88:

  “How did he manage it?” Xiao Feng asked.

  “He did not,” Lianhua cheekily replied, a mischievous glint flitting across her gaze. “Not alone, at least. There was a reason why his fellow alchemists had dismissed him so and the truth of the matter was, Senior Alchemist Sheng had no idea where to begin modifying the Soul Restoration Pill into a concoction. Instead, he decided to focus his efforts on improving the pill formula of the Soul Restoration Pill, hoping to use future discoveries as a basis for his research.”

  “Did it work?” Xiao Feng asked.

  “No,” Lianhua softly replied. “It took him seven years of experimentation, as he studied and recorded the detailed interactions of Lingxi Root with hundreds of different ingredient combinations and developed nearly a thousand variations on the Soul Restoration Pill formula, but none could approach the efficiency and the potency of the original. However, what Senior Alchemist Sheng did discover, was the Lingxi Root’s surprising vulnerability to Frost Qi. Are you familiar with the concept of Plant Cores?”

  Xiao Feng thought back to the time he had used his essence cultivation art on spiritual plants in the Alchemist’s Haven, where he had discovered a plant core for the first time.“Yes,” He replied, nodding slowly.

  Lianhua remained silent as she observed him with an eager look, which Xiao Feng took as an unspoken cue for him to continue, “From my understanding, Plant Cores resemble Beast Cores in function, serving as a reservoir for it’s Qi reserves and enabling it’s life-sustaining functions by distributing the Qi through a network of meridians. The main difference seems to be that plant cores are metaphysical existences, while Beast Cores are physical ones.”

  Lianhua blinked, her gaze turning sharp as she studied Xiao Feng’s visage before asking, “Have you been studying from Alchemist Jun’s notes?”

  “Er, here and there,” Xiao Feng awkwardly replied, in truth not having studied from Alchemist Jun’s notes at all. “But that’s not how I know about plant core’s properties.”

  “Oh?” Lianhua muttered. “Go on,” She urged.

  “Well I knew about their existence before I came here,” Xiao Feng admitted, his words not untrue since his predecessor did have a vague idea of the topic. “But I noticed that none of the alchemists were using Plant Cores in their pill recipes, which seems counter-intuitive given that the concentration of Qi in the cores would naturally be the highest, while also drastically reducing the impurities that will be added to the refining mixture. The logical conclusion seems to be that plant cores do not exist in the physical world, otherwise they would harvested and refined directly.”

  A warm smile stretched across Lianhua’s features, as she gave him a nod in acknowledgement. “Well explained. Those are not the only differences between plant cores and beast cores, but your deduction stands true. Another difference is that spiritual plants are not limited to a single plant core, but for the purpose of our discussion and for Senior Alchemist Sheng’s discovery, it is fortuitous that the Lingxi Root only has a single plant core.”

  “Did freezing the Lingxi Root make it’s core tangible?” Xiao Feng blurted out, as the idea came to him in the spur of the moment.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “Not quite,” Lianhua answered. “Truthfully, the discovery alone did not mean much until Senior Alchemist Sheng accidentally dropped the frozen Lingxi Root while transporting it. It shattered into over a dozen fragments, seemingly wasting the ingredient. Most Alchemists would have disposed of the wasted material, but the ease with which the resilient Lingxi Root which survived deep within the earth had shattered bothered him.”

  Having learned his lession, Xiao Feng kept his mouth shut as he waited for Lianhua to continue.

  “So refined the Soul Refinement Pill with each Lingxi Root fragment, more out of personal curiosity than an academic one. And to his shock, one refinement succeeded. It was a Mortal Grade Soul Refinement Pill, as poor as a quality an alchemist can get, yet it had succeeded. More importantly, the Lingxi Root fragment had lost the heat resistance of the whole, so the difficulty involved in refining the pill had dropped significantly, to the point where even a Wind Alchemist with a burner was capable of easily refining it.”

  “What was the discovery?” Xiao Feng asked.

  “That was the problem Senior Alchemist Sheng ran into,” Lianhua replied. “He had discovered the solution, but he didn’t understand it. So he froze another Lingxi root and used a hammer to smash it into another dozen pieces. It didn’t work. Then he repeated the process from the same height as before and it still failed. Senior Alchemist Sheng had the solution, but it was not worth anything unless it could be reliably followed upon by another alchemist. It was worth anything unless he understood what was happening. But Senior Alchemist he may be, he was only a peak-layer foundation establishment cultivator.”

  “He needed the assistance of an Elder,” Xiao Feng guessed, almost certain in his assessment given that the effects of his essence cultivation art was an inferior version of a Nascent Soul’s divine sense.

  “You have really been studying your alchemy,” Lianhua praised. “Yes, indeed, a Nascent Soul was required to aid him, but Senior Alchemist Sheng was living through a protracted conflict and given his already poor reputation, no Elder would spare the time for him. Desperation crept in and he wrote to the Patriarch of his Sect directly, listing the profound effect his success could have on the battlefield. It took two years for his letter to reach the Patriarch, but when it did, the Patriarch arrived in person to aid him. And then, history was made.”

  “So?” Xiao Feng muttered. “How’d they figure it out?”

  “Once you can see the plant core in action, it’s mysteries cease to be confounding. The Lingxi Root propogates by splitting one of it’s lateral roots and splitting a small portion of it’s core and attaching it to the split root, so it can grow into another Lingxi root. When it is frozen, the plant detects that it’s survival is being threatened, but it needs enough time to perceive how it’s being shattered. The first time Senior Alchemist Sheng dropped the lingxi root at an angle and elevation that gave it enough time to perceive the threat and split off a smaller portion of the core that would not overwhelm one of the detaching fragments, hence his success. Now that Senior Alchemist Sheng knew that, it was only a matter of experimentation before he found out the right way to break off fragments of the Lingxi root in a manner that every detached piece had a small plant core of it’s own while lacking the heat resistance of the original. Hence, the Soul Restoration Concoction was born, alongside a newly acknowledged Grand Alchemist,” Lianhua explained, her final words spoken with an awe and a strong yearning.

  “Whoa,” Xiao Feng let the word slip, sounding like an excited teenager instead of an accomplished war hero. Making a show of clearing his throat, he addressed Lianhua again, “I mean, impressive.”

  “It is,” Lianhua agreed with an amused smile. “But do you understand what it is that I am trying to convey.”

  Xiao Feng thought about it for a minute, before shaking his head. It was as if the conclusion was with his gasp but continued to elude him because he was missing a key piece of information.

  Lianhua’s smile turned into a teasing grin, her pearly white teeth visible beneath her rosy red lips as she declared, “Instead of trying to brew a concoction that has the efficiency of a pill, which is an endeavor that can take decades to accomplish, just refine a pill, recruit.”

  Xiao Feng felt his cheeks turn a beet red as he cupped his mouth with both his hands, “Oh.”

  two chapters ahead on patreon if you want to.

  Rating and the story helps more people get their chai.

  Join it and grab a role here if you're interested, it's a pretty nifty feature