Chapter 180: Skillful Application, Observational Insight

He Pingsheng did not immediately proceed to refine the second batch of pills; after cleaning the cauldron, he sat calmly, carefully recalling every detail of his pill-refining process.

What was wrong?

What differed from the recorded formula?

And what did I fail to control?

Only by summarizing gains and losses can one advance further.

Early the next morning, He Pingsheng began refining pills again.

Second batch!

Having learned from his first failure, he did not explode the cauldron this time.

Yet he still failed to produce a successful pill—only twelve duds.

"Phew…"

He Pingsheng exhaled in relief.

To him, duds were no different from superior or Jipin pills.

Placed in the Treasure Basin for enhancement, all would ultimately become doubled Jipin pills.

But who, when refining pills, does not wish to truly succeed?

"Continue!" He Pingsheng tossed the duds aside and began the third batch.

Third batch—still duds!

In the days that followed, three batches daily!

Fourth batch—duds!

Fifth batch—duds!

Sixth batch—successful pills!

Finally, after five consecutive failures, He Pingsheng successfully refined a batch of second-rank pills.

The quality was certainly the lowest—all twelve were inferior.

Inferior was fine!

He Pingsheng smiled broadly.

After all, he had refined second-rank pills through his own effort.

As long as one could refine second-rank pills, regardless of quality, one was a second-rank pill-refiner.

He still had four batches of herbs left.

He Pingsheng continued refining!

Seventh batch—successful again.

Twelve inferior pills!

Eighth batch—duds.

Ninth batch—duds.

Only one batch of material remained.

He Pingsheng stared at the last remaining batch and suddenly had a novel idea.

When refining pills, he always boiled the herbs in water to extract their medicinal juices, then condensed the juice into pills.

But the "Thirty-Six Pill Formulas" also stated that water should be avoided if possible.

Water was a last resort.

What should be used instead?

Spirit liquid!

He Pingsheng had spirit liquid—two large gourds filled with it.

Golden Bee Sacred Juice was also a type of spirit liquid.

Of course, he could not simply pour a whole pot of Golden Bee Sacred Juice in—that would never produce pills.

His idea was to use just one drop.

One drop of Golden Bee Sacred Juice blended into the water would turn the water into spirit liquid.

Would this improve the success rate of pill refinement?

He Pingsheng decided to try.

For the final batch, after adding water, he dropped in one drop of Golden Bee Sacred Juice.

Then he continued refining!

Whether because of the Sacred Juice or not, this final batch succeeded.

To He Pingsheng's astonishment, of the twelve pills, two were superior and ten were middle-grade.

This…

He Pingsheng knew this was not due to improved refining skill—it was the spirit liquid's doing.

"Excellent!" He Pingsheng was overjoyed: "I never expected Golden Bee Sacred Juice to have such a miraculous effect!"

"It can enhance the quality of second-rank pills?"

After his joy, he frowned: What a waste!

Truly a waste.

Adding Sacred Juice improved pill quality, but how much spirit stone could he sell them for?

This batch wouldn't fetch more than ten thousand spirit stones.

Yet one drop of Golden Bee Sacred Juice could instantly refill a Foundation Establishment cultivator's dantian—its value was obvious.

If taken to a trading society, it would surely fetch a sky-high price.

So it was a massive loss.

Must not waste it again.

He Pingsheng put away the cauldron and took inventory.

Of ten batches of material, he obtained three batches of pills.

Overall, not bad.

After all, the first five batches had been complete failures.

"Enhance them!"

He Pingsheng tossed the twelve duds into the Treasure Basin.

The full moon rose, moonlight like snow.

Under the Treasure Basin's pull, moonlight outside the window slowly gathered and flowed into the basin, enhancing the pills.

Since acquiring the Treasure Basin, He Pingsheng had always enhanced pills directly—he had never witnessed the enhancement process. Today, he suddenly wished to observe it.

So for the rest of the night, his spiritual sense remained fixed on the dark basin.

Of course, the basin was inside the Hundred Treasures Bag.

At first, countless strands of moonlight entered the duds, but the duds showed no change.

Then, at some moment, the twelve duds suddenly became twenty-four.

Abruptly.

He Pingsheng continued observing.

He soon noticed that after a while, the pills' quality changed.

From duds, they became inferior pills!

All twenty-four were inferior.

After more time, inferior became middle-grade.

And so on—middle-grade became superior!

Superior became Jipin.

Crucially, when all twenty-four pills became Jipin, it was still far from dawn.

Meaning, enhancement could continue.

He Pingsheng reached in, took out the twenty-four Jipin Spirit Gathering Pills, and placed twelve more duds inside.

By dawn, the twelve duds had become twenty-four Jipin pills.

Seeing this process, He Pingsheng drew a deep breath.

This pill-enhancement process was immensely useful to him.

For example, if one day he needed to sell pills for resources—take Foundation Establishment Pills, for instance—higher quality meant greater value.

But not higher was always better.

If all were Jipin, selling them might bring higher value, but also invite disaster.

Each such pill was equivalent to a guaranteed path to Foundation Establishment.

Naturally, they were priceless.

Yet if major factions believed a lowly Foundation Establishment cultivator with no background could refine Jipin Foundation Establishment Pills, the consequences were obvious.

Jipin pills couldn't be sold; inferior pills were too low in value.

What to do?

Best to sell superior pills.

Having seen this enhancement process, He Pingsheng realized he could now control the quality of the pills.

When the pills reached superior grade, simply retrieve them—wouldn't that be perfect?

Of course, this is merely a future money-making idea—it doesn't affect current cultivation.

He Pingsheng put away the supreme-grade elixir and continued strengthening.

Now, he strengthened two batches of waste elixirs at once.

At the same time, he opened his mouth and swallowed half a pill of the supreme-grade 【Soul-Returning Pill】; the spiritual energy within his body began to surge wildly.

After all, he had only just reached Foundation Establishment Level One, and the medicinal power within the supreme-grade Soul-Returning Pill was too potent—he feared that swallowing a full pill would overwhelm him.

The result proved that even half a pill was too much.

Most of the energy from that half-pill of Soul-Returning Pill escaped into the air before he could fully refine it.