"Blood-Coagulating Grass, Cogongrass Root, Flowerheart Stone..."
Inside the cave, Xiao Yan placed some carefully selected medicinal herbs into the refining furnace, then pressed both hands against its walls. The flames inside were pitch-black, like fire from hell.
This was his first time refining a pill without Yao Lao watching over him, and he was attempting to refine Healing Medicine above his current tier. Although Healing Medicine was among the easiest categories of pills to refine, it still posed a considerable challenge for him.
Xiao Yan watched the churning black flames inside the cauldron with unwavering concentration, constantly using his Soul Power to control them as they refined the Blood-Coagulating Grass into white powder. The process was effortless. Back in Wutan City, he had refined large quantities of Healing Medicine with Blood-Coagulating Grass as the main ingredient to earn money.
Looking at the pure white powder in the jade box, Xiao Yan felt thoroughly satisfied. It was far better than anything he had extracted before. His progress was clearly tremendous.
Next came the Cogongrass Root and Flowerheart Stone. This was Xiao Yan's first time refining either ingredient; before this, he had only learned about them during Yao Lao's lessons.
Sure enough, his first attempt ended in failure.
After clearing the black slag from the refining furnace, Xiao Yan stared thoughtfully at some tiny black granules. He felt there was nothing wrong with his refining method.
Then why had this happened?
Throwing away the slag, Xiao Yan refused to accept the result. He took out several more pieces of Cogongrass Root and Flowerheart Stone and placed them into the furnace one at a time to refine them. Without exception, every attempt failed.
"This... how is this possible?"
Xiao Yan stared wide-eyed at the slag that had already piled into a small mountain on the ground. Even when he first started refining medicine, nothing like this had happened. He could not help doubting his own abilities.
Was he nothing without Yao Lao?
No, impossible!
Xiao Yan took out another stalk of Blood-Coagulating Grass and put it into the refining furnace. This time, he intended to find the source of the problem by refining the ingredient he knew best.
Ten minutes later, the Blood-Coagulating Grass inside the furnace had also become a heap of slag.
"The steps I used to refine the Blood-Coagulating Grass were exactly the same both times, yet the results were completely different. There must be some variable involved, and that variable is what caused the refining to fail."
After failing to refine even the Blood-Coagulating Grass he knew best, Xiao Yan, who had begun questioning his entire life, instead regained his composure.
He now understood that the problem did not lie with him.
One more try.
Xiao Yan placed another stalk of Blood-Coagulating Grass into the refining furnace and followed the same steps. This time, he wrapped his Soul Power directly around the ingredient, ready to sense every tiny change it underwent during refinement.
Time ticked by, second after second.
A minute change inside the furnace caught Xiao Yan's attention. He discovered that, while he was refining the Blood-Coagulating Grass, certain substances within it suddenly vanished.
At the same time, Xiao Yan keenly sensed a thread of pure energy being fed back by the black flames, traveling along his meridians and through his entire body.
That thread of energy felt extremely familiar to him.
After hesitating for a while, Xiao Yan took a dagger from his Storage Ring and lightly cut his finger.
Sure enough, the instant the wound appeared, the thread of energy returned by the black flames rushed toward it as eagerly as a dog catching a flying disc. Then the cut on his finger healed at a speed visible to the naked eye.
This reminded Xiao Yan of what had happened in the Netherworld. After the black flames burned the Soul Bodies to nothing, a mass of pure Soul Power had likewise been fed back to nourish his soul.
His soul had now reached a new level. Otherwise, he would not have dared to attempt higher-tier pills so readily.
"Is this a trait of the Nihility Devouring Flame? That makes sense. These black flames were formed from dou qi that had already been transformed by the Nihility Devouring Flame. If they can devour Soul Bodies, devouring medicinal herbs is perfectly normal. It's only because I deliberately guided them to extract the essence that they devoured just that part." Understanding dawned on Xiao Yan, and he began to ponder.
This did not seem to be a bad thing. Perhaps he ought to use the black flames differently.
Xiao Yan began refining Blood-Coagulating Grass again. This time, rather than directing the black flames to extract what he wanted from it, he simply used them to devour the impurities he did not want.
Five minutes later, a batch of snow-white powder was placed into a jade box.
Sure enough, his idea had been correct. The trait the black flames inherited from the Nihility Devouring Flame had brought a tremendous change to his approach to alchemy.
Instead of drawing out the essence as he had done before, his refining method now involved directly burning away the impurities.
Moreover, this burning was under Xiao Yan's own control. He could decide what to burn and what to spare.
The immediate result was that, as long as Xiao Yan understood an ingredient well enough, he could directly burn away everything he did not need and leave only what he wanted.
"If flames formed merely from transformed dou qi are already this wondrous, how powerful must the true Nihility Devouring Flame be?" Xiao Yan sighed softly. Unfortunately, the Nihility Devouring Flame still refused to respond to him. Otherwise, he truly could have soared into the heavens in a single leap.
Setting those thoughts aside, Xiao Yan, who had found the right method, resumed refining medicine. This time, the process of refining the Healing Medicine went exceptionally smoothly.
Finally, as the essences extracted from more than a dozen different ingredients fused into a single mass inside the refining furnace, a faint pill fragrance drifted from the Pill Furnace.
"A pill fragrance that only appears with fourth-tier pills? Tsk, tsk." Xiao Yan shook his head.
Pill fragrance was the hallmark of fourth-tier pills. Many Alchemists even judged a pill's quality by the strength of its fragrance when it emerged from the furnace.
Of course, he was not arrogant enough to believe he had refined a fourth-tier pill. In fact, this Healing Medicine did not even qualify as third-tier. It could only be considered top-grade second-tier medicine.
The faint pill fragrance had appeared simply because the Healing Medicine refined with the black flames was of such high quality, far surpassing ordinary second-tier pills, that it had produced this unusual phenomenon.
Putting away the Healing Medicine, Xiao Yan turned to look at the still-unconscious Yun Yun, regret showing in his eyes.
Although Nalan Yanran had left him with no goodwill toward the domineering Misty Cloud Sect, he still felt deeply guilty that a Dou Huang expert like Yun Yun had, because of him, inexplicably been struck down by someone from the Gu Clan.
"Unfortunately, I only became an Alchemist recently, and my abilities are still limited. This top-grade second-tier Healing Medicine is already the best I can manage. I heard that when you quelled the beast tide, you also inadvertently helped Xiao Yi Xian. I hope you survive."
After feeding the Healing Medicine to the unconscious Yun Yun, Xiao Yan calmly walked out of the cave. He intended to hunt a Magical Beast for food.
Having gone so long without a taste of meat in the Netherworld, he was practically dying from the craving.
Before you continue