Spirit Flame Formula Complete

The course of events had completely exceeded Long Xuan's expectations. He had originally thought that, as a novice, he would have to endure countless failures before succeeding, and he had already prepared himself for frustration.

Who could have imagined that pill refining would be so simple for him, as simple as drinking water and eating a meal? It was so easy that he could barely process it, wondering if he was dreaming.

A full hundred spirit herbs were swiftly refined. He placed the purified spirit-herb essences into a hundred medicine bottles respectively and lined them up neatly on the table.

The success rate was terrifyingly high. Aside from a few spirit herbs that had instantly burned to ash because the heat was too fierce, leaving no chance to save them, almost none of the others had gone wrong.

With the help of this cheat, he did not dare claim that his pill-refining success rate would reach one hundred percent, but it would certainly far surpass that of other alchemists. Even Old Long was far from being his match.

Long Xuan was immensely excited. This was truly an unexpected delight. In that case, he really was perfectly suited to becoming an alchemist—and one with monstrous talent at that. He had been born to make a living from this craft.

Since the materials had been refined, the next step was to place all the spirit-herb essences into the pill furnace according to their proportions, allowing them to fuse and solidify under high heat before condensing into pills beneath the control of soul power.

This step tested one's soul power to the extreme. The slightest mistake would destroy all the materials, and the half day spent refining the spirit herbs beforehand would have been entirely wasted.

Failure at this stage often drove many people to collapse, especially when the spirit herbs were extraordinarily expensive.

However, Long Xuan was no longer flustered. Following the proper sequence and proportions, he poured the essences of the various spirit herbs into the pill furnace one by one. Then he lit the fire and raised the temperature, carefully observing the situation inside the furnace with his soul power to ensure that all the medicinal liquids fused completely.

As expected, not long after all the spirit-herb essences were poured into the pill furnace, the pill-refining progress appeared once more. The moment it reached 100% would be the moment the pill was formed.

If the progress became unstable this time, the problem might not simply lie with the flame's temperature. It could also be an issue with soul control or operating technique. There were far more things to watch out for, so Long Xuan became even more cautious.

As time ticked by, fine sweat gradually appeared on Long Xuan's forehead. His expression was tense to the limit, his nerves drawn taut as a bowstring, and he did not dare relax in the slightest.

Though he was an utterly inexperienced novice refining pills for the first time, and there were places where mistakes could have been made everywhere, with the progress cheat, he really did make it through without danger.

When the progress on the pill furnace finally turned to 100%, Long Xuan was overjoyed. Unable to restrain himself any longer, he hurried over and opened the pill furnace.

In an instant, a rich pill fragrance spread in all directions. Wisps of white mist rose from within the pill furnace, and the pleasant scent instantly filled the entire room, making Long Xuan's spirit jolt as he could not help taking a deep breath through his nose.

Looking closely, he saw that the pill furnace was filled with golden spirit pills, large and round. Perhaps it was merely a trick of the mind, but they seemed to gleam, leaving Long Xuan entranced.

For his very first attempt at pill refining to produce something like this, he had every reason to be proud.

Because there had been so many materials, the number of spirit pills in the furnace was naturally astonishing as well—there were a full eighty-one.

This counted as a full batch of Hundred Flower Pills, representing that every step of the refinement had been flawless and not a single defective pill had appeared.

Not a single defective pill in one furnace of spirit pills was something many alchemists found difficult to achieve.

The only pity was that the flame was too ordinary and its impurity-removing effect was not very good, so the quality of the spirit pills was not perfect. Still, Long Xuan was already satisfied.

At this pill formation rate and output rate, he could lavishly treat spirit pills as food every day, swallowing dozens of them daily. Wouldn't his cultivation soar like a rocket?

Long Xuan immediately grabbed several Hundred Flower Pills and tossed them into his mouth, then packed all the remaining Hundred Flower Pills into pill bottles and put them away.

Since he possessed such heaven-blessed talent in pill refining, he became even more invested in researching the Divine Ice Flame. After putting away the pill furnace, he sat beside the table and continued grinding away at the Divine Ice Flame Formula.

He was far too excited to sleep that night. He was preparing to burn the midnight oil and stay up all night...

With the Hundred Flower Pills, Long Xuan's cultivation, which had barely been moving at all, finally began to show progress, rising rapidly every day.

Long Xuan's daily life remained a simple two-point routine. Either he hid at home and worked on the Spirit Flame Formula, eating handfuls of Hundred Flower Pills whenever he was hungry, while occasionally eating a few spirit chicken eggs to avoid malnutrition and replenish his nutrition.

Or he went to the market to browse the street stalls for overlooked treasures. Sometimes, he also set up a stall himself, selling the useless items he had found through such bargains in exchange for Spirit Stones.

He used the Spirit Stones he earned from selling them to obtain the materials that had already been confirmed in the Divine Ice Flame Formula.

As time passed, his pill-refining skills became increasingly proficient. He cracked the formulas of all the defective pills he had bought, and with the partial pill formulas he occasionally glimpsed from Old Long, the number of pill formulas he had mastered was no longer small.

Alchemist was an exceedingly lucrative profession. After learning several common pill formulas, Long Xuan immediately disguised himself and set up another stall at the market, where he specialized in selling spirit pills.

As expected, his stall became explosively popular. Every time he set it up, the various spirit pills would quickly be swept clean, and he never had to wait long.

His pill-refining success rate was nearly one hundred percent. He rarely wasted materials when refining pills, and he often produced full batches. This meant that his pill-refining profits were far higher than those of other alchemists.

Every time, he earned until his bowls and basins overflowed, smiling so widely that he could not close his mouth.

Yet after doing it a few times, he still decided never to do it again.

On one hand, pill refining consumed far too much time, delaying the time he spent researching the Spirit Flame Formula.

On the other hand, although spirit pills were high-end goods, they were ultimately worth less than Gu insects.

After all, spirit pills were single-use, while Gu insects were permanent and could provide benefits for a lifetime.

The pill formulas he had mastered were all the lowest-grade, first-rank formulas. Even refining three furnaces of healing pills would not earn as many Spirit Stones as selling a single Cockroach Gu.

Moreover, pill refining required time, while refining Cockroach Gu did not require him to stand guard beside it at all. He could leave and do other things.

Once the two were compared, the gains did not make up for the losses. Thus, Long Xuan only refined Hundred Flower Pills for his own use and never refined pills for others again.

And so, Long Xuan refined Hundred Flower Pills while researching the Spirit Flame Formula. His progress was rapid, and with the aid of the Hundred Flower Pills, he finally broke through to the mid Spirit Gathering stage a year later.

At the same time, after a year of day-and-night research, he had finally ground out the Divine Ice Flame Formula.

The Divine Ice Flame Formula contained a total of three hundred materials. It did not seem like many, but every material was rarer and more precious than the last.

The main material, Millennium Ice Marrow—just hearing the word "millennium" in its name should have been enough to show how difficult it was to gather.

Many things clearly could not be bought with Spirit Stones. They could only be obtained through barter by frequently attending the Treasure Exchange Fair.

In this world without fixed prices, there were no Spirit Stones to serve as a reference standard, so Long Xuan had no idea exactly how expensive the Divine Ice Flame Formula was to make. His understanding was vague.

But its cost far exceeded the cost of refining the Eye of Heavenly Secrets—that was certain.

This cost had already far surpassed Old Long's cost for refining the Violet Demon Flame, exceeding it by more than tenfold. It was simply outrageous.

At such a staggering cost, if the Spirit Flame he created was not more impressive than the Violet Demon Flame, he would not believe it no matter what anyone said.

A single penny could stump a hero. Where was he supposed to get such enormous resources? How long would it take to gather them all? Long Xuan was completely numb.