169: Chapter 169 is complete.

It wasn't nervousness; it was that the consumption of Qi of Creation was simply too great.

The spiritual soothing and medicinal essence extraction of the yuanling grass took less than the time for a cup of tea, but the amount of Qi of Creation consumed was forty percent more than his initial estimate.

The spiritual intensity of a third-tier spirit medicine was indeed incomparable to that of a second-tier one.

But it was worth it.

After the medicinal bead of the yuanling grass entered the furnace, processing the remaining two main ingredients—Thousand-Year Lingzhi Powder and Nine Serenity Spirit Dew—was relatively simple.

Song Yu was responsible for grinding and activating the medicinal properties of the Thousand-Year Lingzhi Powder, while Lin Xuewei used Bone Spirit Cold Fire to perform a low-temperature stabilization of the Nine Serenity Spirit Dew.

The techniques of both were methodical, clean, and efficient, with no mistakes made.

All six main ingredients had entered the furnace.

But Alchemy was not finished just by throwing in the main ingredients.

Over the next half hour, Immortal Master Elder Lu Yuan sequentially took out over a dozen auxiliary medicines from the medicine table beside him: Red Lingzhi Powder, Condensed Dew Pith, Nine-Section Spirit Ginseng slices, and several powders and liquids that Su Cheng could not name.

The types, dosages, and timing for adding these auxiliary medicines were entirely controlled by Immortal Master Elder Lu Yuan himself. The six assistants had no right to question him, nor any way of knowing the specific function each auxiliary medicine served in the Pill Formula.

All they could see were Immortal Master Elder Lu Yuan's hands.

Before each auxiliary medicine entered the furnace, Immortal Master Elder Lu Yuan would first pass it through the pill fire in his palm for a final activation treatment, then send it into the furnace chamber at a precise moment that couldn't be more exact.

Some auxiliary medicines were added less than three breaths apart, while others required waiting for an entire cup of tea, until the color or bubbling frequency of the medicinal liquid in the furnace chamber showed a certain change before the next one was added.

The entire process was as smooth as flowing water and moving clouds, showing neither hesitation nor artificiality. The intuition and judgment accumulated over centuries of Alchemy had already been etched into the instincts of this Third-Rank Alchemist.

Su Cheng watched intently from the side, memorizing everything he could.

He recognized most of the categories of auxiliary medicines, but the specific ratios and timing of addition could not be deduced by sight alone without reaching the level of a Golden Core Cultivator.

After all the auxiliary medicines were added, the true highlight arrived: the shaping of the Medicinal Pill.

The temperature of Immortal Master Elder Lu Yuan's pill fire suddenly surged by dozens of degrees.

Forced by the high temperature, the bubbling amber medicinal liquid in the furnace chamber began to gather toward the center, its volume slowly shrinking.

The patterns on the surface of the medicinal liquid became clear and orderly, closing in toward the core layer by layer.

Immortal Master Elder Lu Yuan's hands formed seals above the furnace mouth, his Divine Sense fully deployed, and the output precision of his Golden Core pill fire was pushed to its limit.

This was only the first day; the shaping of a third-rank pill was not something that happened overnight.

The medicinal powers of the main and auxiliary medicines tested, repelled, and adjusted to one another within the pill fire, eventually reaching a balance.

This process could not be rushed. The temperature and spiritual energy supply within the furnace chamber had to be maintained in a near-constant state until the medicinal liquid completed its deep-level Fusion on its own.

During this period, Immortal Master Elder Lu Yuan would occasionally take small amounts of auxiliary powder from the medicine table and sprinkle them into the furnace for fine-tuning based on the changes in the medicinal liquid. These minute operations followed no discernible pattern and relied entirely on his real-time judgment of the furnace's state.

The six assistants, according to their pre-assigned positions, sat cross-legged around the Pill Furnace in six directions, injecting their own spiritual energy through the formation bases into the auxiliary Array Inscriptionss at the bottom of the Pill Furnace to provide additional stable support for the pill fire.

The key to this step was not the amount of spiritual energy, but that the frequency of the six people's spiritual energy had to be perfectly synchronized with the pill fire.

Too fast wouldn't work, nor would too slow. Being off by even half a beat could cause the pill fire to fluctuate, rendering all previous efforts futile.

And this synchronization had to be maintained for a full seven days.

The first day was relatively easy. The six people had ample spiritual energy reserves and high spirits; although there were some hiccups in their cooperation, they quickly adjusted.

Su Cheng's spiritual energy output was the weakest among the six, but his synchronization rate was the highest. The balanced and peaceful nature of the Qi of Creation played its role here; it wasn't picky about frequency and would automatically match the rhythm of the pill fire after being injected into the Array Inscriptionss, requiring no extra adjustment from Su Cheng.

Wei Tian's exotic fire spiritual energy, however, required deliberate suppression of its temperature and a mentally taxing round of compatibility frequency modulation with the pill fire.

Lin Xuewei's Bone Spirit Cold Fire had a cold attribute; she had to strip the coldness from her spiritual energy before injecting it, which was essentially an extra step.

Han Jing, Zhou Ping, and Song Yu's spiritual energy had no attribute biases, so their cooperation was relatively easy.

The real test began on the second day.

The spiritual energy consumption of the six people accelerated visibly. Fortunately, Immortal Master Elder Lu Yuan had prepared Spirit Recovery Pills in advance.

Every six hours, the six people took turns swallowing the pills to recover at maximum speed, while the other five gritted their teeth to cover the energy gap.

The gap during rotation could not exceed ten breaths. If it did, the spiritual energy supply to the Array Inscriptionss would break, and the stability of the pill fire would be compromised.

Ten breaths to swallow the pill, circulate the technique, have spiritual energy flood the Meridians, and reconnect to the Array Inscriptionss.

By the third day, the six of them were performing this routine as smoothly as flowing water.

On the fifth day, the volume of the medicinal liquid in the furnace chamber had shrunk by a third, and its color began to transition from amber to deep gold.

Faint patterns emerged on the surface of the medicinal liquid, a sign that the various medicinal powers were entering the stage of deep-level Fusion.

Immortal Master Elder Lu Yuan had not left his position directly in front of the Pill Furnace from the very beginning.

For five days and five nights, the output of the Golden Core pill fire had not fluctuated once.

His hand seals had switched no less than several hundred times over these five days, with the transition between each switch taking no more than a single breath.

His spiritual energy was replenished by the rotation of his Golden Core, while his Divine Sense consumption was sustained purely by the depth of his cultivation foundation.

This was the foundation of a top-tier Third-Rank Alchemist. It wasn't about how earth-shattering refining a batch of pills was, but about how the word 'stability' was ingrained into his very bones.

The sixth day.

The medicinal liquid had shrunk to the size of a fist. The deep golden sphere had a smooth surface, with a luster flowing within it.

The Fusion of medicinal powers had reached its end, but this final step was precisely the most dangerous. Any slight deviation from external forces could cause the internal structure of the medicinal liquid to collapse.

The faces of all six assistants looked grim.

The seventh day, early morning.

Fine beads of sweat broke out on Immortal Master Elder Lu Yuan's brow.

Using a Golden Core Late Stage cultivation to drive a third-rank pill fire for seven days and nights was no small consumption, even for him.

But his hands remained so steady that not even a single finger trembled.

Inside the furnace chamber, the speed of the luster flowing on the surface of the fist-sized deep golden sphere suddenly accelerated, and the patterns on the sphere's surface wove into a net, closing in toward the core.

It was a success.

"Withdraw!"

Immortal Master Elder Lu Yuan struck his palms together, and the pill fire abruptly retracted. The golden medicinal liquid sphere in the furnace chamber let out a chime under the shock of the temperature difference, and then it split.

The sphere split precisely into three parts along the patterns on its surface, each part quickly solidifying and shaping into three golden Medicinal Pills the size of longans.

The furnace lid popped open automatically.

Three Medicinal Pills lay quietly on the pill platform in the center of the furnace chamber. They were entirely golden with smooth surfaces, and a faint, restrained treasure light flowed within them.

A medicinal fragrance wafted out from the furnace mouth.

It wasn't a sharp scent, but a heavy, solid fragrance, like an aged wine being opened, with distinct layers where each wisp carried the lingering notes of different medicinal ingredients.

Immortal Master Elder Lu Yuan took out a specially made Pill Appraisal Mirror and shone it over the three Medicinal Pills one by one.

The Pill Appraisal Mirror was a specialized Magical Artifact used by the Danding Sect to judge the quality of Medicinal Pills. It was not large, a bronze mirror about the size of a palm, whose surface could reflect the internal medicinal power distribution, impurity content, and spiritual concentration of a pill.

Immortal Master Elder Lu Yuan placed the first Medicinal Pill in front of the mirror.

The mirror's surface lit up.

A layer of golden halo reflected from the surface of the Medicinal Pill onto the mirror, clear, even, and without a single dark spot.