Yao'er took that jade tablet and went into seclusion. Outside the mountain cave where she cultivated in seclusion, Dan Fusheng personally led several junior brothers in standing guard. Clearly, they placed enormous importance on the safety of the Great Luo Pill Scripture.
Yet Dan Fusheng and the others would never have imagined, not even in their wildest dreams, that Yao'er had already smuggled the Great Luo Pill Scripture to Lin Xiao. Lin Xiao, who seemed merely highly skilled at fire work but utterly ordinary in pill refinement, had now become a grandmaster of pill refinement, at least in theory. It could even be said that, in terms of theory, Lin Xiao was already qualified to stand shoulder to shoulder with every elder of the Great Luo Pill Dao.
Still, no one would believe that two monsters could memorize the vast, smoke-sea-like Great Luo Pill Scripture in its entirety within a mere quarter of an hour. Thus, this theoretical grandmaster, Lin Xiao, continued idling away his days in the Huang-character Pill Room. Before Yao'er emerged from seclusion, Lin Xiao had no idea whether she would advance to a higher-grade pill room, so he remained here.
Several pill furnaces before him blazed with rising flames. Wisps of medicinal qi and fire qi wound around each other in the air, faintly gathering into the shapes of several fierce tigers. He was refining Tiger Soul Pills for the Vajra Gate, a small Daoist sect that specialized in body tempering. Tiger Soul Pills were specifically used to stabilize essence sources and strengthen the body, laying a solid foundation of cultivation for body-tempering cultivators.
The price the Vajra Gate had paid for these seven furnaces of Tiger Soul Pills was three thousand-year Green Ganoderma plants they had discovered by chance. This deal would bring the Great Luo Pill Dao a profit double its cost, so Daoist Danling had ordered the pill-room disciples to refine these furnaces of Tiger Soul Pills with utmost care. They had truly spared no expense. Lin Xiao, the disciple with the most exquisite flame-control technique in the Huang-character Pill Room, had also been dispatched specifically to tend the fire in these seven pill furnaces.
Without having to manage the fires of more than two hundred pill furnaces at once, this should have been an easy and pleasant assignment. Yet Hua Feng'er, standing behind him and muttering endlessly, annoyed Lin Xiao beyond endurance. He wished he could plunge headfirst into a pill furnace and hide. Once again, Lin Xiao came to understand the terror of a resentful woman.
"Junior Brother! It isn't that Senior Sister Hua is being long-winded, but you are truly outrageous! It was only thirteen Midnight Orchids, yet you spent nearly half a year and still failed to obtain their fruit. Sigh, you are usually so meticulous and dependable. How could you be so unreliable in this matter?"
"You should know that Midnight Orchids are not particularly rare medicinal herbs, nor do they require any special harvesting technique. Senior Sister Hua and Master's Wife—ah, Senior Sister Hua entrusted this matter to you because she valued your caution and reliability. But look at you. The Midnight Orchids bore fruit twice, yet you did not collect a single fruit!"
"Junior Brother, have you lived up to my expectations of you? Have you lived up to my trust in you? Have you lived up to those Midnight Orchid fruits that scattered and vanished with the wind?"
Hua Feng'er carried over a meditation cushion and sat three feet behind Lin Xiao, lecturing him without pause. The pill-refining Daoists nearby all retreated far away, standing with their sleeves folded at a distance of several dozen feet as they looked sympathetically upon Lin Xiao, who was enduring a mental bombardment. In any case, the seven furnaces of Tiger Soul Pills had already reached the final pill-nurturing stage. So long as the flames went awry, the pills were as good as refined. And with Lin Xiao's cultivation and concentration, even if seven Hua Feng'ers chattered beside his ears, the pill fire would not go wrong.
Lin Xiao calmly formed hand seals one after another, tightly closing off his six senses. Hua Feng'er's chattering could not affect him in the slightest. This was only the fifth day. Judging by Hua Feng'er's performance last time, she could keep chattering for another ten days. After ten days, he would still have to endure another scolding from Danxia. The moment Lin Xiao thought of that, sorrow welled up from his heart. Was it not merely a set of ingredients for Beauty-Nourishing Pills? Did Danxia and Hua Feng'er really need to cling to him so relentlessly? Senior Sister Yao'er was so sweet and obedient—why did she not bring him such troubles?
With the final hand seal, the phantom tigers formed from medicinal qi and fire qi raised their heads and gave silent roars toward the sky. After circling the pill furnaces at high speed, they transformed into crystalline red light and shot into the furnaces. Dull bang, bang sounds rang out from within, and several pill furnaces trembled lightly. A fierce, stimulating medicinal fragrance, pungent and spicy enough to sting the nose, immediately filled the entire pill room.
With a flick of his finger, he sent out a hand seal. The furnace fire surged, blasting the lids several yards into the air. Thumb-thick, entirely crimson pills flew up through the flames with a whoosh-rattle. Lin Xiao called out, and the pill-refining Daoists came forward with jade bottles to collect every pill. Only after all the Tiger Soul Pills had been properly gathered did Lin Xiao withdraw his hand seals. The fire qi inside the furnaces dissipated, and several furnace lids dropped back down with resounding thuds. Elegantly flicking the dust from his sleeves, Lin Xiao turned around and bared his teeth in a grin at Hua Feng'er. "Senior Sister Hua, you came? Oh dear, these past few days Junior Brother has had too much on his hands. I did not know Senior Sister had any advice for me?"
Hua Feng'er's face wrinkled into a knot. Gritting her teeth, she snorted coldly. "Junior Brother, did you not hear anything I said over the past few days?"
Lin Xiao tucked both hands into his sleeves and smiled at Hua Feng'er. "Well, Junior Brother was busy tending the furnace fire, was I not? Pill refinement is an undertaking that seizes the creations of Heaven and Earth; one cannot be careless or negligent. This furnace fire is precisely the most crucial part of pill refinement. Surely Senior Sister Hua understands that principle more deeply than I do."
Hua Feng'er shot Lin Xiao an indignant glare, spread open her right hand, and snorted. "Hand it over!"
Lin Xiao feigned ignorance. "What? Senior Sister Hua, what is it that you want?"
Just as Hua Feng'er was about to leap up and give Lin Xiao a vicious knock on the head, a light cough suddenly came from the entrance to the pill room. Danxia entered slowly with her hands behind her back. All the Daoists in the pill room hurriedly rose and performed Daoist salutes, respectfully calling out, "May Uncle-Master Danxia be well!"
Lin Xiao and Hua Feng'er hurriedly saluted as well. "Master's Wife!"
Danxia's eyes shifted as she lightly beckoned to Lin Xiao. "Xiao'er, come here."
"Yes, yes!" Lin Xiao obediently walked to Danxia's side. With a faintly bitter smile on his face, he bent slightly at the waist and brought his ear close, ready to receive her reprimand. Was it not the same last time? Because of that bowl of medicinal soup from Yao'er, Lin Xiao had missed the time to harvest the Midnight Orchids. After Hua Feng'er had nagged him for half a month, Danxia had personally stepped in and deeply lectured Lin Xiao for agreeing to something yet failing to remain faithful to his duty. This time, though, it had come ten days early? Perhaps Danxia could no longer suppress the fire in her heart?
Still, it was only a batch of Beauty-Nourishing Pills. Did the two women really need to value it so much?
Lin Xiao helplessly stole a glance at Danxia's tender, lustrous skin, as delicate as that of a girl of sixteen or seventeen. He had absolutely no idea what he should say or do.
But Danxia said nothing to Lin Xiao about the Midnight Orchids. She merely said softly, "Go back and study it carefully. I am giving you seven days off. Seven days from now, you must have thoroughly comprehended what I gave you." Her sharp gaze swept over the many Daoists in the pill room, and they all lowered their heads, not daring to look in Lin Xiao's direction. Danxia stuffed a piece of yellow silk into Lin Xiao's sleeve, then rose on tiptoe to pat his shoulder lightly. Stifling a laugh, she whispered, "Do not disgrace your master and master's wife, or else— You brat, how did you grow so big?"
Shaking her head, Danxia looked with some surprise at Lin Xiao, who stood a head taller than her. She frowned, then beckoned Hua Feng'er over. "Hua Feng'er, let us go. Do not come lecture your junior brother these next few days." After a pause, Danxia smiled meaningfully. "There will be plenty of chances and time in the future!"
Hua Feng'er stood with a gloomy face and strode to Danxia's side. As she passed Lin Xiao, she gave a cold snort laden with unfathomable meaning, making Lin Xiao's body shudder violently. Danxia's final sinister words had allowed Lin Xiao to glimpse certain deeply unpleasant prospects in his future.
After finishing his duties for the day, Lin Xiao, feeling that his cultivation had improved considerably again, went to the kitchen and took a small steamed bun. Munching on it as he walked, he returned to his little wooden hut. As usual, he completed his evening cultivation while clutching that fire-attributed Spirit Stone. Only then did he remember the yellow silk Danxia had tucked into his sleeve. He hurriedly took it out and carefully read it by the moonlight outside the window.
The yellow silk contained a pill formula: the method for refining a peculiar spiritual pill, the Blazing Flame Pill. Lin Xiao narrowed his eyes and compared it with the Blazing Flame Pill formula recorded in the Great Luo Pill Scripture in his mind. He discovered that the formula on the yellow silk was far simpler. The refined pill's effects were weakened by roughly thirty percent, but the required hand seals were around eighty percent easier, while the pill formation rate was more than doubled. The Blazing Flame Pill was a relatively high-grade spiritual pill, especially suited to treating all manner of injuries caused by cold poison. Among the Heaven, Earth, Mystical, Yellow, Cosmos, and Chaos eight-tier pill grades of the Great Luo Pill Dao, the Blazing Flame Pill was a genuine Cosmos Grade pill. In other words, it was a high-grade pill that only the current Dan-generation elders could refine.
Yet this improved pill formula, though its finished pill was much less effective, would allow someone of Lin Xiao's cultivation to refine Blazing Flame Pills!
"Why did Master's Wife give me this pill formula?" Lin Xiao stared blankly at the fine, graceful writing on the yellow silk. Only after a long while did he shake his head. "Mm, Master's Wife must have her reasons. Since she told me to comprehend it thoroughly, then—then I shall comprehend it." When he said the word "comprehend," Lin Xiao's expression could not help turning strange.
Danxia had personally granted Lin Xiao seven days of leave, so the duty Daoists in the pill room naturally did not come bother him. Lin Xiao spent less than the time it took to eat a meal thoroughly comprehending the pill formula. For the remaining seven days, he took advantage of this rare leisure to make a rough circuit around Spring Return Valley. More than two years had passed, and Lin Xiao had kept his head down working as a Fire Worker Daoist in the pill room. He knew absolutely nothing about what Spring Return Valley was actually like. Yet these seven days opened his eyes: Spring Return Valley's territory was truly enormous!
Seven days later, Lin Xiao was standing beneath a tall peak in the southeast, quietly watching a Crested Serpent fight an Iron Claw Rock Eagle to the death. Suddenly, he heard the golden bell and jade chime summoning all members of the Great Luo Pill Dao. Lin Xiao froze, then hurriedly used his movement technique and dashed toward Pill Qi Lingxiao Hall. When he suddenly sprang out from behind a boulder, he startled both the eagle and the snake. The two beasts hastily flew up into the sky and slipped into a crevice in the rocks.
After painstakingly using the Earth Soaring Technique to race more than twenty miles, Lin Xiao arrived panting before Pill Qi Lingxiao Hall. On the plaza before the great hall, the disciples of the Great Luo Pill Dao were already standing according to the colors of their robes. Those in white were servant Daoist boys who had just entered the sect; those in blue were Daoists who had only recently become formal disciples; those in green like Lin Xiao were disciples with a certain level of cultivation and official duties; those in apricot-yellow Daoist Robes were Daoist masters with profound cultivation who had neared the Golden Core Stage; those in pale purple Daoist Robes were elders who had broken through the Golden Core Stage or neared the Nascent Soul stage; those in deep purple Daoist Robes were True Persons like Daoist Danling, who had formed Nascent Souls, possessed profound Dao arts, and stood out among all others in their understanding of the pill Dao.
At a glance, there were only five elders of the Great Luo Pill Dao wearing purple Daoist Robes, around fifty in pale purple Daoist Robes, more than three hundred disciples in apricot-yellow robes, and over two thousand disciples in green and blue. The rest were servant boys in white, still in the Heart Tempering Period.
Sweaty and disheveled from his frantic run, Lin Xiao squeezed into the ranks of green-robed Daoists. He vaguely saw Danxia, among the elders standing on the hall steps, seemingly glare viciously at him. Her gaze was full of warning and threat. Lin Xiao looked at Danxia in confusion, not understanding what she was warning him about. Danxia merely glared at him once before withdrawing her gaze, looking at her nose with her eyes, and her heart with her nose as she stood quietly upon the steps.
Lin Xiao turned a pleading gaze toward Hua Feng'er, who stood below the stone steps. Hua Feng'er only rolled her eyes and made a gesture at him that said, "Pray for your own luck."
After waiting another incense stick's time, all members of the Great Luo Pill Dao had assembled in the plaza before the hall, apart from mountain-patrolling disciples and Daoists stationed at key locations who could not leave their posts.
Daoist Danling, holding a purple-jade ruyi in his hand, stood atop the highest stone step before the great hall. He majestically swept his gaze over the several thousand disciples below and said in a deep voice, "The once-in-ten-years grand competition among sect disciples will officially begin tomorrow. All green-robed and blue-robed disciples must participate. The first-place green-robed disciple will receive a high-grade flying sword, one protective treasure, ten high-grade Spirit Stones, fifty mid-grade Spirit Stones, and two hundred low-grade Spirit Stones. The first-place blue-robed disciple will receive a mid-grade flying sword, twenty mid-grade Spirit Stones, and one hundred low-grade Spirit Stones!"
A tide-like gasp rose simultaneously from the ranks of green-robed and blue-robed Daoists. The rewards were far too generous, and every Daoist's heart stirred with excitement.
Lin Xiao's heart itched as well. He had been in the Great Luo Pill Dao for over two years, nearly three. He had only ever seen fellow senior brothers, senior sisters, and elders ride swords through the air in carefree flight, yet he had never even seen what a flying sword looked like. As for a protective magic treasure, he did not even know what a magic treasure was. And that great pile of glittering Spirit Stones—Lin Xiao was nearly drooling. Perhaps with so many Spirit Stones, he would have hope of breaking through to the Golden Core Stage?
The Golden Core Stage! Golden Core Stage cultivators with mighty power! Golden Core Stage cultivators who could transform Pure Fire True Essence into True Samadhi Fire!
With True Samadhi Fire, perhaps Lin Xiao would qualify to enter the Zhou-character Pill Room! By then, the benefits he received would no longer be the low-grade pills he received now.
The Zhou-character Pill Room? Lin Xiao's heart stirred slightly as he casually touched the yellow silk tucked into his sleeve. Then he raised his head and looked toward Danxia. Expressionless as she stood upon the stone steps, Danxia turned her head and glanced at Lin Xiao, her eyes still full of fierce threat. Lin Xiao looked at Hua Feng'er again. Hua Feng'er was also looking at him. Baring her teeth in a cold smile, she tucked her hands into her sleeves, narrowed her eyes, and looked up at the sky.
Daoist Danling gave a light cough and said evenly, "This grand competition will follow the old rules of previous years. All green-robed and blue-robed disciples will select their own ingredients and refine one furnace of pills. Rank will be determined by the grade of the refined pills and their pill formation rate. The master of the victorious disciple will receive an ancient treasure, the Hundred Treasures Rainbow Robe. It is a protective robe close to the Immortal Artifact grade, with immense power to protect its wearer!"
The master of the victorious disciple could receive a magic treasure passed down from ancient times! The Hundred Treasures Rainbow Robe—judging by the name alone, it had to be a garment of dazzling jewels and breathtaking beauty!
Victory would be determined by the grade and pill formation rate of the pills refined by the competing disciples! The improved Blazing Flame Pill formula in Lin Xiao's hands was a genuine Cosmos Grade spiritual pill, and its pill formation rate was more than twice that of ordinary methods! Furthermore, the Blazing Flame Pill was a purely fire-attributed spiritual pill, perfectly matching Lin Xiao's constitution and making it much easier for him to refine!
"This is cheating! Blatant, naked cheating!" Lin Xiao suddenly understood! Danxia must have set her sights on the Hundred Treasures Rainbow Robe, which was why she had behaved so strangely!
If, by some chance, Lin Xiao unfortunately lost this competition—
On the stone steps, Danxia glared viciously at Lin Xiao again! Her gaze was now filled with killing intent!
"Heavens! This Hundred Treasures Rainbow Robe must be far more precious than those Beauty-Nourishing Pills, right?"
Cold sweat had already drenched Lin Xiao's back. He blankly looked at the nearly thousand green-robed disciples in the plaza, who were excited beyond measure, and could not help howling inwardly, Master's Wife, I might not win! The Great Luo Pill Dao had so many disciples—could Lin Xiao possibly be its only genius?
If Lin Xiao lost—
Heavens! Lin Xiao nearly collapsed to the ground!
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