Wen Jingshu was able to quickly realize that what she had just felt was the medicinal properties of the spiritual plant, which was also thanks to the Intelligence Awakening Pill she had consumed.
Comprehension was an abstract, intangible thing, but it truly manifested in every aspect of her performance.
The two sisters had noticed different things. After discussing it, they ultimately determined that Wen Jingshu's mutated wood spiritual root, in addition to its healing and nourishing effects, also had the ability to enhance the medicinal properties of spiritual plants and perceive their efficacy.
As for enhancing the medicinal properties, Wen Jingshu had not refined any pills yet, so the exact effects were unknown. However, just the literal meaning of perceiving medicinal efficacy was enough to make Wen Shuyi green with envy.
Perceiving medicinal efficacy meant that Wen Jingshu didn't need to memorize millions of spiritual plants at all. She only needed to touch them to know their medicinal properties.
In other words, even if Wen Jingshu didn't know the name of a spiritual plant, she could immediately determine its efficacy and use it for refining pills.
Combined with enhancing the medicinal properties, Wen Jingshu's mutated wood spiritual root was practically made for alchemy.
“Little sister, you won't end up becoming a Tenth-Grade Alchemist in the future, will you?”
In millions of years, only two Tenth-Grade Alchemists had ever appeared!
There were also only two known Tenth-Grade pill recipes in existence!
Wen Jingshu felt her skin crawl under Wen Shuyi's gaze. She reached out to rub the tip of her nose and said, “It's too early to talk about that. Let me try refining a pill first!”
Returning to reality from her daydreams, Wen Shuyi looked at Wen Jingshu's calm and unhurried demeanor. She gave a pleased nod and began guiding Wen Jingshu in refining her first pill.
Wen Jingshu focused her attention, following Wen Shuyi's instructions step-by-step to extract, purify, and form the pill.
Throughout the process, she changed her hand seals thirty-three times. Each step was closely linked to the next; her timing had to be precise, and her speed had to be fast. Fire and wood elements flooded the entire alchemy room, creating a dazzling display that would make any layman dizzy with a single glance.
Wen Jingshu maintained her concentration. Although her movements were somewhat unpracticed, she ultimately formed the pills successfully without any major mishaps.
The spiritual energy in her dantian was completely depleted. After withdrawing her hands, Wen Jingshu first consumed a Rejuvenation Pill.
At the same time, the lid of the cauldron opened automatically. The finished pills hovered in the air above the cauldron, accompanied by a rich medicinal fragrance.
With a wave of her hand, Wen Shuyi called them over. Putting quality aside for a moment, there were actually eleven pills!
“Eleven pills?”
Wen Shuyi could not control her voice, which was filled with utter shock.
How could there be eleven pills?
The number of pills yielded from a single batch had always been fixed. Countless alchemists dreamed of refining more pills, but all had ended in failure.
An extra low-grade pill might not seem like much, but what about high-grade ones?
For pills above the Sixth Grade, only one pill could be produced per cauldron. What did it mean if that number doubled?
Take the Nascent-Breaking Pill, for example. One set of spiritual plants could only yield one pill, and one pill could produce one more Soul Transformation Stage cultivator. An extra pill meant an extra Soul Transformation Stage cultivator!
In mid-tier cultivation families, a Soul Transformation Stage cultivator was already the pinnacle of combat power.
If a family had two Soul Transformation Stage cultivators, they could basically secure a firm foothold among mid-tier cultivation families.
Not to mention even higher-grade pills...
After her shock subsided, Wen Shuyi began to inspect the grades of the pills Wen Jingshu had just refined.
Eight low-grade, one mid-grade, and two high-grade.
The absence of top-grade pills made Wen Shuyi breathe a sigh of relief.
To refine eleven pills in a single batch after only six months of exposure to alchemy... If even her very first cauldron had yielded top-grade pills, Wen Shuyi was truly afraid she would be so demoralized that she would develop a heart demon.
She finally experienced the feeling of envy that others usually felt toward her, all thanks to her little sister.
Although Wen Jingshu had never eaten pork, she had seen pigs run. The various phenomena and the smoothness of her refining process had already made her realize her heaven-defying talent for alchemy.
An alchemist! The most sought-after, most profitable, and most respected of the four arts—she never expected that she would actually be one.
“The extra pill should be the effect of enhancing the medicinal properties of the spiritual plants.”
“For the next five years, don't go anywhere. Just stay on Misty Peak and focus on refining pills. Five years from now, you can go to the Qingyun Sect.”
If she specialized solely in alchemy, Wen Jingshu's path would likely be extremely smooth. However, as the saying goes, an alchemist without combat capability would only end up as a pill-refining machine.
Besides, cultivators needed real-world experience.
The higher Wen Jingshu's talent for alchemy, the more secret her abilities had to be kept.
Fortunately, Wen Shuyi had taken the matter very seriously ever since she learned that Wen Jingshu possessed a mutated wood spiritual root. The moment they returned to Misty Peak, she had activated the peak's protective array, ensuring no one outside knew what was happening within.
As a talisman cultivator in her past life, Wen Jingshu had once been captured by a high-level rogue cultivator and forced to draw talismans. She knew the bitterness of such an experience better than anyone, so she raised both hands in agreement with Wen Shuyi's decision.
After understanding Wen Jingshu's talent for alchemy, Wen Shuyi instead slowed down her pace and began to teach Wen Jingshu about the cultivation, harvesting, and preservation of spiritual plants.
Fortunately, Wen Jingshu's wood spiritual energy could not make the spiritual plants grow wildly, or else Wen Shuyi would have been truly envious.
As for weapons and magical treasures, Wen Jingshu tried a variety of them but ultimately preferred the sword.
As everyone knew, sword cultivators burned through money while alchemists made exorbitant profits. With Wen Jingshu practicing the sword with one hand and refining pills with the other, the two paths perfectly complemented each other.
Of course, even if Wen Jingshu couldn't refine pills, her family wouldn't let her starve while nurturing her sword.
“If you wanted me to find a Ninth-Grade alchemy cauldron for you, I could still get one. But this sword...”
A hammer-cultivator father, a whip-wielding mother, a spell-cultivating older sister...
The entire family couldn't scrape together a single Ninth-Grade sword.
Magical treasures and weapons crafted through artifact refining were also divided into grades one through nine. Each grade was further split into low, mid, and high tiers. The tier of magical treasures an artisan could craft corresponded to their rank as an artifact refiner.
At the same time, crafted magical treasures were further categorized into three classes: spiritual artifacts, magical artifacts, and precious artifacts.
For example, the one Wen Jingshu currently held in her hand was a first-grade, mid-tier magical artifact. The blacksmith who forged this artifact had to be at least a first-grade, mid-tier artifact refiner.
“It's fine. I can look for one in the Qingyun Sect's sword tomb.”
Hearing this, Wen Shuyi realized it made sense and promptly put the matter out of her mind.
She turned her hand and produced a bright, glossy green bead, saying, “This is a spatial herb garden that Father found in an immortal's secret realm. It's only ten thousand mu in size and can grow spiritual plants. However, Father, Mother, and I have always felt that this bead is not simple.”
“We tried many methods and ultimately found that it reacts to wood spiritual energy. Mother has a Wood Spirit Body, but even after nourishing it for ten years, she only managed to make the spiritual energy inside slightly denser, with no further changes after that.”
“You have a mutated wood spiritual root, so you can give it a try.”
As Wen Shuyi spoke, she erased her own divine sense from it and handed it to Wen Jingshu.
Intrigued by Wen Shuyi's words, Wen Jingshu bit her finger to drip blood onto it for ownership recognition, and then channeled her wood spiritual energy into it.
The moment her spiritual energy entered, the bead trembled slightly and instantly drained all the spiritual energy in her body. To the naked eye, the spiritual energy inside became just a tiny bit richer.
Unfortunately, her cultivation was simply too low, and she could not continue supplying it with spiritual energy.
Wen Shuyi hastily fed her a Rejuvenation Pill to restore her spiritual energy. With a pale face, Wen Jingshu said, “This bead is indeed strange, but my wood spiritual energy does seem to have some effect on it.”
At this, Wen Shuyi nodded and said, “Then refine it directly. Even if it has no other functions, a spatial herb garden is indispensable for an alchemist.”
Dripping blood was only a shallow form of claiming ownership; if the owner died, the spiritual artifact would remain. Refining, on the other hand, was a deep-level binding; if the owner died, the object would be destroyed with them.
Unless the connection with the spiritual artifact was severed before death.
Although this bead was a treasure, they couldn't use it. The fact that Wen Jingshu could trigger a change in it was proof enough that this was her destined opportunity, making it well worth refining.
Wen Jingshu did not refuse. She refined it that very night and began nurturing it inside her hidden dantian, constantly feeding it wood spiritual energy.
Though it wasn't as much as when she actively channeled her wood spiritual energy, it was still better than nothing.
Afterward, Wen Jingshu began her routine of refining pills.
Watching bottle after bottle of pills pile up like a small mountain, a look of satisfaction appeared on Wen Jingshu's face.
Who knew that refining pills could be this satisfying!
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