Inside the narrow mountain cave, the flames in the medicine cauldron reflected on the wall of the mountain, jumping and dancing with gleaming teeth.

  Xiao Yan's eyes were fixed intently on the flames surging in the cauldron, his slightly pale face covered in sweat. Prolonged pill refinement was an extremely exhausting task that consumed a lot of Dou Qi. Moreover, Xiao Yan's current cultivation method was only at the lowest level of the Huang rank, which made it difficult for him to have any advantages in terms of thickness and persistence. Therefore, being able to persist in refining pills in front of the cauldron for nearly two hours was already quite an achievement.

  With narrowed eyes, Yao Lao gazed at Xiao Yan who had once again successfully refined the Congealing Blood Grass into white powder. Knowing that he had reached his limit, Yao Lao nodded slightly and said softly, "Alright, take a rest for now."

  Upon hearing this, Xiao Yan's shoulders, which had been maintaining a balance, suddenly slumped down. His body was like it had lost all its strength, and he softly fell onto the cold ground, panting heavily with his chest constantly heaving up and down. With his entire body feeling numb and sore, he simply couldn't be bothered to move even a single finger.

  "It's most effective to cultivate at this time."

  Glancing at Xiao Yan who was lying on the ground like soft mud, Yao Lao said calmly.

  After a brief struggle between laziness and diligence in his heart, Xiao Yan reluctantly let out a mournful sigh as he sat up, his trembling hands forming the hand seal for cultivation, before slowly closing his eyes.

  Seeing Xiao Yan's appearance, Yao Lao smiled and shifted his gaze to the dozen or so jade boxes placed in front of the medicine cauldron. The jade boxes were filled with a pale white powder extracted from the Congealing Blood Grass, all of which were the results of Xiao Yan's previous efforts.

  From left to right, the pale white color also becomes more and more intense, until the last jade box, where the white powder inside has almost reached a pure white texture.

  Looking at this extremely obvious progress, Yao Lao nodded in surprise and once again praised Xiao Yan's excellent spiritual perception.

  Glancing at Xiao Yan, who was recovering his Dou Qi, Yao Lao sat cross-legged and leaned against the stone wall, closing his eyes to meditate. At this moment, Xiao Yan had only refined the first material, with two more waiting for him to slowly work on.

  ……

  After meditating with his eyes closed for nearly an hour, the dimmed vortex within Xiao Yan's body that had been caused by the exhaustion of Dou Qi finally emitted a bright glow once again. This time, the halo seemed to be even brighter than it was several hours ago.

  Slowly opening his eyes, the numb and weak feeling all over his body had also dissipated by more than half. He twisted his neck, and the cracking sound of his bones colliding made Xiao Yan let out a comfortable sigh.

  "Recovered? Then let's continue." Opening his eyes and gazing at Xiao Yan, who had once again become vigorous and full of life, Medicine Master smiled.

  With a wry smile, Xiao Yan shook his head. After going through the previous painful process of refining medicine, he finally understood that he had been deceived by Yao Lao. Before, when Yao Lao refined medicine, he would simply stretch out his palm and burn it casually, and the elixir that drove countless people crazy would be fired up in an instant. This simple process also left Xiao Yan with a very light impression of refining medicine, but now that he had taken action to refine it himself, he realized that this thing was even more tiring than hard labor moving rocks.

  It seems a bit late now, so Xiao Yan could only let out a depressed sigh and sit back in front of the medicine cauldron, starting to refine the essence of the other two medicinal materials.

  With the previous experience of refining Congealing Blood Grass, this time's Xiao Yan was much easier. After burning eight Live Qi Fruits and ten Poppy Flowers, he finally successfully extracted the necessary ingredients from the two medicinal materials to configure the wound medicine.

  The substance extracted from the living fruit is a slightly blackish small particle, which has the effect of removing blood stasis and promoting circulation. In the wild, some experienced wounded mercenaries, if they don't have enough wound medicine, often crush the living fruit into minced meat to alleviate their injuries.

  A pale red liquid extracted from the poppy flower, this liquid has a numbing effect on the nerves and can be used as an analgesic.

  Looking at the three medicines neatly placed in front of Xiao Yan, Yao Lao nodded slightly and said softly: "The required materials have been refined, now let's merge their medicinal properties together. This is the most crucial step in alchemy."

  Xiao Yan took a deep breath, his face solemn as he nodded, and with practiced ease, he tossed the pure white powder into the medicine cauldron. He then used gentle heat to simmer it for over ten minutes, until the pure white powder had slightly reddened, before swiftly pouring in the liquid of the poppy flower.

  The liquid had just entered the crucible, and it was wrapped in a pure white powder. In the flames, it slightly rolled for a while, and the two gradually merged into a light red viscous liquid.

  The soul's perception struggled to control the flame's temperature, slowly simmering the pale red viscous liquid.

  Under the continuous baking of flames, the viscous liquid gradually turned into a dark red paste.

  Staring intently at the dark red paste in the medicine cauldron from the transparent mirror surface, Xiao Yan hesitated slightly before throwing in the black granules of the living spirit fruit.

  Black particles entered the crucible, but nothing changed. A large cluster of fine particles jumped back and forth in the flames, refusing to merge into the dark red paste as desired.

  "Various materials have different resistances to temperature, so you must learn to control the flame temperature at will in any part of the cauldron. Where low temperature is needed, suppress the flame; where high temperature is needed, release the suppression and increase the flame temperature..." The medicine elder said calmly, looking at Xiao Yan who was sweating profusely.

  He licked his dry lips, Xiao Yan nodded, and hastily divided a cluster of soul perception, making an effort to control the tiny particles under the flame slowly rising in temperature.

  "Hmm..."

  As the soul's perception of temperature was released from its suppression, a cluster of uncontrolled flames suddenly shot up, and in just an instant, it had incinerated nearly half of the black particles into ashes, scaring Xiao Yan so much that he hastily suppressed them with all his might.

  The soul's perception on the one hand had to maintain a flame temperature, and on the other hand had to raise another flame temperature. This requirement of using two minds at once was really making Xiao Yan's head ache.

  However, after several close calls, Xiao Yan finally calmed down from the chaos, wiped away the cold sweat on his forehead, took a deep breath, and poured all the remaining Dou Qi in his body into the furnace.

  Inside the crucible, tiny black particles can no longer withstand the increasingly high temperature and burst open, a puff of dark powder slowly floats into that lump of pale red paste, dyeing its color even deeper...

  When the last bit of black powder drifted into the cauldron, Xiao Yan let out a long sigh of relief, his palm slowly leaving the furnace mouth. As Xiao Yan's palm withdrew, the flames in the medicine cauldron also gradually died down.

  Looking at the panting Xiao Yan, Medicine Old smiled slightly, his palm waved, and the lid of the medicine cauldron flew off, his right hand beckoned, and a large cluster of deep red medicinal paste flew out of the cauldron, finally suspended in mid-air within the mountain cave.

  He glanced at the cluster of deep red paste emitting a strong medicinal smell, and with a wave of his hand, the old doctor's palm cut through the air, dividing the constantly flowing deep red paste into at least hundreds of small paste droplets.

  One hand took over the Nascent Soul Ring from Xiao Yan, and with a flick of Medicine Old's finger, hundreds of small jade bottles instantly filled the narrow mountain cave.

  After placing the jade bottle in place, Yao Lao casually waved his hand, and the half-air sticky liquid accurately fell into the jade bottle.

  He casually picked up a jade bottle and handed it to Xiao Yan with a smile, jokingly saying: "Congratulations, you've successfully refined medicine for the first time!"

  Eagerly taking over the jade bottle, Xiao Yan looked at the deep red medicinal liquid inside that was not too pure in color, but his heart couldn't help but surge with a excited sense of pride.

  "Hehe, from now on, I'm also a pill alchemist!"