Chapter 20: First Alchemy

At this time, Long Xuan had no idea that he had actually been mocked, and the one mocking him was his own most proud imagination.

Seeing this little medicine boy so stubborn, he didn't try to persuade him anymore.

"Wanting to trade for my Cockroach Gu is fine, but my Cockroach Gu has long since not been at the price of ten thousand spirit stones."

"How about this, give me ten of each kind of waste pill, just as making up the price difference."

Little Medicine Boy nodded. Not to mention giving a few insignificant waste pills, even if he were asked to take out another hundred thousand spirit stones now, he would scramble for it.

"It seems you really don't have the ability to turn waste into treasure. Otherwise, you would have swept up all my waste pills, instead of just wanting ten of each kind."

Little Medicine Boy smiled and picked up a portion of the waste pills, then took out a cyan three-legged alchemy furnace from his storage bag, threw all the waste pills into the alchemy furnace, and handed it to Long Xuan together.

Long Xuan glanced at him sideways, also took out a small bottle containing Cockroach Gu from his insect breeding bag and threw it toward Little Medicine Boy.

Little Medicine Boy happily took the small bottle, checked the authenticity on the spot after blood-contracting, and then quickly started to pack up his stall.

The current waste pills were all treasures to him; only a fool would take them out to sell.

And at this time, the burly man with a scarred face who had just been arguing with Little Medicine Boy was dumbfounded. He didn't expect that someone would really want these waste pills. Truly, the world was big and everything existed; it was a living ghost.

Just as Long Xuan was about to leave, he immediately blocked his way and hurriedly said: "Little friend, stay your step. I also want to trade for Cockroach Gu. I am willing to trade with spirit herbs."

"These were all picked by me personally on the mountain. You can pick whatever you want."

He immediately threw a storage bag toward Long Xuan, showing a fawning smile, fearing that he would run away.

Long Xuan looked at his appearance and knew that this person must be extremely fond of Cockroach Gu.

A body full of muscles, a face full of scars, looking at him, he was clearly someone who liked melee combat. Injuries had become a common occurrence, often hovering on the edge of death, so Cockroach Gu would definitely become the favorite of such people.

The cost of Cockroach Gu was truly too low, and there were still quite a few in his insect breeding bag.

So he casually took the burly man's storage bag and checked it, discovering that it was full of various kinds of spirit herbs.

Coincidentally, the three spirit herbs he was just planning to look for were all in it, and the quantity was not small. This was truly "nowhere to be found after searching through iron shoes, it comes easily without effort."

Long Xuan showed joy, then poured all the spirit herbs in this storage bag into his own storage bag, not leaving a single spirit herb behind, then threw the empty storage bag toward the burly man, followed by a small bottle containing Cockroach Gu.

When Long Xuan returned from the market, it was already late at night. There were quite a few people who wanted to trade for Cockroach Gu with him, and poor scattered cultivators especially liked to bargain, so time was delayed.

However, the harvest was gratifying. Previously, refining the Heavenly Mechanism Eye had exhausted his small treasury. This time, selling a batch of Cockroach Gu finally recovered quite a bit of blood.

He could see that the new project, Ice Cold Divine Flame, was definitely a resource-consuming giant. If he really wanted to refine the Ice Cold Divine Flame, the materials consumed would likely be an astronomical figure. He had to save spirit stones as soon as possible to prepare in advance.

Although it was already late at night, the materials for refining the Hundred Flowers Pill were already prepared. Everything was ready, only the east wind was missing. He could try his first alchemy now.

He was currently completely in a state of excitement, his heart itching. How could he sleep without refining a pill?

So Long Xuan decisively took out the alchemy furnace and placed it on the ground, starting to try his first alchemy in life.

Through constant observation of Long Lao, he might not know how to refine other pills, but he had completely learned the Hundred Flowers Pill.

The Hundred Flowers Pill required a full one hundred spirit flowers as materials. With such a huge quantity of materials, the spirit pill refined would naturally be extraordinary. The medicinal power was definitely top-notch without needing to think.

Long Xuan followed the method he stole from Long Lao, mobilizing both fire and wood attributes, wood below, fire above, and catalyzed a wisp of flame in his palm.

To become an alchemist, one must meet three requirements: first, one must have both fire and wood attributes; second, one must have a strong innate soul; and third, one must have fine enough control over fire spirit power.

These three restrictive conditions were enough to block the vast majority of people in this world outside the threshold of alchemy. People with the aptitude to be an alchemist were one in ten thousand.

Such harsh conditions were also the reason why alchemists were extremely rare in this world, and also created their extremely noble status.

Long Xuan, of course, met these requirements, and far exceeded them.

His cultivation aptitude was terrible, but his alchemy aptitude was definitely that of a genius.

When Heaven closes a door, it often opens a window for you.

Long Xuan's soul power currently wasn't strong enough to lift the alchemy furnace, so he could only slowly place the alchemy furnace on the ground.

Then he controlled the flame in his palm to fly up, and under the control of soul power, it fell to the bottom of the alchemy furnace, starting to heat up and preheat.

The first step of alchemy was to use high temperature to remove impurities from the spirit herbs, taking the essence and discarding the dross.

Most of the substances inside spirit herbs were useless, requiring the alchemist to have extremely high control over the fire, burning away impurities while leaving only the medicinal essence.

Doing this step was extremely difficult. If the temperature was low, it would liquefy impurities and fuse them completely with the essence. If the temperature was high, it would burn away both impurities and essence. Burning away impurities without burning away the essence was even more difficult.

Even more exaggerated was that different spirit herbs required different temperatures, not to mention that the same spirit herb would also have subtle differences. The same spirit herb also needed to continuously change temperatures at different time periods. This could simply play people to death.

Just this first step alone stumped the vast majority of alchemists. Very few people could complete this step.

Even the experienced Long Lao would often burn away spirit herbs when refining them, wasting a precious spirit herb in vain.

Therefore, Long Xuan deeply realized the difficulty of this step and decided to be careful, careful, and more careful, concentrating all his attention, never having a trace of slack.

After adjusting his state, seeing that the pill furnace was already warm, he casually grabbed a spirit herb and threw it into the alchemy furnace.

However, just as he was preparing to increase the heat, something shocking happened.

The pill furnace actually displayed the purification progress. At this time, the progress was 0%.

Long Xuan took a deep breath, somewhat incredulous.

It was only then that he remembered that a similar situation had occurred when he first refined Gu.

The progress displayed by the Golden Finger seemed not only limited to dead objects and living things, but also included something one was doing.

For example, if you were refining Gu, it would display Gu refining progress. If you were purifying spirit herbs, it would also display purification progress, including the final step of alchemy later, which would likely also display alchemy progress.

In this way, the upper limit of the Golden Finger had to be raised again. Long Xuan was excited to the extreme.

Thus, the purification step, which was extremely difficult to complete in the eyes of others, changed in Long Xuan's case.

He could clearly see the purification progress. If the progress was steadily rising, it proved that his operation was correct, and he just needed to maintain it.

Once the progress suddenly changed greatly, or even disappeared, it proved that his operation was wrong, and he must adjust the heat as soon as possible.

Since there was an error prompt, wouldn't Long Xuan's purification of spirit herbs be easy?

The subsequent development of events didn't have any accidents.

In the eyes of others, things that were extremely difficult were extremely simple in Long Xuan's eyes.

As a novice refining spirit herbs for the first time, not only did he not make any mistakes, but he succeeded easily. Do you believe this?

If other alchemy apprentices knew, they probably wouldn't know what to think.

Looking at the spirit herb essence he had put into the medicine bottle, Long Xuan was stunned, as if he were dreaming.

Just this?

(End of chapter) Chapter 21