"Alright, study it well!" With that, Warden Lin left with his hands behind his back, in high spirits.
"Warden Lin really is a good man!" Wang Erniu sighed.
"Yes, he is a good man." Zhou Xun nodded, a strange look appearing in his eyes.
It was not until evening that Zhou Xun left Danbao Pavilion and returned home.
Danbao Pavilion did not provide lodging for probationary Pill Refinement Apprentices like them. The Alchemy Room was merely for them to study pill refinement.
The next day, Zhou Xun arrived at Danbao Pavilion early.
Today, he would attend his first lesson: an introduction to pill refinement.
The lesson was held inside a great hall.
The hall covered dozens of zhang, with a raised platform at its center.
Thirty meditation cushions were neatly arranged around it, meant for their use.
By the third quarter of the Hour of the Dragon, everyone had arrived.
Zhou Xun had come early and chosen a spot close to the platform.
Having attended school in his previous life, he knew that good students always sat near the lectern.
As soon as the Hour of the Snake arrived,
a slender figure entered from outside the hall.
Everyone turned to look.
She was a gentle maiden, soft as jade, with distant-mountain brows and a snowy face like a blooming lotus.
Her long skirt trailed to her shoes; her starry eyes and pearly teeth gave her an elegant, otherworldly air.
Everyone froze. When had they ever seen a woman with such peerless beauty and bearing?
Wang Erniu's face reddened so fiercely that he did not dare look at her even once.
Zhou Xun, too, felt a flash of astonishment.
Even though he had seen countless beauties in his previous life, he still had to praise this woman as fresh and refined, untouched by worldly dust.
She walked straight past the crowd and drifted onto the platform.
She took a meditation cushion from her Storage Pouch, then sat cross-legged upon it.
"Miss Lin! It's actually her!"
Someone seemed to have recognized her.
Miss Lin—Zhou Xun understood at once.
Miss Lin was an immensely famous figure in Red Leaf Square.
She was the only daughter of Lin Anshuo, the current head of the Lin family.
Yet what made her famous was not her status, but her Superior Spiritual Root and her talent in pill refinement.
Though only sixteen this year, she was already an expert at the fourth level of the Qi Refinement Realm.
She was also a first-rank mid-grade Pill Refinement Master, a true heaven-blessed prodigy.
"Silence!" Her voice rang out like a lark, clear as spring water striking stone.
"Today's first lesson will be a demonstration of pill refinement, so that you may gain an initial impression of this art!"
Her face remained cool as she spoke briefly, taking out a pill refining furnace, Silver Spirit Charcoal, and an assortment of pill-refining materials from her Storage Pouch.
Silver Spirit Charcoal was refined from first-rank low-grade Silver Spirit Wood.
The spirit fire produced by this item was gentler and easier to control than earth fire, making it the finest source of flame for Pill Refinement Masters crafting pills.
"Today, we will refine a commonly used pill for the Qi Refinement Realm: the Qi Induction Pill!"
As she spoke, she placed the Silver Spirit Charcoal beneath the pill refining furnace.
She struck the furnace with a set of Mystic Gestures, and a crimson flame instantly leaped up.
"When refining pills, one must use spirit fire to warm the furnace!" the maiden explained as she worked.
A moment later, the furnace had been thoroughly warmed.
With a gentle wave of her fingers, white as scallion stalks, a blue-green spiritual herb flew into the pill refining furnace.
"This step is the condensation of medicinal liquid. There are many methods of condensing medicine, and different spiritual herbs require different methods."
And so, an hour passed.
Suddenly, a medicinal fragrance rose from the furnace and spread through the entire hall, invigorating everyone's spirits.
The maiden's expression shifted. She sent out another set of Mystic Gestures, and the furnace lid opened on its own. Twelve round, milky-white pills flew out from within.
Eleven of them were bright milky white, while only one was dull in color.
The maiden's brows drew together slightly. It seemed she had made a mistake.
"Twelve pills formed: eleven standard-grade pills and one inferior-grade pill!"
They are worth more than four spirit stones, while the cost is absolutely no more than two spirit stones, Zhou Xun thought.
The profit was more than double. No wonder Pill Refinement Masters were said to be the wealthiest group among cultivators.
The people below the stage all revealed covetous looks.
This was precisely the effect the first lesson was meant to achieve.
"Today's demonstration of pill refinement ends here. I hope you will all practice diligently in the future and become true Pill Refinement Masters as soon as possible!"
With a wave of her hand, she put away the pill-refining tools and drifted off.
The next day, in the same great hall, a different Elder explained the medicinal properties of spiritual herbs to them.
He was a veteran Pill Refinement Master of Danbao Pavilion. Although he was only first-rank mid-grade,
even Grandmaster Yun Ku had praised his understanding of medicinal theory, while Lin Zhishan himself admitted he was inferior.
After learning medicinal theory, they still had to learn methods for processing spiritual herbs, as well as the art of condensing pills.
Zhou Xun gradually grew accustomed to his daily life of studying pill refinement.
Every day, he traveled between his home in Green Willow Alley and Danbao Pavilion.
Thus, a month passed uneventfully.
One day, Wang Erniu suddenly came to find Zhou Xun, unable to hide the excitement on his face.
"Big Brother, I'm getting married!"
Zhou Xun was not at all surprised to hear the news.
Wang Erniu possessed a Superior Spiritual Root. For the Four Great Clans, there was no chance they would let him slip away.
Other than joining one of the Four Great Clans, he had no other choice.
The woman Wang Erniu was marrying was named Lin Xue'e.
She was the biological niece of the Lin family head and Miss Lin's younger female cousin by blood—a genuine daughter of the Lin family's main line.
However, this Second Miss Lin had poor talent: a low-grade Water Spiritual Root.
High status and poor aptitude made her a perfect match for Wang Erniu.
As for Wang Erniu, by joining the Lin family and gaining their support, with his Superior Spiritual Root, advancing to the Foundation Establishment Realm in the future was already highly likely.
Even the True Dan Realm was not beyond hope.
The Lin family's direct-line daughter taking in a husband was known throughout all of Red Leaf Square.
The Lin family's two direct-line daughters had countless admirers in Red Leaf Square.
Miss Lin was a heaven-blessed prodigy. The young masters of Red Leaf Square's great families did not even dare entertain hopes of winning her.
The Lin family's second daughter was different. She was likewise breathtakingly beautiful, yet her aptitude was merely ordinary, making her an excellent choice for the principal wife of a household.
Who would have thought that this second daughter of the Lin family would not marry some scion of a noble clan, but instead take a country boy as her husband?
"Erniu, congratulations!" Zhou Xun offered his heartfelt congratulations.
Seven days later, Wang Erniu held his wedding.
On the day of the wedding, gongs and drums resounded, and the festivities were boisterous beyond compare.
That day, every Lin family shop offered a ten-percent discount in celebration.
At the wedding banquet, over a hundred members of the Lin family, great and small, had arrived.
On Wang Erniu's side, aside from his Revered Teacher, there were only the probationary apprentices from Danbao Pavilion.
Because Wang Erniu had declared Zhou Xun to be his sworn older brother, Zhou Xun was seated at the main table alongside Wang Erniu's Revered Teacher, sharing a table with the Lin family's upper echelon.
During the banquet, Zhou Xun carried himself with elegance and spoke with refinement, neither servile nor overbearing.
He won considerable appreciation from the Lin family elders, who all began asking about his background.
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