Following his old habit, Yuan Tian took out a Golden Core. It would no longer fly about now; Golden Cores only flew 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 was golden. But do not assume all Golden Cores were golden; quite a number came in other colors. The Golden Cores Yuan Tian refined now simply happened to be golden. After Yuan Tian's appraisal, this batch of Golden Cores had likewise reached seventy percent purity, a rather good start. The main function of this batch was to restore mana. Yuan Tian placed one Golden Core into his mouth, and a gentle stream of spiritual energy immediately entered his body. The mana he had expended over a hundred years of refining pills was restored in the blink of an eye, as though the Golden Core's medicinal effect had already run out.
Through Yuan Tian's personal test, this batch of Golden Cores could restore the mana a normal Daluo Golden Immortal expended over ten years. Do not forget that although Yuan Tian's realm was Zenith Heaven True Immortal, his mana was absolutely no weaker than that of an ordinary Daluo Golden Immortal. The mana expended over a hundred years of pill refinement was not particularly great, at most equivalent to fully exhausting ten years' worth of mana. Yet this was enough to show how extraordinary the Golden Core was. A mere seventy-percent-purity First-Turn Golden Core could restore ten years of a Daluo Golden Immortal's mana expenditure—this was an exceedingly remarkable matter. If measured by the mana of Earth Immortals and Heavenly Immortals, a single Golden Core would likely be enough to completely restore all the mana they had exhausted.
Having witnessed the effect of a Golden Core, Yuan Tian became even more enthusiastic about refining pills. Everything needed good results. If there were never any results, or things always developed in a bad direction, would that not crush one's enthusiasm? Only with good results would one naturally become more proactive. Good results often brought positive benefits; this was practically an eternal and unchanging truth.
Another three thousand years passed. By refining First-Turn Golden Cores with different functions, and through a deeper understanding of the Dao of pill refinement, Yuan Tian finally refined perfect First-Turn Golden Cores with one hundred percent purity, reaching the realm of Great Accomplishment in refining First-Turn Golden Cores.
Over those three thousand years, Yuan Tian used up another twenty percent of the remaining medicinal ingredients. Although he spent three times as long as he had refining spirit pills, he did not consume as many materials. On one hand, there were more varieties of spirit pills, and Yuan Tian had only just begun refining pills then, so his grasp of various aspects was sometimes lacking, resulting in greater consumption. On the other hand, although a single Golden Core formula required more materials than a single spirit pill formula, refining Golden Cores took much 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 everything into account, 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 Great Accomplishment, Yuan Tian prepared to refine Second-Turn Golden Cores. He intended to use up that mountain-like pile of medicinal herbs and materials. If he did not use them all, he would simply be letting the vast and abundant medicinal resources of the Primordial Wilderness go to waste. If Yuan Tian did not help the Primordial Wilderness consume some of them, would that not be wasteful?
Thus, refining Second-Turn Golden Cores—from the initial fifty-percent-purity Golden Cores all the way to one-hundred-percent-purity Golden Cores—took another five thousand-odd years. Time in the Primordial Wilderness truly was worthless. Yuan Tian had spent nearly ten thousand years refining pills from beginning to end, yet had only reached Great Accomplishment in Second-Turn Golden Cores. It was clear that pill refinement truly was no easy task.
Over those five thousand years, Yuan Tian had not enjoyed smooth sailing all the way. During this time, he also experienced failures in pill refinement. Fortunately, with so many years of experience, nothing went wrong. Yuan Tian himself was not afraid of suffering injury; 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 that could be refined at will. When Yuan Tian had refined it, luck had played a major part. Asking him to refine another cauldron like the Xuanchen Cauldron was probably impossible. Besides, after using it for so many years, he had grown accustomed to it, and had basically reached the realm where man and cauldron became one with the Xuanchen Cauldron. Therefore, Yuan Tian would rather be injured himself
than see the Xuanchen Cauldron suffer harm. When pill refinement failed, Yuan Tian himself was unharmed, and the Xuanchen Cauldron was unharmed as well; only the medicinal ingredients used in the refinement were ruined. Yuan Tian was not particularly heartbroken over the wasted ingredients, but it served as a warning. During his several-thousand-year career of pill refinement, because he had always succeeded without failure, he had gradually relaxed. That failed refinement gave Yuan Tian a timely warning: no matter what we did, we could not let down our guard, or we might face the danger of all our previous efforts going down the drain. Of course, Yuan Tian also drew much useful knowledge from that failed refinement. After all, failure was the mother of success. We had to remain vigilant in times of peace; whether in conduct or in action, this was how it should be.
Over those five thousand years, Yuan Tian used up another third of the remaining medicinal ingredients. This was more than he had consumed while refining First-Turn Golden Cores, but still less than he had used while refining spirit pills. Now, only twenty percent of Yuan Tian's mountain-like stockpile of medicinal ingredients remained. It had to be said that Yuan Tian consumed medicinal ingredients at an astonishingly rapid pace.
With Second-Turn Golden Cores likewise at Great Accomplishment, 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, with even greater demands. Yuan Tian spent a full eighteen thousand years before refining Third-Turn Golden Cores to the perfect realm of one hundred percent purity.
Over those eighteen thousand years, Yuan Tian refined a total of thirty-nine batches of Golden Cores. From the earliest Third-Turn Golden Cores at forty percent purity to the final perfect Golden Cores at one hundred percent purity, Yuan Tian spent eighteen thousand years. During those eighteen thousand years, Yuan Tian basically did not rest. He scarcely relaxed for a single moment. He had thoroughly absorbed the lesson from his previous failure while refining Second-Turn Golden Cores. He kept learning and kept thinking, and in only thirty-nine attempts, he finally brought his Third-Turn Golden Core refinement to the realm of Great Accomplishment. 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 almost used up all the medicinal ingredients, leaving only a tiny amount. That tiny amount was fundamentally insufficient for the materials consumed by Fourth-Turn Golden Cores. Moreover, Yuan Tian needed a further understanding of the Dao of pill refinement in order to better refine superior Golden Cores.
Since there were no more pills left 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 properly consolidate his understanding of the Dao of pill refinement.
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