Braised Dragon with Soy Sauce

Chapter 274 Let nature take its course

Mo Yuming couldn't understand why so many alchemists in the Alchemist Association couldn't refine the Heavenly Profound Pill or even a pseudo-Heavenly Profound Pill. Could it be that there was a problem with the method during the refining process? Or was it that only such a divine artifact was required to refine the Heavenly Profound Pill? Or did a true alchemist need to possess not only wood-attribute spiritual power but also fire-attribute and water-attribute spiritual power? If that were the case, then there would probably be very few people in the entire Heavenly Profound Continent who could become alchemists.

According to everyone's statistics, cultivators with dual attributes in Xuan Gong (a type of martial art) are one in ten thousand, and those with three attributes are practically unheard of, estimated to be one in a hundred years. As for someone like Mo Yuming, who possesses all five attributes, he is almost a one-in-ten-thousand existence.

Mo Yuming communicated with the spirit of the Medicine King Cauldron, wanting to ask its former master what the attribute of his profound cultivation was and what secrets he had when refining pills.

The spirit of the medicine cauldron pondered for a moment and said, "It seems that the old master's cultivation of profound arts was multi-elemental, but I'm not sure which specific system it was. At that time, I was still in the chaotic stage, and there are many things I can't remember."

My impression is that the old master did not have a fixed method when refining pills. Sometimes he would spend several days and nights consuming many herbs just to refine one pill, and sometimes he would quickly refine various pills. Sometimes he would simply purify the herbs, then mix the juices of several herbs into a medicinal liquid and stop refining.

The old master also often used a special refining method to refine pills. He would select many herbs at once and then refine hundreds of pills in one batch. The most peculiar thing was that these hundreds of pills were not made from one kind, but from several kinds of pills refined together.

The old master employed a variety of techniques in alchemy, doing as he pleased. His principle in alchemy was 'to follow nature and achieve perfection.'

"Let nature take its course, and it will be perfectly natural?" Mo Yuming fell into deep thought after hearing this.

Each type of elixir has different effects, and the properties of the herbs used are certainly different. In addition, different dosages are required. The slightest mistake will drastically change the effect, and some may even become poison. This is basic knowledge that every alchemist must understand.

If one were to let nature take its course during alchemy, ignoring even the dosage and compatibility of herbs, serious problems would inevitably arise. Therefore, Mo Yuming believed that the "letting nature take its course" mentioned by the spirit of the alchemy cauldron certainly didn't mean ignoring everything. It must have another interpretation. However, strictly adhering to the prescription's instructions for preparation and refining would be quite different from "letting nature take its course."

Mo Yuming couldn't understand how alchemy could be done so naturally. He asked the artifact spirit again, but couldn't get any answers. Although it was the spirit of a divine artifact and had the characteristic of being able to communicate with spirits, its thinking ability was only equivalent to that of a five or six-year-old child.

It's unknown how long the Medicine King Cauldron was sealed in the wooden box, or how much of its original memories it retained. Artifact spirits are different from humans; if imprisoned for too long, they might degenerate, especially if controlled by a restriction that counters their element. The wooden box Mo Yuming broke open was clearly an ancient object, not something made in modern times.

It's likely that Wu Yan's grandfather lacked the knowledge to open the wooden box bound with mithril ropes when he obtained the medicine cauldron, ultimately allowing it to fall into Mo Yuming's hands. Furthermore, Mo Yuming couldn't be certain about the original owner of the cauldron, or the level of alchemy at that time.

Mo Yuming pondered for a long time but couldn't come up with a solution. So he had no choice but to give up. He continued to refine pills using his existing methods, hoping to understand the mystery once his pill-refining skills improved.

Mo Yuming was eager to refine the Heavenly Profound Pill because he desperately needed this elixir. All indications suggested that good pills could aid in the improvement of profound cultivation techniques, and having a large quantity of Heavenly Profound Pills would greatly help him break through advancement bottlenecks in the future. Especially for someone like him who hadn't awakened his spiritual root, the aid of pills was even more crucial than for others.

Ji Xianlin is a good example. Whether it's breaking through from Earth Rank to Heaven Rank, or advancing beyond Heaven Rank, with the assistance of the Heavenly Profound Pill, the advancement speed can be increased by at least 50%, and the assistance from higher quality Heavenly Profound Pills will be even greater.

After obtaining the Medicine King Cauldron, Mo Yuming had a strong obsession with refining the Heavenly Profound Pill.

Mo Yuming prepared the herbs again for the second time to refine the Spirit Gathering Pill. Before refining the pill, Mo Yuming carefully identified the third herb and analyzed the entire pill refining process. This herb looked similar to the other herbs, but its stem had a pulpy structure, similar to a juicy berry, and contained abundant water-attribute spiritual power.

Although enveloped in water elemental energy within the cauldron, the high-temperature radiation from the furnace still baked the juicy substance in the stems into a viscous paste, altering its medicinal properties. When introduced into other herbs, it bound the powders of those herbs together and blended with the other medicinal components. Without the protection of water elemental energy, the medicinal components would quickly be dried out by the furnace fire, completely altering them. Ultimately, when mixed with other medicinal components, they wouldn't fully integrate, and these unblended portions would combine with excess impurities to produce erysipelas.

Mo Yuming remembered that in his previous life, the preparation of traditional Chinese medicine was based on the characteristics of the herbs. Some herbs needed to be roasted, some dried, and some aged, and the decoction process also involved different levels of heat, such as gentle and strong fire. Should the elixirs in this world be processed in the same way? But why did the alchemists here always use elixir fire when processing herbs? Was there a problem with the inheritance, or something else? Mo Yuming decided to try other methods to conduct his experiments.

First, he tried refining it using traditional Chinese medicine decoction methods. After distributing the herbs according to the prescription, he placed all the herbs into a cauldron, then activated his water elemental power to envelop the herbs with a concentrated amount of water elemental power, and then activated his fire elemental power to gradually raise the temperature inside the cauldron. The medicinal components in the herbs continuously separated from the herbs and dissolved into the water elemental power to form a medicinal liquid. Mo Yuming borrowed this method from the extraction and purification techniques he had used in his previous life's chemical experiments. Subsequently, Mo Yuming separated the medicinal liquid from the herbal residue, forming a pure medicinal liquid. Mo Yuming continued to increase the input of fire elemental power. The medicinal liquid gradually concentrated. Finally, four round and translucent pills were formed.

Mo Yuming was surprised that his haphazard attempts had actually resulted in the creation of a pill. Excitedly, he took the pill out and examined its purity.

"Heavenly Profound Pill?"

Mo Yuming found it unbelievable that these four pills were so pure, containing not a single impurity. Overjoyed, Mo Yuming immediately took the pills to Ji Xianlin for identification. After all, Mo Yuming had never seen the Heavenly Profound Pill before, only heard about it from alchemists and others who had seen it.

"The purity of this pill has indeed reached the level of the Heavenly Profound Pill, but the concentration of its medicinal components seems to be much lower. It is estimated that its medicinal effect is only about one-tenth of that of a Heavenly Profound Pill of the same quality. Its medicinal effect is only equivalent to that of an Earthly Profound Pill without the pill poison."

Ji Xianlin said after careful examination.

After taking the pills and examining them carefully, Mo Yuming discovered that the medicinal content of these pills was indeed not high, only equivalent to the mid-level of the Earth Profound Realm. However, they were extremely pure, and their effects would definitely surpass those of Earth Profound Realm pills of the same level.

"The effect is good. If the efficacy could be improved, it would definitely be an excellent pill."

Ji Xianlin said excitedly.

Mo Yuming understood Ji Xianlin's meaning: the medicinal effect of this pill was only equivalent to that of a low-level Earth Profound pill. If it were improved further to reach the effect of a mid-level Earth Profound pill, its effectiveness would be greatly enhanced. Because it did not contain any poison, even if its effect was slightly inferior to those pseudo-Heaven Profound pills, it would still be sought after just as much.

This was a pill that Mo Yuming had refined entirely using his own method. While the experiment was successful, it also had many shortcomings. Firstly, there was a significant waste of herbs; ideally, one portion of herbs could yield nine pills, but this experiment only produced four – less than half the ideal yield. Secondly, the increase in efficacy was relatively low. One of the main reasons for refining herbs according to the formula into pills is that the potency of pills is several times higher than that of liquid medicine.

Simply extracting herbs into a medicinal liquid results in the loss of most of their medicinal properties over time, meaning not all of them can be absorbed and utilized. Only after being refined into a pill can the user fully absorb the medicinal effects. This is because the waste is too great, as most medicinal materials are quite expensive. Drinking several bowls of medicinal liquid is not as effective as taking a single pill, so most people would rather choose to take pills with potential side effects than drink medicinal liquid without toxicity. Another point is that medicinal liquid is difficult to store; it takes up space and requires special sealed containers.

Successfully refining pills free of elixirs using his own method gave Mo Yuming a new understanding of alchemy. Although widely circulated pill formulas had been verified by countless people and were considered perfect in both preparation and efficacy, it didn't mean that a formula could only be refined in this way or that its effects were limited to this. It only meant that this method was guaranteed to be error-free and would definitely produce good pills. But nothing is absolute; perhaps another method would be simpler and more effective. It's just that no one dared to try and innovate.

Therefore, Mo Yuming never trusted authority. Whenever he encountered an unsolvable problem, he would think and experiment from multiple perspectives. This was also the reason why he was able to have many great inventions in his previous life. Mo Yuming suddenly felt a glimmer of understanding regarding the Divine Dragon Clan's famous alchemy saying, "Let nature take its course."

Mo Yuming carefully reviewed the previous alchemy process, and then combined it with traditional refining methods to carefully distinguish the medicinal properties and growth characteristics of each herb.

The Spirit Gathering Pill is a low-level pill that restores spiritual power. It has a wide range of uses. Because its formula is relatively simple and uses a small amount of herbs, most alchemists use it as an introductory formula.

Even with such an introductory formula, alchemists on the Tianxuan Continent would expend tremendous effort to refine it into a pseudo-Tianxuan Pill. This demonstrates just how poor the alchemy world on the Tianxuan Continent is. Therefore, alchemist associations and shops selling pills primarily sell basic medicinal liquids. Each counter is filled with various bottles and jars, each containing red, black, green, and other medicinal liquids with different effects. The mainstream pills are relegated to a small corner.

Mo Yuming's experiment also focused on the Spirit Gathering Pill as his first breakthrough target. The Spirit Gathering Pill only contains four kinds of herbs, making it perfect for practice. Through continuous practice, Mo Yuming became very familiar with the properties of these herbs.

For this experiment, he decided to use the same method as before, but in the initial separation and purification of the herbs, he decided to treat the four herbs separately according to their respective characteristics. For example, the third herb was of a cold and yin nature and could not withstand high temperatures, so it was wrapped with water elemental energy during extraction to lower the refining temperature. The fourth herb was of a hot and yang nature, so Mo Yuming separately added some fire elemental energy to this herb during refining. For the first and second herbs, which were of neutral nature, he appropriately added some wood elemental energy during extraction to enhance their medicinal effects.

Refining the four herbs simultaneously is a huge test of Mo Yuming's mental and spiritual power, especially since he needs to output spiritual power of different attributes at the same time, and the strength of each is different. This test is no longer just about multitasking; in fact, it is at least about multitasking.

Fortunately, the Medicine King Cauldron is no ordinary object. It greatly assists in the refining of herbs and is in harmony with the user's mind, making it very easy to use.

Mo Yuming thought he was confident he could handle multitasking, but when he actually started refining it, he was surprised to find that the difficulty far exceeded his expectations.

The refining process had only just begun, less than ten breaths in, when Mo Yuming felt his soul power plummeting at an alarming rate, like a flood bursting its banks. This precipitous drop made his heart sink, and a fine layer of sweat instantly appeared on his forehead.

In stark contrast to the massive consumption of soul power, the expenditure of spiritual power was still within Mo Yuming's tolerance range. However, the problem lay in the fact that the output of spiritual power required precise control through powerful mental strength. If he were to lose control of the spiritual power even slightly, the consequences would be unimaginable. At best, it would cause the entire refining process to become chaotic and disorderly; at worst, it could trigger a surge of spiritual power, or even ultimately lead to a terrible explosion.

Fortunately, just when Mo Yuming felt he was about to give up and couldn't hold on any longer, he finally succeeded in extracting the third most difficult-to-refine herb! This undoubtedly gave him a boost of confidence, allowing him to quickly gather the four medicinal liquids together and prepare to enter the final stage of refining the pill.

Mo Yuming was drenched in sweat, his entire body completely soaked as if he had just been pulled from the water. His soul power was nearly exhausted from overexertion, his eyes were bloodshot, and his body swayed precariously. But with sheer willpower and unyielding determination, Mo Yuming gritted his teeth and continued to operate the alchemy process with all his might.

Finally, just before Mo Yuming was about to fall into a coma, the pill, the culmination of countless efforts, was successfully refined! He collapsed to the ground with a huge sigh of relief, panting heavily, too weak to even move a finger. After a long while, Mo Yuming managed to struggle to sit up and began meditating, trying to recover his almost depleted strength as quickly as possible.

He practiced the "Soul Wheel Guiding" technique again and again, feeling a trace of soul power returning to his body with each cycle. After several rounds of practice, Mo Yuming finally recovered some of his soul power, and his originally pale face gradually regained some color.

Having only successfully refined four pills, Mo Yuming shook his head dejectedly and took the pills out of the cauldron, examining them in his hand. To his surprise, Mo Yuming found that these pills were significantly better than the last ones, both in color and roundness.

Most importantly, Mo Yuming discovered that the medicinal power contained in these four pills was significantly higher than that of the last time, and the medicinal fragrance emanating from the pills was extremely rich.