108: Jade Pendant of Identity

The seventh month,

One evening, you went to Zhong Linger's room to ask her how to refine a qi gathering pill.

She was lost in thought, frowning at a document.

"What's wrong?" you asked curiously.

"Something strange happened!" she said, her brows furrowed.

"Strange?" You looked puzzled.

"Look at this." She handed you the document.

After reading the document's contents, you also felt very confused.

This document came from the Tianshu City Alchemy Association, requesting all Alchemists to develop an antidote Medicinal Pill.

Not only were the rewards extremely generous, but one could also exceptionally become a Liu Clan Disciple and enjoy the many privileges of the Liu family's immortal clan.

The symptoms of poisoning described above seemed very familiar to you—containing ice fire dual poisons, Yin and Yang reversal, eroding the Meridians, causing the poisoned person's magic power to dissipate and cultivation to gradually decline...

The more you read, the more you felt like you had seen this poison somewhere before.

"Did someone get poisoned?" you asked curiously.

"This is a task issued by the Alchemy Association; all Alchemists in the city have received it, requiring everyone to develop this antidote," Zhong Linger said seriously.

"Tianshu City Alchemy Association? So many masters can't solve it?" You were shocked.

"That's what's strange; this poison has never been seen before, and those Alchemy Great Masters are all at a loss," she continued.

"How formidable. If one could master this poison, wouldn't it strike fear into everyone's hearts?" You nodded thoughtfully.

Zhong Linger's eyes lit up: "That's right, if one could control this poison, then..."

Excitement flashed in her eyes.

However, you weren't in the mood to think about anything else right now; your mind was solely focused on refining the heavenly spirit pill as soon as possible.

Only by improving your Alchemy skill would you dare to attempt refining the heavenly spirit pill.

So you continued to ask her about the issues with refining the qi gathering pill.

Only by being able to refine higher-grade Medicinal Pills would you have the confidence to start refining the heavenly spirit pill.

The tenth month,

After hundreds of failures, you finally successfully refined a batch of Low Grade qi gathering pills.

Holding the three Medicinal Pills, you smiled until tears streamed down your face.

"I finally refined the qi gathering pill!" you cried tears of joy.

No one knew how hard you had worked these past few months.

In these three months, your Pill Furnace exploded over 250 times.

Each time, you told yourself to start over.

Repeated failures, repeated Pill Furnace explosions, you could even hear your heart breaking.

But with unremitting persistence, this time you finally succeeded.

You were full of anticipation, planning your next step.

"Next, I can learn to refine the foundation establishment pill, and then the ningyuan pill."

"As long as I successfully refine the ningyuan pill, I can try to refine the heavenly spirit pill!"

Thinking of this, you trembled with excitement.

That evening, you found Zhong Linger again to ask her about the techniques for refining the foundation establishment pill.

She was still researching the antidote Medicinal Pill and impatiently replied, "You can't refine the foundation establishment pill."

"Why?" Your heart fluttered.

"Ordinary Medicinal Pills can be refined with Spirit Wood Fire, but Medicinal Pills of the third rank and above require Divine Sense and Spirit Fire. You are a martial artist; you don't have Divine Sense or Spiritual Qi, so you can't refine them."

Upon hearing this, you actually breathed a sigh of relief—you thought it was something serious.

After all, you were a Golden Core Cultivator.

You smiled faintly, spread your palm, and a wisp of spiritual power transformed into a flame, gently flickering in your palm.

However, you controlled your strength, only revealing the aura of the Qi Refinement Stage.

She stared at you with wide eyes: "You're actually a Qi Refining Cultivator?"

She then asked doubtfully, "Then why do you still cultivate the martial Dao? Isn't that a waste of time?"

"My Aptitude is average; it doesn't hurt to learn more, so I practiced both," you blurted out.

"Practicing both martial arts, immortal cultivation, and Alchemy like this makes it easy to be a jack of all trades, master of none," she shook her head.

Then, she explained in detail some techniques and specifics for refining the foundation establishment pill.

You listened carefully, taking out the paper and pen you had prepared, and wrote down every word.

The eleventh month,

In the Pill Refining Room—

"Bang!"

With a muffled thud, the Pill Furnace exploded again, billowing black smoke.

You pushed open the furnace lid, looking at the charred Medicinal Residue inside, your expression not good.

This was your 250th failure.

But you were not discouraged; instead, you calmed down and carefully recalled every step you had just taken.

"Is it because I used Golden Core level Pill Fire?" you muttered to yourself, "That doesn't make sense; isn't Pill Fire stronger and easier to control?"

You pulled out Zhong Linger's Alchemy notes and repeatedly checked them; it indeed didn't say that Pill Fire couldn't be used.

After pondering for a while, you decided to restrain your cultivation and try again using only the most basic Qi Refining level Spirit Fire.

You patiently cleaned the Pill Furnace again, put in the Medicinal Materials...

This time, as you slowly warmed the furnace with Qi Refining level Spirit Fire, the Medicinal Plants melted particularly slowly, and threads of essence gradually separated, slowly converging towards the Pill Embryo.

You concentrated fully, using your Divine Sense to subtly adjust the heat, guiding the medicinal liquids to fuse one by one...

Sure enough, this time the Pill Furnace didn't explode!

Before, you had used Pill Fire to forcefully rush it, and the Medicinal Plants would turn to charcoal as soon as they entered. Now you finally understood—the heat was too intense, and the Medicinal Materials simply couldn't withstand it.

Just as the Medicinal Pill was about to take shape, and a surge of joy rose in your heart—

"Bang!"

The Pill Furnace shook again and exploded once more.

It still failed.

But instead of anger, joy flashed in your eyes, accompanied by a spark of realization.

"I've found the key! As long as I control the heat and am patient, success is not far off."

Suddenly, a thought flashed through your mind:

"If Golden Core Pill Fire will burn the Medicinal Materials for foundation establishment pills, then what about the higher-grade heavenly spirit pill Materials?"

You immediately took out a 'Cicada Spirit Leaf,' tore off a small petal, and burned it with Golden Core Pill Fire—

Indeed, the Cicada Spirit Leaf didn't immediately char; instead, it slowly melted in the Pill Fire, emitting a faint spiritual glow.

You suddenly realized: it turns out that Spiritual Plants of different grades have completely different tolerances for heat. The Medicinal Materials for foundation establishment pills are fragile and must be slowly refined with gentle heat; while the Materials for heavenly spirit pills are of higher quality and, conversely, require Pill Fire to refine them.

Just like refining Magic Treasures, different Materials naturally require different levels of heat.

Thinking of this, your confidence greatly increased—you now had more assurance for refining the heavenly spirit pill in the future!

The second year,

You finally successfully refined a batch of Low Grade foundation establishment pills.

You exhaled deeply, laughing heartily.

Although you failed hundreds of times, you ultimately succeeded.

Holding the three Low Grade foundation establishment pills, you admired your achievement, feeling particularly proud.

Just then, the blue identity jade pendant at your waist suddenly dimmed, and then a crack appeared with a "click."

You knew this meant Ji Bin had died.

"Yang Yan said that these white identity jade pendants were all obtained by the Money Gang," you recalled his words.

You smiled and nodded, then turned and left the Jiang Clan Merchant House.

If it were before, you definitely wouldn't have dared to leave so casually.

But after more than a year, you found no signs of anyone searching for you outside, which made you very curious—why hadn't Liu Ruyan come to hunt you down?

Unable to figure it out, you stopped thinking about it.