39: Chapter 39 First-Grade Mid-Rank Qi Cultivation Pill

He didn't finish his sentence, but all three understood what this "if" implied.

A demonic cultivator who relied on absorbing vital blood and consuming Medicinal Pills to rapidly increase his cultivation would grow stronger with every passing day. The later he was captured, the harder he would be to deal with.

Cao Xiong: "Meng Tong and I will go to Qingzhou. You stay to guard the Imperial Palace."

Meng Tong asked what they should do if they found the demonic cultivator.

"If the situation permits, handle it yourself. If the opponent's strength exceeds our estimates, wait for reinforcements from the Sect." Cao Xiong's tone was very flat. "Killing a demonic cultivator is indeed a merit, but it's not worth sacrificing your own life just to covet the credit."

The two checked their respective equipment.

Cao Xiong's Magical Artifact was a Peak Grade Tier 1 Jinyang Sword, its blade a finger's width wider than an ordinary Flying Sword.

The Restriction patterns engraved on the sword's spine were dense and intricate; among the Outer Sect Disciples of the Jinyang Sect, those who could obtain a Magical Artifact of this grade could be counted on one hand.

Meng Tong's was a High Grade Tier 1 Flying Sword, its quality also not bad.

That night, two streaks of sword light rose from the Imperial Palace and flew toward Qingzhou.

The trails of the sword light across the night sky were very faint; if one didn't look closely, they wouldn't notice them at all.

None of the Imperial Guards patrolling the palace looked up, but Sun Hao in the quiet room stood at the doorway the whole time, watching those two trails vanish into the horizon before turning back and closing the door.

Qingzhou border, nameless mountain peak.

The cave Jiang Yan had found was even more hidden than the previous one.

The entrance was completely blocked by a naturally formed rock fissure. From the outside, it looked like an ordinary crack in the rock, one that even a wild beast might not be able to squeeze into.

But after squeezing through that fissure sideways, the interior suddenly opened up—a space two zhang square, the ground dry, with no water stains on the rock walls. There was even a small crack in the ceiling leading to the mountain surface, allowing for good air circulation.

He laid out all the medicinal herbs he had gotten from the Generals Mansion and Zhao Xuancheng in front of him.

The two jade boxes were opened first.

The red blood ganoderma was completely crimson, its cap a circle larger than a cattail leaf fan. The concentric golden rings on its surface emitted a faint halo in the dim cave. Leaning in to smell it, a spicy yet sweet medicinal fragrance rushed straight to his crown.

Three hundred years old, Medium Grade Tier 1.

The star grass lay quietly in the other box. Its five silvery-white leaves were spread out in a star shape. The silver veins on the leaf surface resembled the trajectories of stars, and the edges of the leaves were as sharp as razors.

The remaining medicinal herbs from Zhao Xuancheng were also dug out—century-old poria, astragalus, angelica, and a few auxiliary herbs.

Jiang Yan took out the Artifact Refining furnace.

The principles of the Artifact Refining furnace and the Pill Furnace were similar; both were used to control the stable output of flames.

First was the peiyuan pill.

The first step was extraction. The red blood ganoderma was sliced thin and put into the furnace. The fire-gathering Restriction precisely controlled the spiritual fire's temperature to just enough to melt the ganoderma flesh without damaging its medicinal properties.

His Divine Sense monitored the melting state of every slice of ganoderma flesh throughout the process—the ganoderma flesh turned soft from crimson in the flames, and fine golden droplets seeped from the surface, each drop containing rich fire-attribute spiritual energy.

The extraction of the poria, astragalus, and angelica was much smoother than last time.

With sufficient medicinal herb reserves and the stable output of the Artifact Refining furnace, the extraction efficiency was much higher than last time.

All four types of medicinal liquids were extracted, with less than ten percent loss in medicinal properties.

The Fusion stage was the most strenuous. Four clusters of medicinal liquid floated in the furnace belly, his Divine Sense simultaneously controlling the four different attributes of medicinal properties, forcing them together.

The medicinal properties of the red blood ganoderma were far more domineering than the purple-gold ginseng. The moment it fused, the entire medicinal liquid cluster trembled violently as if it had been ignited. The crimson spiritual light illuminated the furnace walls a deep red; from the outside, the entire Artifact Refining furnace looked like a piece of thoroughly burnt charcoal.

Jiang Yan gritted his teeth, his Divine Sense wrapping around the medicinal liquid cluster and continuously applying pressure inward. The first attempt at pill formation failed—several semi-formed Medicinal Pills disintegrated at the final moment, the medicinal liquid splashing onto the furnace walls with a sizzling sound.

He didn't stop; he adjusted the Fusion order and the timing of the heat, immediately starting the second attempt.

When the furnace lid was lifted, a medicinal fragrance so rich it was almost tangible surged out from the furnace belly.

Ten dark red peiyuan pills floated in the furnace, each the size of a longan, with crimson-gold pill patterns flowing on their surfaces. Medium Grade Tier 1.

He collected the peiyuan pills into a jade bottle one by one. Ten of them.

Next was the star pill.

This thing was completely different from the peiyuan pill.

The star grass could not be exposed to open fire—the high temperature of the spiritual fire would directly destroy the star-pattern structure on the leaves, burning away the key medicinal properties for Body Tempering completely.

Refining the star pill required the cold-quenching method: wrap the star grass in spiritual energy, slowly squeeze it in the furnace belly, and rely on pressure to cold-press the medicinal substances out of the leaves into juice, then condense the medicinal juice into pills.

It was extremely demanding on patience. The cold-quenching method lacked the acceleration provided by spiritual fire; it relied entirely on spiritual energy compression and grinding away with time.

Jiang Yan suspended the star grass in the center of the furnace belly, applying uniform pressure with spiritual energy from all directions.

This process was as slow as grinding soy milk with a stone mill. The silvery-white medicinal liquid seeped out from the leaves drop by drop, gathering into a small cluster under the wrapping of spiritual energy, emitting specks of starlight.

Three days and three nights passed. The light outside the cave changed from bright to dark and back to bright again, repeating three times.

The sound of the wind outside the rock fissure waxed and waned, and occasionally, a mountain bird would land at the mouth of the fissure, chirp twice, and fly away.

The star grass finally completely turned into a silvery-white medicinal liquid, floating in the furnace belly like a small piece of the night sky that had been plucked down.

Something went wrong during the pill condensation.

The stability of the medicinal liquid suddenly began to drop during the compression process, and the silvery-white light dimmed at a speed visible to the naked eye; the medicinal properties were leaking away.

Jiang Yan immediately increased his output of spiritual energy, forcibly condensing the Medicinal Pills into shape before the loss of medicinal properties exceeded thirty percent.

Eight star pills fell into his palm. Each one was a circle smaller than the peiyuan pill, perfectly spherical. Inside the silvery-white pills, star-shaped halos flowed slowly, as if a star had been sealed inside amber.

The grade was Low Grade Tier 1.

He had expected to produce ten; after all, he was not as skilled with the cold-quenching method as he was with spiritual fire, and some medicinal properties were lost. But eight were enough—the star pill was just the primer; the true Body Tempering was yet to come.

Then he began to craft the Formation Plate for the Li Fire Killing Array.

He piled out all the spiritual materials dug out from Zhao Xuancheng's Storage Pouch and the stock from General Jiang Ce's secret treasury.

Fire copper was the most abundant—after dismantling General Jiang Ce's halberd, he had obtained quite a few fire copper ingots, which, combined with the existing stock, were enough to make the base material for the Formation Plate.

Fire jade was cut into the shape of formation eyes, and seventeen pieces of unranked spirit jade were ground into powder.

The fire copper base plate, about a zhang in circumference, was melted into shape in the spiritual fire, and the formation base patterns in the shape of a nine-grid square were engraved on the bottom.

The fire jade formation eye was inlaid in the exact center, and the spirit jade powder was evenly filled into each line of the nine-grid pattern to serve as a spiritual energy conduction medium.