Pill Tower

Biodata

Background

The Pill Tower is the only organization authorized to certify alchemist ranks recognized across the Central Plains and the wider continent. Its influence stems from both this authority and its status as an alchemists’ sanctuary: Yao Lao advanced to seventh-tier alchemy there, while Su Zhang was once selected as a Pill Tower attendant 216 233.

Although the Soul Hall surpasses it in raw strength, the Pill Tower is described as the Central Plains’ strongest faction in influence and reputation. Its concentration of high-level alchemists gives it an almost monopolistic position in the profession, making even major factions dependent on its aid 409 440.

Its organization is deliberately loose. Alchemists generally attach themselves voluntarily and remain free to leave, a model that makes the Tower attractive but leaves it vulnerable when a rival can offer better resources or protection 436 449.

The organization’s public leadership and branches are supported by the Little Pill Tower, the concealed core that houses its hidden experts and forms its true foundation. Its existence prevented the Spirit Clan from simply absorbing the wider Pill Tower through defections and coercion 604 657.

The Tower’s foundations extend back more than ten thousand years. Its relaxed management also fosters a strong research atmosphere, allowing unconventional specialists considerable independence rather than imposing the strict hierarchy typical of sects 440 450 454.

Organization and Authority

Known Senior Figures

Alchemist Certification

• Pill Tower badges use a flame-wreathed tower and purple-gold stars; each star represents an alchemist grade, while nine stars denote a ninth-tier alchemist 234.
• Its branches provide rank assessments, though certification limits vary by location; the Nine Star City branch can certify up to intermediate seventh-tier alchemist 233.
• A recognized badge grants practical access to high-level medicinal-ingredient markets that may refuse sales to non-alchemists regardless of wealth 233.
• The Tower provides specialized evaluation methods for high-ranking alchemists, allowing their attainments to be assessed without requiring them to complete a full pill refinement during testing 235.
• The brightness of a badge’s final star distinguishes subgrades within a tier. Xiao Yan’s intermediate seventh-tier badge had six bright stars and a comparatively dim seventh star, which would have been still dimmer on a low-grade seventh-tier badge 235.
• Xiao Yan obtained intermediate seventh-tier certification at Nine Star City. Dan Qiu believed his actual ability might exceed the branch’s certification limit and offered to take him to headquarters for further assessment 235.

Resources and Facilities

• The Tower holds countless pill formulas, the continent’s most comprehensive soul research, and its richest medicinal-ingredient reserves; it also publishes the Heavenly Cauldron Ranking 409.
• A Dou Sheng-created storage space preserves nearly one-third of Holy Pill City’s precious natural treasures 452.
• Its major internal holdings include the Soul Skill Pavilion, Ten Thousand Pill Pavilion, and medicinal-ingredient storage, allowing it to support the enormous costs of eighth-tier alchemy 452.
• The Ten Thousand Pill Pavilion stores nearly half of the Tower’s medicinal pills, including pills that have vanished from the outside world 449.
• The Pill Tower rules the Pill Region from its headquarters in Holy Pill City, where even Soul Hall members avoid acting recklessly 410.
• Entry to the headquarters is restricted; its gate guards are peak Dou Emperors 425.
• Its Star Region imprisons the Three Thousand Burning Flame, a Heavenly Flame whose power the Three Great Heads continuously suppress 629.
• Following its incorporation into Origin Return Manor, the Tower’s extensive pill-related resources, including its ninth-tier pill formulas and medicinal materials, became available to the alliance 1103.
• Branches are scattered throughout the Central Plains, including several in the Northern Region. The Nine Star City branch occupies the city’s tallest stone tower and contains an alchemist-only trading area 233.
• The Tower controls the Pill Realm, a larger space particularly suited to growing medicinal ingredients. It opens this space during the Pill Convention for contestants to gather herbs, providing a continuing source of materials for the organization 452.
• Haika’s forging chamber provided specialized equipment work, including reinforcement of Xiao Yan’s Heavy Profound Ruler to withstand Heavenly Flames. During the Spirit Clan assault, Xiao Yan found the chamber wrecked and its weapons and medicinal cauldrons missing 452 618.
• Many of the Tower’s soul skills and soul cultivation techniques are ancient inheritances difficult to obtain elsewhere, although such techniques remain scarce and valuable even within its own collections 449 481.

Affiliated Clans and Membership

• The Tower once had five major affiliated clans. Four defected to the Spirit Clan during the build-up to the Pill Convention, while the Dan Clan—the last remaining affiliated family—later followed them 421 436 499.
• The five clans were the Dan Clan, Cao Clan, Bai Clan, Qiu Clan, and Ye Clan. The Dan and Cao clans were especially important sources of senior experts and talented successors; the Ye Clan had previously weakened enough to risk losing its place among the five 419 433.
• Cao Ying and Dan Chen, two Tower-associated alchemy geniuses, eventually renounced the Spirit Clan and declared allegiance to the Pill Tower after Xiao Yan cured the bloodline scheme affecting them 595.
• The Tower’s inability to compel its attached alchemists to remain was a central weakness in its conflict with the Spirit Clan 436 449.
• Despite the instability among its public affiliates, the Little Pill Tower remained the organization’s true core and retained its hidden experts 604 657.
• Cao Ying was Xuan Kongzi’s personal disciple and was widely considered a prospective member of the next generation of Great Heads. She entered the Tower’s inner sect at fifteen and became a seventh-tier alchemist before twenty 475.
• Wei Jiangyuan, Shennong Old Man’s disciple, was sent by the Little Pill Tower to contest the Pill Convention. The public leadership concealed his arrival to preserve an advantage against the Spirit Clan 433.
• Yao Qingyu initially attempted to infiltrate the Spirit Clan’s contestant group, but her concealed identity was exposed. By the final refinement stage, she had removed her disguise and openly counted herself among the Pill Tower’s ranks 574 603.
• Yao Lao had also entered the Little Pill Tower in the past, but later withdrew voluntarily 604.

Major Events and Operations

Pill Convention

• The Pill Convention is the Pill Tower’s premier alchemy tournament, normally held once every thirty years 409.
• During the Spirit Clan crisis, the Tower postponed the convention by one year, expanded its rewards, and renamed it the Hundred Realms Pill Convention 409.
• The expanded convention invited Central Plains alchemists who had never previously participated, attracting secluded veteran masters as well as younger talents 409.
• It established strict participation standards: only contestants at least fifth-tier could claim the final stone platforms 511.
• For the final refinement stage, contestants could use only medicinal ingredients gathered inside the Pill Realm; personal ingredients resulted in disqualification 511 570.
• To enforce this restriction, the Tower marked the medicinal ingredients inside the Pill Realm with faint traces of Dou Qi that could expose substituted personal ingredients 516.
• It distributed spatial stones to Pill Realm contestants to reduce casualties and provide an emergency means of escape 516.
• The Tower jointly set five Heavenly Secrets Talents Ranking tests with the Spirit Clan after the latter partnered with the Heavenly Secrets Tower 436.
• The Dragon Pillar Fire Trial was one of the events directly overseen by the Pill Tower, testing source-flame control through nine dragon-patterned metal pillars 458.
• Another Tower-supervised assessment required contestants to identify errors in randomly selected third- to sixth-tier pill formulas and propose improvements. Direct refinement was prohibited, and the Tower’s seniors judged the resulting revisions 482 484.
• The revised Pill Realm trial was designed to neutralize the Spirit Clan’s ingredient stockpile and limit Ling Zhuo’s gains. A specially invited Dou Sheng helped create the trial, which concentrated high-grade herbs in Mist Mountains with restrictions that emphasized soul power over Dou Qi 506 520 522 604.
• The leaders offered Xiao Yan and Wei Jiangyuan advance information and a shortcut through the revised trial. Both refused, choosing to compete fairly; the Tower agreed that access to the Three Thousand Burning Flame would depend solely on the final results 506.
• Xuan Kongzi intervened personally when contestants’ conflict threatened the final stage, preventing the clash between Ling Zhuo and Lei Jingxiao from escalating further 571.
• At the convention’s conclusion, Xuan Kongzi officially confirmed Xiao Yan’s championship and announced that dedicated guides would lead the top ten contestants to attempt to subdue the Three Thousand Burning Flame three days later. The champion had the first opportunity to try 506 596.
• Contestants could retain herbs gathered in the Pill Realm by having the Tower remove their restrictions and paying one-third of their original price 596.

Spirit Clan Crisis

• The Spirit Clan openly challenged the Tower by recruiting its affiliated clans and using the Heavenly Secrets Talents Ranking to compete for young alchemy talent 436.
• The challenge divided the Tower’s leadership between advocates of forceful retaliation and those who favored negotiations because of the Spirit Clan’s strength and the difficulties of mobilizing a loosely organized membership 436.
• Xuan Kongzi recruited Xiao Yan as the Tower’s candidate, offering resources, soul skills, pill formulas, and protection in exchange for preventing the championship from going to the Spirit Clan faction 449.
• The promised reward consisted of three volumes of soul skills or soul cultivation techniques, three pills from the Ten Thousand Pill Pavilion, ten freely chosen medicinal ingredients, one eighth-tier pill formula, and continuing protection provided Xiao Yan did not act against the Tower 449.
• Xiao Yan won the Pill Convention with an eighth-tier pill that summoned quasi-six-colored pill lightning, restoring the Tower’s advantage in the public struggle 593 595.
• A Spirit Clan spy was later suspected within the Tower after the enemy repeatedly exploited confidential Pill Convention information 603 604.
• Xuan Leizi had secretly accepted Ling Haonan’s proposal to use Dou Di descendant blood to advance toward ninth-tier alchemy and unite the Tower’s alchemical resources with the Spirit Clan’s military protection. He also helped plan measures against Xiao Yan and Wei Jiangyuan before the convention 504.
• Xuan Leizi was exposed as a traitor during the Spirit Clan’s attack on Holy Pill City 624.
• The Spirit Clan sealed Holy Pill City with a formation supported by more than fifty Dou Zuns, then targeted the Pill Tower Ancestor for live refinement 623 659 660.
• The Spirit Clan and Heavenly Nether Sect sought to capture, rather than indiscriminately kill, the Tower’s elite alchemists—especially those at seventh tier and above—to use them for their future plans 632.
• Heavenly Nether Sect reinforcements overturned a developing stalemate and began a massacre in Holy Pill City, greatly worsening the Tower’s position 633.
• The Pill Tower Ancestor arrived to defend the organization but was trapped by the enemy’s formations until Xiao Yan destroyed both the Mother-Child Rune Grand Formation and the Space Imprisonment Formation 652 667.
• Before being fully trapped, the Ancestor drew on the medicinal energy of Holy Pill City’s pills and nearly broke Ling Haonan’s formation with his flute technique, “Sever Heaven.” Six Spirit Clan Dou Shengs then reinforced the formation and confined him alongside the Tower’s reinforcements 654.
• The convention struggle was only part of Ling Haonan’s broader scheme. The principal objectives were to refine the Ancestor to raise Ling Yuan toward eight-star Dou Sheng, seize the Tower’s best alchemists, and transplant imperial blood into them to cultivate specialists loyal to the Spirit Clan 657 659.
• Xiao Yan’s role in the battle was decisive; without him, the Pill Tower would have fallen 778.
• The Ancestor was injured during the war and remained in seclusion while Xiao Yan’s side began discussing a broader alliance 917.

Origin Return Manor Integration

• After the crisis, the Pill Tower aligned with forces opposed to the Dou Di descendant clans and regarded Xiao Yan’s side as a trustworthy partner 916.
• It formally entered Origin Return Manor under the one manor, nine pavilions structure, with its elders becoming the principal alchemical personnel of Qing Mu Pavilion 1062 1067.
• The Pill Tower Ancestor was appointed provisional Pavilion Master of Qing Mu Pavilion, whose responsibility is supplying medicinal pills to the alliance 1062 1063.
• Though its public presence in Holy Pill City diminished after the alliance’s formation, its alchemists and resources continued to serve as a core strategic reserve for Origin Return Manor 1067 1073 1103.
• Elder Lin joined Elder Hei and Elder Mo in plans to refine ninth-tier pills publicly in succession. These refinements were intended to inspire the Manor’s disciples, with ninth-tier pill refinement also entering the disciples’ reward system as a long-term incentive for cultivation and contributions 1068.
• The scarcity of high-ranking alchemists appearing in Holy Pill City led uninformed observers to speculate that the Tower had lost its confrontation with Soul Hall, rather than recognizing its integration into the alliance 1073.

Yao Clan Medicine Ceremony

• Elder Lin participated in the Yao Clan’s Medicine Ceremony as an elder of Origin Return Manor and successfully refined a ninth-tier Precious Pill that attracted powerful pill lightning 1110.
• His successful refinement demonstrated the continued activity of the Pill Tower’s senior alchemical personnel within the alliance despite the organization’s reduced public profile in Holy Pill City 1067 1073 1110.

Story Role / Major Arcs

• Rank recognition — Xiao Yan sought Pill Tower certification because its badge carried authority across the Central Plains and opened access to restricted alchemist markets 233 268.
• Pill Convention preparations — The Tower became increasingly dependent on Xiao Yan as Ling Zhuo dominated the Heavenly Secrets Talents Ranking and threatened its standing 458.
• Pill Convention victory — Xiao Yan’s championship prevented the Spirit Clan faction from claiming the title and reversed the Tower’s political momentum 449 593 595.
• Internal betrayal and siege — The Tower’s secret leaks culminated in Xuan Leizi’s betrayal and the Spirit Clan’s large-scale assault on Holy Pill City 603 624 633.
• Origin Return Manor alliance — The Pill Tower later joined Origin Return Manor, contributing its senior alchemists and resources to the new alliance 1062 1067.
• Qing Mu Pavilion support — Its alchemists, pill formulas, and ingredient reserves became a major component of Origin Return Manor’s long-term pill supply and high-tier alchemy capabilities 1063 1103.
• Medicine Ceremony participation — Elder Lin’s successful ninth-tier refinement displayed the Tower’s inherited expertise under Origin Return Manor’s banner 1110.

Relationships

• Xiao Yan — Recruited as the Pill Tower’s champion candidate during its struggle with the Spirit Clan; his Pill Convention victory and actions during the siege saved the organization 449 593 778.
• Yao Lao — Formerly advanced to seventh-tier alchemy within the Tower and regarded it as trustworthy enough to recommend to Xiao Yan. He was also a former Pill Convention champion and had voluntarily withdrawn from the Little Pill Tower 216 233 458 604.
• Spirit Clan — Principal adversary; it poached affiliated clans, contested the Tower’s authority through the Heavenly Secrets Talents Ranking, infiltrated its leadership, and assaulted Holy Pill City 436 624 659.
• Cao Ying and Dan Chen — Alchemy geniuses produced through a Pill Tower-approved human-modification experiment; both later declared allegiance to the Tower after being freed from the Spirit Clan’s scheme 477 595.
• Little Pill Tower — The Tower’s hidden core, containing its concealed experts and serving as the true pillar beneath its public leadership structure 604 657.
• Origin Return Manor — Later ally and parent organization following the post-war alliance; the Tower’s elders and resources became central to Qing Mu Pavilion 1067 1103.
• Dou Di descendant clans — The Tower’s goodwill toward these clans declined sharply after the Spirit Clan crisis, leading it to favor cooperation with Xiao Yan’s forces instead 916.
• Soul Hall — A hostile rival that surpassed the Tower in raw strength but lacked its favorable reputation. Before the Spirit Clan crisis, Soul Hall had never challenged the Tower through an equally direct campaign of mass defections 233 409 436.
• Heavenly Secrets Tower — Partnered with the Spirit Clan to establish the Heavenly Secrets Talents Ranking, forcing the Pill Tower to negotiate a role in its assessments. Its unilateral announcement of an early end to the trials left the Tower unable to prepare an effective competing reward arrangement 436 481.
• Heavenly Nether Sect — Assisted the Spirit Clan’s assault and carried out killings in Holy Pill City while the attackers sought to capture valuable high-tier alchemists 632 633.
• Wei Jiangyuan — Little Pill Tower-backed contestant who, alongside Xiao Yan, accepted the task of opposing the Spirit Clan in the Pill Convention 433 506 600.
• Xiong Zhan — The Pill Realm’s strongest magical beast, bearing Ancient Dragon Bear blood. He resented the Tower for destroying his mountain and scattering his herb collection, and consequently declined to continue guarding the herbs against contestants 554.

Trivia

• The Pill Tower Ancestor is its most revered symbol despite being unable to refine pills himself 1062.
• The Tower’s headquarters was built strongly enough that its main structures withstood the shockwave from a nine-star Dou Zun’s self-destruction 616.
• By the time it joined Origin Return Manor, the Pill Tower possessed more than fifty eighth-tier alchemists, including two who had touched the ninth-tier threshold 1067.
• Elder Lin’s public attempt to refine a ninth-tier pill demonstrated the depth of the Tower’s concealed alchemical strength after its integration into Origin Return Manor 1067.
• During the unprecedented influx for the Hundred Realms Pill Convention, the Tower mobilized earth-attributed experts to build additional housing, increased security patrols, and kept price increases for goods below ten percent despite severe pressure on its manpower 435.
• The Ancestor was normally absent and so rarely seen that members joked they might spend their entire lives in the organization without ever witnessing his true form 652.