This Daoist Master Made It

Before nightfall, Ning Fa took the last spirit boat back to Pingchang Island.

The moment he returned home, he locked the front gate tight. He had made up his mind: unless he refined the Essence Replenishing Pill, he would not step outside.

He first recalled the details of his previous failed pill refinement, then took a deep breath, pulled out the first batch of spirit ingredients for the Essence Replenishing Pill, and began refining again.

His performance during the second refinement was clearly much better than the last time.

He smoothly extracted the spirit ingredients into spirit liquid, and his timing in adding the spirit liquid to the pill furnace was precise to the smallest fraction. Everything went smoothly until the final pill-forming stage.

This was also the most difficult part of the entire pill-refining process. Not long after it began, a muffled bang came from the pill furnace. This refinement had clearly failed as well.

Ning Fa was not particularly disappointed. He had estimated from the start that it would take around three attempts before he could refine a Failed Pill.

When he opened the pill furnace, he found only a lump of thick, creamy yellow liquid inside. Still, it was far better than the charred black mass from last time.

Ning Fa's heart stirred. He pulled back the sleeve on his right arm and touched the white mark there. The mysterious white scroll appeared once more.

This time, the scroll finally reacted.

Just like last time, mysterious White Runes first flashed across the scroll. Then an image of that thick, creamy yellow liquid appeared. Next, white lines extended downward, and images of the seven spirit herbs appeared beneath it.

Ning Fa was overjoyed. It seemed his guess had very likely been correct—perhaps even better than he had imagined.

He had originally believed it could only restore the ingredients once the pill had reached the Failed Pill stage. Now, it could do so when the pill had only just taken shape. This greatly lowered the threshold for the Mysterious Scroll to work, naturally making it even more useful.

Ning Fa immediately touched the images of the seven spirit herbs on the scroll. A mysterious white radiance flickered through the air, and the seven spirit herbs appeared. The thick, creamy yellow liquid in the pill furnace vanished at the same time.

Ning Fa forcefully suppressed his excitement. After resting briefly and reviewing the reasons for this failure, he began refining pills once again.

This time, Ning Fa was in excellent condition and persisted all the way to the final stage of opening the furnace.

Ning Fa opened the pill furnace. Once the scorching white mist dispersed, aside from some residue, there was remarkably an oval, milky-white pill inside, giving off a faint fragrance.

Ning Fa threw a fierce punch, his heart brimming with excitement. He had finally refined a Failed Pill. From now on, he could continuously use the Mysterious Scroll to restore the ingredients.

But he immediately thought of something, and hesitation crossed his face. He had realized a crucial problem.

This refinement had produced both residue and a Failed Pill. The residue had already been tested and could not be restored by the scroll. With only one Failed Pill, could it still fully restore all seven spirit herbs?

If not, that would be troublesome, because he could not guarantee that he would refine all five Failed Pills every time.

But there was no use overthinking it. Ning Fa activated the Mysterious Scroll again.

To his ecstatic delight, the image of that single pill appeared on the scroll again. Then white lines extended, and the images of the seven spirit herbs appeared as before.

A flash of white radiance swept through the air, and the seven spirit herbs appeared once more, each in a different form and glowing with multicolored clouds of light—not one more, not one less.

"Th-this... this violates the law of conservation of energy..."

Ning Fa was stunned, but his face was immediately flooded with wild joy. This meant that as long as a batch of pills produced even one Failed Pill, it could completely restore all the spirit ingredients. Its effect was nothing short of heaven-defying.

As for why it could do this, Ning Fa gave it some thought. Recalling the sequence in which the images had appeared on the scroll, he came up with a possible explanation.

The Mysterious Scroll might not simply restore pills. Instead, it traced the spirit ingredients used to refine them back to their source.

So long as there was one Failed Pill, it could trace things back to the origin and restore them.

That explained why the spirit ingredients could be fully restored despite losses during the pill-refining process.

Normally, one set of Essence Replenishing Pill ingredients could yield six proper pills. There had been substantial losses in both of his previous refinements, yet the ingredients had been successfully restored each time. That undoubtedly supported this explanation.

Ning Fa almost wanted to kiss the Mysterious Scroll. After taking a brief break, he began refining pills again.

On the third attempt, he refined three Failed Pills.

On the fourth attempt, he refined five Failed Pills.

On the fifth attempt, he refined six Failed Pills.

On the twenty-first attempt, he refined one proper pill and four Failed Pills.

Ning Fa seemed to have fallen into a demonic frenzy, throwing his whole heart and soul into pill refinement.

He only stopped to meditate and recover Mana when his Mana ran low.

When he was hungry, he ate a Grain Abstinence Pill. When tired, he rested briefly. He did not waste any time sleeping.

Even during those short rests, his mind was filled with replaying every step of the pill-refining process.

In this way, Ning Fa soon completely mastered the pill-refining techniques of his former self and could steadily refine at least five Failed Pills.

On the second day, he even refined a proper Essence Replenishing Pill for the first time, sending Ning Fa into raptures.

As Ning Fa refined pills again and again without interruption while constantly summarizing his experiences, his pill-refining skill continued to improve.

By the tenth day, Ning Fa could finally steadily refine a proper Essence Replenishing Pill. Though he could only make one proper pill each time, it was still a qualitative leap, signifying that his refinement of the Essence Replenishing Pill had reached a new stage.

By then, Ning Fa had already refined pills more than one hundred and fifty times. If he had purchased the spirit ingredients normally, it would have cost him the enormous sum of over two thousand spirit stones.

That price was enough to buy a decent Top-grade Magic Artifact. Even the shop Ning Fa's father had left him would fetch no more than that.

Ordinary pill refiners basically could not possibly possess so many spirit stones to buy ingredients for practice. Even for a cultivator family, it was not easy to produce such a sum.

Yet Ning Fa had actually used only three batches of spirit ingredients. All the rest had been restored using the Mysterious Scroll—or, more accurately, traced back to their source.

After that, Ning Fa gradually grasped the key to refining the Essence Replenishing Pill, and the number of proper pills he produced steadily increased.

By the fifteenth day, Ning Fa could steadily refine at least two proper Essence Replenishing Pills, and occasionally even two or three.

To be honest, the pill success rate for Essence Replenishing Pills had reached thirty percent by then. This already met the standard for the family pill refiner examination, and it was also the success rate his former self had dreamed of attaining.

But Ning Fa was not satisfied. He felt that he could do better, so he continued repeating the refinement process over and over like a man possessed, never tiring.

A few more days passed, and Ning Fa could steadily refine at least three Essence Replenishing Pills. His mastery of this pill had reached another new stage.

Three days before the bet between Ning Fa and Ning Huarong was due to take effect.

Inside Ning Fa's pill room, the pill furnace opened once more. Amid a wave of rich fragrance, six round, plump, milky-white pills could clearly be seen lying within. Not a single crack marked them; they looked as exquisite as works of art.

Ning Fa let out a hoarse laugh.

His hair was a mess, his beard unkempt, and his eyes were bloodshot. Yet his gaze remained bright and clear, with a hint of amusement in it.

"This Daoist master has made it!"

Ning Fa chuckled, then dropped onto his bed and fell asleep.