Chapter 69: Virgin Pill

Half an hour later, the two of them had returned from raiding the residences of a group of senior brothers and sisters. By the time they returned to the small wooden hut, their storage bags were filled with over a hundred types of spirit medicines and spirit grasses for refining Small Yuan Pills. Among the medicinal materials given by Eldest Senior Brother and Second Senior Sister, there were even several that reached the level required for refining Great Origin Pills.

For cultivators at the early stage of the Kaiyuan Realm, the Small Yuan Pill is the most commonly used Qi Replenishing Pill.

This is true for both large and small Immortal Sects as well as for rogue cultivators among the common folk.

Precisely because it has not yet been graded, the requirements for the quality of the medicinal materials are not high; generally, as long as they are rich in a certain amount of Spirit Qi, the age of the plants is not strictly demanded.

The Small Yuan Pill and the Great Origin Pill share many of the same medicinal materials, but as a first-grade Spirit Pill, the Great Origin Pill has very strict requirements for the quality and age of the materials. Anything that does not meet the standard cannot be used; otherwise, not only will the final medicinal potency be insufficient, directly lowering the quality of the pill, but it might even result in a ruined pill.

Looking at the pile of various spirit medicines and spirit grasses overflowing with Spirit Qi, Xu Chen was very excited and somewhat at a loss as to where to begin.

Zhao Xuan, however, was quite familiar with them. She quickly helped him sort them into several piles, then picked out eight types of materials and said, "These are the eight ingredients for refining the Small Yuan Pill: five spirit medicines, two supplementary medicines, and one catalyst."

Xu Chen was overjoyed and said, "As expected, it really takes a senior sister to step in; I was already getting dizzy looking at this pile of materials!"

Zhao Xuan said proudly, "That's right, you should see who your senior sister is!"

At this moment, Xu Chen took out the Jade Slip containing the pill formula for the Small Yuan Pill and began to study it carefully.

In truth, the steps for refining any pill are similar, but the refining of spirit medicines is much slower than that of ordinary mortal medicines. Furthermore, to ensure the Spirit Qi components within the spirit medicines, the requirements for refining and the level of precision are much higher.

If too much Spirit Qi is lost during the refining process, it will ultimately lead to failure in pill refining.

Therefore, Xu Chen's focus was on how to control the refining process to ensure that the spirituality of the spirit medicines would not dissipate too much.

After finishing the pill formula, Xu Chen reviewed the steps for refining spirit medicines once more.

A full incense stick of time passed before Xu Chen finally put down the Jade Slip, reactivated the pill furnace, and took out a Spirit Stone to place into the furnace's firebox. Only then did he press both hands onto the Yuan Qi channels to begin inputting Yuan Qi, controlling his Divine Sense to activate the Five Elements Array inside.

Soon, all the arrays inside the pill furnace lit up. Under the constant impact of Yuan Qi, the Spirit Stone was also ignited, and a mass of scorching white fire burned fiercely within the firebox. The pill furnace quickly released an aura that made one's Soul tremble.

The Spirit Fire did not release a high temperature that could be felt physically, but rather a temperature directed at the soul.

This kind of temperature could only be felt by cultivators; if it were a mortal, they would instantly have their soul scattered within the range covered by the Spirit Fire.

Zhao Xuan felt slightly uncomfortable and retreated two steps, while Xu Chen, because his Divine Sense was powerful, did not feel any change at all; he was as steady as could be.

When it came down to it, this pill furnace was rather trashy, and its grade was too low.

In reality, a good pill furnace would completely bind the Spirit Fire within the firebox so that it would not dissipate at all.

But this pill furnace clearly could not do that.

The refining temperature and refining time for every spirit medicine were different.

Xu Chen naturally did not dare to be careless. After all, these spirit medicines were collected by his senior brothers and sisters when they went down the mountain for training, or exchanged for with Spirit Stones and Spirit Materials. Although they were not considered too expensive, he would still feel the pinch if even one was lost, so he was extremely careful.

With the experience of refining several furnaces of mortal pills earlier, Xu Chen was already quite familiar with the refining steps. Therefore, with full concentration, the first spirit medicine was successfully refined after half an incense stick of time.

Xu Chen let out a sigh of relief, though a light sheen of sweat had seeped out on his forehead.

He had to precisely control the furnace temperature of the burning Spirit Stone, carefully control the calcination of the spirit medicine by the array, and also constantly recall the refining steps. Even though his Divine Sense was powerful, his Yuan Qi was ultimately too weak. Thus, after refining this one spirit medicine, he felt that the Yuan Qi in his body had been consumed quite a bit, though this consumption was still within his tolerance.

The next spirit medicine was also successfully refined after about half a quarter of an hour.

With two consecutive successes, Xu Chen's confidence soared. He then refined the remaining three spirit medicines in one go, and to his surprise, he succeeded on the first try for all of them. However, it had taken more than half an hour, and by this time, the Yuan Qi in his body was nearly bottomed out; he even felt a slight stinging pain in his dantian.

This was because the injuries from his previous battle with the Mysterious Water Nether Lotus had not yet fully recovered, so he did not dare to be careless and stuffed a Small Yuan Pill into his mouth.

Zhao Xuan, watching from the side, wanted to laugh but didn't dare to. She covered her mouth, turned her head away, and shook with suppressed laughter.

Xu Chen did not dare to lose focus at this moment and could only bite the bullet and pretend not to notice. While circulating his cultivation art to absorb Yuan Qi, he tossed the remaining three auxiliary materials into the pill furnace to continue refining.

Compared to the spirit medicines, the refining of these three mortal medicines was much more casual. It took no more than half an incense stick of time to finish, and then it was time to activate the Combining Pill Array to begin the pill combination.

Compared to the Qingshui Pill, it was much more difficult to fully fuse the five spirit medicines. If the fusion was not sufficient, it would lead to a loss of medicinal efficacy, and even if it wasn't a ruined pill, it would basically have no effect.

Therefore, Xu Chen dared not be careless, and he didn't even dare to rush the integration of the white mist released by the Blue Light Treasure Bottle.

At the very least, he had to ensure he could successfully refine the Small Yuan Pill first.

Only after having fully mature experience would he proceed with his experiments.

The time for synthesizing a Spirit Pill was much longer than for a mortal pill. It took nearly an hour in total to finally fuse the essences of the five spirit medicines and three auxiliary materials into one. By the time Xu Chen felt that the Yuan Qi from the Small Yuan Pill he had swallowed was almost exhausted again, the Combining Pill Array finally slowed to a stop, and a mass of blue-gray medicinal paste appeared in the center of the pill furnace.

At this time, he could not rush to divide the pills; instead, he had to use the Spirit Fire to slowly bake them at a low temperature, allowing the various spirit medicines to penetrate more tightly and the medicinal power to fully fuse.

This process took even longer than the pill combination, generally requiring at least an hour or more.

If it were a Great Origin Pill, this process would require at least half a day.

And to maintain his Divine Sense for a long time to precisely control the state of the Spirit Fire and the pill furnace required extremely strong support from his Divine Sense and Yuan Qi.

Xu Chen's Divine Sense was strong enough, but his Yuan Qi was his weak point, so he had no choice but to pop another Small Yuan Pill.

Zhao Xuan sat to the side meditating, but her mind was not on cultivation; she had been observing Xu Chen's pill refining process the whole time. Seeing him eat another pill, she couldn't help but shake her shoulders, nearly falling to the ground from holding back her laughter.

Xu Chen was full of embarrassment and said with a wry smile, "Senior Sister, if you want to laugh, just laugh; why be like this?"

Zhao Xuan covered her mouth, stood up, and laughed, "Pill nourishing takes at least an hour. By the time the pills come out of the furnace, it will probably be dark. I'll go make you something to eat first."

Watching Zhao Xuan turn and walk into the small wooden hut while laughing, Xu Chen felt helpless and could only wipe the sweat from his forehead and continue.

At this moment, he finally understood why Jiu Shixiong was unwilling to refine pills, or rather, the reason why there were so few pill refiners in each Immortal Sect.

First, it was too tedious; second, the consumption was extremely high.

He had only refined the pill halfway and had already eaten two pills to replenish his Yuan Qi. So, it would be fine if this furnace of pills was successfully refined, but if he ruined it, he would definitely lose everything down to his pants.

And this was just a furnace of unranked Small Yuan Pills; to successfully refine a furnace from start to finish took at least half a day.

It was said that for second-grade or third-grade Spirit Pills, it could easily take several days or even ten days to half a month.

And for Spirit Pills above the fourth grade, the time was calculated in months and years.

The step of pill nourishing alone took a long time, enough to exhaust the Yuan Qi of a Danyuan Realm cultivator several times over. Unless one was a Spirit Realm Great Cultivator, it was absolutely impossible to persist. Not to mention the long-term, high-intensity concentration of Divine Sense, which was enough to cause the Soul of a Danyuan Realm cultivator to become disordered and collapse.

Xu Chen was very fortunate that after obtaining the Blue Jade Bead, his Divine Sense had already become as strong as that of the Zhenyuan Realm; otherwise, just refining the few spirit medicines would likely have been more than he could handle.

Time passed slowly.

The sun gradually slanted to the west.

In the sunset, Xu Chen sat motionless, cross-legged on the open cliff space in front of the small wooden hut on the mountainside, his Divine Sense fully focused on watching the pill furnace.

A wisp of misty spirit medicine fragrance also slowly began to drift out with the passage of time and the evening breeze.

The appearance of pill fragrance meant that the medicinal efficacy of the pills had begun to fuse and be triggered.

Zhao Xuan finished stewing rice porridge in the kitchen and made two simple dishes with fresh wild mountain greens, then, drawn out by the medicinal fragrance, she realized that Xu Chen's first batch of pills was nearing success, so she also ran out happily to observe.

Slowly, another stick of incense passed, and it had been nearly an hour since the Pill Nourishing began; sensing that the medicinal fragrance was sufficiently rich, Zhao Xuan softly reminded him: "Junior Brother, too much is as bad as too little, it is about time to take out the pills!"

Hearing this, Xu Chen breathed a sigh of relief and hurriedly activated the Dividing Pill Array; soon, a mass of medicinal paste inside the Pill Furnace was divided into more than ten mud-like lumps of various sizes, and after being spun by a vortex of Yuan Qi, they transformed into more than ten pale cyan pellets the size of little fingers. After using the Spirit Fire to bake them for another quarter of an hour to set their shape, and waiting until the medicinal fragrance had completely receded, he lightly tapped the Pill Furnace, the furnace lid sprang open, and more than ten pills sprayed out of the furnace mouth along with a surging, rich medicinal mist; Xu Chen swept them up with his Yuan Qi and gathered all the pills into his hand.

Zhao Xuan leaned in to take a close look and immediately said with a face full of surprise: "Junior Brother truly has a talent for alchemy; not only did you succeed on your first try, but the quality of the pills is also quite good!"

Xu Chen also carefully observed every pill and discovered that they were indeed very successful, basically all reaching a medium-to-high grade; it was truly a batch of excellent Small Yuan Pills, so he happily took out a medicine bottle to store them before handing it to Zhao Xuan, saying:

"I have troubled Senior Sister for most of the day, both searching for herbs and cooking; let this batch of Small Yuan Pills be a gift for you as a token of my thanks!"

Zhao Xuan immediately smiled until her eyes curved into crescents, and without standing on ceremony, she took them and said: "Then I won't be polite; I have no use for Great Origin Pills, but Small Yuan Pills are just right for me. I will inevitably have to trouble Junior Brother for help in the future!"

Xu Chen stood up, stretched, and laughed: "Why must Senior Sister be so polite with me? Aside from the fact that the herbs for these Small Yuan Pills are not easy to obtain and the refining is quite mentally exhausting, there is really no difficulty to it. If you need them in the future, just come find me. Let's go, let's eat first, I'm nearly starving!"

The two of them quickly tidied up the Pill Furnace and the remaining herbs, then carried the food to a flat rock outside the door; accompanied by the evening breeze and the setting sun, and smelling the gradually dissipating medicinal fragrance, they began to eat while chatting and laughing, while Xiao Huli, having no idea where it had snatched a brightly colored, fist-sized toad from, lay beside the two of them eating with great relish.

The life of cultivating immortality is, for the most part, this simple and pure.

Here, there is no strife, no scheming, and you cannot even feel the passage of time.

In the mountains, there is no calendar; when the cold ends, one does not know the year.

As long as one can endure the loneliness, one can live out one's life here in ease, much like the trees in these mountains, withering and flourishing, knowing one's own joys and sorrows.

After the two finished their simple dinner, Zhao Xuan departed on her sword.

Watching the cyan Escape Light disappear at the summit of Zhaoyang Peak, Xu Chen composed his mood, sat down cross-legged on the edge of the cliff, and began to close his eyes and meditate, circulating his energy to cultivate.

(End of this chapter)