Refining Pills

The bright daylight in the courtyard gradually softened. The sun reddened, then sank westward as an evening sun, staining the clouds along the horizon a warm crimson.

The orange-red afterglow slanted across Lin Fan, who sat cross-legged in the courtyard.

Lin Fan slowly gathered his focus and switched off the thirty-thousandfold cultivation effect.

The white vapor rising around him slowly dissipated. He let out a long breath of stale air and rose. Two hours of uninterrupted, grueling cultivation had left his body warm and every limb aching with numb fatigue. Yet his cultivation had made tangible progress, bringing him much closer to the late stage of the Transforming Force Realm.

As Lin Fan opened his eyes, a faint glint flashed deep within them. He stretched his limbs in the courtyard, his bones giving a series of soft cracks and pops.

After resting a moment, Lin Fan walked toward the storeroom where the spiritual ingredients were kept.

He pushed open the heavy door, and a rich medicinal fragrance washed over him. Spiritual ingredients lay neatly stacked on wooden shelves and in wooden chests throughout the room.

Spirit herbs of every kind, roots, petals, and medicinal insects had all been labeled and sorted. Special padding lined the chests to preserve their potency as much as possible and keep their medicinal power from fading.

At a thought from Lin Fan, his Inner Qi spread outward as though countless invisible hands had sprouted around him. He began selecting from the myriad spiritual medicines.

Refining pills required balanced combinations and medicinal properties that complemented one another. A single missing ingredient, or one that had not grown long enough, could cause the entire refinement to fail. Lin Fan had long since memorized several pill formulas and knew the proportions of their ingredients inside out.

With a