"Crack! Crack! Crack!"
Another burst of cracking sounds rang out from inside the pill furnace, like a string of firecrackers going off. The herbs were instantly burned to withered stalks by the bright white flames.
Two different kinds of medicinal essence quickly separated out, then turned into medicinal mist under the high heat.
The mist gathered into a mass but couldn't condense into liquid. The heavy bronze lid even began bouncing up and down erratically.
A series of violent, chaotic waves of Dao Power slammed against the furnace walls, making Chen Xian's palms go numb.
"Holy crap, it's really going to blow up, isn't it?"
Chen Xian cried out and jerked his hand back, instinctively jumping two steps away.
He stared at the furnace, shaking violently in the moonlight and giving off a dangerous red glow, cold sweat running down his forehead.
He pulled out the jade shard Lei Qingyang had given him from his Jade Ring and held it in front of himself.
The pill recipe hadn't said that throwing everything into one pot would turn it into a firecracker!
The sudden increase in heat had caused herbs with different medicinal properties to collide violently in a short time.
The cold nature of Bitter Cold Grass and the dry nature of Origin Spirit Leaf clashed madly inside the cramped furnace chamber. It was like ice meeting hot oil, with neither willing to yield.
"Hold steady! Stay steady!"
A stubborn, fierce look crossed Chen Xian's face. He barked the words and stepped forward again, pressing his hand against the now-scorching furnace wall.
Enduring the heat, he gritted his teeth and tried to use his Dao Consciousness to bring the flames down.
The fire grew a little more docile, but the medicinal mist inside kept crashing into itself. Each time it began to condense, it exploded apart again, shaking the furnace along with it.
"Come together!"
Chen Xian's murky old eyes snapped wide open. The veins on the back of his hand bulged like withered vines, as though he meant to pour his strength into the furnace and forcibly knead the mass of medicinal mist together.
Using the furnace as a medium, he gathered the mist with his Dao Consciousness to keep it from colliding. The rapid expenditure left his sea of consciousness aching badly.
Chen Xian freed one hand and took out a bottle of Consciousness Returning Pills.
One bottle cost three hundred taels, far more than the herbs in this batch were worth.
But Chen Xian poured them all into his mouth without hesitation.
"I refuse to believe it! I can't even refine a first-grade pill?"
The potent medicinal power surged through his Spirit Platform, and his Dao Consciousness swelled.
The "great hand" gathering the medicinal mist in the furnace suddenly grew dozens of times stronger. The two different kinds of mist actually began to fuse rapidly, condensing together...
Even the few drops of medicinal liquid he'd refined earlier joined in, merging into one.
Feeling the mass of medicinal liquid inside the furnace—now as large as a fist—Chen Xian's gaze turned fierce. "Forget it!"
He tossed in the last herb, Sweet Blood Vine.
The fierce flames instantly burned it to ash, and in the blink of an eye, all that remained was a large mass of blood-red medicinal liquid.
Now completely focused, Chen Xian suddenly felt that his control over the furnace was incredibly strong.
It was as if the furnace were an extension of his own hands. He could control the heat and the medicinal liquid inside however he wanted.
The two large masses of different medicinal liquids slowly drew together, yet neither resisted the other.
They melded, becoming a single mass of milky-white liquid!
The furnace, which had been shaking nonstop, fell quiet. Only the flames continued to flicker.
"Form!" With his mind clear, Chen Xian almost instinctively knew this was the final step.
He followed his instincts and controlled the temperature inside the furnace. The white flames gradually turned orange-yellow, then deep red... while the temperature continued to fall.
Licked by the tongues of flame, the milky-white liquid gradually shrank and grew denser.
"Phew... I knew pill refining wasn't that hard!"
Feeling the calm furnace and the medicinal liquid simmering over a gentle flame, Chen Xian let out a long breath, relieved.
That was close. The furnace had almost blown up for real.
He drew back his palm, which had turned red from the heat, and quietly watched the pill liquid slowly rotate in the flames.
Suddenly, his brow furrowed and his expression turned odd.
"Wait... something's not right. Aren't Pill Masters supposed to get several pills from each batch? Why have I only got one?"
Chen Xian tugged at his beard and stared at the pill liquid in the furnace. It had shrunk to the size of a fist and stopped getting any smaller, giving him a bad feeling.
The moon in the sky moved bit by bit until it stopped directly overhead.
The flames inside the furnace went out completely, leaving only their residual warmth to nurture the pill.
"It still needs a quarter of an hour? Otherwise the pill will crack?"
Chen Xian glanced at the instructions on the pill recipe, suppressed the urge to take the pill out right away, and waited patiently.
At last, the quarter of an hour passed.
He opened the furnace lid and reached inside, feeling around until he found the Qi Induction Pill.
"Yikes... I'm doomed."
The feel of it was all wrong. Chen Xian sucked in another sharp breath.
"I don't dare open my eyes. I hope this is just my imagination..."
He closed his eyes and took the pill out.
It looked exactly like a Qi Induction Pill, except for its size... it was at least ten or twenty times larger than an ordinary one.
A Qi Induction Pill was only about the size of the first joint of a little finger. The one in his palm was clearly the size of a fist!
"What the hell? I spent three hundred taels to make a billiard ball?"
Chen Xian clutched his forehead, unable to believe this was the finished product.
But it was.
He just didn't know whether it still had the effects of a Qi Induction Pill. After examining it for a while, Chen Xian didn't dare try it himself.
The effects of the Consciousness Returning Pills had worn off, and he could feel his head throbbing with pain.
He rummaged through the house until he found a large wooden box, packed away the Qi Induction Pill Plus Edition, then crawled straight into bed and buried himself under the covers.
Early the next morning.
Usually, Chen Xian would tag along to Elder Wu's class and listen to him explain the cultivation methods of the Dao Disciple realm.
But he didn't go this morning.
"Are there really disciples this old in the outer sect?"
Qiu Daowen, an elder of the outer sect's Pill Hall, rubbed his eyes, unable to believe that an old man with white hair was sitting in the back row after this morning's lesson.
He took another look and—oh!
So it was his martial uncle.
His martial uncle usually went to Elder Wu's class. He didn't know why he'd come to his today.
Could his martial uncle be cultivating anew and planning to switch to the Alchemy Path?
Qiu Daowen couldn't make heads or tails of it, but the morning bell had already rung out—clang! clang! clang!—and he had to begin the lesson.
With an overseer in the room today, he taught with extra seriousness, breaking down the basic knowledge he'd explained dozens, even hundreds, of times before and going through it bit by bit.
Chen Xian sat in the back row, nodding repeatedly.
He finally understood why the Qi Induction Pill he'd refined was so huge.
It turned out he'd skipped the step of separating the liquid.
The Qi Induction Pill recipe called for five portions of Origin Spirit Leaf and five portions of Bitter Cold Grass because one Sweet Blood Vine could perfectly balance that much medicinal essence.
One batch of these herbs could produce ten to fifteen Qi Induction Pills.
He hadn't separated the liquid beforehand and had forcibly combined everything into one pill, so naturally all he'd ended up with was a billiard ball that big.
"I really should attend more lessons..." Chen Xian thought with a sigh.
If he hadn't had the Masterful Pill Crafting talent to help him at the time, let alone making a pill, it would've been a stroke of luck if the furnace hadn't blown up!
The morning class lasted only an hour.
After the lesson, the disciples left one by one.
Qiu Daowen was organizing his lecture notes at the podium when someone suddenly handed him a wooden box.
His expression stiffened. "I've said this many times. I don't accept gifts."
But the moment the box opened, a huge white ball came into view.
"Th-this... what is this?"
Elder Qiu furrowed his brow. The white ball in front of him seemed strangely familiar.
Standing beside him, Chen Xian grinned. "Elder Qiu, could you help this old man check the quality of this Qi Induction Pill?"
Elder Qiu was stunned. "Martial uncle, why did you refine a ball?"