Chapter 23: Mid-Stage Qi Refining

Spring goes and autumn comes; in the blink of an eye, another year has passed!

Inside the small courtyard, Ye Qingxuan slowly exhaled a cloud of white mist as he sat in meditation.

He took out his vibrating disciple token and infused it with spiritual power. A voice then entered his mind

"Junior Brother Ye, I have broken through to the Great Circle of Qi Refinement! I have already left the Blessed Cultivation Academy to select a Blessed Land to become a Blessed Cultivator. You must work hard! Don't let your Senior Brother down!"

Hearing this voice, Ye Qingxuan froze for a moment. After reacting, he spoke slowly

"Senior Brother Su Daobin? Time truly flies! In the blink of an eye, another year has passed!"

After a moment of thought, Ye Qingxuan replied to Su Daobin

"Junior Brother Ye Qingxuan wishes Senior Brother a long and prosperous immortal path!"

Then, putting away his disciple token, Ye Qingxuan began to take stock of his gains over the past year.

During this year, thanks to the assistance of a large amount of Spirit Augmenting Pills for his cultivation, his progress was not slow, but rather rapid. In just one year, he had broken through to the fourth level of Qi Refinement, entering the middle stage of the Qi Refinement realm.

In this year, Ye Qingxuan had not only made breakthroughs in his cultivation base, but his alchemy skills had also made significant strides.

Now, he could stably control the yield of a single batch of Spirit Augmenting Pills to be between eight and nine pills!

The reason he could not exceed ten pills per batch was not because Ye Qingxuan had hit a bottleneck, but due to the limitations of his cauldron.

The higher the grade of a medicinal pill, the greater the energy required, and the more stringent the corresponding refining requirements.

High-grade pills not only require a high-level cauldron but also often result in a very low yield.

The reason for this is that the higher the grade of the pill, the more spiritual energy must be infused during the formation process.

Even high-level alchemists must reduce the number of pills produced per batch to ensure a successful refinement and increase the success rate.

By the time one reaches eighth or ninth-grade pills, most batches can only produce a single pill.

Although the Spirit Augmenting Pills Ye Qingxuan was currently refining were only first-grade peak pills, his cauldron was only at the mid-grade Dharma Tool level, meaning the spiritual energy gathered during formation was limited.

Thus, when refining Spirit Augmenting Pills, he could only control the yield to eight or nine pills per batch!

But even so, for Ye Qingxuan, this could be considered highly profitable.

A set of spiritual herbs for Spirit Augmenting Pills cost ten low-grade spirit stones at the Hundred Treasures Pavilion, while the buyback price for a single Spirit Augmenting Pill was nine low-grade spirit stones.

One set of herbs could allow Ye Qingxuan to refine eight to nine pills, meaning his profit margin could reach seven or eight times the cost!

Of course, if he set up a stall to sell them himself, the profit would be even higher, but that would waste a vast amount of time, which Ye Qingxuan felt was not worth the trade-off.

Over the course of the year, excluding his own consumption for cultivation, Ye Qingxuan had accumulated 2,365 Spirit Augmenting Pills.

He had used 389 sets of spiritual herbs, leaving him with 2,911 sets remaining.

Aside from the beginning when he needed to consume several sets of herbs daily to practice, once he truly mastered the refinement of Spirit Augmenting Pills, he only consumed one set per day.

The remaining herbs were enough for Ye Qingxuan to refine pills for nearly eight years!

However, he did not intend to continue his seclusion for eight years; instead, he planned to go out on a trip.

Before leaving, Ye Qingxuan thought for a moment and sent a message to Senior Sister Hong Miaomiao, whom he had befriended in the market previously

"Senior Sister Hong, do you take Spirit Augmenting Pills?"

Just as he was about to put away his disciple token, he found that Hong Miaomiao had already replied

"I do! I do! I do! How many Spirit Augmenting Pills does Junior Brother have? Your Senior Sister will take them all!"

"Not many. Let's meet near our last stall!"

"Alright, Junior Brother!"

After making arrangements with Hong Miaomiao, Ye Qingxuan sent another message to Senior Brother Bai Wenyang of the Hundred Treasures Pavilion

"Senior Brother Bai, I have successfully refined Spirit Augmenting Pills. I will come to the Hundred Treasures Pavilion to find you shortly!"

With his current cultivation at the Qi Refinement stage, refining such a large quantity of Spirit Augmenting Pills was simply too abnormal.

To avoid drawing attention, Ye Qingxuan decided to sell the pills in batches to reduce the risk of exposure.

Since he had chosen to become a Blessed Cultivator, he would honestly develop in the shadows, trying his best not to attract outside attention and minimize the risk of revealing his uniqueness.

This was the path Ye Qingxuan had planned since the moment he joined the Xuantian Sect.

Want to show off? He would wait until he found a method to create a split avatar or refine puppets to create a "smurf" account unrelated to his main body!

In any case, his main body absolutely could not act recklessly!

It was much safer to live quietly behind the scenes and cultivate within the Xuantian Sect. Going out to play recklessly could result in being wiped out by a sudden wave.

After his daily reflection and once again consolidating his Dao heart, Ye Qingxuan put away his disciple token, summoned his flying sword, and flew toward the teleportation array near the Blessed Cultivation Academy.

Passing by a certain mountain peak, Ye Qingxuan couldn't resist casually casting a Spring Breeze and Rain Technique!

After Ye Qingxuan left, spiritual clouds began to gather above that mountain peak, and a spiritual rain that nourished all things slowly began to fall.

As time passed, the spiritual rain grew heavier, lasting for a full hour.

This spiritual rain significantly increased the spiritual energy of the vegetation on the mountain below, and even a few mortal plants on the verge of breakthrough underwent a transformation, evolving into spiritual plants.

A year had passed, and Ye Qingxuan's Spring Breeze and Rain Technique had long since reached perfection, which was why it produced such an effect.

Ye Qingxuan had never forgotten his path: the Blessed Land he would control after becoming a Blessed Cultivator was his true foundation.

Before that, besides working hard to increase his cultivation, the most important thing was to lay the groundwork for the future development of his Blessed Land.

Now that he had entered the path of alchemy and mastered the variables of pill refining, Ye Qingxuan had become a true alchemist!

But this was not enough. Becoming an alchemist could only guarantee his cultivation resources once he became a Blessed Cultivator; it did not have a direct impact on the Blessed Land itself.

To accelerate the advancement of a Blessed Land, the cultivation of various spiritual plants was indispensable.

And the Spring Breeze and Rain Technique would be one of his methods to assist spiritual plant growth in the future.

But even this was insufficient. His understanding of various spiritual plants was still too shallow, especially regarding their growth environments and their auxiliary effects on the advancement of a Blessed Land!

Therefore, the main purpose of this trip was for Ye Qingxuan to seek knowledge regarding spiritual plants and Blessed Lands to prepare for his future development.

Secondly, he would deal with the accumulated Spirit Augmenting Pills in his possession.

Inside the Hundred Treasures Pavilion within the internal market of the Xuantian Sect!

Only after finishing service for a customer did Bai Wenyang take out the vibrating disciple token in his robe.

As he probed it with his divine sense, he saw the message Ye Qingxuan had sent him, and he said with some astonishment

"He succeeded already? And those are first-grade peak pills?"

"It seems this Junior Brother Ye has quite a talent for alchemy. At the early stage of Qi Refinement, he has already refined Spirit Augmenting Pills in just one short year?"

However, he was only slightly interested in Ye Qingxuan's alchemical talent; he didn't care much about the quantity of pills in Ye Qingxuan's hands.

For an early-stage Qi Refinement cultivator who had just started learning to refine Spirit Augmenting Pills, after accounting for the time spent exploring and the inevitable failures over a year, they would at most have refined a hundred or so pills.

Having enough pills to satisfy one's daily cultivation needs was already quite good.

He estimated that his Junior Brother Ye simply wanted to sell some pills to recoup some spirit stones.