Chapter 22: Refining the Spirit-Enhancing Pill

After finishing the refinement of all the Qi-Inducing Pills, Ye Qingxuan prepared to begin refining the Spirit-Augmenting Pills!

Among the spiritual herbs used for the Spirit-Augmenting Pill, the primary ingredient was the Earth Spirit Flower.

The Earth Spirit Flower possesses twelve petals of different colors, each containing the essence of one of the twelve great elements of the Earth Profound Realm. This is the main reason why the Spirit-Augmenting Pill is applicable to everyone, as it enhances the efficiency of spiritual root transformation.

The uses of the Earth Spirit Flower are vast; depending on its age, it can serve as either a primary or auxiliary ingredient for various pills. The Earth Spirit Flower used in the Spirit-Augmenting Pill was a one-year-old specimen—the lowest grade available. It wasn't that higher-grade flowers weren't used, but rather that with a cultivation base in the Qi Refining Stage, one simply could not withstand the overwhelming medicinal potency of a higher-aged flower.

The term "one-year-old" did not necessarily mean it had grown for exactly one year; rather, it referred to the potency of its medicinal energy. Since the density of spiritual energy varies, the time required for a spiritual herb to accumulate one year's worth of potency also differs. In the Xuantian Mountain Range, the growth rate of spiritual herbs is astonishing, let alone the blessed lands controlled by the Blessed Cultivators of the Xuantian Sect. Even a mere First-Order blessed land, influenced by high-order spiritual veins and assisted by Blessed Cultivators, could produce effects comparable to a Second-Order or even Third-Order spiritual land in the outside world. This was one of the reasons why the Xuantian Sect heavily promoted the development of Blessed Cultivation.

Ye Qingxuan took out the necessary herbs and reviewed the refinement process for the Spirit-Augmenting Pill in his mind. Once confirmed, he began his first attempt at refining the pill.

One by one, the herbs were introduced into the cauldron at specific intervals, being slowly refined by the Dao Fire. It had to be said that refining the Spirit-Augmenting Pill was indeed much more tedious; it required seven different herbs in total! This was four more than what was needed for the Qi-Inducing Pill. Furthermore, the Spirit-Augmenting Pill had strict requirements regarding the timing of herb entry, refinement duration, and even the sequence and timing of their fusion. Had it not been for Ye Qingxuan's incredible memory and his perfected Fire Control Technique, he might have failed long ago.

As time passed, Ye Qingxuan proceeded step-by-step according to the pill recipe. Half an hour soon passed, and he reached the stage of fusing the herbal essences. Under his control, the essences transformed from the herbs began to fuse one after another with extreme precision in both timing and sequence!

As the essences began to merge, the cauldron began to gather spiritual energy! The once-simple cauldron began to glow faintly, drawing in the surrounding spiritual energy and continuously pouring it into the fusing essences. Seeing this, the corners of Ye Qingxuan's mouth curled up slightly.

But in the next second, the gathered spiritual energy suddenly became chaotic and dissipated, causing the herbal essences within the cauldron to evaporate instantly!

Witnessing this, Ye Qingxuan said in disbelief, "How is this possible? I clearly didn't make a mistake. How could the condensation process of the Spirit-Augmenting Pill fail?"

Ye Qingxuan was filled with confusion, but he had no teacher to provide answers at this moment. The Xuantian Sect naturally had its own Pill Hall, where specialists were available to resolve the doubts of the sect's alchemists. However, that required paying in contribution points. Unless Ye Qingxuan could pass the Pill Hall's assessment and join them, he would only receive free guidance through certain opportunities. To continuously benefit from alchemical knowledge for free, one had to demonstrate extraordinary talent and join under the tutelage of a Pill Hall Elder, who would then naturally provide vigorous cultivation.

However, this was not the path Ye Qingxuan wished to take. If he joined a Pill Hall Elder and became their disciple, he would never be allowed to become a Blessed Cultivator! As a long-lived being with low cultivation talent, becoming a Blessed Cultivator was Ye Qingxuan's best cover. The long lifespan of a Blessed Cultivator would allow him to "lay low" within the Xuantian Sect indefinitely, without having to worry about his visible lifespan.

A momentary setback was not enough to shake the path in his heart!

"Even if I have to rely solely on myself, I refuse to believe that with my comprehension, I cannot find my way through the path of an Alchemist!" Ye Qingxuan thought to himself. He then took out the Spirit-Augmenting Pill recipe and studied it carefully once more.

After confirming he had made no errors, Ye Qingxuan closed his eyes and began to recall every detail of the refinement process he had observed with his divine sense. Immersed in the previous process, he sought a deep understanding of his own refinement techniques.

As he replayed the process in his mind, a sudden realization struck him: "It's too mechanical!"

Indeed, his method of refining pills was too mechanical. Upon this realization, Ye Qingxuan slowly opened his eyes and whispered, "So that's it!"

Although he had followed the recipe strictly, the entire process was too rigid, lacking a certain element of fluidity. If pills could be refined simply by following a recipe to the letter, how could the threshold for being an alchemist be so high? A recipe only provides a general direction. While following every detail of a recipe can indeed produce a pill, such details only work under identical conditions. Even changes in climate and weather would require adjustments in the refinement details.

Therefore, to become a true alchemist, one had to comprehend these variations. Only by gradually understanding and mastering these changes could one truly become an alchemist! Once these variations were mastered, one could use the recipe as a blueprint and adapt to external changes—using flexibility to achieve success. This was the key to refining high-order pills!

The reason he had been able to refine the Qi-Inducing Pills earlier was simply because their grade was too low, and the variables were limited. Thus, he could succeed using a mechanical method. But the Spirit-Augmenting Pill was different!

Although pills are divided into grades one through nine, and both the Qi-Inducing and Spirit-Augmenting pills are First-Order, pills of the same grade are further subdivided into four qualities: Low, Mid, High, and Peak! The Qi-Inducing Pill was a First-Order Low-grade pill, whereas the Spirit-Augmenting Pill was a First-Order Peak-grade pill. This was also why Ye Qingxuan had found the market flooded with Qi-Inducing Pills. There was no other reason than the fact that the difficulty of refining them was extremely low. Basically, as long as one memorized the recipe and practiced a few times, refining them was not difficult for most cultivators. After all, once one becomes a cultivator, the body undergoes comprehensive evolution, and most people possess decent memories.

As for so-called "comprehension geniuses" like Ye Qingxuan, it was simply because their soul essence was different from ordinary people, providing a massive foundation that allowed their breakthroughs during cultivation to be much greater than others. This was the fundamental reason why a genius's comprehension could stay ahead of everyone else. However, if the gap in cultivation was too large, no matter how heaven-defying one's comprehension was, a low-level cultivator could not compete with a peak expert. One could not treat the cultivation realms earned through hard work as mere trifles; the qualitative change brought about by quantitative accumulation was equally extraordinary!

After understanding why his attempt had failed, Ye Qingxuan did not choose to stop. Instead, after a period of meditation to recover his spiritual energy, he opened the cauldron once more. To truly comprehend and master these variations and turn them into instinct, one had to continuously experience them through the act of refining. One could not master such nuances through mere brooding.

Thus, over the next few days, Ye Qingxuan continuously attempted to refine the Spirit-Augmenting Pill. Although every attempt ended in failure, he gained significant insights from each one. As his understanding grew, Ye Qingxuan finally managed to produce his first batch of Spirit-Augmenting Pills on the third day, albeit with great difficulty.

He failed again on the fourth day, but he was not discouraged; instead, the smile on his face grew wider.

On the fifth day, he succeeded! On the sixth day, he succeeded! On the seventh day, he failed!

By the ninth day, as a batch of Spirit-Augmenting Pills flowed naturally from the cauldron, yielding five pills, Ye Qingxuan finally mastered the variations completely. From that point on, Ye Qingxuan never failed to refine the Spirit-Augmenting Pill again. Furthermore, as his proficiency increased, the number of pills produced per batch also began to rise!

However, since the Spirit-Augmenting Pill was a First-Order Peak-grade pill, the amount of spiritual energy required to refine a single batch was far too much for his current cultivation level. To avoid affecting his own cultivation, Ye Qingxuan limited himself to refining only one batch per day.

As the number of Spirit-Augmenting Pills he produced grew, his cultivation resources finally received a sufficient supply. Previously, the sect provided him with thirty pills per month, meaning he could only consume one pill per day on average. Now, Ye Qingxuan could consume three Spirit-Augmenting Pills every day!

One Spirit-Augmenting Pill could maintain his state for three hours, doubling his cultivation speed during that time. By taking three pills a day, his enhanced cultivation time increased from three hours to nine hours, greatly accelerating his progress. It wasn't that Ye Qingxuan didn't want to take more, but rather that his body's meridians could not withstand the prolonged flushing of spiritual energy. However, through this long-term cultivation, his meridians were not without gain; their capacity to endure was also steadily increasing!