Alchemy had different flame requirements than artifact refining. When her natal fire was still available, she could control it at will.
But now, restricted to mortal fire, she had to carefully select the type of charcoal fire she used. Shi Yu put away the Gansong Charcoal previously used for artifact refining, retrieved a few medium-sized pieces of Jade Light Charcoal, and placed them into the pill furnace.
Channeling a strand of spiritual energy into them, the Jade Light Charcoal ignited, and flames rose slowly.
Compared to the fire produced by Gansong Charcoal, the fire from Jade Light Charcoal was gentler and more sustained.
Broadly speaking, alchemy was divided into four steps: purification, fusion, division, and spirit infusion.
Beyond possessing an inherited pill recipe, the process required identifying the medicinal properties of spiritual plants, determining the proportions and degree of fusion for each plant, controlling the intensity of the flame, and more. It was extremely complex, requiring countless trials and extraordinary perception to master.
Shi Yu enveloped the pill furnace with her spiritual sense. Once the furnace warmed and its internal temperature stabilized, she flicked her finger, sending a stalk of Jade Dew Grass inside.
The Jade Dew Grass was azure blue all over, with a rounded membrane bulging on its top leaf, resembling a crystal-clear dewdrop and exuding a faint moisture.
The moment the Jade Dew Grass entered the furnace, it was swallowed by the flames. The membrane at the top began to melt, and its stem and leaves blackened and curled. Soon, it was calcined into a shimmering blue liquid that held together within the fire... Grasping another stalk with her right hand, Shi Yu tossed it in, focusing all her attention on controlling the temperature inside the furnace.
At this stage, a moment's carelessness would cause the blue liquid to vaporize and disappear, or harden into unusable medicinal slag.
After tossing in three stalks of Jade Dew Grass in succession, the blue liquid gradually expanded, twisting and deforming within the flames.
As the high heat continuously burned away impurities, the liquid shrank until only a pigeon-egg-sized droplet remained. Its blue color became deeper and more mesmerizing, releasing a subtle fragrance.
This was considered the simplest part of alchemy. Next, while maintaining the stability of this Jade Dew liquid, she had to split her spiritual sense to refine the Qi Gathering Grass into liquid and eliminate its impurities. After that, while maintaining the stability of both liquids, she had to divide her sense once more to refine the Half-Sided Orchid.
During this process, the three medicinal liquids had to remain separated. If they touched, their medicinal properties would disrupt each other, ruining the subsequent fusion and division steps.
Even a Tier-1 pill like the Dew-Condensing Pill placed such high demands on spiritual sense control. For higher-tier pills that required a dozen or even twenty different spiritual plants, the difficulty was imaginable.
Next, Shi Yu tossed three stalks of Qi Gathering Grass and two stalks of Half-Sided Orchid into the flames.
If anyone had been watching, they would have marveled at how rhythmic every move she made was. Fluid and seamless, without a hint of hesitation or roughness, her timing was flawless down to the split second.
After purifying each ingredient into liquid, Shi Yu began the second step: fusion.
As the three liquids of different attributes touched, a sizzling sound arose, along with wisps of vapor.
As the vapor dissipated, the three differently colored liquid droplets merged into a single mass of brown liquid. Its aura grew stable and calm, closely resembling that of a finished Dew-Condensing Pill.
Controlling the liquid, Shi Yu wrapped spiritual energy with her spiritual sense to divide it into six or seven equal portions. Rough pill cores slowly emerged within the Jade Light Charcoal fire, spinning continuously.
With the pill division complete, the next step was spirit infusion.
Shi Yu performed an alchemy hand seal, slowly infusing the dispersed medicinal energy inside the furnace into the pill cores. The pitted surfaces of the six or seven cores were quickly smoothed out, making them round, slick, and the size of longan pits, with a pleasingly gentle color.
She brought out a prepared jade bottle, and with a sweep of her spiritual sense, the freshly refined Dew-Condensing Pills lined up and rolled into the bottle one by one.
Shi Yu picked one up to inspect it. The Dew-Condensing Pill before her was a neat, smooth, perfect sphere with a delightful fragrance, its small surface enveloped in a hazy halo of light... It had reached the level of a High-Grade pill.
Without pill veins, it was still quite a ways off from the higher level of a Supreme-Grade pill.
In the past, whenever she refined low-tier pills like this, she produced Supreme-Grade pills effortlessly. Now, even after putting in her full effort, she could only manage a batch of High-Grade pills.
This was unavoidable. In the game, she possessed a Supreme-grade Fire-attribute Spiritual Meridian and a fiercely vibrant natal fire, which provided immense assistance in alchemy.
Now, she lacked a natal fire and had only a low-grade spiritual meridian, naturally lacking fire Qi. Reaching this standard was already quite good.
Furthermore, the ingredients she used now were incomparable. In the game, every spiritual plant she used possessed potent medicinal properties. With her current limited resources, the three types of spiritual plants she bought were low-age. Judging solely by their medicinal properties, producing Mid-Grade pills would have been impressive enough.
This was thanks to the spiritual energy nourishing them inside the Fate-Tapping Bell, which had benefited the plants and greatly boosted their medicinal potency, ultimately enabling the creation of High-Grade pills.
Fortunately, High-Grade pills could release nearly one hundred percent of their efficacy with negligible pill toxicity. They were more than good enough for consumption—far better than the Low-Grade Dew-Condensing Pills sold in shops.
Shi Yu swallowed one and narrowed her eyes slightly. After getting used to Low-Grade Dew-Condensing Pills, taking a High-Grade one gave her an intoxicating sense of bliss, akin to hyperoxia.
The medicinal potency within was exceptionally rich, quickly transforming into dense spiritual energy inside her body.
After regulating her breathing for a moment, she began refining the second batch.
...
She could refine about five batches a day. After brewing pills continuously for several days, a neat row of small jade bottles filled with Dew-Condensing Pills lined up inside the Fate-Tapping Bell, totaling nearly two hundred pills.
Shi Yu had an extremely low failure rate when refining low-tier pills, making her efficiency astounding. Moreover, considering she needed to sell a portion to earn spirit stones, after refining enough High-Grade Dew-Condensing Pills to last her a good while, she put less effort into the subsequent ones meant for sale, deliberately cutting a few corners.
Thus, among the more than one hundred pills produced afterward, most were Mid-Grade, with a small fraction of High-Grade mixed in.
In short, it was still out of caution to conceal her true capabilities.
One could never have too many cultivation resources, nor could one simply take things one step at a time; everything she needed had to be prepared as early as possible.
The most common pills in the Qi Refining Realm were Dew-Condensing Pills and Rejuvenation Pills. The spiritual plants required for these two could be purchased anywhere, so there was no need to worry about them.
What Shi Yu was thinking of was an extremely important pill she would need later on—the Foundation Establishment Pill.
After Qi Refining came Foundation Establishment, a hurdle that blocked countless cultivators. If one failed Foundation Establishment, dropping in realm was bad enough, but what was most fatal was that after failure, the bottleneck would thicken, drastically reducing the probability of future success. Quite a few even suffered damaged dantians or lost their lives.
This highlighted the importance of the Foundation Establishment Pill even further. By stabilizing the yellow sprout and boosting magic power, it not only increased the chance of successful Foundation Establishment, but also granted cultivators additional benefits, allowing them to quickly stabilize the volatile period following a breakthrough.
Although Shi Yu was still only in the early stage of the Qi Refining Realm, the main herbs for the Foundation Establishment Pill were extremely hard to find, so she had to stay vigilant at all times.
Furthermore, setting up the Spirit-Gathering Array required numerous heavenly materials and earthly treasures, all of which demanded hefty expenses.
This meant she would still have to trouble Jiang Qihe, and naturally, the more spirit stones she had, the better.
Preparing to take the pills to Tongyi Pavilion for sale, she recalled that she had already sent Chen Er to run errands regarding the spirit talismans. If she had him sell pills for her as well, with Manager Jiang's sharp wit, her identity as an alchemist would certainly be exposed.
Shi Yu changed into women's attire and put on a veil. “I'll still have to go myself, and while I'm at it, instruct Manager Jiang to keep an eye out for spiritual plants and materials for me.”
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