Wang Wu carried the unsteady Xuan Mo by the collar in one hand and pinched the blackened "pill" in the other, wrinkling her nose in disgust. "This piece of crap has the nerve to call itself refined? If I took it to feed a dog, even the dog would complain that it was hard on the teeth!"
Xuan Mo was shaken dizzy and disoriented. After finally managing to stand steady, he defended himself pitifully, "Master, your disciple already did his best! The steps written in that pill formula were incredibly complicated. I've already simplified them a lot..."
"Simplified? You've got some nerve, brat! My pill formulas have been refined through countless trials, with every step connected! Simplify one step, and that one step will be wrong, which means every step after it will be wrong too! Do you know where you went wrong now?" Wang Wu shoved the "pill" beneath Xuan Mo's nose.
The fumes made Xuan Mo cough violently, and he hurriedly backed away. "Your disciple knows he was wrong! But, but I still don't understand. Why does it have to be so precise? I seem to have remembered some things recently. Um, in my hometown, pill refinement wasn't this complicated."
"Your hometown?" Wang Wu raised an eyebrow, intrigued. "What exactly is your background, brat? You were always evasive before, refusing to say anything and insisting you had no secrets. You ought to tell me now, right? I even taught you the Formless Technique."
Xuan Mo hesitated, his eyes flickering. "Master... your disciple seems to come from a very distant place. There... refining pills there was as simple as eating and drinking water." He stole a glance at Wang Wu's expression. Seeing that she wasn't angry, he gathered the courage to continue. "I vaguely remember that refining pills only