Elder Chen pushed out both hands, sending two masses of flame into the pill furnace at once. Scarlet and purple fire intertwined, forming a blazing sea within it.
The flames heated the medicinal liquid until it boiled and bubbled, releasing a rich herbal fragrance.
Elder Chen's voice came from outside, steady and strong. "Li, circulate your Heartburning Fire and refine these herbs!"
"Yes!" Li Bufan answered. He sank his mind into his dantian and drove his Heartburning Fire with all his strength. It merged with the flames in the furnace, wrapping the herbal liquid layer upon layer.
The flames grew hotter, and the liquid boiled ever more fiercely. Li Bufan did not panic. He held his mind steady and circulated his Heartburning Fire again and again, refining the medicinal power bit by bit.
Outside, Elder Chen controlled the scarlet flame. His technique was exquisitely precise: the flame swelled and shrank, its heat rising and falling in perfect harmony with Li Bufan's Heartburning Fire.
Their flames intertwined inside the furnace, one forceful and one gentle, each complementing the other.
Under their combined refinement, the herbal liquids that might otherwise have clashed became a mass of extraordinarily pure medicinal power.
Li Bufan was secretly astonished. Elder Chen's mastery of alchemy was truly unfathomable.
He had put in so many herbal liquids, varied in kind and medicinal properties.
In an ordinary alchemist's hands, those ingredients would have clashed the moment they entered the furnace.
Yet Elder Chen had fused them perfectly, without wasting the slightest bit.
Even the Elders of Songhe Gate who specialized in alchemy might not have been capable of such a feat.
Time passed little by little. The medicinal power in the furnace grew richer and purer, turning into clusters of multicolored light that flowed around Li Bufan.
The light