" is a true Spirit Medicine, and its grade is much higher than ordinary Spirit Grasses like Yellow Sprout Rice or Yellow Dragon Grass.

Chen Ci still clearly remembered when he first attempted alchemy, the annotation for this Corpse Ganoderma on his panel was "one in a hundred," which had directly shattered the alchemist dream of Old Master Chen back then.

However, although this pill was niche and difficult, its effects were truly good.

One Nourishing Qi Green Ganoderma Pill could equal three months of effort from the Sanyin Qi-Eating Method, and a Spirit Pill of similar potency on the market cost about thirty Spirit Pearls per pill.

Setting aside the success rate for the moment, if he could refine a few batches of Green Ganoderma Pills, even if the pill's efficacy and potency were slightly discounted for Nether Yin True Qi, the sense of security it brought Chen Ci, whether for selling or for his own consumption and cultivation, was naturally indescribable.

Medicine-Gathering Dharma Incantation, activate!

Immediately, looking at the remains of the Corpse Ganoderma in his hand that looked like a pile of mud, Chen Ci's face fell, and he flicked his hand; this trash Gold Finger couldn't be relied on at all.

Medicine-Gathering Dharma Incantation: Entry Level/53/100 (Gather this medicinal fungus, thirty-eight to succeed in one; complete the incantation six times to advance one level.)

Staring at the changed annotation after the Medicine-Gathering Dharma Incantation on the panel for a few moments, Chen Ci withdrew his gaze and pursed his lips; fortunately, it was finally not the "one in a hundred" from the beginning. In the path of alchemy, talent was indeed insufficient, so one had to make up for it with practice; as long as he practiced enough, his alchemy cultivation would always be able to progress.

"Thirty-eight times to succeed in one."

Chen Ci tapped his palm lightly; no matter how little the Corpse Ganoderma circulated or how poorly it sold, it was still a graded spirit herb and couldn't be that cheap. Although there were many Side Door Cultivators in Xishan Prefecture and many yin lands in the mountains and marshes, the quantity of this Corpse Ganoderma was truly a problem.

It was unlike Yellow Bud Spirit Rice, which could always be purchased at the market; at least he didn't have to worry about the pill materials, and the market issue wasn't that big, though he might be heavily pressured on price.

"No matter how well the Yellow Sprout Pill is refined, one is still just an ordinary alchemist. Although the audience is wide, the competition is also great; where would the market competitiveness come from?"

Chen Ci's eyes narrowed slightly as he made a choice in his heart.

"If I can master the Nourishing Qi Green Ganoderma Pill, although this pill has some niche limitations, I am a man of He Mountain, and in Xishan Prefecture, I have those cheap fellow disciples at Fuhu Altar; why fear not being able to live well in the future?"

"I must practice it; no matter how difficult, I must practice it. The spirit pill market must also be 'what others lack, I have; what others have, I excel at; what others excel at, I make unique' in order to get rich, open up sources of wealth, and feed back into my cultivation."

Thinking of this, Chen Ci made up his mind and simply got up to leave Sanyin Temple. The last Corpse Ganoderma in his hand had just been ruined, and it was too late to grow more now. It just so happened that he also wanted to find a Temple Keeper for Du'e Temple, and there was one person in this county who might give him a surprise.

(End of chapter)