You had already reviewed the alchemy notes Xie Huide had given you in advance.
These alchemy notes were very scattered.
They were not as systematic as Xie Huide's True Explanation of the Alchemical Dao.
Yet these scattered notes were more targeted and detailed instead.
They inspired you greatly.
Several of them, in particular, specifically explained the practical process of refining Inner Divinity Pills.
You studied them repeatedly for several days.
You felt that you had absorbed nearly enough knowledge.
You used a windproof lighter to ignite the Alchemy Furnace.
After calming your mind and focusing your spirit, you officially began your first refinement.
After two hours of utterly focused refinement,
the first batch of Inner Divinity Pills emerged fresh from the furnace, steaming.
You calmly opened the Alchemy Furnace.
Thin skin, generous filling, eighteen pleats.
Ten useless pills lay quietly inside the Alchemy Furnace.
Expressionless, you immediately began the second refinement.
Your heart did not ripple in the slightest.
As long as your expectations were low enough, nothing could affect your mindset.
Three days later,
you produced another ten useless pills.
You closed your eyes to rest and recalled, summarizing the lessons from your failures.
You had not closed your eyes for three days and three nights.
Combined with the immense mental drain of alchemy, you were exhausted.
You needed a truly vicious sleep.
Just as you were about to go inside to rest,
the second-rank alchemist under your command came to find you.
He said that the third-rank Golden Wound Pills used by your group had run out.
Only you could refine third-rank pills.
Thus, you could only work overtime.
You forced yourself to stay alert, set out the Alchemy Furnace, and began refining Golden Wound Pills.
You usually produced around eight Golden Wound Pills per batch.
But today, your state was rather wondrous.
Though you were half-asleep and half-awake,
you could clearly sense every stage of the refinement process.
Every detail was infinitely magnified within your perception.
In the end, this batch of Golden Wound Pills actually yielded ten finished pills.
Your third-rank alchemy had directly reached perfection.
You were overjoyed.
But you worked hard to calm your mind, avoiding breaking this wondrous state.
Maintaining that state, you refined another three batches of Golden Wound Pills.
That second-rank alchemist hurriedly took the Golden Wound Pills and left.
You did not stop refining.
Still maintaining that state, you began refining Inner Divinity Pills.
This time, you already had a premonition in your heart.
When the Alchemy Furnace was opened, two finished Inner Divinity Pills lay obediently inside.
"Hahaha, as expected of me!"
You picked up the two Inner Divinity Pills, unable to put them down.
Your fourth-rank alchemy had already reached the beginner level.
Your efforts over the past days had not been wasted.
At the same time, you withdrew from that mysterious state.
No matter how you tried, you could no longer find the knack of entering that state again.
Instead, endless weakness washed over you.
Your legs went limp, as though you had fought a great battle for seven days and seven nights.
You hurried back to your room and collapsed into sleep.
Only after two days and one night did you slowly awaken.
When you awoke, Hu Zhongxuan happened to come looking for you.
You had not shown up for several days, and he thought you had run away.
He glanced at your Alchemy Furnace and discovered that it contained Inner Divinity Pills.
He was greatly surprised.
Your rate of improvement was simply terrifying.
In just a few days, you had entered the fourth-rank pills.
But you knew that you had only successfully refined Inner Divinity Pills because you had accidentally entered that mysterious state.
You noticed that Hu Zhongxuan seemed to know alchemy as well.
After all, he recognized these as Inner Divinity Pills just by looking at the useless pills.
Hu Zhongxuan proposed that he could provide you with sufficient materials to refine Inner Divinity Pills.
However, fifty percent of the refined Inner Divinity Pills had to be given to the army.
You truly did not have many materials for refining Inner Divinity Pills on you.
Yajiang Pass, this godforsaken place, was close to the Azure Mesa Desert, so it was simply impossible to buy more materials.
If Hu Zhongxuan could provide the materials, it would solve your problem perfectly.
But fifty percent was simply too much.
After haggling with him, you settled on giving thirty percent to the army.
After considering it, Hu Zhongxuan agreed.
Because your current yield rate was so low,
even if you gave fifty percent to the army, you would not lose out.
Now that you only had to give away thirty percent, you were making an absolute killing.
You rarely went to the military medical office anymore.
You hid in the rear.
You began diligently refining Inner Divinity Pills.
If you can't find it by searching the book title, try searching the author instead. Perhaps it was only renamed!
Only when third-rank pills needed refining would you go over to save people from suffering.
Hu Zhongxuan did not force you to go to the military medical office either.
You felt that Hu Zhongxuan was quite a decent man.
The eleventh year.
The Great Qian Empire and the Golden Yue Kingdom fought with blazing intensity.
Neither side would yield to the other.
Even Apex Grandmasters began entering the field to hack at one another.
Yet neither side gained any obvious advantage.
In terms of Apex Grandmaster numbers, the Golden Yue Kingdom held the greater advantage.
The Li Imperial Family of the Great Qian Empire had a total of fifty-six Apex Grandmasters.
The Golden Yue Kingdom had a total of sixty-eight Apex Grandmasters.
But most of the Golden Yue Kingdom's Apex Grandmasters belonged to the Mizhen Sect.
The Mizhen Sect was the Golden Yue Kingdom's state-protecting sect.
Unlike the Great Qian Empire, which had many sects,
the Golden Yue Kingdom had only one Mizhen Sect.
The Mizhen Sect's sect master held immense power, even surpassing the ruler of the Golden Yue Kingdom.
When the ruler of the Golden Yue Kingdom saw the Mizhen Sect's sect master, he had to affectionately call him dear old father.
Therefore, the Golden Yue Kingdom's army could not mobilize many Apex Grandmasters.
The Great Qian Empire would not deploy all of its Apex Grandmasters either.
And so, the two sides remained deadlocked.
This year, through constant practice,
your Inner Divinity Pill refinement technique also reached the initial mastery stage.
You could produce four Inner Divinity Pills per batch.
That was enough to supply your daily cultivation.
Moreover, all the alchemy materials you consumed were provided by Hu Zhongxuan.
The feeling of getting things for free made you feel exceptionally good.
However, you never entered that mysterious state from your first Inner Divinity Pill refinement again.
You tried staying awake for days and nights.
You tried refining pills without pause, until your mind was numb and you were muddled and disoriented.
But none of it was of any use.
You could only give up and plan to return and ask Xie Huide.
Since hardly anyone paid attention to you,
you no longer needed to hide your cultivation and could cultivate openly.
That day, you were Condensing True Qi.
Suddenly, you felt heaven and earth widen around you.
You completed the ninth True Qi Condensation.
You felt that the world around you had undergone some changes.
It seemed to have become clearer.
But when you carefully sensed it, there was no change at all.
You had vaguely felt this way after the eighth time you Condensed True Qi.
Now, that sensation had become even stronger.
You became puzzled.
"Could it be that I compressed my True Qi too much and compressed myself into some kind of problem?"
But you did not feel the slightest discomfort.
For now, you did not need to worry about being compressed until you exploded like a pressure cooker.
Besides, worrying would be useless.
You had no precedent to refer to.
Because Miao Liwu, who created the Ninefold Profound Art, had not even been born yet.
Miao Liwu would not be born until the sixteenth year.
And you felt that Miao Liwu might not be born at all.
Many things in this simulation differed from the previous one.
For example, the war between the two nations had not happened in the previous simulation.
But you still decided to visit Willow Tree Village in the fourteenth year.
Because that year, Willow Tree Village suffered a drought. Without your aid, Wei Xia and Miao Jiayao might starve to death.
If that happened, Miao Liwu definitely would not be born.
You had already stayed at Yajiang Pass for two years.
During those two years, the fighting between the two nations had not been particularly intense.
But beginning a few days ago, the number of wounded had abruptly increased.
Hu Zhongxuan also transferred you back to the military medical office.
Many of the wounded sent over were in particularly grave condition.
There were especially many missing arms and legs, and the death rate was extremely high.
Hu Zhongxuan told you that this was because large numbers of high-level martial artists from both nations had begun entering the battle.
The intensity of the war was about to escalate.
In truth, before this war, the Great Qian Empire and the Golden Yue Kingdom had only engaged in minor skirmishes.
It was like you stealing one of my dogs, and me catching one of your chickens.
You did not know why the two nations had made such a tremendous commotion this time and fought so fiercely.
You went to ask Hu Zhongxuan.
Yet he gazed up at the sky at a forty-five-degree angle and said inscrutably, "When it is time for you to know, you will know."
At that moment, you had nearly wanted to slap that bastard across the face.
You hated these pretentious riddle-speakers more than anything.
You desperately held down your restless right hand.
You forcibly suppressed the urge to make a move and chatted with Hu Zhongxuan a while longer.
From him, you learned that old Bai Chen had been conscripted as well.
He would arrive at Yajiang Pass tomorrow.
It was said that when they went to conscript him, Bai Chen had reacted quickly.
He had immediately fled through the back courtyard of the clinic.
But Bai Chen's Martial Path cultivation was too low, and he ran too slowly. They chased him down and forcibly escorted him back.
You let out a long breath. "That was close. That old fellow nearly got to live a comfortable life."
Before you continue