Chapter 63: The Hardships of Refining Dan

  There are many martial arts schools, all of which are at odds with each other, eager to catch the slightest mistake from their opponents and not let go. What surprised Shen Xiang was that even someone like Zhang Long, a young and ordinary eighth-level warrior, wasn't valued much either. It's imaginable that there must be many powerful warriors within those martial arts schools, and only those with boundless prospects would be valued.

  Things calmed down, and Shen Xiang also began to study alchemy with peace of mind. He accelerated the maturation of spiritual medicine, but he didn't take that True Yuan Pill because Su Mei Yao and Bai Yu Yu both advised him to eat it during a critical moment, which would be very useful for him.

  After the Shen family took over the elixir business of Yao's family, the price also came down, which made many warriors very happy and they all supported the Shen family. In this way, the Shen family gained a lot of popularity, which was very helpful for their future development.

  In this world, the strong prey on the weak is nothing unusual. The wealth accumulated by the Medicine family over the years was all taken over by the Shen family in just one day! This is also a self-inflicted suffering for the Medicine family. If they didn't want to oppose the Shen family, they would still be doing well now.

  After annexing the Medicine Family, Shen Xiang is now in no shortage of spiritual medicine for alchemy. He is currently picking some spiritual medicine in the Medicine Family's medicine garden, preparing to use them to refine a Mortal Grade Top-Rank Dan. The refinement process of the Mortal Grade Top-Rank Dan not only increases the difficulty by many times but also requires even more precious spiritual medicine.

  The types of top-grade elixirs are not many, and the ones that are often used are just a few, which are also the most useful for warriors. The difficulty of refining them is also very high. Elixirs like these are a must-master for alchemists. When Shen Xiang started learning to refine higher-level elixirs, he would always choose this type of elixir first.

  "The status of ordinary top-grade elixirs is a bit embarrassing! How to say it? In the real world of martial arts, generally, there are more warriors above the tenth level of ordinary martial arts, and they are relatively wealthy! This kind of person has extremely high requirements for elixirs, so when they buy elixirs, they usually don't choose ordinary-grade elixirs, but rather middle to lower-grade spiritual elixirs, and the quantity is very large. After eating it, there is also a great effect." Su Mei Yao said.

  Shen Xiang said: "So, in those martial arts schools, all the warriors who have reached the 8th and 9th levels of martial arts are very poor?"

  Su Mei Yao said, "That's natural, so they can only afford to buy ordinary middle-grade elixirs. But you should know that the effect of ordinary high-grade elixirs on warriors in the 9th and 8th layers of the Mortal Martial Realm is not very significant."

  "So, you only need to master those few kinds of ordinary high-grade pills that sell for a higher price, mainly including Qi Cultivation Pills, Great Yuan Pills, and Essence Transformation Pills." Su Meiyao said.

  These Dan Shen Xiang are all well-known, indeed one of the more expensive among the ordinary upper-grade Dans. After taking it, the effect is very obvious and very useful. Pei Qi Dan mainly enhances the quality of true energy, allowing some warriors to refine their true energy into a purer form.

  The Great Yuan Dan is a medicinal pill that enhances one's cultivation, after consuming it, one can obtain a large amount of spiritual energy, which can be directly refined to cultivate a large amount of true energy, without worrying about the problem of thin spiritual energy and good or bad spiritual veins. Finally, there is the Hua Jing Dan, which can directly convert the true energy in the body into spiritual power, mainly used to expand one's divine consciousness and cultivate one's divine consciousness.

  Shen Xiang had the Flame Dragon Furnace, a sacred dragon artifact that could accelerate time inside the alchemy furnace, allowing him to save a lot of time in refining this high-grade elixir.

  It takes many years, even decades, for some elixirs to be refined successfully, but the Flame Dragon Furnace can help Master Shen shorten that time.

  Shen Xiang first refined the Dayuan Dan, because he wanted to improve his cultivation by taking this elixir. He had only entered the 9th level of the Mortal Martial Realm and could go to those major sects.

  The main materials of Dà Yuán Dān include three types, although not many, but all require more than 500 years, while the auxiliary materials are as many as twenty, with the highest year requirement being one hundred years, and the lowest also being fifty or sixty years. It can be seen that Dà Yuán is precious, if it fails, the alchemist will definitely cry for a good period of time.

  "This stone-like fruit is really hard to deal with!" Shen Xiang had already started refining, the medicinal materials were originally from the Medicine House, only four portions, each portion worth over a million large spirit coins.

  The Blazing Dragon Furnace can make the flame more suitable for alchemy and control the temperature at will, but it doesn't understand the degree of heat that spiritual medicine can withstand, so even a divine furnace is useless.

  Shen Xiang currently splits out more than 20 strands of divine consciousness, each controlling more than 20 groups of flames burning more than 20 kinds of spiritual medicine. Moreover, these spiritual medicines must all be transformed into medicinal powder at the same time, with no great difference in timing. Furthermore, Shen Xiang also needs to use his utmost mental effort to gather together the various medicinal spirits extracted from the spiritual medicines, which is extremely taxing on his divine consciousness. However, the Flame Dragon Furnace allows him to conserve his divine consciousness, as he doesn't need to refine the elixir while simultaneously consuming medicine to recover his divine consciousness.

  Shen Xiang's divine sense was inside the alchemy furnace, and it seemed like a whole day had passed, but outside, only a short moment had elapsed! Because the time inside the Yan Long treasure furnace flowed faster than the outside world.

  "It's all over!" Shen Xiang was covered in sweat, staring at the colorful mist rising from the Yan Long Bao furnace, and couldn't help but curse loudly.

  This was tens of thousands of taels of silver, all gone in an instant, turned into nothing but smoke and mist. Shen Xiang didn't cry, which was already a good thing.

  "It's no wonder it's the Flame Dragon Furnace, and yet it didn't explode." Su Mei Yao giggled.

  "Mei Yao sister, don't provoke me!" Shen Xiang muttered.

  Just now, he failed because of the burning of a spiritual medicine called "Iron Yuan Guo". The hardness of Iron Yuan Guo made him unimaginable, and no matter how it was burned, it didn't melt. This caused him to suddenly increase the flame, but unexpectedly, the Iron Yuan Guo burst open in an instant, and the surging spiritual energy mixed with other medicinal powders and spiritual energies inside, producing various reactions, finally bursting out from the exhaust port of the Flame Dragon Furnace.

  "I've told you before, that fruit is not easy to deal with. I fell for that grayish fruit many times back then! Now seeing someone fail in front of me, I'm delighted." Su Mei Yao stuck out her red and luscious tongue at him, continuing to giggle.

  Every time he refines the elixir, Su Mei Yao will come out and be with Shen Xiang. Sometimes she'll help Shen Xiang wipe his sweat, sometimes she'll mock him, sometimes she'll encourage him, and occasionally she'll tease or seduce this innocent young man.

  Shen Xiang pouted and said, "You can afford to fail, I don't. Now there are only three materials left." He was amazed at the rich resources Su Mei Yao had mastered when she studied alchemy back then, yet she still failed many times.

  "Hey little brother, don't be discouraged. She's just reminiscing about the past and feeling nostalgic." Su Meiying walked over with a silk handkerchief, smiling sweetly as she wiped away Shen Xiang's sweat.

  Shen Xiang savored the intoxicating scent of Su Mei Yao's body, feeling her delicate jade-like hands occasionally caressing his cheeks, which filled him with an indescribable sense of wonder.

  After resting, Shen Xiang continued to refine...

  The second time, he still failed, and similarly failed in handling the Tieyuan stage.

  For the third time, he successfully solved the iron yuan fruit, but when it came to condensing the dan, he couldn't control the fusion of multiple medicinal powders and spiritual energies, resulting in a small explosion inside the Flame Dragon Furnace!

  "My dad is really a spendthrift, in just two short hours, nearly 400,000 big spiritual coins have evaporated like this." Shen Xiang lay on the ground, looking at the mist floating around in the secret room, with a painful expression.