That day, you returned to the Danxia Sect.
You had originally planned to look for Xie Huide.
But you discovered that the entire Danxia Sect had been emptied, every man gone and every building deserted.
When you went to find Xie Huide, you found that he was absent as well.
Moreover, his residence was a mess.
Some essential items, such as his pill furnace, were gone.
Xie Huide appeared to have left in a great hurry.
"Did the Danxia Sect go bankrupt? Why did no one notify me?" You were deeply confused.
You searched through the Danxia Sect several times, but did not see a single living soul.
Just as you were utterly bewildered—
A squad of heavily armored, weapon-bearing Great Qian soldiers found you.
Their leader was a general named Hu Zhongxuan, with cultivation at the Grandmaster Realm.
His entire body radiated murderous intent. You were certain you could not take him on.
Hu Zhongxuan told you that Great Qian had already gone to war with the Golden Yue Kingdom to the north.
The entire Danxia Sect had been conscripted to the front lines.
They were responsible for treating the wounded and supplying medicinal pills.
You finally understood why so many martial artists had recently suffered external injuries.
Those people must have come down from the battlefield.
Commonly known as deserters.
Others had refused conscription and fought with the army, getting injured as a result.
This war was enormous in scale and far-reaching in scope.
You had been conscripted as well.
The others from the Danxia Sect had already departed yesterday to support the various battlefronts.
You needed to follow Hu Zhongxuan to the battlefield.
After hearing him out, your intestines turned green with regret.
If you had returned one day earlier—
You could have met Xie Huide and obtained the Inner Divinity Pill formula.
If you had returned one day later—
You could have avoided Hu Zhongxuan and would not have been conscripted to the front lines.
A difference of one day left you with neither end of the stick.
Years of effort had gone to waste.
And now, you still had to risk your life on the battlefield.
Although alchemists would not be sent into direct combat, there were risks regardless.
You were deeply depressed.
At that moment, Hu Zhongxuan asked your name.
You answered truthfully, "A man does not change his name standing, nor his surname sitting. I am Zhao Tiezhu."
Hu Zhongxuan nodded and handed you a large chest.
Hu Zhongxuan said these were things Xie Huide had specifically designated for you.
You found that it was filled with pill formulas and insights into alchemy.
There were also one thousand Qi and Blood Paste and five hundred Inner Divinity Pills.
The Inner Divinity Pill formula was conspicuously among them.
Besides the fourth-grade Inner Divinity Pill, there were several higher-grade formulas, the highest reaching seventh grade.
It looked as though Xie Huide had handed over his entire lifetime of accumulated knowledge to you.
You felt that this atmosphere was extremely ominous.
Had Xie Huide been written out of the story?
You hurriedly asked Hu Zhongxuan, "Xie Hui... is my master dead?"
Hu Zhongxuan gave you two strange looks. "No. He is on another battlefront, refining pills and treating injuries for high-level martial artists."
"Oh, he is not dead."
You had thought Xie Huide was dead, because no matter how you looked at it, it seemed like he was arranging his final affairs.
But Hu Zhongxuan felt that you were hoping Xie Huide would die.
He figured that perhaps the master-disciple relationships of the Danxia Sect were simply this bizarre.
He could not understand it, but he respected it.
Not only had you obtained the Inner Divinity Pill—
You had also gained many pill formulas beyond your expectations.
Along with Xie Huide's precious practical alchemy experience, which could spare you many detours.
You happily followed Hu Zhongxuan to the front lines.
You arrived at Yajiang Pass, a strategic military stronghold in the north near the Azure Mesa Desert.
A large number of main-force troops were stationed here. It was ground both nations had to fight over.
You were assigned to the military medical bureau, part of the logistics support forces.
You were specifically responsible for refining Qi and Blood Paste.
The vast majority of soldiers were at the Bone Tempering Realm or below.
The demand for Qi and Blood Paste was enormous.
The personnel of the military medical bureau did not need to go to the battlefield.
Compared to soldiers fighting desperately for their lives, you were not in mortal danger.
In the tenth year—
Your success rate in refining Qi and Blood Paste was so high that you only needed one hour each day to complete your assigned quota.
The army assigned you additional refining tasks.
Besides refining Qi and Blood Paste, they also had you refine Golden Wound Paste, a third-grade healing medicine.
You came to deeply understand the great truth that the more capable you were, the more work you would never finish.
Fortunately, the army covered all the materials consumed during refinement.
It was the perfect opportunity to improve your third-grade alchemy.
After nearly half a year of continuously refining Golden Wound Paste—
Your proficiency in refining third-grade pills finally reached mastery.
You became a genuine third-grade alchemist.
You planned to begin refining fourth-grade Inner Divinity Pills.
A third-grade alchemist was not particularly dazzling within the Danxia Sect.
But in the military medical bureau, you were already rare high-end talent.
There were very few alchemists in the military medical bureau.
Moreover, most alchemists still stumbled and fumbled even when refining second-grade Qi and Blood Paste.
Producing six or seven pills from one batch was already enough for them to shout, "This Daoist master has made it!"
Ordinary physicians made up the majority of the military medical bureau.
The vast majority of physicians were not martial artists, merely ordinary people.
Alchemists were only responsible for refining pills, while physicians treated the wounded.
The alchemists of the military medical bureau basically knew no medicine.
It was only that you happened to be highly skilled in medicine.
This was caused by the special training system for the Danxia Sect's Personal Disciples.
The scale of this war was too great, and the demand for physicians was equally immense.
During conscription, many standards had inevitably been lowered.
Several veterinarians had even been recruited into your group.
Those veterinarians thought that since the wounded dared take the medicine they prescribed, the wounded must know what they were doing.
The injured soldiers thought that since the physicians dared prescribe medicine, the physicians must know what they were doing.
Both sides happily rushed toward each other in a two-way embrace.
Until yesterday, when one veterinarian prescribed a wounded soldier the dosage meant for cattle.
The wounded soldier's eyes immediately turned red, and he mooed with excitement.
He kept feeling that a plow was missing from around his neck.
That wounded soldier finally plowed two mu of land before calming down.
After that incident, those veterinarians were finally dragged off for emergency medical training.
After their crash course, those veterinarians' medical skills could barely be considered usable. Handling less severe external injuries was no problem.
Sometimes, after a battle ended, the number of wounded would suddenly surge.
When those physicians were too overwhelmed to cope, you would step in to treat the wounded as well.
Once, Hu Zhongxuan discovered that you knew medicine and were very skilled at it.
He had you lead a group on your own.
Hu Zhongxuan was an assistant general in the army, his rank second only to the commander-in-chief and deputy commander-in-chief.
He wielded considerable authority. He could decide minor adjustments to the military medical bureau directly.
Hu Zhongxuan assigned you three alchemists and thirty physicians.
Originally, alchemists and physicians belonged to two separate systems.
Moreover, alchemists held far higher status.
Because compared to ordinary herbal medicine, medicinal pills were—
Both faster and better.
All it took was swallowing one pill. No injections, no doses of medicine, and they could return to work that very day.
Sometimes, when physicians needed certain pills, they had to humbly beg alchemists for them.
The demand for pills in wartime was immense, and alchemists could not satisfy everyone.
Therefore, the pills in other groups were always prioritized for the severely wounded.
But your group had an entirely different style.
Because your refining efficiency was too high, there was simply no shortage of medicinal pills.
As long as someone was carried before you, without even asking a question, you would flip your hand and shove a healing pill into their mouth.
If they recovered, they would howl and rush back onto the battlefield to keep working.
If they did not recover, they stayed and kept eating until they were full.
Later, you developed muscle memory. No matter who was carried in, you started by giving them a pill.
Even soldiers carrying stretchers who were not injured would somehow end up with their mouths full of pills when they left.
The three alchemists in your group also made tremendous progress under your guidance.
You trained two half-baked first-grade alchemists into proper first-grade alchemists.
The other had originally been a first-grade alchemist, but under your guidance, he became second grade.
With them refining pills, you had more time to cultivate.
That day, you were cultivating in your residence.
The true qi within your body suddenly condensed.
Your Ninefold Profound Art completed its eighth condensation of true qi.
You vaguely felt that some subtle change had occurred within your body after this condensation.
But you were not certain whether it was merely an illusion.
After carefully examining your body, you found nothing unusual.
You frowned and could only set the matter aside for now.
You took out your pill furnace and alchemy materials.
Today, you were going to begin refining Inner Divinity Pills.
Before you continue