Refining Blood-Coagulating Powder

Xiao Yan returned to the Xiao Clan and headed straight for the Back Mountain.

Reaching the summit of the Back Mountain, he pulled out an iron chain hidden in a patch of thick grass and climbed down along it. When he reached the end of the chain, he kicked hard against the cliff face, and his body dropped toward a stone platform.

Once he reached the spacious platform, Xiao Yan let out a soft breath; after all, he was about to become an alchemist, and his heart was naturally quite excited. Alchemists were national treasures on the Dou Qi Continent, akin to giant pandas, and their status and position were beyond reproach. If Xiao Yan remained in Wutan City, he could easily crush the Jia Lie Clan and the Oba Clan simply by becoming an alchemist.

Xiao Yan looked at the two storage rings on his left hand, a smile curving the corners of his mouth. Right now, he was even wealthier than the entire Xiao Clan. Low-grade storage rings though they were, only his father Xiao Zhan and the Great Elder possessed one each, yet he owned two.

Xiao Yan stroked one of the storage rings, flicked his finger, and a nearly half-meter-wide red medicinal cauldron appeared in his hand. Xiao Yan weighed it and found it quite heavy.

The medicinal cauldron was dark red throughout, carved with two ferocious snake heads, and the surface of the cauldron was also adorned with vivid Magical Beast carvings that looked just like living creatures.

Xiao Yan held the medicinal cauldron, looking it over left and right, and found it identical to the one belonging to Xiao Yan in the original story. However, this was normal; after all, such medicinal cauldrons were mass-produced and not unique.

At that moment, Medicine Elder turned into a streak of white light and drifted out from the ring, then said indifferently, "A two-port cauldron. It suits a novice like you quite well."

"A two-port cauldron?" Xiao Yan scratched his head, somewhat baffled. Although he knew this was a two-port cauldron, he was not too clear on the intricacies behind it.

However, under Medicine Elder's explanation, Xiao Yan gained some understanding of knowledge regarding medicinal cauldrons. At a time like this, he could not pretend to understand when he did not; after all, alchemy was no simple matter, and even the slightest mistake would lead to direct failure.

Once Xiao Yan understood how to use the medicinal cauldron, he immediately asked, "What should we do now?"

"Hehe, since you possess a Heavenly Flame, you don't need to convert energy through the fire port anymore. Just summon the Heavenly Flame directly and put it into the medicinal cauldron," Medicine Elder said with a smile.

Obediently, Xiao Yan summoned the Heavenly Flame within his body. Just as he was about to send the black-and-white flame in his palm into the medicinal cauldron, Medicine Elder's voice rang out at that moment.

"Your Yin-Yang Twin Flame is composed of two kinds of flames, white and black. If the two are used together, it is merely an ordinary Heavenly Flame, but if they are used separately..."

"Teacher means to use the two flames separately and refine medicine directly with the white flame?" Xiao Yan asked in bewilderment.

"Hehe, didn't you test it before? Using the standalone white flame for alchemy can increase the healing effects of the pills you refine, raise their quality, and even produce some unexpected effects," Medicine Elder said with a smile.

Xiao Yan extinguished the flame in his hand and made a beckoning gesture once more. A ball of white flame appeared in his palm; this white flame exuded vitality, and the scent it emitted made one feel refreshed and invigorated.

Xiao Yan sent the ball of white flame in his palm into the medicinal cauldron and asked Medicine Elder with a smile, "Should I inject the Wood Force from my body into this flame next?"

"Hahahaha! You know quite a bit. Naturally, other alchemists would need to do that, but you don't. This Heavenly Flame of yours seems tailor-made for alchemy. To be honest, if you asked me to choose, I would definitely choose the Yin-Yang Twin Flame instead of the Bone Spirit Cold Flame. Now you just need to put the herbs into the medicinal cauldron and refine them," Medicine Elder said with a hearty laugh.

Listening to Medicine Elder's rather envious tone, a smile surfaced at the corners of Xiao Yan's mouth as he recalled the medicinal formula for Blood-Coagulating Powder in his mind.

Blood-Coagulating Powder: one stalk of Blood-Coagulating Grass, one Vitality Fruit, two Poppy Flowers.

Xiao Yan flicked his finger against his storage ring, and a dark-red stalk of Blood-Coagulating Grass appeared in his hand. He tossed the Blood-Coagulating Grass in through the snake-head opening at the top of the medicinal cauldron.

The moment the Blood-Coagulating Grass made contact with the Heavenly Flame, it instantly turned to ashes and was expelled from the medicinal cauldron by the special mechanism inside.

Seeing that his very first attempt at alchemy had failed, Xiao Yan blinked his eyes without feeling surprised. Although he could freely control the flame's temperature and knew the required temperature to refine Blood-Coagulating Grass, he did not have a thermometer; how could he possibly know what the flame's temperature was? Therefore, there was no helping it—he could only continuously experiment to build up experience.

Xiao Yan lowered the temperature of the flame inside the medicinal cauldron by a few fractions, retrieved another stalk of Blood-Coagulating Grass from the storage ring, and dropped it into the cauldron. The Blood-Coagulating Grass touched the flame and turned to ashes once again. Xiao Yan lowered the flame temperature a bit more, continuously trying. After paying the price of dozens of stalks of Blood-Coagulating Grass, the Blood-Coagulating Grass finally stayed quietly within the flames.

Through the ice mirror of the medicinal cauldron, Xiao Yan carefully observed the stalk of Blood-Coagulating Grass tumbling constantly within the flames. At this moment, however, Xiao Yan did not immediately begin refining the Blood-Coagulating Grass; instead, he began to slightly raise the flame temperature. As the temperature of the flame increased, the Blood-Coagulating Grass reached a certain critical point and directly turned into black ash.

Looking at the Blood-Coagulating Grass that had turned straight to ash, a smile surfaced at the corners of Xiao Yan's mouth. He retrieved another stalk of Blood-Coagulating Grass from the storage ring and tossed it into the medicinal cauldron. This time, the Blood-Coagulating Grass did not turn to ash, staying quietly in the flames. Before the Blood-Coagulating Grass could be refined, Xiao Yan began to lower the flame temperature; when the temperature reached a certain critical point, the Blood-Coagulating Grass turned to ash just the same.

Whether refining herbs or fusing pills, the flame temperature could neither be too high nor too low; otherwise, failure would ensue.

With the temperature of the Blood-Coagulating Grass as a reference, after paying the price of a dozen Vitality Fruits and a few Poppy Flowers, Xiao Yan quickly found the temperature ranges for these two types of herbs.

When everything was ready, Xiao Yan split the flame in the medicinal cauldron into three, with all three clusters of flames burning at different temperatures. Immediately afterward, he took a stalk of Blood-Coagulating Grass, a Vitality Fruit, and two Poppy Flowers from the storage ring, casting them separately into the three burning clusters of flame.

Under the burning of the Heavenly Flame, the Blood-Coagulating Grass yielded a white powder, the Vitality Fruit yielded slightly blackened tiny particles, and the Poppy Flowers yielded a pale-red liquid.

Seeing that all three herbs had finished refining, Xiao Yan knew that the most important step had arrived: fusing all three different herbs that had been refined into one. Because each of the three herbs required a different temperature, an alchemist had to master the temperature of every single flame; these were tasks that only an alchemist with a sufficiently high soul perception could accomplish.

Yet this most difficult and crucial step was exceptionally simple for Xiao Yan, because not only was Xiao Yan's soul perception powerful, but his mastery of the Heavenly Flame was also consummate and boiler-hot, without the slightest bit of rustiness—not at all resembling someone who had just acquired a Heavenly Flame.

First, Xiao Yan controlled the liquid extracted from the Poppy Flowers to wrap around the pure white powder, causing the two to blend together. What merged as a result was a pale-red, viscous liquid. He continued to nurture this liquid until it formed a dark-red paste shape. Once the two had completely fused, Xiao Yan began to increase the flame temperature around the black particles extracted from the Vitality Fruit.

Seeing this scene, Medicine Elder nodded in gratification, secretly thinking to himself: My disciple's alchemy talent is truly unprecedented! His mastery of the flames doesn't look like a novice's at all; instead, it's as skilled as an old hand like mine.

Under the steadily rising temperature, the black particles extracted from the Vitality Fruit ultimately burst open, and pinches of pitch-black powder slowly drifted into that cluster of pale-red paste, dyeing the color of the latter a shade deeper.

Once Xiao Yan had fully incorporated all the black powder, he extinguished the flames in the medicinal cauldron. Opening the lid of the medicinal cauldron, he took out the freshly refined Blood-Coagulating Powder. Gazing at the large mass of deep-red paste in his hand, a smile surfaced at the corners of Xiao Yan's mouth.