Chapter 656: Finding Another Path

Previously, Wei Yuan had once made changes to the Great Sun Morning Glory Pill formula, and the result was a huge tumble. So this time, Wei Yuan learned from the past and would not repeat the same mistake.

Although the Master Zhi Dan old Daoist said to introduce the new, introducing the new didn't necessarily mean changing the pill formula. Wei Yuan prepared to start from other aspects to introduce the new; in any case, the pill formula could not be touched.

At this time, Xu Henshui had already completed the new pill formula, removing one auxiliary medicine and adding three new ones. The Master Zhi Dan Loose Practitioner swept his spiritual sense over it and nodded secretly.

Several Creation Temple disciples who came with the Master Zhi Dan Loose Practitioner were now filled with heartfelt admiration. Being able to modify the pill formula on the spot, with the medicinal properties not decreasing but increasing, Xu Henshui's attainments in pill alchemy were absolutely terrifying; he was worthy of being one of the candidates for the next Temple Master.

The reason why the word "hot favorite" was not mentioned was because the True Lord Dan Ming was in his prime, and it would be three to five hundred years before Xu Henshui could take over as Temple Master. These three to five hundred years were enough for anything to happen, and there was no such thing as a sure thing.

Wei Yuan also began to prepare.

He saw him wave his large hand, and dozens of cultivators surged in from outside, all of them in a rush, carrying various items, as if they were moving house, full of energy.

The cultivators worked together to install various equipment on the spot. They had orderly division of labor and moved quickly. In the blink of an eye, they had built a workshop in the pill temple, occupying more than half of the entire courtyard, including the pill room.

All the pill masters were suspicious and shocked. Pill refining was the most elegant matter. Many pill masters, in order to refine a furnace of peerless good pills, would stay in their caves for decades or even centuries, and only at the moment the pill was formed would they be known to the world. They had never seen Wei Yuan's formation; it simply didn't look like pill refining, but rather like opening a market.

Wei Yuan looked and felt that the manpower was still not enough, so with a wave of his hand, a dozen more cultivators surged in from outside the door.

The Master Zhi Dan old Daoist watched coldly from the sidelines, knowing that these were all Wei Yuan's puppets, but he didn't expose it and just watched.

Once Wei Yuan's manpower was complete, he started the process according to the established steps. All the Dao Foundation warriors instantly received their own orders, and one by one, they took out the medicinal materials, classified them, weighed them, and then began pre-processing.

They saw the warriors finely washing and refining the medicinal materials. This step was fine, but what followed was not right.

Some were slicing, some were shredding, some were boiling with water, some were stir-frying in a pot, some were soaking in wine, some were soaking in oil, some were repeatedly squeezing, and some were dripping a few drops of something after grinding into powder and soaking in water, and then immediately forming large pieces of flocculent matter at the bottom, which were then carefully fished out.

There was also one medicinal material that actually needed to be brushed with seasoning before being roasted with fire.

For a time, the fragrance of medicine overflowed, as if one had entered a medicinal cuisine restaurant.

The Master Zhi Dan Loose Practitioner raised his long eyebrows, but relied on his years of cultivation of Qi to endure it.

Subsequently, they saw several warriors assembling some vats, basins, cans, and tubes together, removing the lid of the pill furnace, and then installing this device on top, and also arranging a formation under the pill furnace, adding five things with nozzles.

After being busy like chickens flying and dogs jumping, it finally reached the pill refining link. Several Creation Temple disciples sneered; they had already seen that Wei Yuan had not modified the pill formula at all, which meant he had already lost the first round.

But it had to be said that having many people meant fast progress. While Xu Henshui was still processing the medicinal materials, Wei Yuan had already started refining pills, but it looked a bit different from ordinary pill refining.

More than a dozen Dao Foundation warriors surrounded the pill furnace, with one sitting at each of the five nozzle devices below, while three stood on the rack above, each responsible for one port of the complex machinery.

Then it was time to light the fire. Wei Yuan flicked his robe sleeve, the pill furnace lit up, and more than ten Dao Foundation warriors filed in to put the processed materials in one by one, and then began to refine the pills.

It was still normal up to here, but what followed was not right. Several Dao Foundation warriors with extraordinary spiritual sense surrounded the pill furnace, measuring the flame temperature at the top, middle, and bottom, as well as the edge and the center of the furnace, respectively.

The complex device at the furnace mouth lit up, presenting an image of the inside of the furnace. Although it was still a bit blurry, it was much clearer than the spiritual sense of ordinary cultivators.

Subsequently, everyone discovered that this device could actually feed medicinal materials, and according to different needs, it could be fed into the top, middle, and bottom sections of the pill furnace separately. It could be thrown in as a whole piece, it could blow powder into the furnace, and it could also add medicine drop by drop.

Then the device began to flicker with light, and displayed the five-element spiritual power values inside the furnace in five colors, naturally with fire as the main one.

What followed was the Dao Foundation warriors responsible for monitoring constantly monitoring the furnace temperature, five-element spiritual energy, and the refining situation of the medicinal materials in the furnace. If the fusion was not very good, they could also stir inside the furnace to make the medicinal quality uniform.

If the five-element spiritual power was uneven, then the five devices under the pill furnace would spray fire accordingly, blowing the five-element spiritual fire into the pill furnace. Those five Dao Foundation warriors were single-minded, listening to instructions, blowing fire when told to, and stopping when told to.

The three warriors standing on the rack were responsible for the Yin and Yang Qi, and one Nascent Soul was responsible for using Dao power to shatter the tiny clumps of medicinal quality in the furnace.

Human World Renjian Yanhuo, through analysis and comparison, believed that the uneven medicinal quality in these tiny clumps was the culprit that lowered the quality of the pills, so Wei Yuan specifically arranged a Nascent Soul warrior to do this.

The Creation Temple disciples were dazzled and dumbfounded. It took a long time for someone to remember one thing: what was Wei Yuan doing?

He looked around and saw Wei Yuan sitting under the shade of a tree, holding a storybook and reading it with fascination. Soon, other Creation Temple disciples also discovered Wei Yuan's anomaly, all of them a bit unable to believe their eyes. This furnace of pills, from beginning to end, Wei Yuan didn't seem to have moved his own hands at all.

Since when did pill refining not require a pill master?

Dozens of Dao Foundation warriors were busy. After a long time, the pill masters saw the pattern; it was nothing more than five-element imbalance plus five-element fire, Yin-Yang disharmony spraying Yin-Yang Qi, temperature monitoring at any time, and medicinal quality unevenness handled immediately.

These were all basic operations of pill masters, and every high-level disciple of the Creation Temple present had this ability. But no one expected that dozens of ordinary Dao Foundations who knew nothing about pill refining, each handling a few simple tasks, could eventually be equivalent to a pill master of the Creation Temple?

At this time, Wei Yuan had already finished reading one storybook and took out a second one. He not only read, but also read with relish, and even made quite a few annotations on the storybook, a dense patch, so serious that it was as if he were reading the Daoist Canon.

In the blink of an eye, three storybooks were finished. Only then did Wei Yuan get up to check the situation of the pill furnace, then bowed to the Master Zhi Dan old Daoist, and left.

All the Creation Temple disciples were at a loss. The pill furnace was still burning; why did Wei Yuan leave? He just left??

At this time, Human World Renjian Yanhuo had already taken over the entire pill refining process. For example, the order received by a Dao Foundation warrior sitting under the pill furnace was: blow fire... stop fire, blow fire... stop fire.

He would only receive this one order, lighting when told to, and stopping when told to.

Other Dao Foundations were roughly similar. Only the few Dao Foundations on standby on the periphery had slightly more complex tasks, which were to find the medicinal materials and weigh them, and then add them to the furnace as needed. This kind of work didn't need a brain; just having hands was enough.

At this time, Wei Yuan first went to the Youhan Realm to check the construction site, and then went to play... observe for a while in the Eldest Senior Sister's dream. Of course, he once again refused the proposal to serve as the leader of the evil cult. In ancient times, it was emphasized to refuse three times, and Wei Yuan strictly followed the ancient etiquette.

After patrolling Qingming again and seeing that nothing had happened, Wei Yuan once again rebuilt the Twelve-Heaven Forging Immortal Array, cut a knife in the void with the Chaos Immortal Blade, and transformed a mass of Chaos Qi.

Wei Yuan did not use up all of this bit of Chaos Qi, but kept a little on himself.

At this time, it was already the ninth day of opening the furnace. Nine was the extreme of numbers, and Xu Henshui opened the furnace.

He saw a three-colored brilliant light rush into the sky, countless heavenly flowers drifted down around, melodious heavenly music lingered around, and the fragrance of pills overflowed. Then the pill room door opened, and Xu Henshui came out smiling, holding a pill tray.

There were twelve pills in this tray, among which three were two-pattern, nine were one-pattern, and there were actually no bald pills without patterns!

Such pill quality made even the Master Zhi Dan Loose Practitioner moved, and he praised a few words. The Master Zhi Dan Loose Practitioner naturally could see that Xu Henshui was able to refine this furnace of pills because he had moved his hands and feet on the medicinal materials. The three auxiliary medicines he added were all taken out by himself, all over 500 years old, and the medicinal power was very strong.

However, the Master Zhi Dan Loose Practitioner naturally would not mention this small matter.

Xu Henshui enjoyed the congratulations from his fellow disciples, walked out of the courtyard happily, glanced at Wei Yuan's side, and then froze.

Wei Yuan's side was still full of momentum, dozens of Dao Foundation cultivators were busy, but after watching for a while, one could find that they were basically repeating the same few things.

The problem was, Xu Henshui didn't see where Wei Yuan was.

"Where is Wei Yuan?" Xu Henshui asked his fellow junior brother beside him.

That junior brother said, "He left on the first day of refining and hasn't appeared until now."

Xu Henshui was greatly surprised: "He just relied on these people to refine pills here?"

"Indeed so." That Creation Temple disciple also couldn't help but roll his eyes.

Xu Henshui was very suspicious and stood on the side to observe, and then found that every Dao Foundation cultivator had a clear division of labor. The work that could be finished by one pill master was forcibly divided into dozens of parts, and it was divided quite reasonably, busy but not chaotic.

He stole another glance at the expression of the Master Zhi Dan old Daoist. The ancestor was closing his eyes and resting, roaming the void.

Based on Xu Henshui's understanding of him, no reaction was the biggest reaction, which showed that Wei Yuan's pill refining method actually had merits? At least it didn't make the ancestor furious.

At this time, the Master Zhi Dan Loose Practitioner said slowly, "Although this method is absurd, it is indeed effective. What is rare is that after nearly ten days, there hasn't been a single mistake. Being able to break down pill refining into so many processes itself shows that the understanding of pill alchemy is beyond what ordinary people can reach."

"It's just that this pill refining method is too artisanal and lacks the wonder of spiritual rhyme and accidental discovery. If you want to be an ordinary pill master, you can learn this way. But if you want to refine high-quality, supreme-quality, or even peerless-quality pills, it won't work."

Which of the Creation Temple disciples would be willing to be an ordinary pill master? Naturally, they all pursued spirit pills that could refine Dao patterns. Hearing the Master Zhi Dan Daoist say this, their hearts immediately calmed down. Wei Yuan's pill refining method was nothing more than refining ordinary objects. No matter how many ordinary objects there were, without spirit pills, it was difficult to be called a pill master.

Everyone wanted to see what Wei Yuan could come up with by messing around like this.

In the blink of an eye, it was the eighteenth day. After Wei Yuan cut another knife of Chaos, he received a reminder from Human World Renjian Yanhuo, so he returned to Qingming and went back to the pill temple.

The Master Zhi Dan Loose Practitioner suddenly said "Hmm," opened his eyes, and looked at Wei Yuan with some doubt. All the Creation Temple disciples only felt that the Wei Yuan in front of them was a bit different, but they couldn't say where it was different, only that they were inexplicably palpitating and uneasy.

The Master Zhi Dan Loose Practitioner suddenly nodded slightly and said, "So he went to gather Qi."

"Fortunately, I caught up with the pill output." Wei Yuan came to the pill furnace and directly threw in a thousand strands of Azure Qi. The pills in the pill furnace had already matured, and under the point of luck, they instantly bloomed with five-colored light, forming a brilliant beam of light that rushed straight into the sky!

One by one, spirit pills flew out of the pill furnace and were all collected into the tray by Wei Yuan with a wave of his hand. Eighteen days, exactly eighteen Great Sun Morning Glory Pills, all of them one-pattern!

While all the Creation Temple disciples were dumbfounded, Wei Yuan flicked his finger and popped out two more points of Chaos Qi, and the spiritual nature of the two pills suddenly became deep and obscure, and each floated a Dao pattern.

(End of chapter)