Human Pill

Human Pill. Bone Chilling Flame swirled around the outside, while the Black Demon Cauldron nurtured a Spiritual Flame within.

The many materials thrown into the cauldron were refined by Yao Lao into a mass of Spiritual Liquid. The multicolored mist wrapped around it flickered with Spiritual Qi, and illusory veins drifted within.

"So even medicinal mist can be refined into Pill Veins..."

Xiao Yan was already so shocked he had gone a little numb.

But what drew his attention even more was that churning mass of medicinal liquid. The smoke and rosy vapors steaming off the outside were clearly gorgeous and colorful, yet the liquid itself was pitch-black.

It looked like brown earth mixed with ink. One glance was enough to kill any appetite.

There were even tiny scorch marks appearing during the refinement, as if it would fail in the very next second.

"I can't understand any of this."

The chance of Yao Lao making a mistake was lower than a Lin-meimei falling from the sky, so Xiao Yan naturally was not worried.

It was just that this unreasonable process looked strange to him. What kind of pill was refined toward something worse? "You find it strange?" Yao Lao lowered his head, clearly having noticed his odd reaction.

Thanks to Xiao Yan's strange chant, he could gather quite a bit of Spiritual Qi to recover the damage to his soul. Although progress was very slow, it was ultimately moving forward.

This thing clearly originated from an ancient-era soul cultivation method. He guessed it was the opening section of some soul technique.

Right now, there was only the spirit-summoning chant and no corresponding circulation method, so he could only rely on his soul's instinctive absorption. The efficiency was truly low.

But at the moment, he was only splitting off a little attention while refining medicine. Something of this degree was easy to do.

"Yes... I don't understand why you have to burn away part of the medicinal liquid and waste so much medicinal power for nothing." Xiao Yan's face was full of heartache. So many precious materials, burned just like that. Pulling out any one of them at random and exchanging it for Gold Coins would be enough to feed the entire Xiao Clan for a year.

"That means you're on the right track~"

Yao Lao's brows lifted slightly. Clearly, they had touched on a method he was proud of. "You saw the pills Teacher added just now, didn't you? What did you think of their quality?"

"Those pills?" Xiao Yan recalled the scene he had just seen.

"Their energy was quite abundant and massive, and their grade was at least above Fifth Grade. It's just that they looked like they had been stored for a bit too long, and a lot of the pill fragrance had already dispersed."

"Correct. That is exactly what I wanted to talk about."

Yao Lao raised his hand in a hollow supporting gesture. The Bone Chilling Flame gathered in his palm into a pill-like sphere with flame patterns, surrounded by a faint ring of white fire that simulated pill fragrance and misty vapors.

"The pill fragrance of a pill is itself the subtle medicinal strength peeled away and evaporated from it. It's just that because the inside and outside of a pill are different, and each component varies as well, the speed and order of evaporation are also different."

As he spoke, the fire pill in his hand split open to reveal a cross-section of its details. He tapped Xiao Yan on the forehead. "Lend me a bit of Dou Qi. The color is too monotonous, so it's not easy to see clearly."

After a mass of yellow flame was taken and mixed in, distinct layers of varying depth and color appeared inside the fire pill, and even within the same layer, they were not entirely identical.

Regular cloud patterns also appeared on the surface.

"Pill Veins are actually the uneven distribution of components. This state requires an alchemist to control things with extreme precision, condensing them through extremely stable, differentiated refinement."

It was like holding a board at a slight tilt the whole time, allowing the water on it to gather on one side without breaking through the surface tension and spilling out.

"Back to the point."

Yao Lao moved his fingers lightly, and the fire pill began releasing its components outward. "The evaporation of medicinal properties is complicated to explain. After all, the surrounding environment and the medicinal shell layer both have an effect. But differentiated evaporation is absolutely the main theme."

"Under this influence, a pill's fragrance will change as time passes, and the distribution of the medicinal strength of its internal components will also shift. One or two days is fine, but once years and months pass, its effects can easily weaken, or it can even become a different kind of pill."

"So... you need to burn away the portions of medicinal strength that can't be adjusted and correct the state a little?" Xiao Yan seemed to have figured it out.

"Actually, that isn't the best choice."

Yao Lao naturally also felt it was a pity. What alchemist treated materials like trash? They all treasured them dearly.

"As long as the operation is appropriate, one can reconfigure them and condense them into pills again, making use of the waste. It's just that these pills have been formed for too long, and their medicinal strength can't be split apart, so I can only resort to this."

"So that's how it is~"

Xiao Yan looked into the cauldron and subconsciously rubbed his chin. "But... it should be about done burning by now. Why hasn't an embryonic pill condensed yet?"

"Exactly! I was thinking about that too."

Yao Lao stared at him, his face full of smiles. "This batch of pills really is still missing something."

For a pill to take shape, it basically relied on a bit of core material as its foundation to solidify. Some pills that used gas and liquid as their main materials even required supplementary materials before they could condense.

As for now~ the cauldron really was a little short on materials.

"Uh..."

Xiao Yan shuddered for no reason, as if his body had already realized that something was wrong. "Teacher... what you're talking about couldn't be...?"

Yao Lao patted his shoulder comfortingly, then very naturally grabbed his collar.

"Relax~ relax~ nothing will happen."

"But that's inside the cauldron!"

Xiao Yan looked at the Black Demon Cauldron. With flames roasting it from both inside and out, even a Dou Emperor who crawled in would probably be burned away in two seconds.

"You brat, why are you dragging your feet and making such a fuss? In the future, you won't be able to avoid having Heavenly Flames burn your body! Just treat it as adapting ahead of time. Get in there!"

Yao Lao grabbed him up and stuffed him into the medicinal cauldron, not forgetting to add a kick to his backside.

"Hiss..."

The moment he entered the cauldron, Xiao Yan only had time to suck in a breath of fiery air before the medicinal liquid wrapped around him. It was like molten iron had been poured directly over his body to slowly render him down, and sharp, searing pain that seemed ready to ignite his bone marrow pierced into every limb and bone.

Wrapped thoroughly in the medicinal liquid, Xiao Yan, looking like a brown mud man, sat in the cauldron and struggled to cross his legs.

Although even his soul was almost being set alight, no matter what, he could not waste all the thought Yao Lao had put into this.

Besides, with so many Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures poured in, even selling ten of him would not make up for it! His hands trembled as he formed a seal.

"Flame... Mantra..."

Xiao Yan's limbs were somewhat out of control, but he still laboriously circulated the cultivation method and began absorbing the energy.

The moment it began to circulate, the evaporating energy gathered together with the heat into a vortex-like funnel, surging into his body as if fighting to be first.

A dark-blue, almost pitch-black inky color appeared on the medicinal liquid, spreading rapidly from ripples into every corner, while specks of debris in all different colors of light surfaced along the top layer.

It was as if night had been draped over his body. A sculpture reflecting a deep, starry sky sat squat in the cauldron, receiving the dual tempering of spiritual fire and Heavenly Flames.

"Did absorbing Heavenly Flames in the original work... hurt even more than this?"

Xiao Yan only felt a cold, stabbing pain seeping through his mouth, and thick liquid slowly welled out. He was afraid he had already bitten his gums to pieces.

But that feeling still could not compare to even a ten-thousandth of the torment his body was suffering.

Just a little pain... that was all...

Xiao Yan's eyes, for once, flushed with a ferocious blood-red, and a vicious aura was forced out of him.

"Looks like the intensity is just right."

The faint tension in Yao Lao's expression eased. Although he could guarantee the medicinal effect, the materials were ultimately a little too high in level. Their grade was at least sixth tier, and the total energy even caught up to part of an eighth-tier pill.

If Xiao Yan showed even the slightest sign of difficulty absorbing it, he would rather burn away another portion of the medicinal properties.

They were only materials. If he searched, he would always find more.

But if something happened to the person, then even wanting to regret it and start over would no longer be possible.

How did the Nihility extract God Blood? Directly swallow it? If that worked, then by tossing the Emperor Clan's descendants into a furnace, it should be possible to refine God Blood pills, right...