An Unexpected Visitor

Following the instructions in the book, Xiao Han closed his eyes and slowly calmed his mind. His exceptional Soul Perception swept back and forth through his body, searching for that faint trace of Wood Power.

The first time he searched for the Wood Power inside himself, it took more than eight minutes. Only then did Xiao Han finally let out a sigh of relief and open his eyes. He extended a finger and lightly touched the other Fire Port, slowly channeling in a thin stream of green energy.

The moment the green energy entered the Medicine Cauldron, the pale yellow flames inside abruptly settled down, as if they had undergone a chemical reaction.

Even though Xiao Han hadn't yet controlled the flames, he could tell that the violent element within them had been neutralized by the Wood Power. And thanks to the principle that wood fed fire, the flames were now clearly more stable and easier to control than before.

But damn, this was way too much trouble. If he'd known, he would've used the Demonic Flame for his first attempt at alchemy!

Xiao Han had already subdued the Demon Armor, and its accessory and underling, the Demonic Flame, was now his to command. Fire too violent to control? That wasn't a problem at all!

But Xiao Han knew that using Dou Qi to refine pills was a rite of passage for every beginner. No matter how much he complained, he could only obediently follow the steps.

Now that he was familiar with all this, it was time to learn how to refine pills.

Before leaving, he'd asked Gu Ni which pill formula would be easiest to practice. Gu Ni had simply picked the simplest pill from among four first-grade formulas and given Xiao Han the recipe for a Qi Returning Pill.

The rest was easy. Xiao Han went to the Family Medicinal Herb Store and bought the ingredients at an absurdly low internal price.

Xiao Han's presence had made the Xiao Family considerably wealthier. If Xiao Zhan hadn't been busy handling the family's affairs every day, who knew? He might already have become a Dou Ling expert.

"One Small Lamp Grass, one Hook Fruit, one Qi Condensing Fruit, two dandelion seeds..."

After memorizing the quantities, Xiao Han slowly extended his Soul Perception into the Medicine Cauldron and tried to control the relatively gentle flames.

With a flick of his finger, a Small Lamp Grass appeared in his palm. After a moment's hesitation, he dropped it through the opening beneath the bowl-shaped lid atop the Medicine Cauldron.

The instant the Small Lamp Grass entered the cauldron, Xiao Han hadn't even had time to control the flames before they surged up. In the blink of an eye, the plant turned to black ash, which the cauldron's special mechanism then expelled.

"Damn!"

He'd known pill refining wouldn't be easy, but he hadn't expected his first attempt to end with the ingredient disappearing the moment he tossed it in.

"Again!"

Xiao Han refused to believe it. He tossed in another ingredient. This time, it didn't vanish instantly, but it still lasted less than ten seconds.

"Whew—"

Xiao Han sighed. His forehead was drenched in sweat. The Medicine Cauldron had raised the room's temperature, but most of all, he was nervous about his first attempt at pill refining.

He flipped through the alchemist's notes to find the reason. They said that if the temperature was too high or too low, the extraction could fail.

Once he knew the cause, he persevered. After burning through more than twenty Small Lamp Grasses, he finally got a rough feel for the temperature the plant could withstand and extracted its medicinal powder.

This was terrifying. He'd burned through nearly ten thousand Gold Coins in such a short time. No wonder people said alchemists were built on mountains of money.

After getting the hang of it, Xiao Han kept working for another two hours. He was ready to go all in!

He'd been sitting in front of the Medicine Cauldron for two hours, but for Xiao Han, who practiced an Earth Rank Low-Grade Technique, that amount of Dou Qi was barely a drop in the bucket. He could recover it all with a single breath.

With the Demon Armor and the Swallowing Spirit Technique both voraciously absorbing Heaven and Earth Yuan Qi, even an ordinary Da Dou Shi might not recover Dou Qi as quickly as he did.

But those two hours hadn't been wasted. Looking at the small pile of crystal-clear medicinal powder floating inside the Medicine Cauldron, and the powder in the twenty medicine boxes beside him, Xiao Han finally smiled.

Practice made perfect. Though his inexperience had cost him twenty Small Lamp Grasses, he'd mastered the technique for extracting the plant's essence. It had all been worth it.

He checked the system panel again. There was still no alchemist data displayed. It seemed he'd have to refine at least one pill before the system would recognize him.

Xiao Han immediately moved on to the next step.

He took a Hook Fruit from his Storage Ring, drew a deep breath, and dropped it into the Medicine Cauldron, following the same procedure as before.

He'd extracted the Small Lamp Grass powder by sheer luck, but this time he wasn't so fortunate.

One, two, three... nine, ten... twenty, twenty-two... thirty...

After thirty failures in a row, Xiao Han's patience began to wear thin. He was starting to get irritable.

He'd gone over Gu Ni's notes and the alchemist's handbook several times, yet still couldn't figure out why he was failing. It was enough to make him spit blood.

"There are twenty-five Hook Fruits left. If I fail again, I'll have to go fleece the Family Medicinal Herb Store."

With a small sigh, Xiao Han set up the Pill Furnace again and began another round of Hook Fruit extraction.

To avoid another failure, he followed every step with meticulous care. From the strength of the Dou Qi flames to the time he roasted the ingredient, he paid close attention to every detail and wouldn't allow the slightest error. After all that effort, this time the extraction finally...

Failed again.

"Fuck! Watashi—fuck your mother, you son of a bitch!"

Watching the Hook Fruit turn to ash once more, Xiao Han unleashed a stream of curses.

Fuming, Xiao Han wanted to kick the lousy Medicine Cauldron over. But when he thought of all the money he'd poured into learning alchemy, he forced himself to calm down.

Honestly, it wasn't that he couldn't afford the ingredients. He'd tried so many times and still had no idea why he was failing. How was he supposed to work with that?!

Failure wasn't scary. What was scary was not knowing why you'd failed. That would drive anyone to the brink.

Xiao Han now felt like someone doing homework at home, staring blankly at the formulas in a textbook while struggling with a hard problem and having no teacher to ask. It was enough to give anyone a headache.

"One more try. If it doesn't work, I'll have to trouble Master Gu Ni again, even if it means owing him an even bigger favor. I need to ask him what's going wrong!"

Xiao Han took a deep breath and quickly steadied himself. His expression settled, as if the person who'd just been furious hadn't been him at all.

When it came to keeping his cool, aside from Xiao Han—a regular solo-lane player who got screwed over in games and cursed out by his teammates—the only young member of the Xiao Family who could match him was Xiao Yan, who'd spent years being mocked and ridiculed.

Following the pill-refining method in the book again, he proceeded meticulously, taking care to be even more cautious than before. He watched the flame's temperature closely and slowly roasted the Hook Fruit, peeling away its skin and extracting the juice inside.

With painstaking care, he used his Soul Power to separate it. Xiao Han held his breath. After so many failures, was he finally going to succeed?

Just as Xiao Han was about to finish the extraction, the flames inside the Pill Furnace suddenly surged, sweeping toward the mass of medicinal liquid.

"Oh no!"

Xiao Han's expression changed. He panicked and fumbled to regain control.

Just as this attempt seemed about to fail too, an elderly voice came from above his head. Xiao Han instinctively followed its instructions.

"Boy, channel your Wood Attribute Dou Qi into the medicinal liquid to neutralize it. Reduce the amount of Fire Attribute Dou Qi you're releasing, then use your Soul Power to separate it."

A miracle happened! The restless flames quickly settled down, and with the voice's guidance, Xiao Han finally extracted the Hook Fruit's medicinal liquid.

"Woohoo!!! I finally did it!"

He'd gone from the brink of disaster to seeing hope, then from hope to despair. At the very last moment, he'd broken through that despair and shattered the curse of failure.

Xiao Han was so excited that tears streamed down his face. It hadn't been easy. Alchemists without a teacher really did have it rough.

Wait...

Who had just spoken?!

Coming to his senses, Xiao Han instinctively looked up. His scalp prickled, and his eyes nearly popped out of his head.

A white mass of who-knew-what was floating directly above him. It felt like a vicious spirit ready to devour him, and it radiated an overwhelming sense of oppression.

The sight nearly made him blow the Demon Armor and Demonic Flame inside him right out of his body.

"G-Ghost... Aaaaaah!!!!"