Three Thousand Burning Flame

For the next half month, Xiao Jin kept watch over Xun'er.

With the strength of a Dou Zhe, absorbing the medicinal power of an Eighth-Grade Medicinal Pill was undoubtedly an extremely difficult task.

Even though the Exotic Flame Fusion Pill's main effect was to help its user refine the Heavenly Flames within their body rather than increase their strength, it was not something a mere Nine-Star Dou Practitioner like Xun'er could easily refine.

Therefore, Xiao Jin was not at ease leaving Xun'er to take the pill alone. With him watching over her, his Emperor Realm Soul could lend a hand at critical moments.

Of course, Xiao Jin had not been idle himself.

While Xun'er refined the pill, he continued improving his alchemy under the guidance of the Pill Tower Ancestor.

"Although this is not the first time I have watched you make pills, even I can only marvel at your alchemy." The Pill Tower Ancestor sighed emotionally. When he had been fifteen, he would not even have been worthy of carrying Xiao Jin's shoes.

Back then, he had been delighted just to refine a Tier 1 Medicinal Pill. Yet Xiao Jin could now skillfully refine Tier 5 Medicinal Pills.

If his realm had not been too low, Xiao Jin's success rate in refining Sixth-Grade Medicinal Pills would not have been low either.

Naturally, all of this was also thanks to the medicinal cauldron provided by the Storage Ring.

The medicinal cauldron within the Storage Ring was called the Samsara Cauldron, and its effects were absurdly powerful. Not only could it increase a pill's effectiveness by fifty percent and reduce refining time by ninety-five percent, but it could also raise the success rate of pill refinement by thirty percent.

Furthermore, this cauldron could refine pills in batches. The number that could be refined at once depended on Xiao Jin's current alchemy skill and the grade of the pills being refined.

Simply put, the higher Xiao Jin's alchemy level and the lower the pill grade, the more pills he could refine at once.

Any one of those four effects was enough to make other Alchemists green with envy.

Increasing a pill's effectiveness by fifty percent was enough to turn pills that had a chance of raising one or two stars of cultivation into pills that reliably raised two stars and had a chance of raising three.

There was no need to mention the thirty-percent increase in success rate. The higher the grade of a pill, the greater the chance of failure during refinement. Raising the success rate by thirty percent was already ridiculously powerful.

What satisfied Xiao Jin the most was the effect that reduced refining time by ninety-five percent.

As the grade of a pill increased, the time needed to refine it also grew longer.

Xiao Jin still remembered that in the original story, Xiao Yan had spent nearly ten days refining the Tier 5 Medicinal Pill Soul Nourishing Saliva.

Although that was related to the special nature of Soul Nourishing Saliva, it also showed that refining pills was a time-consuming job.

By the later stages, refining Eighth-Grade Medicinal Pills often took months.

With this effect, pills that took others twenty days to refine could be finished by Xiao Jin in a single day.

The batch-refining function was also extremely useful. The Tier 1 Medicinal Pill Hemostasis Pills he supplied to the Miteer Auction House could be refined as quickly as popcorn.

He could produce a batch in just a few minutes, and each batch contained over a hundred pills. Was that not basically popcorn?

According to the Pill Tower Ancestor, this medicinal cauldron far surpassed every cauldron on the Heavenly Cauldron Ranking.

This time, Xiao Jin refined Tier 5 Medicinal Pills: Qi Cultivation Pills and Recovery Pills. The former could restore Dou Qi and could be used even by Dou Emperor experts. The latter healed injuries, and its medicinal properties were exceptionally mild, causing no further damage to an already injured body.

In just one day, Xiao Jin refined more than seventy Qi Cultivation Pills and over a dozen Recovery Pills.

Fortunately, the Storage Ring provided the resources. Otherwise, gathering the ingredients for so many pills alone would have been enough to give Xiao Jin a headache.

Wutan City was merely a small place. Obtaining large quantities of medicinal ingredients sufficient to refine Tier 5 Medicinal Pills here was extremely difficult.

After finishing his alchemy, Xiao Jin asked some more questions about his cultivation.

"Old Man, you always say my body isn't good enough and that I can't break through any further. But if I don't keep breaking through, how am I supposed to improve my physical condition?" Xiao Jin was deeply puzzled. The Pill Tower Ancestor's words last time had left a profound impression on him, and he had consciously begun strengthening his physique.

The Pill Tower Ancestor wore a cryptic smile. "Little fellow, if you want to ask someone for help, you should act like it. Calling me Old Man every other word—why should I teach you?"

"You're getting tsundere now?" Xiao Jin rolled his eyes irritably, but he still obediently bent at the waist and clasped his hands toward the Pill Tower Ancestor's soul projection. "Please teach me, Teacher."

Only then did the Pill Tower Ancestor stroke his beard in satisfaction and say smugly, "Do you remember when I took you to the Magic Beast Mountain Range two years ago?"

Xiao Jin nodded. Although he had already been a Dou Ling at the time, that Old Man had actually made him fight Fifth-Rank Magic Beasts.

He was not allowed to rely on soul power, nor was he permitted to use Dou Techniques. He could only depend on pure physical strength to clash head-on with Fifth-Rank Magic Beasts.

A Fifth-Rank Magic Beast was already comparable to a human Dou Wang. He had been only a Dou Ling, yet he had been expected to defeat one in the area where Magical Beasts excelled most—their physical bodies. Was that not asking the impossible?

"Little fellow, did those six months of training leave you with no insights at all?"

Xiao Jin fell into thought, clearly recalling the changes he had undergone back then.

Because his talent was too high and the Storage Ring supplied him with vast resources, his cultivation had always gone smoothly.

Breaking through realms had been as easy for him as eating and drinking for others. The bottlenecks ordinary people constantly talked about simply did not exist for him.

This had caused his Dou Qi to be somewhat unstable compared to geniuses of the same realm.

If not for his powerful soul strength and several high-grade Dou Techniques, his actual combat strength would have been slightly below his realm.

During those six months in the Magic Beast Mountain Range, Xiao Jin's Dou Qi rapidly became solid and stable, losing all its former instability.

At first, with the strength of a Three-Star Dou Ling, he could only trade twenty moves head-on with a Fifth-Rank Magic Beast.

After twenty moves, he would have to flee in defeat.

A month later, he could already exchange fifty moves with a Fifth-Rank Magic Beast without falling behind.

Three months later, he could fight a Fifth-Rank Magic Beast to a standstill.

Five months later, he killed a Fifth-Rank Magic Beast for the first time using nothing but pure physical strength.

When the six-month period ended and he left the Magic Beast Mountain Range, ordinary Fifth-Rank Magic Beasts could not even withstand a hundred moves from him.

On the final day, the Pill Tower Ancestor lifted every restriction except the one on his soul power, allowing Xiao Jin to use all his high-grade Dou Techniques.

Only then did he realize just how terrifying his combat strength had become.

Those were Fifth-Rank Magic Beasts comparable to human Dou Wangs, yet they could not even withstand ten moves in his hands before being reduced to a pile of flesh.

Thinking of this, Xiao Jin said thoughtfully, "Old Man, you mean I can continue tempering my body?"

"Correct. Although you can break through to Dou Wang now, you would still need to spend a great deal of time stabilizing your cultivation afterward. Since that is the case, why not continue tempering your body while you are still a Dou Ling? Then your breakthrough will come naturally, and your future realms will be exceptionally stable." The Pill Tower Ancestor looked like a teacher pleased with a promising student and nodded in satisfaction.

"Then how should I temper my body?"

"Do you know Three Thousand Burning Flame?"

"The Heavenly Flame ranked ninth on the Heavenly Flame Ranking?"

"Correct. Three Thousand Burning Flame is known as the Star Flame. After refining it, one can obtain the Three Thousand Star Physique. With this physique, one can strengthen oneself by absorbing Stellar Power. If you can refine Three Thousand Burning Flame, then use the Three Thousand Star Physique to continuously shatter and reconstruct your body, you will ultimately obtain a physique comparable to that of a top-tier Magical Beast."

Xiao Jin's expression turned strange. "Old Man, don't tell me you want to return to the Pill Tower?"

He knew very well that the currently known Three Thousand Burning Flame was sealed within the restrictions established by the Pill Tower.

The Pill Tower Ancestor coughed awkwardly. He truly did have the thought of returning to the Pill Tower for a look.

That was an organization he had founded with his own hands, and aside from Xiao Jin, it was his greatest attachment in this world. It would be a lie to say that he did not care.

But he also understood Xiao Jin's circumstances. Could this brat be saying this on purpose?

He rolled his eyes and pointed at the Storage Ring on Xiao Jin's finger. "Do you take me for some ignorant fool? Isn't there a Three Thousand Burning Flame inside your Storage Ring?"