After three consecutive failures, Zuo Mo had no choice but to stop the experiment.

  Although he is now quite well-off, it's still far from enough to let him splurge, and he has to be very frugal. Having failed three times in a row means that there must be some crucial point that he overlooked.

  He couldn't help but fall into deep thought.

  He didn't know, but the difficulty of such events had already far exceeded what he could handle. He vaguely remembered some classics, but in terms of alchemy, he was a new recruit who couldn't be newer, with almost zero experience. By guessing and finding specific changes in a certain link in the alchemy process, even many experienced cultivators who were much richer than him couldn't do it.

  No one told Zuo Mo about this.

  If Zuo Mo didn't know this, he would have probably given up on this matter. What was the point of refining Great Strength Pill? It was to earn crystal stones. If it was too difficult and the risk was too high, then it wasn't worth it. He might as well find another more realistic method. He wasn't afraid of difficulties, what he feared was blindly getting entangled with problems that far exceeded his own level. In Zuo Mo's eyes, this was a losing business.

  Unfortunately, Zuo Mo did not realize the level of difficulty he was facing. He racked his brains, sitting in Dan House thinking.

  Inside the cave, it was pitch black all around, and the rocky ground beneath his feet was icy cold. The Blood River churned ceaselessly in the distance. Wei Sheng panted heavily, finally unable to hold on any longer, and sat down on the ground with his legs crossed, entering a meditative state.

  His eyebrows were tired and difficult to hide, looking very disheveled, with his upper body bare, more than a dozen scars crisscrossing, shocking at first sight. His lower body was left with only half of the pants leg, with his feet bare. He entered a meditative state quickly, almost as soon as he sat down. In meditation, Wei Sheng's back was straight like a sword, and in his calm demeanor, there was a hint of solemnity and majesty.

  Time ticked away bit by bit, he remained motionless.

  A black shadow crept up quietly to Wei Sheng, who was in a state of meditation and had no perception. Suddenly, the black shadow pounced on Wei Sheng!

  Wei Sheng suddenly opened his eyes in meditation, and without any movement, a green sword light flashed through the darkness, splitting the black shadow into two halves.

  Squeak!

  The black shadow let out a mournful cry that was piercing and unbearable, then instantly turned into black smoke and dispersed without a trace.

  Wei Sheng stood up from the icy rock ground, his face as calm as an ancient well, his eyes opening and closing with a determined gaze, his pupils surging with sword intent. In the darkness and silence, he lifted his bare feet and walked steadily along the river of blood, advancing slowly into the depths.

  In a place extremely far from Tianyue Border.

  "Daybreak star appears..."

  "Yes. This matter has shocked many people, and many have already rushed to the Tianyue Realm to investigate. Some say that the appearance of the White Day Star is a sign that a precious treasure will be unearthed!"

  "Is a treasure unearthed?" The speaker said with deep sarcasm: "Men die for wealth, birds perish for food, this principle has remained unchanged since ancient times."

  "So we..."

  "Send someone! Keep a close eye on this matter!" The speaker gave an unquestionable order.

  "Yes."

  Wu Kong Shan saw Shi Feng Rong come out of the Dan Fang, and Xu Qing hurriedly followed her. She was able to become the head disciple of Wu Kong Shan's outer sect because on one hand she was honest and obedient, doing things practically, and another important reason was that she could tolerate Shi Feng Rong's eccentric temper.

  Shi Fengrong looked around and frowned: "Where is your senior brother?"

  Xu Qing hastily said: "Master has been in the dan room since a few days ago and hasn't come out yet."

  "What about the elixir? What kind of pill is he refining?" Shi Fengrong's eyebrows relaxed, and she asked casually. It seemed that Zuo Mo was very dedicated to refining pills, which also made her quite satisfied.

  "It should be the Biegu Wan. My senior fellow apprentice bought some materials for making Biegu Wan from me a few days ago." Xǔ Qíng replied, she had spent quite some time in Huán Fāng Yuàn and her experience in alchemy was much deeper than Zuǒ Mò's.

  “Bai Gu Wan?” Shi Feng Rong's eyebrows furrowed again, displeased: “How can you still be refining Bai Gu Wan at this point? What progress can this possibly bring?” Bai Gu Wan was merely the simplest of dan medicines, not even worthy of being called a spiritual dan. For a cultivator in the foundation-building stage to spend too much energy on this was an extremely laughable thing.

  Xu Qing's heart skipped a beat as she secretly regretted what she had just said. If her master brother were to be punished by their master uncle because of this, it would put her in an awkward position.

  As they spoke, Shi Fengrong walked to the door of Zuo Mo's dan room and pushed it open without knocking.

  As soon as the door was pushed open, a strong and pungent smell of burning rushed in, making Shi Fengrong's face look even more unsightly. Would the Refining Valley Pills also fail? Was it that the five pills she had taken last time were just bought to deceive herself through this pass? Her expression turned gloomy.

  Zuo Mo sat on the ground like a wooden puppet, motionless and unaware as Shi Feng Rong and Xu Qing entered.

  Shi Feng Rong noticed that Zuo Mo's eyes were filled with bloodshot, and her anger was slightly reduced. She saw that Zuo Mo was deep in thought, suppressing his own anger, and didn't disturb him, but instead walked straight to the remains piled beside the alchemy furnace. Indeed, they were the materials for the Bitter Valley Pill, she only took one glance to confirm. The flames of anger in her heart suddenly surged up, she decided to let Zuo Mo personally refine a furnace of Bitter Valley Pill in front of her soon.

  Her gaze was about to move away from the furnace slag in front of her, but suddenly stopped and turned around, bending down to examine these slags, occasionally picking up one or two pieces to take a closer look.

  Xu Qing secretly admired and sighed, the inner door disciples were indeed the inner door disciples. In her many years in Xiangfang Courtyard, she had never seen Master Shu show such concern for any junior.

  Zuo Mo slowly came to, only to see that there were two more people in his dan room. Originally, he was already tortured to the point of being on the verge of death, and now flames of anger burst forth from his heart. The dan room had always been a place where no one else was allowed to enter, especially during dan refinement, as this could easily lead to failure.

  But when he saw who it was, the curses that had been on his lips were swallowed back into his belly.

  What a close call!

  Good good that dong long......

  He hastily stood up and respectfully bowed to Shi Feng Rong: "Master."

  "Are you refining that kind of spiritual elixir again?" Shi Feng Rong didn't even lift her head, squatting by the furnace slag as if to herself.

  "Yes." Old Mo replied honestly: "But it has never succeeded once."

  Shi Fengrong casually threw away the furnace slag in her hand and stood up. Her face was cold: "You haven't even learned to walk, yet you want to run?"

  Zuo Mo heard this and broke out in a cold sweat, hastily saying: "Please, Master, instruct me."

  "The way of alchemy, there are too many changes that cannot be conveyed in words. You should first follow the classics and lay a good foundation, then investigate these things." Shī Fèng Róng said as she turned around with a cold face and left.

  Returning to the Western Wind Courtyard, Zuo Mo was extremely disheartened. He had originally thought that he had gained a great way to make a profit, but it turned out to be an unattainable moon in the water. For several days, Zuo Mo was somewhat listless. Without any jingshi to earn, without any contribution points to earn, and without any sword scriptures to practice, Zuo Mo could only bitterly practice "Fetal Breathing Spiritual Cultivation".

  Shi Shi Ling Mai, Zuo Mo woke up from his meditation. The usually rapid progress of "Fetal Breath Spiritual Cultivation" had recently come to a gradual halt, this was the first time Zuo Mo encountered such a situation after breaking through to one breath. Was he going to break through to two breaths?

  According to the records of "Fetal Breathing and Spiritual Cultivation", after one breath, it is followed by two breaths. If you can reach the state of two breaths, not only can your whole body breathe through the acupoints, but at that time, your whole body's energy can be withdrawn inward, even if someone with much higher cultivation than yours cannot detect it.

  This Dharma gate is far more ingenious than those methods of gathering and hiding one's breath recorded on the jade slips by Venerable Wei Nan.

  As he thought of this, Zuo Mo suddenly remembered that Wei Nan had also refined elixirs and was a spiritual plant husband. Would he have encountered the same problem? As soon as the idea occurred to him, he hastily took out his jade slip and carefully examined it.

  Sure, here is the translation:

  As expected, he soon made a discovery.

  In Wei Nan's summary of his alchemy experience, Zuo Mo found a similar method. However, Wei Nan didn't use the fire refining method but rather the rarely seen water refining method.

  The methods of refining elixirs are diverse and numerous, with the most mainstream method being the use of a refining furnace, also known as fire refinement. The core of fire refinement is to use firepower to stimulate the spiritual energy within the medicinal materials, causing different properties of spiritual energy to merge and form an elixir. However, there are many spiritual herbs and medicines that have a cold attribute, such as those aquatic spiritual grasses, which would be damaged by fire refinement. In this case, other refining methods are needed, such as water refinement. Apart from water and fire refinement, there are countless other refining methods.

  The nature of water is gentle and far inferior to the swift and powerful fire, so most of the methods for refining water require a relatively long period of time, taking the approach of nourishing and cultivating the elixir.

  Zuo Mo only now realized that the cold spring in the stone room had such a wonderful use, and he had previously completely ignored that spiritual spring. He also found it strange that after cultivators reached the foundation stage, they needed almost no food or drink, so why did Wei Nan senior still think of digging out a spring in the stone room?

  Inside the Jade Simplified Scripture, it records a method used by Wei Nan Senior to refine the Moisturizing Elixir using the Small Cloud and Rain Formula. The Moisturizing Elixir is a type of elixir that cannot be ingested, its effect is mediocre, able to improve one's complexion and skin, but can only be useful for cultivators below the third layer of the Refining Qi stage.

  This elixir, which was completely useless to Zuo Mo in its original form, became a first-grade spiritual dan after being refined by Wei Nan using the "Small Cloud Rain Technique". Its efficacy also greatly increased, allowing it to improve the appearance of cultivators who had not yet reached the foundation stage. According to the Jade Annals, this became one of Wei Nan's important methods for accumulating wealth. However, due to the long time required for water refinement, Wei Nan only used this method for a short period before switching to other techniques.

  Unlike He Zuo's mistaken blows and bumps, Wei Nan's exploration was very thorough, and the records were also quite clear.

  Wei Nan believes that the key to combining these two is water. The "Xiao Yun Yu Jue" is a typical water-based method, and when combined with the water-refining method, they complement each other perfectly. It also records his analysis of the reasons for failure.

  As he read on word by word and sentence by sentence, his thoughts became clearer. No wonder he was able to refine the Great Strength Pill. The Scarlet Flame Formula belonged to fire, and the Bixia Pill also used the fire-refining method. Using the Scarlet Flame Formula to absorb the essence of the sun and infuse it into the Bixia Pill turned it into a Great Strength Pill.

  There is only one key among them.

  That's fire!