Chapter 29: Gathering Qi Pellet

  A secluded valley hidden among the mountains, shrouded in thick fog as far as the eye can see. Yet, not a single insect hum or bird chirp can be heard, nor even the usual howling of beasts, an eerie silence.

  Under the thick fog, it was a completely different world. All that could be seen was a black-robed youth with his eyes tightly closed and his hands stuck to a black cauldron. His palms continuously emitted scorching flames that poured into the cauldron in an endless stream.

  Sitting quietly was Jiang Hao who had been refining the elixir for many days.

  Since he started refining the elixir, it has been a considerable amount of time. Jiang Huan's current session lasted for ten days. Every time his fighting spirit was exhausted, he would stop to cultivate and replenish his fighting spirit before continuing to refine the elixir. It must be said that Jiang Huan indeed had some natural talent in refining elixirs. From initially destroying the medicine and exploding the furnace to now being able to extract the medicinal materials in an orderly manner, it was truly a difference of heaven and earth.

  At this time, the empty space was filled with large and small bottles, all of which were refined by Jiang Hao under the guidance of Shi Tian. Now, Jiang Hao's control over fire can be said to have reached a level of mastery.

  Every time Jiang Huan refined the medicinal materials in his hand, Yi Tian would bring more medicinal materials, which made Jiang Huan speechless and wondered if his master used to do business with medicinal materials. However, as time passed, Jiang Huan became numb and simply repeated the refining process mechanically. Some medicinal materials were very easy to refine, while others were abnormally difficult to refine, such as the Shelilan he refined a few days ago, which took him a whole day to refine into a black powder the size of a fingernail, making Jiang Huan so depressed that he almost vomited blood. Fortunately, such difficult-to-refine medicinal materials only accounted for a small part, otherwise, Jiang Huan would have gone crazy.

  It had been more than a month since then, when the last batch of medicinal materials was placed in front of him, Jiang Heng only took a look and waved his hand to put the medicinal materials into the furnace for refining. Looking at the bottles and jars placed all over the mountain valley, Ye Tian's face also showed a relieved smile.

  A good alchemist requires not only innate talent, but also diligent effort. However, the cost of materials is beyond what ordinary warriors can afford, so only large families have the means to cultivate one or two alchemists. After all, even a big family cannot bear the burden of someone like Jiang Huan who practices without rest for such a long time. The materials that Di Tian had were leftovers from before his death, and although they were just low-grade spiritual medicines, they were suitable for someone like Jiang Huan to practice with. Of course, it would be impossible for even an empire to gather so many low-grade spiritual medicines in the short term, let alone a large family. Spiritual medicines are not as common as cabbages after all.

  The final batch of spiritual medicine was being refined, and Jiang Heng's speed was noticeably faster than before. His hands flashed as the flames wrapped around the medicinal materials like a fire snake. Now, Jiang Heng could refine multiple medicinal materials at the same time. After nearly two months of day and night practice, Jiang Heng's soul power had increased significantly.

  At this time, Jiang Hao was completely unaware of the outside world, his entire spirit fully immersed in the alchemy furnace. As for controlling the temperature inside the furnace, Jiang Hao had become extremely skilled, and the situation where he would ruin the medicine had become very rare. What's strange is that as Jiang Hao's soul power increased, his battle aura was also constantly rising, the strength of a Seven-Star Warrior had already stabilized completely, and there was even a subtle trend of breaking through to Eight-Star, which made Jiang Hao's heart feel slightly excited again.

  What seems like effortless progress is actually the result of countless hours of hard work and dedication, and the improvement in martial arts skills is also within expectations.

  When day and night had alternated twice, Jiang Hao slowly opened his eyes on a clear morning. Although he looked visibly tired, there was occasionally a flash of sharpness in his eyes that made people marvel.

  "Clap clap", the Heavenly King hovering in mid-air clapped his hands, "Not bad, you little brat, to have refined so many medicinal materials."

  After finishing speaking, Yu Tian hugged with both hands and smiled at Jiang Heng who was sitting on the ground.

  Jiang Hao stretched his waist vigorously, and his whole body kept making crackling sounds. Looking at the bottles in front of him, he couldn't help but feel a sense of pride.

  It seems that he saw Jiang Huan's heart, Yi Tian raised an eyebrow and said lightly: "Since the medicinal materials have all been refined, next we need to condense the elixir. This time you will be practicing a low-grade mortal elixir, this is the elixir formula."

  Having said that, he took out a jade slip from his bosom and casually tossed it to Jiang Huan.

  Jiang Hao hastily caught the jade slip, this was Jiang Hao's first time seeing a real medicinal formula, and he couldn't help but carefully examine it.

  "Perceive it with your soul's power, don't have any distracting thoughts." Zi Tian glanced at Jiang Huan who was playing with the jade slip and said softly.

  "En." Jiang Hao responded with a sound, sticking the jade slip to his forehead, and his soul power surged out, probing into the jade slip.

  At the moment when the soul power probed into the jade slip, a piece of information suddenly flew into Jiang Hao's mind, slowly sinking down and forming a prescription emitting white light, with dense words written on it, and at the top, there were three red big characters "Ji Qi Dan".

  After carefully reading the prescription, Jiang Heng's heart couldn't help but feel a thrill of excitement. Although the Gathering Qi Pill was only an inferior mortal pill, it had the effect of absorbing and gathering battle qi, which could aid in condensing and refining one's energy. Taking this pill would not only greatly shorten the time it took to gather battle qi, but also expand the dantian, allowing for the absorption of even more battle qi. As a result, when facing an opponent of the same level, one would have an absolute advantage. Of course, the Gathering Qi Pill was only effective for warriors below the rank of Battle Master.

  "You rest first and recover to your best state, then start refining again. You can put away the materials you don't need for now." Ji Tian said slowly, glancing at Jiang Huan's joyful face.

  Jiang Hao responded with a sound, and with a wave of his hand, more than half of the medicine bottles were put away in the storage bag, leaving only the materials needed to refine the Gathering Qi Pill. Then he sat down on the spot, his hands forming a seal, and began to recover the remaining war qi that was almost depleted.

  Time flew by, and more than half a day had passed. Jiang Hao also withdrew from his cultivation state, feeling a surge of battle energy inside him, and he couldn't help but want to let out a loud roar.

  "Time's almost up, let's start refining the elixir." A voice awakened Jiang Huan from his joyful reverie.

  He gathered his thoughts, and with a pat of the storage bag, a dark furnace appeared in front of him. In the past few months of condensing pills, Jiang Heng had lost five furnaces, three of which were damaged due to explosions, while the other two had burst open due to prolonged calcination. This made Jiang Heng realize the importance of good furnaces and he couldn't help but covet that Scarlet Flame furnace again.

  He carefully recalled the contents of the prescription, and Jiang Huan raised his hands, causing two white jade bottles to float above the alchemy furnace. These two bottles were the refined essence of Golden Leaf Fruit and Dragon's Gall Grass, which were also the two main ingredients of the Gathering Qi Pill.

  "Don't rush into fusion just yet, a second condensation is needed." At this time, Tianyi spoke up to remind him.

  "Huh? Master, I see that you always condense and refine once when refining the elixir." Jiang Huan asked with a puzzled expression.

  "Hmph, your Dan fire purity is too low. If you could successfully condense the medicine at once, that would be strange. Even if you want to purify the impurities in the medicine, it's not possible to refine them into a pill, let alone merge them." Ji Tian Leng snorted and closed his eyes, no longer speaking.

  Jiang Hao listened to the words of Yi Tian, and after a moment's thought, decided to try it out first. He slightly flipped his hands, and from each bottle, he sprinkled out a small amount of powder, about the size of a fingernail, which floated quietly in mid-air. Jiang Hao then drew in the powder with both palms, sucking it into the alchemy furnace, before sticking it to either side of the furnace. A faint yellow flame burst forth, appearing fierce but not hot, because Jiang Hao had deliberately controlled the temperature within a certain range.

  Two clusters of medicinal powder were constantly stirring in the pale yellow flames, Jiang Heng fully released his spiritual power and carefully sensed the temperature inside the alchemy furnace. After a moment, the two clusters of powder began to make contact, the light golden medicinal powder and the red medicinal powder slowly merged into one cluster of powder, with a mixture of light gold and red colors. Under Jiang Heng's flames, the two types of medicinal powder successfully combined and started to fuse together. Seeing the process go so smoothly, Jiang Heng couldn't help but feel a surge of joy in his heart, and he silently thought to himself that this was going to be a great success.

  An hour later, Jiang Heng looked at the pile of powder in front of him and was speechless. The light yellow and red colors in the powder each occupied half of the land, without any sign of fusion. Jiang Heng panicked, and the flame on his hand grew a little bigger. With a muffled sound, the powder turned into black ash and fell from the bottom of the alchemy furnace.

  Looking at the black ash in front of him, Jiang Huan was taken aback and shook his head helplessly. It seemed that his experience was still too little. He looked up at Xie Tian floating in mid-air and waved his hand to brush away the black ash. He took out two jade bottles again, and another two clumps of powder fell into the alchemy furnace.

  Light yellow flames burst out, each wrapping around a ball of powder, starting a lukewarm second condensation.

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