Chapter 655: Our Duty

Wei Yuan emerged from seclusion and discovered that in just a few days, a tall stack of jade paper had appeared on his study desk. There were over four hundred matters reported, with more than thirty requiring his personal decision.

The two Dao Foundation warriors in the study had already changed into scholar's robes and were carefully reading the jade paper that had just been delivered. All reported matters would first pass through the "Human World Renjian Yanhuo" for analysis and processing before being presented to Wei Yuan.

For matters of low importance that could be handled through routine procedures, Human World Renjian Yanhuo would provide a resolution plan on its own, and Wei Yuan only needed to sign off on it. For important matters, Human World Renjian Yanhuo would provide analysis and suggested options; in most cases, Wei Yuan only needed to choose between option one, two, three, or four.

The important matters to be handled at this moment included the reclamation of 500,000 mu of new fields, the completion of the reorganization of the first ten-thousand-man new army, and over ten "sparring" injury incidents in the military academy, among others. As for unimportant matters, there were far too many.

Wei Yuan looked through them one by one and felt that the processing methods for more and more daily matters were much the same, and they could entirely be left to Human World Renjian Yanhuo to handle.

Subsequently, someone delivered a new letter. It was written by Xu Henshui, stating that he had acquired four more sets of main ingredients for the Great Sun Morning Glory Pill and intended to invite Wei Yuan to refine pills together in ten days. At that time, elders from the sect of the Creation Temple would also come to observe and provide guidance.

Wei Yuan's spirits lifted. He now had a high interest in pill refining, mainly because anyone who practiced the Dao understood a little bit about pill refining and artifact forging, and they would then be left dumbfounded by Wei Yuan's level of pill alchemy.

The Great Sun Morning Glory Pill was currently the most useful pill, bar none.

Of the last batch of Great Sun Morning Glory Pills Wei Yuan refined, a total of twenty were placed on the exchange list. Only a few months had passed, and they had actually been exchanged clean, forcing Wei Yuan to take in over a million taels of immortal silver. In the end, he had no choice but to take out his bottom-of-the-box stock and specifically placed two two-pattern spirit pills as the grand finale on the treasury list.

The attraction of the Great Sun Morning Glory Pill to cultivators with sufficiently high Dao Foundation ranks, such as the Earth Rank and Heaven Rank, was unmatched by anything else. Since the news spread, over ten Dao Foundation ancestors from other regions had brought their entire families to migrate into Qingming.

They prepared to take root here and then, with the strength of their entire families, strive to contribute and earn a Great Sun Morning Glory Pill as soon as possible, in the hope of breaking through the limits of their Dao path, advancing from Dao Foundation ancestors to Nascent Soul monsters, and taking flight from there.

Since the last pill refining, Xu Henshui had always said there were no main ingredients. This time, there were suddenly four more sets, and there were also high-level cultivators from the sect to observe and guide; it was unknown what the inside story was.

For Wei Yuan, this was naturally a great thing. If he could refine them, he could distribute them, and if he could distribute them, he could enrich the exchange list. Although exchanging at half the market price seemed like a loss, and he could only painfully earn ten times the profit, Wei Yuan felt that as long as he could satisfy the cultivators of Qingming, it was worth it even if he lost a little.

At this time, there was still some time before the arrival of the seniors from the Creation Temple, so Wei Yuan began to ponder what room for improvement there still was for the Great Sun Morning Glory Pill. He couldn't let the elders of the Creation Temple make the trip in vain.

Human World Renjian Yanhuo was no longer a stranger to pill refining, and even three Pill Alchemy Research Institutes had been established, so it naturally took on this task.

The "Crouching Long Feng Chick" geniuses had already regarded the information on Xu Wenwu's outer-heaven world as a holy scripture, drawing endless spiritual nourishment from it, and the solutions they provided were gradually drifting further and further away from the orthodox path of the immortal Dao.

Over the next few days, Wei Yuan was researching one pill refining improvement plan after another. Many of the plans were so bizarre that even he was deeply shocked, but upon careful deliberation, he felt they made sense. Thus, Wei Yuan hurriedly found Yu Zhizhuo and gave him a pile of design drawings, asking him to hurry and help him refine a batch of pill refining equipment.

After looking at the design drawings, Yu Zhizhuo was also deeply shocked and felt particularly sympathetic toward Xu Henshui.

In the blink of an eye, the agreed-upon day arrived. On this day, Xu Henshui's pill temple was swept clean, and all the disciples bathed and changed their clothes, tidying themselves up to be in high spirits. Xu Henshui was waiting early at the main gate of the pill temple.

The time had arrived, and he saw an old Daoist appear out of thin air at the gate. His beard and hair were like snow, his face was glowing, his steps produced mist, and his sleeves flicked to form clouds; he truly had the bearing of an immortal. Behind him were several high-level disciples of the Creation Temple, each and every one of them looking down their noses at people.

Upon seeing the old Daoist, Xu Henshui was both surprised and delighted. He hurriedly stepped forward, knelt down, and said, "Greetings, Ancestor Master Zhi Dan."

The old Daoist nodded slightly and said, "This is not the Creation Temple; there is no need for such formalities. Let us all go in."

A moment later, the old Daoist sat down in the main hall, and Wei Yuan received the news and hurriedly rushed over. On the way, he had already learned the information about this elder. The old Daoist called himself the Master Zhi Dan Loose Practitioner, and his original name was long lost to history.

The Master Zhi Dan Loose Practitioner was already 1,300 years old this year and was one of the four Imperial View Pill Masters of the Creation Temple. If calculated seriously, his seniority was several generations higher than that of the Temple Master Dan Mingzi.

Being able to use "Master Zhi Dan" as a title showed the exquisiteness of his pill alchemy. It was said that if it weren't for the sudden emergence of Dan Mingzi back then, the current Temple Master should have been him.

Wei Yuan also did not expect that this person's background would be so great. He had originally thought that a Nascent Soul perfection pill master would be enough.

The Master Zhi Dan Loose Practitioner said slowly, "Although the Great Sun Morning Glory Pill is of a low rank, it relates to the number of backbone cultivators in the sect, so it is the foundation of the sect's prosperity and is truly the top priority. This time, entrusted by the Temple Master, I have specifically come to examine Henshui's level of pill alchemy. I have heard that Realm Master Wei is also proficient in pill alchemy; why not refine two furnaces together? This old Daoist might be able to offer two suggestions."

Wei Yuan's heart was crystal clear. When was it not possible to examine Xu Henshui? Did it need to be specifically examined at this time? This old Daoist was here to examine him.

But why the old Daoist wanted to examine him, Wei Yuan did not know.

In any case, since the Creation Temple was willing to provide the ingredients, Wei Yuan naturally would not be polite. Anyway, he only needed to hand over five pills per furnace, and if they were one-pattern, he only needed to hand over one; the rest belonged to him. With this furnace, Wei Yuan felt he would be sorry for the pill furnace if he didn't earn a small million.

The old Daoist added, "The path of pill refining also lies in introducing the new. This time, I have brought some new auxiliary medicinal materials; you can try to improve the pill formula."

The old Daoist flicked his large sleeve, and two medicine cabinets appeared in front of Wei Yuan and Xu Henshui. The cabinets opened on their own, revealing dozens of different medicinal materials inside.

Xu Henshui was clearly stunned; it was obvious he also didn't know there was such a requirement.

However, these medicinal materials were all things he had been familiar with since childhood, and he could smell their medicinal properties even with his eyes closed. He immediately took out a cold jade couch, placed it in the pill room, and sat down on the spot to ponder.

Wei Yuan also went to examine the medicinal materials and then discovered that he didn't recognize most of them. He was thick-skinned, so if he didn't recognize them, he pulled the Creation Temple disciples over to ask. The disciples answered everything they knew without reservation.

But after only explaining two, the Master Zhi Dan Loose Practitioner said, "Your explanation of these medicinal materials is generally correct, but the subtle points are not quite right. And the Great Sun Morning Glory Pill requires these subtle points. It seems you have not been diligent in your studies. Go face the wall for seven days and carefully re-read the medicine books!"

The disciple was sweating profusely and hurriedly went to face the wall.

The Master Zhi Dan Loose Practitioner went to Wei Yuan's side and said, "You haven't learned much about medicinal materials, so I will explain them to you from the beginning."

Then the old Daoist picked up a leaf that looked like a sword and said, "This is the Night-Filling Sword Hemp. At first glance, it is almost identical to the Void Night Sword Hemp, but in fact, there are slight differences in their medicinal properties..."

Wei Yuan listened extremely carefully and nodded repeatedly, but in fact, he had neither heard of the Night-Filling Sword Hemp nor the Void Night Sword Hemp.

But Wei Yuan's attitude made the old Daoist quite satisfied. The old Daoist stroked his beard and explained them one by one in detail. Wei Yuan nodded repeatedly and recorded everything in Human World Renjian Yanhuo.

After the explanation, the old Daoist asked, "Have you remembered them all?"

"I have remembered them."

The old Daoist picked up a medicinal material at random and asked, "What is this? What are its medicinal properties?"

The several Creation Temple disciples brought by the old Daoist all had faint looks of schadenfreude on their faces. This ancestor had always been known for being strict and hated nothing more than a flamboyant and impractical style of study.

If he couldn't remember and honestly said he couldn't remember, that would be fine, but once he was tested by him, facing the wall for seven days would be the least of it. Wei Yuan spoke as soon as he opened his mouth; bragging was easy, but he would be slapped in the face in a moment.

Wei Yuan naturally took everyone's gazes into his eyes and deliberately showed a look of difficulty, saying somewhat hesitantly, "This is 130-year-old Deer Blood Flower, and its medicinal properties are..."

He finished speaking with some hesitation, and it was actually not wrong. The disciples' moods rose and fell, and in the end, they all had looks of resentment. This feeling was like watching someone walk on a single-plank bridge; it looked like they were going to fall several times, but in the end, they just didn't fall, which was indescribably uncomfortable.

Wei Yuan also didn't understand what these disciples were thinking. Why would they be happy if he had a hard time? Was there a possibility of comparison between the two sides at the same level?

The Master Zhi Dan Loose Practitioner frowned slightly, somewhat displeased with Wei Yuan's hesitation, and then picked up another medicinal material and asked again, "What is this?"

"This, this is..." Wei Yuan tried hard to look like he was recalling. Just as the joy of several disciples was about to manifest, his train of thought suddenly became clear, and he said it from beginning to end in one breath, exactly the same as what the old Daoist had just taught, not even a single word out of order.

The Creation Temple disciples were dumbfounded, and Xu Henshui also had a look of shock. The old Daoist was expressionless and tested him repeatedly, and Wei Yuan answered calmly, completely repeating what the old Daoist had just said, even copying the filler words.

The faces of several Creation Temple disciples turned green and white, and they finally knew that their little thoughts had been seen through by Wei Yuan; he was just playing with them.

The Master Zhi Dan Loose Practitioner finally revealed a smile on his face and said, "Not bad, not bad!"

For nearly a hundred auxiliary medicines, with detailed explanations of their years and medicinal properties, the old Daoist had explained for more than half an hour, and the result was that Wei Yuan remembered every word without error, which naturally deserved praise.

Wei Yuan grinned and said, "Having a photographic memory is our duty. If we can't do this, do we still have the face to be disciples of the Creation Temple?"

Several disciples were ashamed, and Xu Henshui's face was also a bit unnatural. To be honest, although he recognized these medicinal materials, there were also two whose subtle medicinal properties he hadn't remembered. Thus, Wei Yuan's sentence had also scolded him along with them.

After explaining the medicinal properties, the Master Zhi Dan Loose Practitioner let Wei Yuan study the pill formula proportions himself and let him act freely.

At this, Human World Renjian Yanhuo boiled over. Although many "Crouching Long Feng Chick" geniuses didn't understand pill refining themselves, it didn't prevent them from guiding others to refine pills. Wei Yuan instantly harvested hundreds of pill formulas, some of which seemed to make a lot of sense, while others were complete nonsense.

Wei Yuan felt that it seemed necessary to open a filtering and screening function in Human World Renjian Yanhuo.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 656 =====