Chapter 10 Fasting Pill Success

Chapter 10: Fasting Pill Success

Wang Hao sat cross-legged on the meditation cushion, first calming his mind and focusing his qi. He formed a hand seal and ignited the Spirit Charcoal. Instantly, a bright glow emitted, and a finger-thick crimson flame leapt upward.

Seeing that it was clearly insufficient for alchemy, he added five more pieces. Six crimson flames ultimately converged together beneath the base of the alchemy furnace.

As mentioned earlier, the alchemy process itself wasn't complex, but those truly capable of refining successful pills were few and far between. Successfully producing pills tested an alchemist's abilities across multiple aspects: material proportioning, temperature control, timing, extraction, and more.

Temperature control alone screened out the majority of cultivators without Fire Spiritual Roots, though one couldn't exclude the occasional heaven-defying talent.

Furthermore, learning alchemy consumed vast amounts of Spirit Stones; only wealthy cultivators could afford the tuition costs. Consider the Wang family: despite enjoying one-fifth of the revenue from Qingniu Market, they had only cultivated four alchemists in total.

Dismissing these distracting thoughts, Wang Hao continued with the alchemy.

The first step was washing the Spirit Rice, then peeling each grain—simple enough. The second step involved placing the peeled grains into the pot—no, the furnace—and using gentle heat to slowly extract the essence. This step also shouldn't have been difficult.

Then, he discovered the pot was burnt.

"First time, unfamiliar. It's normal," he consoled himself.

He removed one piece of charcoal to lower the heat and continued. Then, it burnt again.

"Hmm, truly somewhat challenging!"

He reduced the heat further and placed the prepared grains into the furnace again. This time, finally, no scorched smell emerged. A look of joy appeared on his face. With a single hand seal, he pointed at the furnace lid. It flew up and steadily closed.

Although the lid blocked a cultivator's Spiritual Sense, Wang Hao was unaffected. He could still observe the situation inside through his "screen." He saw the grains gradually melting under the high heat, forming a viscous white liquid.

As time passed, the moisture within the liquid slowly evaporated, leaving behind the essence. A faint fragrance wafted from the furnace.

"This first stage is considered a success. According to Old Wang's notes, next I need to increase the heat while simultaneously separating the essence into clusters. I need to rotate them to evaporate the remaining moisture and form the pills!"

His hand seals changed. The flame atop the charcoal suddenly doubled, and rolling flames engulfed the furnace.

As time passed, the fragrance grew increasingly rich. He felt success was near!

A quarter of an hour later, the furnace suddenly shook. A muffled sound emitted, followed by thick yellow smoke rising.

"Is this a furnace explosion?"

He was speechless and stunned for a moment before retrieving the furnace to examine it closely. He saw the interior was a complete mess; the sides were stuck with quite a bit of black-brown sticky substance emitting a burnt smell.

He sighed. "Is it this difficult?"

He shook his head and began carefully recalling his steps. He had strictly followed Old Wang's records, but Old Wang only described what state required what action—it was quite abstract. He thought, If I had concrete data—like degrees of temperature and specific times—wouldn't I produce pills easily?

But he had no choice. Cultivators here clearly lacked these concepts. Predecessor experience was merely a reference; whether one succeeded depended entirely on the operator's comprehension and aptitude!

Clearly, he didn't consider himself a genius, so he had to practice more.

He continued washing grains, controlling the heat, and refining the essence!

This time there was no explosion, but the temperature was still too high. When he opened the furnace, he saw a black mess!

The fifth time, due to insufficient temperature, the pills failed to form; there were only three soft, yellow, mud-like clumps!

The sixth time, he finally formed pills, but the heat was excessive, resulting in a severe scorched smell. They were unpalatable!

He sighed and wiped the sweat from his forehead. "I'll stop here for today. Though not successful, it's close enough..."

Currently, his Qi was exhausted, so he couldn't continue anyway. However, the afternoon's practice had accumulated considerable experience.

Like the first step of refining the medicinal liquid—he was already very proficient. Since the Fasting Pill required only a single material, it saved him the second step of mixing liquids.

As for the pill formation step, after four failures, he had roughly grasped the required temperature range. Next time, he couldn't guarantee success, but given three or four more attempts, he would definitely succeed once!

He wasn't discouraged. Just like a spacecraft failing dozens of times, scientists always say, "At least we obtained data!"

He dragged his tired body to hastily eat a meal, then sank into a deep sleep.

Since arriving in this world, he had been constantly striving to cultivate daily, resting two or three shichen at most. This time, he slept the entire night.

During his sleep, he dreamt he succeeded in Foundation Establishment. Moreover, his alchemy mastery was great; people were lining up requesting pill refinement in a long queue...

The next day, he didn't continue attempting alchemy. Firstly, he hadn't fully digested yesterday's gains and needed to review them several times to derive useful data for the next attempt. Secondly, improving his cultivation remained his primary goal; he couldn't reverse his priorities. Thirdly, yesterday consumed considerable grain. He needed to keep some food. Alchemy would have to wait at least ten days for the new batch to mature!

Thus, his monotonous cultivation life passed. Another ten days went by!

On this day, after finishing his meditation, he rose and first observed the farm. He found the Golden Thread Spirit Apricots had become three saplings, and the nearby grain was in a mature state. He clicked harvest and attempted his second alchemy session!

During these ten days, he had also allocated part of his time to repeatedly recall his experiences, check the recorded videos on his computer, and combine them with Old Wang's notes and insights. He had benefited greatly.

This time, he had high confidence in producing Fasting Pills.

He calmed his mind, focused his qi, and sat cross-legged before the furnace. He lightly exhaled and began alchemy.

Hand seals ignited the charcoal, preheated the furnace, washed the grains, peeled the impurities, and began refining!

Occasionally reducing or increasing his Qi output to control the heat, moments later, the grain fragrance wafted out. The essence was refined successfully.

From the last time, he was already proficient in this step. He had reviewed it multiple times. This step was relatively easy; the key remained the subsequent pill formation!

Smelling the rich fragrance, he dared not be careless. His expression was solemn. He urged the flames to increase the temperature while simultaneously controlling the liquid to separate into clusters and rotate. Rotation was key to forming pills; otherwise, they would become a pile of mud. Though they would still have medicinal properties, they would be difficult to preserve in storage.

A quarter of an hour later—

Bang.

A scorched smell wafted from the furnace.

"Failed again?"

He wasn't discouraged; he merely chuckled and continued alchemy!

Two shichen later, he had ruined four batches. Currently, he was on the fifth batch, at the critical moment.

His face was pale, obviously due to excessive Qi consumption, but his gaze was firm, staring dead at the alchemy furnace.

He didn't believe that if "Old Demon Han" with that talent could refine pills, why couldn't he?

A quarter of an hour later, his hand seals retracted. The flames enveloping the furnace instantly dissipated and vanished.

With a flick of his wrist, the lid flew up and steadily landed aside.

He hastily rose and approached the furnace. He saw the interior, quietly lying there: two peach-pit-sized yellow pills.

They were precisely Fasting Pills!