Chapter 107: The Maiden Sword

Three days later, Xu Chen returned with a pale complexion.

His entire person seemed to have thinned by a circle, his eye sockets were dark, his skin was dry, and his head and body were covered in pill ash and a scent of smoke and dust, looking extremely decadent.

After gulping down a ladle of cold water in one breath, Xu Chen sat down on the ground, hugged Xiaobai who had jumped onto his lap, and overcome with grief, said:

"Xiaobai, alchemy is truly not a job for a human. I finally know why Jiu Shixiong could never learn it, and why Third Elder is so thin. Sitting here for three days straight, even a donkey couldn't handle it."

"Wu ya wu ya..."

Xiaobai nodded incessantly as if it understood, and even gently licked his fingers to comfort him.

Xu Chen was very depressed. He had wanted to learn alchemy and artifact refining simply to have a skill to rely on, so that in the future he could be self-sufficient in pills and Magic Treasures.

After all, his situation was very special: he had the cultivation of the Kaiyuan Realm, but possessed the Divine Sense strength of the True Essence Late Stage, and even had a reserve of Yuan Qi no less than that of the True Essence Mid Stage.

In reality, his strength should have already reached the state of the True Essence Mid to Late Stage.

But to keep his cultivation steadily improving, he needed Second-Grade Magic Treasures suitable for his own use, and at the same time, he required ten times the pill supplements of cultivators at the same level to keep up with his cultivation speed.

Yet, he had never thought of taking these skills as a profession, and even less did he want to become an alchemy machine serving the sect, acting as a soot-covered stoker every day.

Of course, this time he successfully refined a furnace of Second-Grade Gathering Qi Pills, and the harvest was not bad; he also obtained two Gathering Qi Pills, and one Gathering Qi Pill was worth at least five Spirit Stones. Calculating over three days, he earned ten Spirit Stones, which was much higher than the income from refining First-grade pills in the past.

But even so, Xu Chen was still very depressed.

Clearly, being a stoker was not as good as being a dung-picker.

Last time, picking dung even yielded a Blue Jade Bead, which was at the level of an Immortal Treasure.

Therefore, Xu Chen's heart began to stir, wanting to find an excuse to go down the mountain for experience.

Making a fortune outside was much faster than on the mountain.

Although alchemy and artifact refining were steady ways to make money, they consumed time, energy, and spirit, and he felt that the effort and income were not proportional.

However, several of his senior brothers and sisters were currently down the mountain and had not yet returned. Those remaining on the mountain, besides taking care of the sect, also had the task of patrolling Spirit Fox Valley, leaving no chance to leave.

Time flew by, and in the blink of an eye, another month passed, arriving at the deep winter season.

Xu Chen had successively refined several furnaces of Second-Grade pills. Although they were all the most common and ordinary pills like Gathering Qi Pills and Clear Spirit Pills, the fact that they were all successful left Third Elder astonished and even more fond of him, wishing he could tie him to the Danyuan and stuff all his alchemy techniques and knowledge into him.

It was just a pity that Xu Chen was inconsistent, and his interest in artifact refining was clearly much greater than in alchemy.

During this month, the growth speed of Xu Chen's cultivation slowed down, but alchemy and artifact refining made his personality much more steady. What satisfied him most was that he finally completed the production of a First-grade Flying Sword from start to finish with his own hands.

The sword blank used a piece of Qingxue Wood.

Qingxue Wood was a First-tier Spiritual Material of the wind element, but it possessed cold ice attributes, counting as a very low-level dual-attribute material.

The Jade Slip gifted by Eldest Senior Brother contained a simple introduction; it ranked around the hundredth place on the list of Spiritual Materials and was indeed a very basic Spiritual Material.

Precisely because it was basic, it was relatively easy to process. Its hardness was not high, its attributes were not strong, and it could be processed simply using the tools given by Eldest Senior Brother. Moreover, this material basically could not be fused with other Spiritual Materials, so the Flying Sword was exactly as large as it was made.

Processing the shape took three days, polishing and inlaying Spirit Stones took one day, carving four Arrays took two days, and polishing and finishing took one day.

Most of his nearly one month of rest time was dumped into this Flying Sword.

Besides the most basic Flight Array, the Flying Sword had a basic Soul Locking Array, a wind-type Wind Attack Technique, and an ice-type Ice Auxiliary Attack Technique.

Because it was his maiden work, Xu Chen still carefully made a Sword Box for this Flying Sword, and even carefully inscribed the maker's name.

"Qingxue Sword. Made in the 38th year of Chengping of Song, Taiyuan Sect, Xu Chen."

However, when Thirteenth Senior Sister Zhao Xuan saw this Flying Sword of his, she laughed for three whole days.

Xu Chen was not swayed by things, nor saddened by himself. Although embarrassed, his interest in artifact refining grew even greater, and he slowly tried to start learning to fuse Spiritual Materials and fuse Arrays.

However, the difficulty of both was extremely high. Even with his True Essence Late Stage Divine Sense strength and the steady temperament accumulated from constant alchemy and artifact refining, he still failed several times in succession, destroying several Spiritual Materials, with losses totaling no less than thirty Spirit Stones.

Only then did Xu Chen understand that artifact refining was truly not a skill that ordinary rogue cultivators and small Immortal Sects could afford; its consumption was even more terrifying than alchemy.

Even though he had quite a few Spirit Stones now, he still felt the pain in his flesh.

And he finally understood a little why every time he went to find Eldest Senior Brother, he was always staring blankly while holding different materials.

It was mainly because the materials were too expensive and the loss could not be afforded, so one could only ponder, consider, and conceive the same Spiritual Material repeatedly, striving to design the most complete and perfect shape, allowing the Array and attributes to match harmoniously, before starting to make it.

After this realization, Xu Chen began to reduce his hands-on work, placing his main learning direction for artifact refining on observing the structures of the Magic Treasures he already had on hand. At the same time, for every Spiritual Material, he would first repeatedly ponder and design it in his mind, then simulate the matching Arrays, and then infer the output effects of the Magic Treasure after these Arrays were fused.

Unexpectedly, after a period of this, he benefited greatly and felt that his insights into artifact refining had greatly improved.

For this reason, he even specifically went to ask Eldest Senior Brother for verification, and sure enough, he received Eldest Senior Brother's affirmation, indicating that with this level of realization, he could be considered to have truly entered the door.

However, Eldest Senior Brother was still thinking about the alchemy Xu Chen had promised. Upon learning that he could now proficiently refine common Second-Grade Spirit Pills, he hoped he could use a Soul Bead to refine a furnace of Spirit Pills as soon as possible to test the effect.

Xu Chen also felt that this matter could be done, so he took Eldest Senior Brother to find Third Elder.

Unexpectedly, Third Elder was even more excited and agitated than Eldest Senior Brother. To be on the safe side, he even used Divine Sense Transmission to call over the Second Elder, True Person Xuanhe, who was still in seclusion, to observe together and help guard the Dharma.

After all, last time Xu Chen only refined a furnace of Small Yuan Pills and caused the Pill Cloud phenomenon. If he hadn't rushed over to quickly help suppress the Pill Furnace, he feared the furnace would have been destroyed and the person killed at that time.

Xu Chen naturally also had lingering fears. Last time, he rashly drew the white Qi of the Blue Light Treasure Bottle into the pill, almost emptying his dantian several times, and had to take three Great Origin Pills to hold on. The three pills finally refined, he didn't even get to take one himself, and didn't even know what they tasted like.

Therefore, this time Xu Chen decided to use the most familiar Great Origin Pill to conduct the new experiment first. If successful, he would then use the Second-Grade Gathering Qi Pill to experiment.

And upon learning that Xu Chen was preparing to use Soul Beads to enter the pill again, all the senior brothers and sisters still in the sect heard the news and came, surrounding the pill room to watch the excitement.

However, all these people added up to only four: the careless Seventh Senior Sister, the reclusive Eighth Senior Brother, the flighty Jiu Shixiong, and the Tenth Senior Sister who lived in seclusion like an invisible person.

Among them, Seventh Senior Sister Qu Mei was the most excited.

Because Xu Chen's cultivation was too low, he almost blew up the furnace last time he refined Small Yuan Pills. Therefore, although she had begged Xu Chen, she also knew that the difficulty of Soul Power entering the pill was very high, far exceeding Xu Chen's cultivation ability, and that it was probably even harder to control graded Spirit Pills, so she had never urged him.

In reality, she was very anxious.

Now she was already at the Kaiyuan Realm Late Stage and had prepared for a long time to impact Foundation Establishment. She had also already obtained one Guiyuan Pill, but her Soul strength was insufficient, making her not very confident to waste a Guiyuan Pill. After all, the Taiyuan Sect's foundation was too shallow; there were only three Guiyuan Pills in total now, all of which were brought back from Jingshi by Xu Chen and the others last time. Everyone could not afford to waste them. If this time failed, she didn't know how long she would have to wait to get a second Guiyuan Pill.

As for the Heqi Pill, she had never thought about it.

Basically, in the entire Great Song Immortal World, except for the old-fashioned Immortal Sects with Spirit Realm Great Cultivators sitting in Yuqing Hall and Longmen Mountain, which might provide a small amount of Heqi Pills to inner sect elite disciples and Personal Disciples, all other cultivators' Foundation Establishment basically relied on Guiyuan Pills.

But the success rate of Guiyuan Pill's Foundation Establishment had a very large relationship with one's own aptitude.

If it were a Heqi Pill, as long as one was at the Kaiyuan Realm Late Stage perfection, there was basically an eighty percent chance of success.

But the Guiyuan Pill only had at most a ten percent chance.

And this ten percent chance was almost concentrated among those cultivators with strong Souls, using their own powerful Divine Sense and formidable comprehension ability to grasp that fleeting moment of breakthrough, using the Guiyuan Pill to stimulate the tide of Yuan Qi eruption to rush open the life apertures, then connect the apertures of the whole body, communicate with the Three Spirits and Seven Souls, and forge the Dao foundation.

Precisely because Foundation Establishment is difficult, the ratio of cultivators in the Kaiyuan Realm to those in the True Origin Foundation stage in the Immortal World exceeds ten to one.

Qu Mei urgently needs pills to increase her Soul strength, but such pills are either third-grade or higher Spirit Pills, or the Spirit Medicine required is extremely rare and precious, making them completely impossible for her to obtain.

She had also once tried to cultivate using a Soul Bead, but failed.

Furthermore, even the Third Elder cannot replicate Xu Chen's method of infusing Soul Power into pills.

Therefore, she currently has only one path: to cling to Xu Chen's coattails.

Naturally, the two Elders and the other senior brothers and sisters all share the same thoughts, their hearts tense and filled with excitement.

Soon, the Third Elder personally prepared all the Spirit Medicine for refining the Great Origin Pill, and every single piece of Spirit Medicine was a carefully selected specimen with sufficient age and abundant Spirit Qi.

After everything was prepared, Xu Chen sat down on the meditation cushion, activated the Pill Furnace, inserted Spirit Stones, triggered the Five Elements Array, and ignited the Spirit Fire to begin refining the pill.

He is already very familiar with the refining of the Great Origin Pill, so the initial medicine-refining stage was handled with ease; under the gazes of the two Elders and a group of senior brothers and sisters, he methodically tossed the Spirit Medicine into the Pill Furnace one by one, refining them at a speed of about one incense stick's time each.

In the blink of an eye, an hour passed, all ten-plus types of Spirit Medicine were completely refined, and the process began to enter the Pill Refining stage, which is when the true test began.

Because according to his initial experiments, it was at this moment that the white Qi was introduced, and then the furnace fire began to spiral out of control.

Ten chapters again today, four chapters in the morning, and three chapters each at noon and in the evening.

(End of this chapter)