308: Chapter 308 How did they do that?

Elder Qingmu took a sip of tea and ignored him.

Elder Chiyang sat down beside him, looking at Su Cheng's figure in the light screen with a complex expression.

Back during the entrance examination, he had told Su Cheng to abandon his wood-type Cultivation Technique and switch to his "Red Sun True Secret Art," only to be rejected to his face.

At that time, he had felt a bit regretful, thinking Su Cheng was taking a detour.

Looking back now, it was his own judgment that had taken a detour.

"Forget it, forget it," Elder Chiyang muttered. "He's just a Disciple, what's the big deal?"

Inside the independent space, Su Cheng had already begun adding the Spirit Medicine.

The Spirit Gathering Technique compressed his perception range to a three-foot-square area around the Pill Furnace, but within these three feet, his precision in perceiving every fluctuation of spiritual power increased several times over.

The first Spirit Medicine entered the furnace, was purified, and its medicinal properties were released.

The second, the third, the fourth.

Each time a Spirit Medicine melted into liquid, the Qi of Creation did more than just "refine the Spirit Medicine and convert it into spirit liquid."

During the guidance process, it simultaneously wove the layer of Dao Rhyme aura escaping from the creation furnace in his Sea of Consciousness into the deepest structure of the spirit liquid, thread by thread.

It wasn't waiting until the pill condensation stage to pour it in all at once; it was laying the groundwork from the very first step.

Every Spirit Medicine was imbued with Dao Rhyme. This operation could not have been done in the first four furnace runs.

There were two reasons: First, his Divine Soul wasn't strong enough to maintain the continuous, minute output of Dao Rhyme while performing Alchemy; second, the loss of Dao Rhyme as it conducted out from the Sea of Consciousness was too great, and by the time the minute output reached the furnace chamber, it was too thin to have any effect.

The Spirit Gathering Technique solved the first problem, and closing the Five Elements Array Inscriptions solved the second.

The two changes, when combined, produced an effect that Su Cheng hadn't fully anticipated during his previous deductions. The Dao Rhyme no longer needed to be concentrated for "gilding" during the pill condensation stage; it was already evenly dispersed throughout every link of the entire Alchemy process.

By the time pill condensation arrived, the spirit liquid itself was already saturated with the aura of Dao Rhyme, requiring no additional infusion.

Su Cheng noticed this change when the fifth Spirit Medicine entered the furnace; the golden luster of the spirit liquid was thicker and deeper than any previous run.

It was like fine wine sealed in an old jar for twenty years—unassuming, but one sniff upon opening the lid told you it was no ordinary product.

Then, the sixth Spirit Medicine entered the furnace.

By this point, the Alchemy process had been underway for an hour.

"He has already reached the sixth step," an Elder said in a low voice.

"It's much slower than the first four runs," another replied. "It's probably because the control precision dropped after he closed the Pill Furnace Array Inscriptions."

"But look at the quality of the spirit liquid, it seems a bit..."

The seventh step, the third-tier spirit medicine, thousand-gu wood heart.

Su Cheng's hand holding the wood heart was extremely steady, the Qi of Creation seeping from his palm, guiding the Dao Rhyme into the interior of the Spirit Medicine.

Only then did he put it into the furnace.

The moment the thousand-gu wood heart touched the spirit liquid, there was no abnormal fluctuation of golden light within the furnace chamber.

The medicinal properties of the thousand-gu wood heart were now completely compatible with the spirit liquid; the way it slid into the liquid was no different from a drop of water falling into a lake.

"How did he do that?" Elder Zhao Zhengyang of Xuanguang Peak stood up involuntarily.

He was Shen Qing's Revered Master, a third-tier Alchemy Great Master with a profound understanding of the medicinal conflict that occurred when third-tier spirit medicine integrated into spirit liquid.

Shen Qing's Intent of Water had already reduced the conflict in this step to an extremely low level, but "extremely low" was not "non-existent."

In Su Cheng's case, there truly was none. Zhao Zhengyang was a bit confused.

Was this reasonable?

The eighth step, Red Sky Condensation Bead.

The same technique, minute infusion of Dao Rhyme, then into the furnace chamber.

The ninth step, Silver Silk Dragon Saliva.

Three third-tier spirit medicines, five breaths for each, less than twenty breaths in total.

The entire arena was silent. This was no longer a comparison on a technical level.

Wu Chen relied on thirty-six fine flames to divide and control the temperature to resolve medicinal conflicts; that was a clever method reflecting ingenuity.

Shen Qing relied on the Intent of Water to moisten and smooth out the repulsion; that was the pinnacle of talent and insight.

Zhou Mingyuan relied on the Intent of Fire to forge and compress the medicinal power; it was about the hard work of refining steel a hundred times.

And Su Cheng? Dao follows nature? Go with the flow? His style was basically: "You dare to enter, I dare to accept you?"

Where did the direct medicinal conflict between various elemental Spirit Medicines go? Was this still the well-known Five Elements mutual generation and restriction?

The discussions in the plaza ceased after all the Spirit Medicine had entered the furnace. Everyone was watching the light screen, waiting for the subsequent pill condensation results.

Wu Chen was sitting cross-legged at a certain position in the front, his eyes opened.

His decision to close his eyes and rest earlier now seemed a bit hasty; the constant whispering around him still sent fragmented information into his ears.

Things like "third-tier spirit medicine entered the furnace with zero fluctuations," "spirit liquid quality far exceeding previous runs," "might produce Medium Grade or even High Grade," and so on.

Wu Chen's current ranking was first: three Medium Grade and two High Grade, which was a significant lead.

Even if Su Cheng produced a Medium Grade, or even a High Grade in this final run, he couldn't turn the tables.

Not to mention, whether Su Cheng's batch of Medicinal Pills could even pass the pill condensation hurdle was still an unknown.

Didn't the first two runs fail?

Thinking of this, Wu Chen felt relieved and stopped caring.

Shen Qing, on the other hand, was watching carefully.

When he made the bet with Su Cheng, Shen Qing had said, "Let's see the real results at the next Grand Competition."

So far, he had indeed won: one High Grade and two Medium Grade, while Su Cheng only had six Low Grade.

But if Su Cheng also produced a High Grade in this run, then he would lose—he would lose in his understanding of the Dao of Alchemy.

His own High Grade relied on the Intent of Water plus essence blood; essentially, it was a superposition of talent and cost.

What did every step of Su Cheng's run rely on? Zero-barrier affinity for Spirit Medicine? That layer of cyan spiritual light constantly seeping into the spirit liquid?

Shen Qing couldn't explain these things, but he could see that Su Cheng seemed to be walking a path he had never even seen before.

When it came to the pill condensation link, whether Su Cheng could successfully walk this path to the end—Shen Qing wanted to see the answer with his own eyes.

Su Cheng's hands were suspended on both sides of the furnace mouth. The output of the Qi of Creation did not stop, but the speed, flow, and rhythm had all dropped to an extremely slow and even level.

It wasn't that he was controlling the spirit liquid; the spirit liquid was moving on its own.

The nine strands of medicinal power began to diverge on their own. The golden spirit liquid spontaneously split into nine in the furnace chamber, each following the trajectory preset by the Qi of Creation, returning to its own place.

The first golden inscription appeared, profound.

From the very first moment it manifested, this golden inscription carried a quality of Medium Grade or higher, without the blurry, indistinct outline seen on the Low Grade pills of the previous few runs.

The second one, the same quality.

Then the third, the fourth. The interval between each golden inscription was less than two breaths; it was very fast.

Zhou Mingyuan's hands clenched inside his sleeves.

He had been Cultivating for nearly a hundred years, and the Intent of Fire was his lifelong pursuit. He had also given his all for the Medium Grade pills in his final run.

But the quality of the four golden inscriptions before Su Cheng, each one was not inferior to his Medium Grade pills, and perhaps even surpassed them.

The fifth golden inscription continued to manifest, and the precious light in the furnace chamber began to change.

The original golden luster began to transition into a deeper amber color. That layer of light wasn't radiating from the surface of the spirit liquid, but was shining from within the golden inscriptions.

The five golden inscriptions simultaneously emitted a faint but extremely uniform amber precious light.

"This isn't right." On the high platform, True Monarch Iron-Face spoke. "This light... it's not Medium Grade."

True Monarch Wanxiang's spirit fan was already fully unfolded, the deduction spirit light on the fan surface jumping wildly.

"The precious light of Medium Grade pills only dissipates after the pill is formed; it wouldn't appear at the inscription condensation stage. The only thing that can make the golden inscriptions emit light spontaneously at the inscription condensation stage is..."

(Don't think that the Nascent Soul True Lords are like country bumpkins who have never seen the world; it's just that they have never seen someone like Su Cheng. Moreover, their actions wouldn't be understood by those below, and even if they didn't let them listen, they wouldn't be able to hear anyway.)

(The perspective of a Nascent Soul Old Ancestor is very broad; there won't be plots like envying a Disciple or stealing a Disciple's Opportunity. You cannot apply the deceit and extreme survival of the fittest of the cultivation world to a normal Sect. Outside the Sect, it would be different.)