Wen Jingshu took a few deep breaths to calm herself down.
After adjusting her state, she began performing hand seals to refine pills. However, she still failed on her first attempt.
This long-unfelt failure made Wen Jingshu frown slightly, and she began reviewing her previous refining process.
She wasn't the young Wen Jingshu who had never experienced setbacks. As a talisman cultivator, Wen Jingshu had faced so many hardships along her path that she would have found it strange if she had succeeded on her first try.
On the contrary, this failure felt normal to her.
After analyzing her previous mistakes, Wen Jingshu focused her mind and performed the hand seals again. On her second attempt, she succeeded.
Once the cauldron lid flew open, Wen Jingshu quickly waved her hand to retrieve the pills. As the pills drifted in front of her, she swept her gaze over them. There were still only eleven.
“Three mid-grade, three high-grade, and five supreme-grade!”
Although the quantity hadn't increased, this set of hand seals could significantly improve the quality of the pills, which was still a massive harvest.
It was just that... how was this a sword cultivator's legacy site? This was clearly an alchemy legacy site!
Fortunately, her main goal had been to keep an eye on Yun Xiange, so she hadn't skipped out on this place just because it was a Golden Core Stage legacy site. Otherwise, wouldn't she have missed out on such a massive opportunity for nothing?
As Wen Jingshu successfully refined the pills, the scene in the alchemy room suddenly shifted. When she opened her eyes again, she found herself in a stone cave. Before her stood a skeleton sitting in a meditative posture.
Hanging behind the skeleton was a lifelike landscape painting. The silhouette of a woman's back was hidden within it, and the top-left corner bore a poem: “Casting aside worldly affairs, the body feels light; strolling at leisure, wandering as I please. Clouds roll and unfold, all captured in sight; as the gentle breeze joins me to admire the bright mountains.”
Signed: Xianguan.
Xianguan? Wen Jingshu searched her memories but couldn't think of who this was. Perhaps they were a reclusive expert, or maybe a senior from ten thousand years ago?
Wen Jingshu had no way of knowing. Regardless, they had passed down a set of alchemy hand seals to her, making them her nominal master. She stood up and respectfully bowed to the skeleton to perform the disciple-initiation ceremony.
The moment Wen Jingshu finished her bow, the skeleton crumbled into ashes, leaving a small alchemy cauldron where it had once sat.
After bowing once more, she stepped forward and picked up the cauldron. She dripped a drop of blood onto it to claim ownership, instantly receiving information about the cauldron.
This cauldron was an Eighth-Grade Spiritual Tool named the Xuanyuan Tripod. Using it for alchemy could save thirty percent of one's spiritual energy and divine sense. If paired with the twenty-eight hand seals, it could save an additional twenty percent.
More importantly, this tripod could extract more medicinal essence from spiritual herbs.
The reason she was able to refine eleven pills earlier was precisely because the cauldron in the illusion was this very Xuanyuan Tripod.
Upon learning this, Wen Jingshu couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed.
She had thought that performing the twenty-eight hand seals alone could yield an extra pill. As it turned out, it relied on the cauldron.
But on second thought, it made sense. For thousands of years, the maximum yield for a single batch of pills had always been ten. If a mere set of hand seals could produce an extra pill, wouldn't it have become widespread long ago?
Well, this cauldron was still a treasure. Since she hadn't fully refined it yet, she could give it to her sister after they left.
The effects of her mutated spiritual root and the cauldron couldn't stack, so keeping it in her hands would be a waste.
Extremely pleased with her bountiful harvest, Wen Jingshu exited the space, only to find that the other three had not yet emerged.
Intending to observe Yun Xiange and Bai Han further, Wen Jingshu sat down beneath a giant tree nearby, enjoying a rare moment of leisure as she waited for the three of them.
With various thoughts spinning in her head, she toyed with the shrunken Xuanyuan Tripod in her hand. As she played with it, she suddenly felt that something was off about the tripod.
Wen Jingshu sat up straight and carefully examined the Xuanyuan Tripod. Surprisingly, she actually found a hidden mechanism on the inner wall.
Wen Jingshu channeled a trace of spiritual energy, causing a stone to pop out. When she probed it with her spiritual energy once more, a massive influx of information rushed into her mind.
When she opened her eyes again, her body was being controlled by an external force, and a faint sword of light materialized in her hand.
When the sword light flared, it showed no sharp edge, appearing instead like a wisp of drifting cloud gently rolling in a cool breeze. Wen Jingshu lightly spun and leaped toward the lake like floating smoke under the moonlight. Her steps trod on empty air without leaving a trace, completely untouched by the moisture of the water.
With a light flick of her wrist, the three-foot-long sword transformed into a sky of fine, fragmented silver light. She neither slashed nor stabbed, merely letting the sword flow and drift alongside her movements.
As she rose and fell, her posture was as elegant as a startled swan and as graceful as a soaring dragon. Her toes touched the ground for only an instant before she glided more than a zhang away. Her sleeves fluttered like light mist hanging over a river, and the lingering shadows of her sword resembled the endless clouds drifting above the water.
Her strikes seemed gentle, and wherever the sword edge swept, it only raised a faint white haze. Though the moves were clearly right before one's eyes, reaching out to catch them would yield nothing but emptiness.
The momentum of her sword scattered and gathered unpredictably. When scattered, it was like a galaxy of fragmented mist blanketing all directions; when gathered, a single thread of faint light pierced through the depths of the clouds, drifting erratically, making it impossible to discern its origin or trajectory.
As she advanced and retreated, she dissolved into the faint light and shadow. Person and sword merged into a single hazy silhouette, as if she were riding the wind and treading on clouds. There were no set forms or stances; she simply moved as she pleased, her sword light like smoke and mist, making it impossible to distinguish between reality and illusion.
Wen Jingshu locked her gaze onto a giant boulder ahead and gently swung her sword. The boulder was instantly sliced into fragments by thousands of gentle yet fierce strands of sword qi.
Wen Jingshu lowered her hand, the strange light in her eyes fading. “The first stance of the Xianguan Sword Art: Following One's Heart.”
When cultivated to great perfection, this sword art would allow her to move at incredible speeds while still maintaining lethal power. She could even use it to escape!
Just thinking about how she could unleash sword qi to attack while making her escape in the future made her feel incredibly thrilled!
Having obtained the twenty-eight alchemy hand seals, the Xuanyuan Tripod, and the Earth-grade sword manual Xianguan Sword Art, the smile on Wen Jingshu's face could not be contained.
Cultivating both alchemy and the sword! If this cheap master of hers, Xianguan, were still alive today, they would definitely be her destined master!
On the other side, Yun Xiange had been trapped in her alchemy room for one shichen and had yet to get out.
Her reactions were reasonably fast. Realizing this was an alchemy legacy that she couldn't comprehend, she had wanted to take out a recording stone to record it. Unfortunately, she was a step too late and only managed to record half of it, and she couldn't remember what had come before.
Fu Sinian and Bai Han's situation was much more straightforward and brutal. The two had been teleported to a martial training field, where a phantom figure was similarly demonstrating a sword art.
Both of their aptitudes were top-grade, so they quickly comprehended most of it.
Once Fu Sinian and Bai Han received their sword art legacies and found Yun Xiange, the three of them searched the cave dwelling again. They found dozens of bottles of Fourth and Fifth-Grade pills, one bottle of Seventh-Grade pills, and one bottle of Eighth-Grade pills.
There were also ten thousand low-grade spirit stones, five thousand top-grade spirit stones, and several Seventh-Grade Spiritual Tools.
Looking at the treasures before them, Yun Xiange and Bai Han vaguely felt that something was not quite right.
This was especially true for Bai Han. The sword art legacy he had received possessed immense offensive power, but it was completely different from the sword art he had seen Wen Jingshu use in his past life.
He clearly remembered that Wen Jingshu's sword art was highly aesthetic while also retaining lethal power, making it a rare movement-type sword art.
Did this legacy site hand out different sword manuals based on each individual's talent?
Seeing the three of them emerge, Wen Jingshu teased them, her mood exceptionally bright. “Looking at your expressions... did you fail to find any treasures?”
Bai Han was very familiar with the routine of testing each other's gains after getting separated during a joint treasure hunt. He countered, “What about you, Fellow Daoist Shu? I saw that you were the first to come out. Did you get the legacy ahead of us, or did you come up empty-handed?”
Wen Jingshu replied frankly, “An alchemy legacy. Twenty-eight hand seals.”
If Wen Jingshu claimed she had obtained absolutely nothing from a legacy site, it would only arouse suspicion.
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