Dragon-Tiger Bone Tempering Pill!

The next day, Bai Yu and the others returned to the charity graveyard.

Bai Yu had changed into a neat, crisp set of yellow clothes.

From that day onward, he was a clerk at the charity graveyard, effectively a minor official in government uniform.

While the others were still reminiscing about last night's tenderness, Bai Yu alone was already waiting to start work.

Unhurried and unflustered, he continued receiving the delivered corpses in an orderly fashion before burying them one by one.

When Zhu Tong and the others saw this, they could not help but praise him.

"Brother Bai really is different. Even after becoming a clerk, he isn't the slightest bit arrogant. He still personally handles burials. Look at Wu the Unvirtuous—he doesn't care about a single thing."

Old Zhang also chimed in:

"That's right. Whenever Wu the Unvirtuous sees us, his eyes are practically in the sky, and he keeps ordering us around to do this and that."

"Little Bai is different. Even though he became a clerk, he treats us exactly the same as before."

Bai Yu paid no mind to this and continued conducting each burial with utmost care.

After all, who would pick a fight with rewards?

Over the following days, the prefect dispatched two sixth-rank martial artists to guard the charity graveyard.

One was wiry as iron, while the other was built like a bear. Together, they were known as the Wind and Thunder Swords.

However, the two merely took turns standing guard and rarely spoke to anyone at the charity graveyard.

Erring on the side of caution, Bai Yu forcibly raised the Mystic Tortoise Breath Concealment Art to the level of mastery.

The Wind and Thunder Swords possessed formidable cultivation, and Bai Yu did not wish to expose any flaws.

Furthermore, Uncle Jiu had previously damaged his vital energy and spent most of his time recuperating in his room.

All matters at the charity graveyard were handed over to Bai Yu.

Later on, Uncle Jiu directly placed Zhu Tong and Little Wang under Bai Yu's command.

The two became Bai Yu's direct subordinates.

That day, Old Zhang dragged more than a dozen corpses back from the city.

Bai Yu could not possibly attend so many burials alone. Left with no choice, he had Zhu Tong and Little Wang each handle several burials.

Then, a strange scene appeared.

A subordinate successfully completed a burial. Ordinary reward obtained: Vitality +1, Life Experience +0.5!

A subordinate successfully completed a burial. Reward obtained: Vitality +2, Life Experience +3!

The string of notifications in the Burial World Record left Bai Yu somewhat stunned.

He had not expected that his subordinates could also earn burial rewards.

According to the information in the Burial World Record, burials performed by subordinates only yielded half the rewards.

Moreover, Bai Yu could currently only have two subordinate slots.

Even so, Bai Yu was overjoyed. From then on, he would not have to personally handle every matter.

He had already decided that martial artists naturally had to be buried by his own hand.

As for less important funerals, Zhu Tong and Little Wang could attend them whenever he was too busy.

In this way, Bai Yu's efficiency in obtaining burial rewards increased yet another notch.

Life at the charity graveyard gradually returned to peace as well.

That day, after finishing a burial, Bai Yu began his daily cultivation.

He repeatedly slammed himself into a large tree, making its branches and leaves rustle loudly.

The bark around the base of the tree had already been knocked away in a layer, exposing the trunk beneath.

After nearly striking every part of his body, Bai Yu circulated his cultivation art, and a layer of dark golden gauze appeared over his skin.

Though this gauze was extremely thin—so subtle one might overlook it without paying attention—it was incomparably tough.

Inner force transformed into gauze!

This was precisely the unique feature of the Iron Shirt Golden Bell Shield. It could transform inner force into a gauze garment; coupled with his naturally bronze skin and iron bones, it was equivalent to possessing double-layered defense.

If he encountered Golden Dragon Abbot again, his hidden weapon beads would definitely be unable to harm Bai Yu.

Bai Yu grabbed a dagger and viciously stabbed it into his chest.

Yet the sharp dagger could not pierce the gauze's defenses at all.

Only then did he nod in satisfaction.

"The Iron Shirt Golden Bell Shield has already been cultivated to proficiency. I can condense qi into gauze. Next, it's time to refine some pills."

Earlier, he had found a pill formula on Golden Dragon Abbot's body—the Dragon-Tiger Bone Tempering Pill.

As its name implied, a bone tempering pill was a medicinal pill for tempering the bones, and it was greatly beneficial to those in the Fifth Rank Bone Tempering Realm.

Bai Yu made several trips to the Black Market and apothecaries before finally gathering the necessary medicinal ingredients. He had even specially purchased a small bronze cauldron.

The ingredients and the bronze cauldron together had cost Bai Yu nearly two hundred taels of silver.

Bai Yu returned to his room and took out an ancient-looking small cauldron.

Then he placed the prepared medicinal ingredients into it one after another.

"Python gallbladder, tiger blood, tiger bones, Heavenly Fragrance Herb, Chonglou Fruit..."

Next, he lit specially made charcoal and began refining the pill.

He continuously stirred the ingredients inside while carefully controlling the heat.

Before long, a rich fragrance wafted out, leaving him refreshed and clear-headed just from smelling it.

But in the next instant, the fragrance turned into a burnt smell, and the ingredients inside directly burned into a charred paste.

Bai Yu's face twisted with pain.

That batch of ingredients alone had cost him nearly twenty taels of silver!

And he had made several trips back and forth just to gather them all.

Sure enough, pill refining was a trade that burned money.

Other than an extremely small number of geniuses, every alchemist had been forged by smashing vast amounts of silver into the craft.

For an ordinary person to teach themselves alchemy was simply as difficult as ascending to heaven.

But Bai Yu had a certain degree of confidence.

He checked the panel:

Dragon-Tiger Bone Tempering Pill: Uninitiated (0.2/10)

Gritting his teeth, he poured more than a hundred points of Life Experience into it.

It immediately became:

Dragon-Tiger Bone Tempering Pill: Practice Makes Perfect (0.2/1000)

For anyone else, even with exceptional talent, improving alchemy proficiency would require spending at least several thousand taels of silver.

Fortunately, Bai Yu possessed the Burial World Record and could directly use Life Experience to raise his proficiency.

Bai Yu regulated his breathing for a while before beginning to refine pills again.

On his second attempt, he refined a pile of powder but failed to form a pill.

The reason was unstable heat control, so Bai Yu decided to use inner force to regulate the cauldron's temperature.

On the third attempt, he successfully formed a pill, but it exploded at the final moment.

After pondering for a while, Bai Yu discovered that the snake gallbladder conflicted with the tiger blood. He should use supplementary ingredients to neutralize the medicinal nature of the tiger blood, then add the snake gallbladder only after everything had thoroughly fused.

The fourth attempt, the fifth attempt...

With every attempt, Bai Yu came one step closer to success. Each time, he found the problem and improved it one by one.

Finally, on the sixth attempt, a dark-red pill successfully emerged from the cauldron.

The pill emitted a rich, pungent fragrance that made one's vitality and blood churn.

"Though its quality isn't good, I finally succeeded."

Bai Yu let out a long breath.

The several main ingredients he had prepared were nearly exhausted. If he failed again, he would have to wait until next time.

After steadying his mind, he swallowed the Dragon-Tiger Bone Tempering Pill.

The pill was extremely pungent, and a stimulating rush shot straight to his head.

Not only that, but the vitality and blood throughout his body began to surge and roil without end.

Bai Yu guarded his mind inwardly and could vaguely see his inner force and vitality racing through his meridians.

With each circulation, vitality and blood wrapped around the medicinal power and tempered the nearby bones.

After several rounds of tempering, his bones became hard and dense. A faint reddish tint stained the originally snow-white bones.

The Bone Tempering Realm was the process of using vitality, blood, and inner force to temper the bones.

Ordinarily, such tempering proceeded at an exceedingly slow pace.

But after consuming this pill, it was nearly equal to one or two months of ordinary painstaking cultivation.

Bai Yu circulated his cultivation art and completely absorbed the medicinal power.

He could not help looking forward to seeing just how far his cultivation could rise if he had a large supply of Bone Tempering Pills.