Golden Core (Part 2)

By habit, Yuan Tian took out a Golden Core. It would no longer fly around now; Golden Cores only darted everywhere when they had just come into being, and after some time, that would no longer happen. This Golden Core truly lived up to its name, its entire body golden-yellow. But do not assume all Golden Cores were golden-yellow. In truth, quite a few came in other colors; the ones Yuan Tian refined merely happened to be golden-yellow. After Yuan Tian examined them, this batch of Golden Cores had likewise reached seven-tenths quality. This was a fine start. Their main function was to restore spiritual power. Yuan Tian placed one Golden Core in his mouth, and a gentle stream of spiritual energy immediately entered his body. In the blink of an eye, the spiritual power he had expended over a century of pill refinement had recovered, as though the Golden Core's medicinal effect had also been exhausted.

Through his own testing, Yuan Tian found that this batch of Golden Cores could restore the spiritual power an ordinary Zenith Heaven Golden Immortal would expend over ten years. Do not forget that although Yuan Tian's realm was that of a Zenith Heaven True Immortal, his spiritual power was absolutely no weaker than that of an ordinary Zenith Heaven Golden Immortal. Still, the spiritual power consumed through a century of pill refinement was not much, at most equivalent to fully exhausting ten years' worth of power. Yet this only proved how extraordinary the Golden Core was. A mere seven-tenths-quality First-Turn Golden Core could restore ten years of a Zenith Heaven Golden Immortal's spiritual power expenditure—an astonishing feat. If measured by the spiritual power of Earth Immortals and Heavenly Immortals, one such Golden Core could likely completely restore all the power they had exhausted.

Having witnessed the effect of a Golden Core, Yuan Tian became even more enthusiastic about refining pills. Whatever one did, one needed good results. If there were never any results, or if things always developed in a worse direction, would that not crush one's enthusiasm? Only with good results would one naturally become more proactive. Good results often produced positive benefits; this was almost an eternal and unchanging truth.

Another three thousand years passed in this manner. By refining First-Turn Golden Cores with different effects, and relying on his further understanding of the Dao of pill refinement, Yuan Tian finally refined a perfect First-Turn Golden Core of ten-tenths quality, reaching the major accomplishment realm in refining First-Turn Golden Cores.

Over those three thousand years, Yuan Tian consumed another twenty percent of his remaining medicinal ingredients. Although he spent three times as long as he had refining spirit pills, he did not consume as many ingredients. On one hand, there had been more varieties of spirit pills, and Yuan Tian had only just begun refining pills then, so his control over various aspects had sometimes been lacking, leading to greater consumption. On the other hand, although the materials required for a single Golden Core formula exceeded those needed for a single spirit pill formula, refining Golden Cores took far longer. The time needed to refine one batch of Golden Cores was often ten or even a hundred times that needed for one batch of spirit pills. Taking all aspects together, the materials Yuan Tian used over three thousand years to refine First-Turn Golden Cores were still fewer than what he had used in a thousand years of refining spirit pills.

With First-Turn Golden Cores still at the major accomplishment stage, Yuan Tian prepared to refine Second-Turn Golden Cores. He intended to use up that mountain-like heap of medicinal herbs and materials. Leaving them unused would simply be letting the vast and abundant medicinal resources of the Primordial Wilderness down. If Yuan Tian did not help the Primordial Wilderness consume some of them, would that not be a waste?

Thus, refining Second-Turn Golden Cores took Yuan Tian more than five thousand years, from the initial five-tenths-quality Golden Cores all the way to ten-tenths-quality ones. Time in the Primordial Wilderness truly was worthless. Yuan Tian had spent nearly ten thousand years refining pills from beginning to end, yet he had only reached major accomplishment in Second-Turn Golden Cores. This showed that pill refinement truly was no easy task.

Over those five thousand years, Yuan Tian's path had not been smooth sailing. During this period, he also experienced failures in pill refinement. Fortunately, with his years of experience, nothing went wrong. Yuan Tian himself was not afraid of suffering harm; what he feared was destroying the Xuanchen Cauldron. That would truly break his heart. After all, a spirit treasure like the Xuanchen Cauldron was not something one could refine at will. When Yuan Tian had refined it, luck had played a great part as well. Asking him to refine another cauldron like the Xuanchen Cauldron would likely be impossible. Besides, after using it for so many years, Yuan Tian had grown accustomed to it and had basically reached a realm where man and cauldron were one. Thus, Yuan Tian would rather be injured himself,

than let the Xuanchen Cauldron suffer any damage. When his pill refinement failed, Yuan Tian himself was unharmed, and the Xuanchen Cauldron was unharmed as well; only the medicinal ingredients had been ruined. Yuan Tian was not too heartbroken over the loss of ingredients, but it served as a warning. During his several-thousand-year pill-refining career, because he had always succeeded and never failed, he had gradually let down his guard. That failure happened to give Yuan Tian a reminder: no matter what we do, we must never relax, or we may face the danger of all our efforts going down the drain. Of course, Yuan Tian also drew many useful lessons from that failed refinement. After all, failure was the mother of success. One must remain vigilant in times of peace; whether in conduct or in action, this was how one should be.

Over those five thousand years, Yuan Tian consumed another third of his remaining medicinal ingredients. This was more than he had used while refining First-Turn Golden Cores, but still less than he had used refining spirit pills. Now only twenty percent of Yuan Tian's mountain-like stockpile of ingredients remained. It had to be said that Yuan Tian consumed medicinal ingredients at a remarkably rapid pace.

With Second-Turn Golden Cores still at the major accomplishment stage, Yuan Tian rode the momentum and began refining Third-Turn Golden Cores. Refining Third-Turn Golden Cores was even more troublesome than refining Second-Turn Golden Cores, and the requirements were even higher. Yuan Tian spent a full eighteen thousand years before refining Third-Turn Golden Cores to the perfect realm of ten-tenths quality.

Over those eighteen thousand years, Yuan Tian refined a total of thirty-nine batches of Golden Cores. From the initial four-tenths-quality Third-Turn Golden Cores to the final ten-tenths-quality perfect Golden Cores, he spent eighteen thousand years. During that time, Yuan Tian basically did not rest, nor did he relax for even a moment. He had thoroughly absorbed the lesson from his previous failure while refining Second-Turn Golden Cores. He constantly studied and constantly pondered, and in only thirty-nine attempts, he brought his skill in refining Third-Turn Golden Cores to the major accomplishment realm. On average, each refinement took more than four hundred and fifty years.

After Third-Turn Golden Cores, Yuan Tian could no longer refine Fourth-Turn Golden Cores, because he had nearly used up all his medicinal ingredients. Only a tiny amount remained, far from enough to meet the material requirements for Fourth-Turn Golden Cores. Moreover, Yuan Tian needed to gain a deeper understanding of the Dao of pill refinement in order to refine better Golden Cores.

Since there were no more pills left for him to refine, Yuan Tian also needed to rest. After refining pills for so long, he truly needed a break. During his rest, Yuan Tian also planned to carefully summarize the insights he had gained during this period of pill refinement and thoroughly consolidate his understanding of the Dao of pill refinement.

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