The several-acre Spiritual Field had been divided into many sections, each glimmering with different spiritual light. It was obvious that several kinds of spell formations had been arranged within it.
Walking through this Spiritual Field, Wei Suo found some areas unbearably hot, like midsummer; others bitingly cold, covered in thick ice; and still others exceptionally dark and damp, like the depths of a mountain cave.
So many different arrangements were necessary because different spiritual herbs required different growing environments. They could only survive and grow under specific conditions. This Spiritual Field encompassed more than a dozen environments, which already made it a fairly good one.
After passing through the Spiritual Field, Wei Suo entered a courtyard resembling a siheyuan, with a small garden at its center.
Apart from the entrance hall, a study, and a side room for sleeping, there was also a quiet chamber specifically for cultivation. Its soundproofing was excellent, and its floor was covered with soft carpets woven from Silver Thread Grass.
This quiet chamber had been built directly against the mountain wall, where there was a stone door.
Pushing open the heavy stone door and walking a dozen or so steps into the passage within the mountain, Wei Suo felt a wave of scorching heat rush straight at him. There were two rooms inside. One was twenty to thirty zhang wide, utterly empty, with pits and dents covering its hard stone walls from spell impacts. It was clearly meant for cultivators to test the power of their spells and magical treasures. The other room was precisely what Wei Suo needed most: the Earth Fire Furnace Room.
The entire Earth Fire Furnace Room was square, about seven or eight zhang across. Aside from a stone table to the left of the entrance, there stood a half-man-tall bronze Earth Fire Furnace at its center.
Scale-like patterns had been carved onto the furnace's four legs, making them resemble the claws of four qilin. Blazing currents of heat constantly rose from above its round furnace mouth. Eighteen small green fire toads, their mouths open as if spewing flames, sat above the opening. They were lifelike to an astonishing degree.
"Not bad for a place that costs eighty Low-grade Spirit Stones a month! I wonder what Heavenly-tier residences are really like."
Standing inside this Earth Fire Furnace Room, which could be used both for refining artifacts and concocting pills, Wei Suo could not help sighing in admiration.
With a Spiritual Field and an Earth Fire Furnace Room, if its restrictions were a little stronger, this place could practically be considered a cave abode.
Cultivating in a place like this was who knew how many times more comfortable than staying in that little stone house in the west of the city. But Wei Suo had not come here to enjoy himself. For him now, eighty Low-grade Spirit Stones a month still made his heart ache.
Though it was still daytime and the Green Robe Old Man was recuperating inside the Ghost Nurturing Jar, Wei Suo did not idle about. After sighing for a while, he immediately returned to the quiet chamber, took out a pale yellow Mid-grade Spirit Stone, closed his eyes, and began cultivating.
Wei Suo had already brought everything from the little stone house in the west of the city over in his Treasure Pouch, including those four portraits of Shui Ling'er. But throughout the entire day, he only cultivated the Purple Profound True Art. He did not take out the Golden Silk Talisman Brush or any other materials to make talismans, because he had learned from the Green Robe Old Man that pill refining consumed no less mental energy than talisman crafting.
Once night had fully fallen, Wei Suo entered the Earth Fire Furnace Room with the Ghost Nurturing Jar in his hand, the Green Robe Old Man already floating out of it.
"Green Toad Earth Fire Furnace. It will do, I suppose." The Green Robe Old Man glanced at the bronze furnace in the middle and curled his lip. "First, familiarize yourself with its firepower."
Wei Suo nodded. Following the instructions previously given by those two snobbish Tianyi Sect disciples, he poured a stream of True Essence into one of the green fire toad carvings around the mouth of the bronze furnace.
"Puff..."
"Damn!" Wei Suo jumped in fright. A dark-red tongue of flame instantly surged from the fire toad's mouth, and a somewhat pungent Fire Fiend Qi aura immediately filled the entire furnace room.
"This is Earthfire drawn up from the Earth Heart Fire Vein?"
Wei Suo could sense that the heat contained within that oily, viscous-looking tongue of flame was who knew how much more terrifying than the fireballs produced by his Fireball Talismans. Fortunately, the flame spewing from the fire toad's mouth was extremely stable. It merely formed into one stream, curling and burning at the center of the furnace mouth.
As Wei Suo sent another stream of True Essence into the fire toad spouting flames, the glow on it went out, and the raging fire from its mouth vanished in an instant.
With eighteen fire toads, eighteen streams of flame could be produced, representing eighteen different levels of heat that could be controlled.
After watching Wei Suo familiarize himself with the Green Toad Earth Fire Furnace, the Green Robe Old Man said gravely, "For now, just activate five fire toads, then place the pill furnace over the opening."
Wei Suo nodded and poured True Essence into five of them in succession. Five streams of thick, dark-red flame poured from the mouths of the five fire toads, converging into a flower-shaped blaze.
Wei Suo took out the ordinary Black Gold Pill Furnace he had purchased from a small shop and carefully set it above the flames at the furnace mouth.
The Heaven Mending Pill did not have any special requirements for the pill furnace. It merely needed to withstand the heat of the Earthfire.
"Good. Two pieces of Cold Dew Root!"
Following the Green Robe Old Man's instructions, Wei Suo placed two bluish-white tubers, somewhat resembling potatoes and clearly selected and portioned in advance, into the Black Gold Pill Furnace.
The moment they entered the pill furnace, the moisture within the two Cold Dew Roots began steaming away under the intense heat. In less than half an incense stick's time, both roots had completely split apart and been roasted into two masses of bluish-white powder.
"Prepare three Silver Moon Grass plants and five Seven Leaf Orchids. Good! Quickly, add them at the same time!"
With a flick of his hand, Wei Suo dropped three peculiar silver-like plants and five Seven Leaf Orchids, each blooming with small purple flowers and bearing seven leaves, into the pill furnace at the same time.
Under the extreme heat, the three Silver Moon Grass plants and five Seven Leaf Orchids quickly turned to ash, becoming silver and purple powder.
"Prepare ten Purple Void Grass plants and one Green Armored Beetle demon core. Once I tell you to put them in, cover the pill furnace immediately." The Green Robe Old Man spoke with exceptional gravity.
"Alright." Wei Suo took a deep breath and rubbed his hands together, equally tense. The other ingredients were minor matters, but a single Green Armored Beetle demon core was worth sixty Low-grade Spirit Stones. If he ruined it through carelessness, it would be no different from burning money.
"Still not yet?" Wei Suo waited for a while with his attention stretched taut. Seeing that the purple powder formed from the Seven Leaf Orchids had seemingly scorched and baked into little black grains, he finally could not hold back and hurriedly asked.
"Stop talking nonsense." The Green Robe Old Man rebuked him. After nearly another incense stick's time had passed, when even the silver powder formed from the Silver Moon Grass had begun to turn snow-white, he suddenly shouted, "Put them in, quickly!"
As though by reflex, Wei Suo tossed in the Purple Void Grass and the Green Armored Beetle demon core. The instant he swiftly covered the pill furnace, he saw clusters of purple and greenish-yellow mist burst forth from the ingredients.
As time slowly passed, wisps of medicinal fragrance drifted out from the small furnace, invigorating anyone who smelled them.
"Activate two more fire toads!" Just when Wei Suo was beginning to think the pill was about to be completed, the Green Robe Old Man suddenly barked another sharp order.
Wei Suo did not dare hesitate in the slightest and immediately activated two more fire toads.
With even fiercer Earthfire surging forth, the entire small Black Gold Pill Furnace was almost completely engulfed in flames.
"Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle, sizzle!" Suddenly, a sound like boiling hot oil came from within the pill furnace.
"What is that?" Wei Suo shuddered in alarm.
"The spiritual herbs are being roasted into medicinal liquid. Next, the pill will condense." The Green Robe Old Man spoke quickly, still staring with complete concentration at the pill furnace wrapped in flames.
"Quickly, extinguish three fire toads!" Abruptly, the Green Robe Old Man cried out.
"What?" Wei Suo hurriedly poured streams of True Essence into the fire toads. But when he had only extinguished the second one, a sharp bang sounded from within the pill furnace.
"Extinguish them all." The Green Robe Old Man's expression turned somewhat ugly the moment he heard the sound. "This Heaven Mending Pill has already been ruined."
"Ruined?" Heart aching terribly, Wei Suo extinguished the Earthfire from every fire toad, then lifted the scorching-hot lid. Inside, he saw many greenish-yellow fragments, crystal-clear like glittering shards of crystal.
"I cannot refine pills myself, so I have to judge the timing and remind you. That makes it difficult to begin with. Besides, it has been a long time since I last refined pills, and my grasp of the heat was still a little off." This time, the Green Robe Old Man did not look down on Wei Suo. Truthfully, for their first time working together, Wei Suo had made no mistakes and only failed at the very end, just before the pill formed. That had already exceeded his expectations.
"Again!" After calmly glancing at Wei Suo, the Green Robe Old Man immediately said.
"Again!"
After a long while passed in the silent Earth Fire Furnace Room, the Green Robe Old Man's calm voice rang out once more.
"Again!"
"Did it finally work?"
With the same ingredients and the same process, the Green Robe Old Man called for them to start again three times. By the time Wei Suo was drenched in sweat, they had reached the point where he extinguished three fire toads. Yet no accident occurred within the pill furnace. Instead, an increasingly rich medicinal fragrance wafted out.
A trace of delight flickered through the Green Robe Old Man's calm eyes as well. Suddenly, as if letting out a long breath, he said, "Extinguish all the Earthfire, one by one!"
The surging pillars of dark-red flame all went out.
A rich, unusual fragrance spread from the opened Black Gold Pill Furnace, filling the entire Earth Fire Furnace Room.
Looking at the opened pill furnace before him, Wei Suo nearly burst into tears.
At the top of the black-gold pill furnace lay a round, greenish-yellow, crystal-clear pill, faintly glowing, with threads of silver patterns running through it.
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