Refining

Three hours passed in silence.

After mentally refining the Yi Fu Beast Pill several times and memorizing the refining method and details recorded in the recipe, Lin Ming pulled himself out of his study of the recipe.

With a flash of his Storage Ring, a Red Gold Medicinal Cauldron appeared before Lin Ming. Then, a golden-blue flame rose from within the Red Gold Medicinal Cauldron.

When Wang Sheng saw Lin Ming take out the Medicinal Cauldron and begin refining pills, his excitement was overwhelming. Especially when he saw the two-colored flames rising inside the Medicinal Cauldron, Wang Sheng's eyes widened in astonishment.

Wang Sheng had seen many flames before. Many Alchemist in the Inner Academy had refined Beast Flame as their own Origin Fire Seed, but none of them possessed two colors like Lin Ming's flame.

Although Wang Sheng filled with curiosity, as a Third-Grade Alchemist himself, he knew that being disturbed was the most annoying thing for an Alchemist medicine.

The fact that Lin Ming is allowing Wang Sheng to watch him refine medicine is already a great favor to him.

Wang Sheng, who was able to become the vice Gang Leader of the Medicine Gang, was not only the highest-ranking alchemist besides the Alchemist Gang Leader, but also because he knew how to conduct himself and what to do at what time.

It was precisely because Wang Sheng knew his limits that Xu Shilin entrusted the Medicine Gang to Wang Sheng's management, while he himself spent a large part of his time cultivating.

Therefore, no matter how curious Wang Sheng was now, he had to suppress it and not disturb Lin Ming's alchemy. He could bring it up casually after Lin Ming finished refining the pills and see if Lin Ming would answer his questions.

On Lin Ming's side, after sensing that the temperature inside the Medicinal Cauldron was about right, Lin Ming put a stone about the size of a head into the Medicinal Cauldron, but the stone was covered with some dark green things. From a distance, this thing looked like a stone covered with moss. He began to refine it.

This thing that looks like a moss-covered stone is actually the Stone Pearl Fruit, one of the main ingredients for refining the Yi Fu Beast Pill.

The Stone Pearl Fruit gets its name from its resemblance to a stone bead. Lin Ming's task now is to remove the moss-like substance from the outside of the Stone Pearl Fruit.

Stone Pearl Fruit has excellent healing effects on Magical Beasts. If Stone Pearl Fruit didn't have any means of protecting itself, it would definitely be eaten up by Magical Beasts in the wild.

This moss-like substance clinging to the Stone Pearl Fruit is a means by which the Stone Pearl Fruit protects itself.

The healing properties of Stone Pearl Fruit for Magical Beasts come from its jelly-like Stone Pearl Fruit. However, if this pulp comes into contact with the moss-like outer layer of the Stone Pearl Fruit, it will soon lose its healing effect and instead induce the formation of a substance that hinders the recovery of injuries.

This has led to wild Magical Beasts rarely daring to consume Stone Pearl Fruit directly.

Now Lin Ming needs to carefully refine the moss-like substance attached to the surface of the Stone Pearl Fruit; this step requires extreme caution.

The refining potential of the outer shell of the Stone Pearl Fruit is not much higher than the moss-like protective layer covering it. Therefore, for Alchemist, refining the Stone Pearl Fruit requires extremely precise control over the flame temperature.

This is the only way to refine away the moss-like protective layer covering the Stone Pearl Fruit without refining its outer shell.

If the outer shell of Stone Pearl Fruit cracks, the jelly-like pulp inside will instantly come into contact with the moss-like substance on the outside, rendering the Stone Pearl Fruit unusable.

As his Soul Power surged into the Medicinal Cauldron, Lin Ming constantly sensed the temperature of the Medicinal Cauldron inside, needing to precisely control the temperature to refine only the moss-like protective layer on the surface of the Stone Pearl Fruit without damaging its outer shell.

The refining of Stone Pearl Fruit requires precise control of the flame. Lin Ming, with his immense Soul Power, had an excellent grasp of the situation inside the Medicinal Cauldron. Therefore, the pulp inside the Stone Pearl Fruit was extracted by Lin Ming after only a cup of tea.

The extracted pulp of the Stone Pearl Fruit is like jelly, with an overall emerald green color. However, within this emerald green pulp are some sesame-seed-sized fruit particles, which are red.

The red granules inside the flesh of the Stone Pearl Fruit are filled with violent energy. Furthermore, the powerful healing effects of the Stone Pearl Fruit require the flesh and granules to be used together; the flesh alone does not have much of a healing effect.

Only Magical Beasts can withstand the violent energy within these red berries; aside from a few exceptional individuals, almost no human can withstand the impact of this violent energy.

This has led to the fact that although Stone Pearl Fruit has powerful healing effects, it is almost always used in the refining of pills for treating Magical Beasts. At least Lin Ming doesn't know which healing pills for treating humans use Stone Pearl Fruit.

Seeing how easily Lin Ming extracted the pulp of the Stone Pearl Fruit, Lin Ming's status in Wang Sheng's eyes improved, and even rose further.

Although the assessment for Lin Ming to become 4th Grade Alchemist was personally announced by Elder Huo, given Elder Huo's status, while he wouldn't likely cheat, Lin Ming was still Elder Huo's student. It's possible that Elder Huo might have offered some suggestions during Lin Ming's assessment.

In this way, although Lin Ming is also 4th Grade Alchemist, his success rate in refining pills on his own will likely need to be questioned.

Many of Wang Sheng and the others in the Inner Academy probably weren't very optimistic about Lin Ming's success rate in refining Tier 4 Medicinal Pill.

Wang Sheng knew how difficult it was to refine the Stone Pearl Fruit. The fact that Lin Ming was able to extract the Stone Pearl Fruit pulp so smoothly showed that Lin Ming's level as 4th Grade Alchemist was definitely not comparable to that of someone who had just entered the 4th Grade Alchemist realm.

Lin Ming had no idea that refining a single Stone Pearl Fruit could change Wang Sheng's thoughts and attitude. At this moment, Lin Ming had already put another medicinal herb into the Medicinal Cauldron and begun a new refining process.

Alchemy Room, Wang Sheng watched Lin Ming refine the medicinal herbs for the Yi Fu Beast Pill. By now, many Jade Bottle containing the extracted Medicinal Material Essence had been placed there.

After more than two hours of refining, Lin Ming had finished refining all the medicinal materials for the Yi Fu Beast Pill. Looking at the Jade Bottle beside him, Lin Ming did not rush to carry out the final Pill Fusion process, but instead sat down to meditate and recover his Dou Qi.

After more than two hours of refining the pills, Lin Ming's Dou Qi was almost completely depleted. So now, even if Lin Ming wanted to start the final Pill Fusion, he didn't have Dou Qi to support Lin Ming in Pill Formation refining process.

An hour later, Lin Ming finished his cross-legged meditation, and it was now night outside.

After his Dou Qi had almost fully recovered, Lin Ming ended his meditation, stood up, and the cooled Medicinal Cauldron reignited its flames, raising the temperature once more.

After the temperature of the Crimson Flow Gold Cauldron reached a constant level, Lin Ming moved his hand, grabbed several Jade Bottle beside him, and poured the Medicinal Material Essence inside into the Medicinal Cauldron to carry out the Pill Fusion process of the Yi Fu Beast Pill.

The number of Jade Bottle beside Lin Ming gradually decreased, and some characteristics of elixirs gradually appeared inside the Medicinal Cauldron.

Wang Sheng was now completely absorbed in watching Lin Ming refine pills, trying to understand Lin Ming's Refinement Techniques and attention to detail, hoping to gain inspiration to help him break through to the 4th Grade Alchemist.

A loud "boom" emanated from the Crimson Flow Gold Cauldron in front of Lin Ming, startling Wang Sheng, who was immersed in his comprehension, from his reverie.

Then, Wang Sheng saw black smoke rising from the Red Gold and gold Medicinal Cauldron, and the fused Medicinal Material Essence inside the Medicinal Cauldron was obviously damaged.

The first attempt to refine the Yi Fu Beast Pill ended in failure, and the reason for the failure was precisely the Flaming Flame Gold Earth Heart Fire greatly enhanced Lin Ming's abilities.

The increased power of the Flame Gold Earth Heart Fire allowed Lin Ming to refine medicinal herbs more quickly. However, precisely because of the increased power of the flame, and since this was Lin Ming's first time using it to refine pills, he was careless when adjusting the flame temperature, causing the temperature to exceed the limit and directly leading to the failure of this pill refining attempt.

No Alchemist can guarantee a 100% success rate. Lin Ming also improved his alchemy skills to the level of 4th Grade Alchemist through repeated failures.

So, although the failure to refine the item had a slight impact on Lin Ming's mentality, Lin Ming quickly recovered after a simple adjustment once he understood the reason for the failure.

After unleashing a burst of Dou Qi to clean up the residue inside the Medicinal Cauldron, azure and gold flames rose again within the Crimson Flow Gold Cauldron. Soon after, a medicinal herb the size of a human head, with a moss-like exterior and a stone-like shape, was being scorched inside the Medicinal Cauldron.

With the experience from the previous extraction, Lin Ming was able to extract the Stone Pearl Fruit much faster this time.

After extracting the pulp of the Stone Pearl Fruit, Lin Ming put two kinds of medicinal materials into the Medicinal Cauldron at once and began to extract multiple medicinal materials simultaneously.

When Wang Sheng saw Lin Ming refine two kinds of medicinal herbs at once, his eyes almost popped out of their sockets. To refine two kinds of medicinal herbs at once, one not only needs to be very familiar with the herbs, but also needs extremely outstanding Soul Power in order to control the timing of the flame transformation of each herb.

Based on Wang Sheng's experience over the years, even Lin Ming's senior brother, Xu Shilin, the leader of the Medicine Gang, could only refine several medicinal herbs at the same time when making second-grade pills.

Wang Sheng had never seen Xu Shilin refine several medicinal herbs at the same time for Third-Grade Pill that was above the second grade, let alone Tier 4 Medicinal Pill.

Lin Ming's actions have elevated Wang Sheng's assessment of Lin Ming's alchemy skills to the same level as Lin Ming's senior brother Xu Shilin, and even subtly surpassed him.

Time passed, from the night before to late at night and then to dawn. At this moment, Lin Ming once again arrived at the stage of Pill Fusion.

Having learned from his previous experience, Lin Ming paid extra attention to the Pill Fusion this time, and so far, everything is proceeding as Lin Ming expected.

The sky outside was gradually brightening, and as the first rays of light shone down, a loud shout came from Lin Ming's mouth.

"Melt it for me!"

Then, Lin Ming's hand seals changed, and the essence of the medicine in the Medicinal Cauldron gradually took on the shape of a pill as Lin Ming's hand seals changed.

A faint aura of Pill Qi drifted over and was detected by Wang Sheng.

"The Medicinal Fragrance? Pill Formation!" Upon smelling the Medicinal Fragrance, Wang Sheng couldn't hide his joy; this was the only thought in his mind.