Chapter 18: Spirit Fire

"Hundred Flowers Pill, no wonder Long Lao's medicine garden is full of flowers. So that's why."

Long Xuan's eyes rolled, his expression full of excitement.

An alchemist, huh? He discovered that he seemed to be able to become an alchemist.

Through the Thousand-Mile Eye and slight X-ray vision, Long Lao's alchemy process was in full view. He could completely steal the alchemy techniques, and occasionally swipe a few pill formulas.

The more he thought, the more excited he became.

In this world, an alchemist was a profession even rarer and more noble than a Gu cultivator.

And they were even more protective of their secrets, and their techniques were not easily passed on. You basically couldn't buy alchemy techniques or pill formulas anywhere.

This led to every alchemist basically mastering several unique pill formulas, and every alchemist forming their own school, with extremely heavy sectarianism.

Now that there was an opportunity to steal alchemy techniques, how could he not be excited? He had been excited too many times today.

It was precisely because of this that alchemists were extremely rare in this world. Being too rare also led to their status being extremely noble and their position being very transcendent.

One had to know that spirit pills could increase a Gu cultivator's breakthrough rate, could refine life-saving spirit pills to heal a Gu cultivator's injuries, and some spirit pills could even allow Gu worms to be reborn and complete a metamorphosis.

Therefore, the spirit pills refined by alchemists had a fatal attraction to every Gu cultivator, which also led to every Gu cultivator desperately trying to please alchemists, or even working for them and being driven by them.

So every alchemist in this world had terrifying connections and extensive friendships; they could potentially befriend any big shot.

Offending an alchemist could potentially poke a hornet's nest, bringing in countless strong enemies.

It was also precisely because alchemists were too rare that spirit pills were equally rare, far from the situation in other worlds where they were everywhere.

Long Xuan had never seen spirit pills at street stalls or shops. It might also be that this place was too barren; spirit pills were likely only seen at auctions.

If he became an alchemist and refined this Hundred Flowers Pill, relying on taking pills to cultivate every day, his cultivation speed might increase tenfold.

Long Xuan felt excited just thinking about it. He had had enough of that damn cultivation speed.

Since his aptitude wasn't enough, he would make up for it with cultivation resources.

If he couldn't buy spirit pills, he would create them himself. Once the Hundred Flowers Pill was useless, he would create the Thousand Flowers Pill and Ten Thousand Flowers Pill. Long Xuan quickly planned his future cultivation path.

After making up his mind, Long Xuan focused his full attention, continuing to observe Long Lao's alchemy process, even magnifying it to carefully observe the details, striving to steal the alchemy techniques as soon as possible.

Soon, a day passed. Long Lao was also exhausted and finally finished his day's work, collapsing on the ground and falling into a deep sleep. His snoring was thunderous and extremely penetrating; even Long Xuan could hear it from far away.

At this time, he finally put away the Heavenly Mechanism Eye. Although his expression was weary, his little face was full of excitement.

This day of peeping had yielded him a rich harvest.

He quickly sat at the table and chair, took out paper and pen, and got busy again.

Soon, the paper was full of words. Finally, he wrote the three big characters "Purple Demon Flame" at the top of the paper, then put down his pen, looking at it with satisfaction.

Fire was the secret of every alchemist, and its importance was even greater than that of pill formulas.

Alchemy naturally couldn't use fire made from burning wood.

In the Spirit Gathering Stage, one could use fire born from fire spirit power to make do with refining first-grade spirit pills.

But to refine spirit pills of the second grade or higher, one had to have a special fire. This was a hard requirement; without a special fire, one could only refine the lowest grade first-grade spirit pills for life.

Not to mention the legendary naturally born Heavenly Fire, most alchemists' fire only came from three places.

Either find a place with magma and use Earth Fire for alchemy. Or slaughter fire-attribute spirit beasts and use Beast Fire for alchemy.

The last kind was man-made spirit fire.

Spirit fire was a peculiar fire refined by alchemists through various magical means, consuming various rare materials. The formulas were extremely precious.

Spirit fire formulas had strong and weak ones. High-level spirit fire formulas might not be inferior to the legendary Heavenly Fire.

And what Long Xuan recorded at this time was a spirit fire formula called Purple Demon Flame. It was Long Lao's unique secret and the Long family's non-transferable treasure.

Yet now it had been easily obtained by Long Xuan. It was also Long Lao's carelessness; why take such an important spirit fire formula out of the storage bag? Truly too careless.

Holding this silently memorized spirit fire formula, Long Xuan was uncontrollably excited.

With this spirit fire formula, he could refine the Purple Demon Flame. Using a special fire for alchemy could increase the potency of spirit pills and could further promote his cultivation speed. He was ecstatic.

However, his smile quickly stopped, his eyes full of hesitation, his heart becoming increasingly calm.

In this world, stealing others' non-transferable secrets was a major taboo. Once discovered, one would be beaten to death.

Although he could use it secretly without letting others discover it, all those who were discovered stealing techniques thought so at the time.

Why were unique Gu formulas so hard to steal? Couldn't one kill to seize treasures and use torture to force a confession? It really didn't work.

For the same type of Gu worm, they could sense each other from a long distance. If you dared to refine a great clan's unique Gu formula, then just wait to be hunted down by the entire great clan.

Since the same type of Gu worm could sense each other and was extremely sensitive to its own kind, would spirit fire also have this characteristic?

Once he refined the Purple Demon Flame, would Long Lao immediately sense it, and then angrily rush in and "crack" him?

Long Xuan immediately shrank his neck, his spine feeling cold.

There really was such a possibility. The problem was that he really didn't dare to gamble. Even if there was only a one percent chance of being sensed, he absolutely wouldn't dare to gamble.

No matter how low the probability, gambling with one's life was stupid.

Long Xuan took a deep breath. No way, since he didn't dare to use it, he could only create it himself. What if he created a spirit fire himself?

Long Xuan's eyes became brighter and brighter, his expression revealing excitement.

If he hadn't obtained this spirit fire formula, he would never have been able to create a spirit fire formula himself.

Because he knew nothing about the production process of spirit fire. Even if he wanted to create one, he wouldn't know where to start.

But now that he had the Purple Demon Flame formula, he had a template, a format. He knew what kind of materials to use and what methods to use for refining.

As long as he followed the laws of the formula and imitated it, creating a spirit fire himself might not be a difficult task for him.

It was nothing more than a question of how long it would take to liver it.

Long Xuan's spirit became excited again. He took out a blank sheet of paper, full of energy.

The first step in creating a spirit fire was to think about what kind of fire to create, what characteristics it had, and what abilities it had.

And the first thing Long Xuan thought of was the kind of fire emitting cold air that often appeared in novels from his past life.

But this world was not a novel; it was a real world. How could that kind of fire that violated common sense appear?

This world had never seen a cold fire that could release cold air.

Burning meant releasing heat. If it didn't release heat, it couldn't burn. Burning without releasing heat was completely self-contradictory. From a scientific perspective, it was completely impossible and belonged to pseudoscience.

But Long Xuan still wanted to try it whimsically.

Anyway, creating something himself never had any cost, at most wasting some time. Why not try it once? What if it succeeded?

Long Xuan first created a name for this spirit fire and wrote the four big characters "Ice Cold Divine Flame" on the paper.

This already counted as a proposition. If the spirit fire he created next had nothing to do with the word "cold," then the fragmentary formula would not show progress at all, because it didn't match the title and was self-contradictory.

Propositional self-creation would undoubtedly increase the difficulty and waste more time.

After Long Xuan wrote the title, the first thing he thought of was the principle of ice-making with saltpeter from his past life.

Saltpeter also existed in this world and was rich in spirit power. The ice-making effect was likely even stronger than in his past life.

So without thinking, he directly wrote "saltpeter" under the title and specifically noted "large quantity."

As the pen fell, he discovered that 【0.1%】 progress suddenly appeared on the paper. Long Xuan was overjoyed.

He understood that he had succeeded. The fire imagined in novels could really be realized in the real world...

(End of chapter) Chapter 19