The speaker was an old man in black, his hair and beard snow-white and his face covered in wrinkles. His cultivation was roughly at the Qi Refining Fifth Layer, and he emerged from the pill-refining room with his back bent.
Seeing Lin Changheng lift the curtain and enter the rear courtyard, he chuckled.
Lin Changheng instinctively wanted to reply,
How could an alchemist's mishap count as a Pill Furnace exploding? It ought to be called a Pill Furnace fire...
But when the words reached his lips, they became a wry laugh instead. "Master Mo, please stop teasing me."
Master Mo did not respond. He beckoned Lin Changheng over, then suddenly spoke again as Lin Changheng obediently entered the pill room. "Were you refining [Crimson Flame Pills]?"
"Yes."
"When did it explode?"
"Ingredient Blending..."
"Hmm... once I finish this batch, the next will be [Crimson Flame Pills]. Watch closely from beside me, and find your mistakes and omissions."
"Yes! Thank you, Master Mo!"
Delighted, Lin Changheng immediately thanked him several times.
Master Mo was a longtime guest retainer of the Xu Family. He had originally been a first-tier, middle-grade alchemist with formidable pill-refining skills, but he was growing old, and his body had suffered hidden injuries.
Unable to sustain the intense demands of refining middle-grade pills, he had voluntarily requested a posting at Zichuan Market Ward, a gradually declining resource-based market town. There, he refined low-grade pills year-round to maintain their sales to outsiders.
Even so, for Lin Changheng, being able to watch a Pill Master refine pills firsthand was a considerable opportunity.
After all, knowledge gained on paper always remained shallow. How rare it was to have someone demonstrate the correct method.
"It's nothing."
"Keep an eye on the furnace fire. There are [Wood Origin Pills] being refined inside."
With that instruction, Master Mo prepared to leave for a while.
"But... I know nothing about refining [Wood Origin Pills]. Senior Brother Xu usually watches this furnace."
Lin Changheng immediately reminded him.
"Xu Hanzhou was recalled to the lineage. He left early this morning with the group that had come here on lineage business."
After explaining casually, Master Mo added, "From now on, I'll have to rely on you to watch the furnaces and tend the fires for both batches being refined at once."
"All right."
Lin Changheng paused, then nodded, his expression shifting slightly.
The Xu Family Alchemy Shop had originally employed two Pill Masters, four pill-refining apprentices, and eight Xu Family members who handled miscellaneous work.
Later, the Superior-Grade First-Tier [red ironstone] vein near Zichuan Market had been mined to exhaustion, leaving devastation everywhere and no profit to be made. The cultivation factions and cultivators who had swarmed in now swarmed back out.
Zichuan Market had thus declined by the day, its population dwindling and its former prosperity gone.
The Xu Family had made corresponding adjustments.
Five years earlier, they had withdrawn one Pill Master and two apprentices.
Now, every pill sold in the shop was refined by Master Mo.
Generally, Master Mo started two batches of low-grade pills at staggered times in a day, with ten pills in each batch, then rested for a day afterward.
As a Mid-Grade Pill Master, he could easily refine two batches of low-grade pills at once. It could even be considered a health-preserving routine.
For Lin Changheng, however, this would eat further into his time.
Of course, it was not without benefits. He would gain access to the recipe and refining techniques for a new pill, the [Wood Origin Pill].
The Xu Family kept strict control over such things and did not readily allow them to spread outside.
After more than ten years here, Lin Changheng had only mastered the recipe for [Crimson Flame Pills]. Even his understanding of the techniques remained shallow, vague, and obscure, leaving him to feel his own way forward.
For the next two hours, Lin Changheng watched the furnace fire, though his mind was turning over the method for refining [Crimson Flame Pills].
Master Mo came by once during that time. Rather than sending Lin Changheng away, he performed more than thirty Pill Formula Hand Seals before the Pill Furnace in full view of him, and even remembered to toss him a yellowed jade slip.
It contained information on refining [Wood Origin Pills].
Only after watching Lin Changheng swear a Dao Oath to ensure he would not disclose it did Master Mo leave at his leisure.
At noon, Master Mo returned. After performing a complex series of Pill Formula Hand Seals, he opened another Pill Furnace some twenty feet away and lit its fire to begin refining [Crimson Flame Pills].
"Come watch closely."
His aged voice called Lin Changheng over.
"Yes." Lin Changheng's spirits rose.
He had already accumulated plenty of questions, along with possible solutions he had worked out, and needed to verify them through observation.
Master Mo's movements flowed like drifting clouds and running water. In his hands, the complicated process of refining pills actually acquired a certain beauty.
Lin Changheng watched with absolute concentration, not daring to miss the slightest detail.
"Watch the fires."
Leaving that instruction, Master Mo departed.
Lin Changheng seemed not to hear him, wholly absorbed. Only when Master Mo reached the doorway did he notice and hurriedly see him off.
Surprise flickered across Master Mo's face, but he took no offense. He waved his withered hand and walked away.
It was around the hour of the Dog that evening.
Only then did the two batches of pills finish refining, one after the other.
The furnace fires gradually died down. Guided out by Pill Formula Hand Seals, the pills flew from the furnaces into specially made wooden boxes, settling into their slots one by one as their medicinal fragrance filled the air.
Lin Changheng stood to the side with his hands lowered, watching. Secretly, he was already delighted: observing the refining process had yielded tremendous gains. Not only could he now readily resolve the problem that had caused his last furnace explosion, but many steps and the transitions between Pill Formula Hand Seals had also become clearer.
Suddenly, Lin Changheng heard Master Mo give a soft sound of surprise. He saw him take out a red pill bearing cloudlike markings and examine it in his palm.
Then Master Mo shook his head and put it away separately, outside the wooden box.
Lin Changheng was curious. This was the first time he had been allowed to remain present while Master Mo extracted pills.
"This is an inferior pill."
Master Mo deliberately offered him some guidance. "Whether because of differences in the ingredients themselves, deviations during refining, or some unforeseen mishap, pill refining inevitably produces a few inferior pills, or even ruined pills. Ruined pills are unusable, scorched and unable to hold their shape. You ought to be quite familiar with those..."
Lin Changheng smiled sheepishly. What he had obtained from yesterday's furnace explosion had been ruined pills.
"Ruined pills can be recognized at a glance. Inferior pills are different. They still take shape, but contain considerable impurities and lingering pill toxins. Cultivators must not consume them, or ailments will arise and their Dao Path will be destroyed. They are also called 'poison pills.'"
"For a batch of ten pills, it is acceptable if ruined and inferior pills make up no more than half. In my own refining, they generally account for only ten to twenty percent."
As he spoke, he stroked his long beard with considerable pride.
"I see. Thank you for clearing that up, Master Mo. Your superb pill-refining skills are acknowledged by everyone. Hardly anyone in Zichuan Market can rival you."
Having broadened his knowledge, Lin Changheng naturally followed up with a few flattering words.
Seeing Master Mo's pleased expression, a thought stirred in his mind, and he took the opportunity to ask another question. "How are inferior pills handled?"
"There was once a Pill Master from a certain lineage whose character was vile. He mixed inferior pills in with True Core pills and sold them, victimizing rogue cultivators. When the matter was exposed, the victims gathered to take revenge. Even the Pill Master's lineage suffered retaliation. Its members sustained heavy casualties whenever they ventured outside, and the lineage fell into ruin and was struck from the rolls!"
Master Mo gave this example with a grave expression, pointing out the crucial issue as he cautioned him,
"Our Xu Family is different. Our traditions are upright, and we do business for the long term. Our good name is on everyone's lips."
"Ruined pills are destroyed outright. Inferior pills are either destroyed or sold cheaply to beast-taming and beast-rearing lineages to feed beasts raised for meat."
Lin Changheng looked thoughtful. Noticing a loophole, he asked, "If those beast-taming and beast-rearing lineages buy them under that pretext but actually resell them to outsiders, wouldn't that also harm our Xu Family's reputation?"
Approval appeared in Master Mo's gaze as he looked at Lin Changheng, but he gave no answer, deliberately testing him.
After a moment's thought, Lin Changheng blurted out two words. "Cut them!"
Once the pills were split in half, they naturally could no longer be sold as genuine pills, while remaining perfectly suitable for raising meat beasts.
"Exactly. Cut them." Master Mo's aged eyes appraised Lin Changheng approvingly. Nothing else about the young man had changed much, but his temperament had grown somewhat gloomy and impatient in recent years.
Now it had changed again. Perhaps, with little time left before the agreed deadline, the immense pressure had broken him down only for him to build himself anew.
The two walked out of the pill room as they talked. Lin Changheng also took the opportunity to ask about three points that puzzled him. Master Mo did not refuse, offering a few brief words of guidance that cut straight to the heart of each issue.
The former Lin Changheng would probably have struggled to understand, but now those words cleared the tangled brush from his mind, and he absorbed every bit of them.