Treat a dead horse as if it were alive, go for it!

3.5 hours later...

Song Shuhang's eyes were still bright, but his body was somewhat fatigued.

"The forty-first medicinal ingredient, it's finally almost done," Song Shuhang muttered.

He hadn't expected to last this long on his first attempt at alchemy. But he was also nearing his limit. After this ingredient, only Fresh Overlord Branch, Nine Yang Red Flame Bamboo slices, Deep Sea Cold Crystal, and Snow Demon Core remained. He could make it to the end!

He opened the pot and quickly added the forty-first medicinal ingredient.

Before Song Shuhang could even put the lid back on, an anomaly occurred in the hot pot.

The medicinal liquid, which had turned a light gray after blending with forty ingredients, suddenly erupted with a foul stench and the smell of burning upon contact with the forty-first ingredient!

The medicinal liquid, which had been half full, was rapidly vaporized. In the blink of an eye, a fifth of it was gone!

"Tsk, failed?" Song Shuhang fretted. He had doubted his success from the start because he had added water initially.

But having persisted until the forty-first ingredient without any issues, a sliver of anticipation and hope had inevitably surfaced in his heart. This must be the unique gambler's mentality of humans, right?

But now, was it finally going to be a complete failure?

"No, it's not completely ruined yet." Song Shuhang saw that although the gray medicinal liquid was vaporizing, it was still stubbornly attempting to fuse with the forty-first ingredient.

He knew he had to do something now. If he did nothing, it would truly be over.

In fact, the forty-first ingredient was indeed the most difficult step in 'simplifying the Body Tempering Liquid'.

From this point on, it was actually the concluding stage of 'simplifying the Body Tempering Liquid'. The four ingredients after this one were no longer for increasing medicinal properties.

Fresh Overlord Branch, Nine Yang Red Flame Bamboo slices; Deep Sea Cold Crystal, Snow Demon Core. The former two were extremely yang and rigid, while the latter two were extremely yin and soft. These four ingredients were used to purify the 'simplified Body Tempering Liquid'.

Purification was the most crucial step of the Body Tempering Liquid. Without purification, the Body Tempering Liquid in the pot would at best be a 'ten-complete tonic soup'. Drinking it would make one feel great, but the body tempering effect would be greatly diminished. With the addition of the purification step, this 'ten-complete tonic soup' would transform into Body Tempering Liquid, elevating it from a common medicine to an immortal elixir.

And the forty-first ingredient was the catalyst for purification.

This step was indeed the easiest to fail. Yurouzi had failed dozens of times at this very step.

But how could he salvage the failure?

If the Pharmacist were present, with his superb alchemy experience and skills, he could have turned the tide and salvaged this batch... no, this pot of 'Body Tempering Liquid'.

But Shuhang had neither experience nor the Pharmacist's skills.

"It's vaporizing too quickly, I need to slow down the process first. Add water!" Song Shuhang tried as a last resort, adding a ladle of water to the pot. He didn't know if it would work, but at least the vaporization speed had slowed down considerably.

"There are four ingredients left."

Song Shuhang's mind raced.

He didn't have enough time to refine another batch of medicine. In another hour or two, his roommates would probably be back.

Honestly, if they saw him messing around with 'alchemy' in the small kitchen, Song Shuhang couldn't guarantee that his well-meaning roommates wouldn't tie him up and send him to the psychiatric ward.

Given their helpfulness, to the extent that each of them deserved at least ten 'good person' cards, this possibility was very high!

"Let's try putting all the remaining ingredients in at once. It's almost failed anyway, might as well treat it as gaining experience," Song Shuhang decided.

Northern River Loose Cultivator and Yurouzi in the group had both failed many times. He was a complete novice, so it would be strange if he succeeded on his first try, right?

He opened the pot.

Fresh Overlord Branch, Nine Yang Red Flame Bamboo slices; Deep Sea Cold Crystal, Snow Demon Core. Shuhang threw all four ingredients into the pot at once.

He closed the lid!

Then, Song Shuhang witnessed a true 'ice and fire double heaven hot pot'.

Fresh Overlord Branch and Nine Yang Red Flame Bamboo slices fused with a portion of the medicinal liquid. These two ingredients turned fiery red upon contact with heat, as if they were about to ignite. This portion of the medicinal liquid became even more vigorous and vaporized faster. The vapor sprayed out from the pot lid's vent like a fountain.

Meanwhile, the Deep Sea Cold Crystal and Snow Demon Core, upon encountering heat, cracked open, releasing an icy blue liquid. This icy blue liquid seemed to have an extremely low temperature, and after fusing with the other half of the medicinal liquid, it caused the boiling liquid to calm down and cool.

The calm portion's temperature dropped lower and lower, while the boiling portion vaporized faster. The two portions of liquid showed signs of separation.

"Can't let them separate." Song Shuhang's heart stirred, and he immediately turned up the heat on the induction cooker, trying to make the cooled portion boil again.

As the temperature rose, the vaporization speed increased even faster. In less than a minute, the original half pot of medicinal soup was reduced to less than a third.

It would be completely vaporized in at most ten seconds.

"It's a complete failure." Song Shuhang chuckled. He had been mentally prepared, so he wasn't bothered by the failure.

He reached out to turn off the induction cooker. If it kept burning, the pot would be scorched.

However, his finger stopped halfway—he saw that although the medicinal liquid in the pot was vaporizing faster, it was no longer polarizing and was beginning to fuse again.

As if guided by an unseen force, Song Shuhang didn't turn off the heat. Instead, he hardened his resolve and turned the heat to maximum!

He was going all in, adding fire to fire, to fuse all the medicinal liquid at once and force out the medicinal properties of all forty-five ingredients! This way, perhaps before the medicinal liquid completely vaporized, he could get some residue?

The induction cooker was turned to its maximum, emitting a strange sound.

In the hot pot, ice and fire intertwined in the small pot, forming beautiful patterns. The two streams of medicinal liquid churned, shaking the hot pot.

Finally, Shuhang could no longer see the changes in the pot.

As the medicinal liquid vaporized, a thick layer of impurities coated the reinforced glass lid.

Drip, drip... the sound of the ingredients churning. Each churn was exactly one second.

Song Shuhang held his phone again, staring at the time.

He couldn't see what was happening in the pot, so he reset the timer, planning to turn off the induction cooker in five minutes.

Three minutes and twenty-three seconds.

Boom...

At that moment, a high-pressure surge erupted from the hot pot, blowing the lid off.

Immediately after, a cloud of black smoke sprayed out, engulfing the entire small kitchen. A pungent odor assaulted his nostrils.

The smell was so overpowering, it was like all the foulest odors in the world had been fused together. Just a casual whiff made him want to vomit.

"Gack..." Song Shuhang pinched his nose and quickly shut off the induction cooker.

"So stinky." Even with his nose pinched and holding his breath, the strange stench still seeped into Shuhang's nostrils, lingering stubbornly.

He rushed to the window and flung it open. If he didn't get some fresh air, he'd be waiting for his roommate to collect his corpse – the cause of death definitely being asphyxiation by foul odor.

As soon as the window opened, the black mist drifted out, and the stench in the kitchen gradually began to dissipate.

"This smell… it's indescribable. And the aftertaste is unforgettable," Shuhang mused, figuring he wouldn't forget this smell for the next two or three days. He wondered if he'd even be able to eat anything.

"The smell of this thing when the refining goes wrong is so terrifying, it could practically be used as a biological weapon. If this smell could be collected, I'd spray a room full of it at anyone I didn't like. Guaranteed unforgettable experience," Shuhang joked to himself.

On the floor, the hot pot lid was still spinning. Fortunately, it was tempered glass and hadn't shattered. Otherwise, he'd have to pay the school for it.

After picking up the lid, Shuhang felt a wave of dizziness wash over him. Exhaustion crashed down like a tidal wave, the accumulated fatigue of nearly four hours!

He quickly grabbed the table for support and slowly sat down.

After resting for a moment, he pinched his nose and looked into the pot, wanting to see what his failed concoction looked like to produce such a foul smell.

Inside the hot pot, the half-full pot of medicinal liquid had been reduced to a thin layer at the bottom.

It was black, transparent, and had a pungent, acrid odor.

"It's goopy and black, a bit like transparent sesame paste. Just way too stinky," Song Shuhang grumbled.

"Huh? This... how could this be?" He suddenly remembered something and quickly pulled out the notebook containing the Pharmacist's Elixir Recipe.

Medicinal liquid turned paste, black, transparent, pungent smell. This was the Pharmacist's description of the finished product of the simplified Body Tempering Liquid.

It seemed... very similar to what he had just made?