Pill refining

"That girl Xian'er counts as a lifesaver to this old man, and she has the potential to become a Dou Ancestor. We must make sure she stays with our Nalan Family for good."

After some thought, Nalan Jie said, "Go ask Sheng'er later and find out who else is in Xian'er's family.

"Then pay her family a visit yourself and arrange their marriage with her parents first.

"Once Sheng'er has had his coming-of-age ceremony, have him marry Xian'er right away, lest a long night bring too many dreams."

"Yes, Father. I understand."

Nalan Su nodded without a moment's hesitation.

Meanwhile, under Nalan Sheng's guidance, Xiao Yi Xian followed him to a lavishly decorated private courtyard residence.

The luxurious residence before them, which occupied several mu of land, was where Nalan Sheng lived.

Besides Nalan Sheng's master bedroom, the residence had more than ten guest rooms.

In the end, Xiao Yi Xian chose the guest room closest to the master bedroom, then went into secluded cultivation, devoting herself to refining the brand poison within the Eight Spider Lances.

After settling Xiao Yi Xian in, Nalan Sheng headed to the family treasury alone and collected the seven illusory azure spirit saliva.

[Ding! The host has snatched the seven illusory azure spirit saliva destined for the chosen male protagonist. Reward: 5,000 villain points!]

Hearing the system notification ring in his ears, Nalan Sheng was left speechless.

The seven illusory azure spirit saliva clearly belonged to the Nalan Family, yet the system had actually assumed it belonged to Xiao Yan.

Was there any justice left? Any law at all?

Still, for the sake of the villain points, Nalan Sheng magnanimously forgave the idiotic system.

Several days later.

The Nalan Family training grounds.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh...

While Nalan Sheng was practicing the Benlei Palm and Lightning Divine Movement Technique as usual, he suddenly stopped and summoned the System Shop.

Ten new products had appeared in the System Shop.

Nalan Sheng quickly scanned the new products before finally settling on one. Its attributes were displayed as follows:

[Name: Wood Release: Four-Pillar House Skill Card]

[Effect: Instantly creates an elaborate wooden residence. Extremely convenient to use.]

[Price: 1,000 villain points]

Although the Wood Release: Four-Pillar House ninjutsu had no real combat power and was a standard support technique, it could grant Nalan Sheng wood attribute Dou Qi.

Nalan Sheng already possessed powerful soul strength and fire attribute Dou Qi. Once he acquired wood attribute Dou Qi as well, he could try refining pills himself and become an alchemist.

Thus, without the slightest hesitation, Nalan Sheng immediately spent one thousand villain points to purchase the [Wood Release: Four-Pillar House Skill Card].

Use!

At Nalan Sheng's silent command, the emerald-green skill card instantly transformed into a ball of green light and entered between his brows.

Nalan Sheng felt a slight pressure swell in his head, then unfamiliar cultivation memories appeared in his mind out of thin air.

After sorting through those memories, Nalan Sheng successfully mastered the beginner level of Wood Release: Four-Pillar House.

Since the technique did not noticeably improve his strength, and he had no use for it at present, Nalan Sheng had no intention of wasting villain points on upgrading it.

Compared with Wood Release: Four-Pillar House, Nalan Sheng was far more curious about whether he could become an alchemist.

He therefore put his training on hold and headed for the largest medicine shop in the city.

He had to admit that the medicine shops in the Imperial City were exceptionally well stocked. Pills and medicinal ingredients below the fourth grade were available in virtually unlimited quantities, provided one had the money.

Nalan Sheng was hardly short of money, so he spent one hundred thousand gold coins on a Medicine Cauldron, then several tens of thousands more on enough ingredients for over a hundred batches of Hemostatic Pills.

The Hemostatic Pill was a fairly ordinary first-grade pill, and its refining difficulty ranked near the bottom among first-grade pills.

It was one of the most common pills for external injuries. Aside from severe bleeding caused by damaged arteries, it could quickly stop bleeding in nearly every other case.

Although Nalan Sheng had no professional teacher to guide him, with Gute's insights as a Third-Grade Alchemist and the help of the Flame-Flame Fruit, he ought to be able to successfully refine a Hemostatic Pill before using up all hundred-plus batches of ingredients.

After purchasing the Medicine Cauldron and ingredients, Nalan Sheng wasted no time. He hurried back to the Nalan Family as quickly as possible and went into seclusion to refine Hemostatic Pills.

The refining process for a Hemostatic Pill was simple and could roughly be divided into three steps.

The first step was extracting the medicinal ingredients. The alchemist first had to use a Medicine Cauldron and flames to remove impurities, refining the ingredients into purer medicinal liquids or powders.

The second step was combining the purified materials, which had to be mixed in specific sequences or proportions.

The third step was pill formation, condensing the combined materials into the shape of a pill.

Perhaps because Nalan Sheng had eaten the Flame-Flame Fruit, the extraction process went smoothly.

Under normal circumstances, a first-grade alchemist would need at least several days to extract enough ingredients for over a hundred batches of Hemostatic Pills.

Nalan Sheng, however, finished extracting all those ingredients in just a few hours.

This was actually quite natural. After consuming the Flame-Flame Fruit, Nalan Sheng's control over fire had reached an inconceivable level.

In terms of flame control alone, even Yao Lao might not have been his equal.

Although Yao Lao had refined the bone spirit cold flame, Nalan Sheng was, in a sense, more like a humanoid heavenly flame. The two were entirely different concepts.

After extracting the ingredients for over a hundred batches of Hemostatic Pills, Nalan Sheng began trying to combine them.

Compared with extracting the ingredients, combining them was somewhat more troublesome.

To blend those materials together perfectly required not only extremely precise control over the flame's temperature, but also exceptionally powerful soul perception.

Without a teacher's guidance, Nalan Sheng inevitably made a few small mistakes while combining the materials.

Pill refining was an exceedingly delicate task, and even the slightest mistake during the process could ruin an entire cauldron of ingredients.

Fortunately, Nalan Sheng had prepared over a hundred batches of ingredients, and Hemostatic Pills were not particularly difficult to refine in the first place.

After ruining several batches in succession, Nalan Sheng drew on his earlier refining experience and mistakes and finally managed

to fuse all the materials into one.

At this point, the Hemostatic Pill was essentially complete. The remaining pill-formation step presented almost no difficulty.

With a thought from Nalan Sheng, the roaring flames enveloping the Medicine Cauldron were instantly drawn back into his body.

Thump!!!

Nalan Sheng raised his hand and struck the Medicine Cauldron, sending a thumb-sized red pill shooting out of its pill outlet.