On the morning of the fourth day, Feng Lingtian opened his eyes. A night of recovery had restored both his Soul Power and mental power to their peak. He picked up the two bottles of pills he had refined yesterday and examined them in the morning light-Primordial Martial Awakening Pill · Fire, crimson as flame, could temper the meridians and awaken the origin of a fire-attribute Martial Soul; Primordial Martial Awakening Pill · Ice, icy blue as frost, could purify impurities from Soul Power, giving water-attribute Soul Masters a chance to condense water into ice, or ice-attribute Soul Masters a chance to evolve to Ultimate Ice. Of the seven Immortal Herbs, the most difficult ones, ice and fire, had already been refined, leaving him more confident about the remaining five.
He put away the two bottles and opened Lingtian's Notes. His teammates' faces surfaced in his mind one after another. Shi Yan's bell Martial Soul was impure, and that had nearly kept him from entering the academy back then. His older brother had stood against all objections and brought Shi Yan in, offering a personal guarantee before the academy made an exception and accepted him. Feng Lingtian remembered his brother saying that Shi Yan's Martial Soul was more than just a bell-something inside it was being suppressed by impurities, and once those impurities were removed, it would definitely mutate. If he could use the Origin-Returning Flaw-Mending Pill to cleanse all the impurities from Shi Yan's Martial Soul and let it mutate into what his brother had described, then his brother's guarantee back then would not have been in vain. Feng Lingtian rapidly flipped through the pages and found the page on nine-grade purple ganoderma-the Origin-Returning Flaw-Mending Pill required a three-step split-furnace method: extract the supplementary ingredients first, then incorporate the main ingredient. He committed it to memory, closed the notes, and pressed his palm against the pill furnace. For the first batch, I'll refine Shi Yan's Origin-Returning Flaw-Mending Pill.
He opened the wooden box containing the nine-grade purple ganoderma, and an exceedingly faint bitterness spread through the air. This Immortal Herb's medicinal properties were mild to the extreme, and that very mildness made it the hardest to blend with supplementary ingredients. Following the split-furnace method, Feng Lingtian first extracted the supplementary ingredients separately, dividing his Soul Power into three streams: one to control the heat, one to guide the blending of the supplementary ingredients, and one held in reserve. Once the extraction was complete, he used a wooden spatula to remove a small piece of the ganoderma's flesh and dropped it into the furnace. The instant it entered, it neither burst, darkened, nor sank; it simply melted into the supplementary ingredients in utter silence. Feng Lingtian did not dare relax-the medicinal properties were too mild, and the slightest lapse could make it blend too quickly or too slowly. He advanced through the split-furnace method step by step, timing every step to the point when the medicinal properties were most stable.
An hour later, the furnace fire went out. Feng Lingtian lifted the lid. A row of pale purple pills lay at the bottom, eleven in all, each bearing exceedingly fine lines that looked like miniature versions of the natural patterns on the purple ganoderma's surface. He picked one up and placed it in his palm. The pill was slightly cool, and that exceedingly faint bitterness was reassuring instead. Feng Lingtian let out a long breath. He had finally refined the Origin-Returning Flaw-Mending Pill. His brother had said back then that Shi Yan's Martial Soul was more than just a bell-with this pill, he could finally help prove his brother's words.
He put the pills into a jade bottle but did not continue immediately. The split-furnace method demanded extremely precise control, and its drain on mental power was no less than refining infernal delicate apricot. Feng Lingtian sat cross-legged and closed his eyes to recover. During his recovery, he recalled the scenes he had witnessed on the training grounds before. Every time Ye Qingyu finished playing her zither, her face was as white as paper. Bai Yu shook her bell until her wrist trembled, yet never agreed to stop. After making dry rations, Su Ran was always the last to leave the training grounds, tidying up the remaining materials bit by bit. All three belonged to the Support System, and their cultivation speed was naturally slower than that of combat types. A thought suddenly flashed through Feng Lingtian's mind-there seemed to be an Immortal Herb specifically intended for the Support System. He opened his eyes, reopened Lingtian's Notes, and turned to the page on aromatic silk beauty. The Nurturing Grace and Supporting Splendor Pill used its petals as medicine, gently nurtured over low heat, and could overcome the cultivation shortcomings of the Support System and increase cultivation speed. He read through the key points of the deduction and closed the notes. With this, Ye Qingyu, Bai Yu, and Su Ran won't have to tire themselves out so much, will they? He set the notes aside, took a deep breath, and stoked the furnace fire again.
The main ingredient, aromatic silk beauty, needed neither the three-layer separation used for infernal delicate apricot nor the supporting bed of Soul Power required for singular velvet sky chrysanthemum. It only needed gentle nurturing over low heat. Feng Lingtian opened the jade box, plucked off a few petals, and dropped them into the furnace. He lowered the heat until the flames were almost invisible, leaving only a warmth that could be felt slowly circulating along the furnace walls. The petals gradually melted in the gentle heat, their medicinal properties seeping out thread by thread, like melting snow in spring, neither hurried nor slow. Feng Lingtian closed his eyes, steadily feeding in his Soul Power to the rhythm of that warmth.
An hour passed, and the furnace fire went out. A row of pills with a pale golden sheen lay at the bottom, ten in all. The Nurturing Grace and Supporting Splendor Pill was complete.
With both batches finished, Feng Lingtian bottled the pills and wrote his review in the notes: the three-step split-furnace method was effective; aromatic silk beauty required gentle nurturing over low heat, and the rhythm of the heat had been just right. After finishing his review, he felt that he still had Soul Power left and enough stamina to keep going. He might as well take this chance to test the long-term Immortal Herb preservation problem he had been pondering yesterday.
He took one of the most ordinary medicinal herbs from the herb garden, plucked off a leaf, and placed it inside a spare, empty medicine box. Following the principles of Soul Tools, he carved exceedingly fine patterns into the inner walls of the box and channeled in a trace of spiritual Qi from the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well. The spiritual Qi spread along the patterns, and the temperature inside the box adjusted itself-one half slightly warm, the other slightly cool, balancing each other like a tiny Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well. It was not enough yet. He then incorporated an opening mechanism and a buffer-layer structure into these patterns-three hidden nodes requiring simultaneous infusions of Soul Power, combined with an exceedingly slight angle of rotation. If someone tried to break it open by force, the power of ice and fire would instantly counterattack, but before doing so, it would first generate an exceedingly thin Soul Power barrier to wrap around the medicinal herb inside. The barrier could last a few breaths.
After finishing the carving, he tested it once using the wrong opening method. The patterns on the medicine box abruptly lit up, and the power of ice and fire surged out, but the first thing to emerge was a thin Soul Power barrier that wrapped the leaf inside tightly. The barrier lasted a few breaths before shattering, and the power of ice and fire erupted afterward. The leaf remained completely unharmed.
Feng Lingtian demonstrated the correct opening method once-press, lift, turn, infusing Soul Power into all three nodes simultaneously. The lid opened in response. The experiment was a success. He picked up Lingtian's Notes, turned to the page marked with a drawing of a box, and recorded the preservation design's details and the experimental results one by one.
He closed the notes and looked at the bottles of freshly refined pills on the table. Four of the seven Immortal Herbs had already been refined, leaving singular velvet sky chrysanthemum, narcissus jade muscle bone, and eight-petal immortal orchid waiting for him in their medicine boxes. These two days of pill refining had made his control over heat and Soul Power increasingly practiced, and his Soul Power had grown more condensed through repeated tempering. He vaguely sensed that the barrier at rank twenty-six had begun to loosen-perhaps after refining the remaining three batches tomorrow, he could break through in one go.
Feng Lingtian stood before the pill-refining platform, watching the furnace fire flicker beneath it. Once he finished the remaining three batches tomorrow, he could return to the academy. His brother had been rank forty-six when he left the academy; at his cultivation speed, he should have reached rank fifty by now, shouldn't he? Shi Yan's Martial Soul was waiting for the Origin-Returning Flaw-Mending Pill, and Ye Qingyu and the others were waiting for the Nurturing Grace and Supporting Splendor Pill. There were also Zhong Yue, Su Mei'er, Lu Hanxiao, and Ji Ning-he had not seen them in half a month, and he wondered how their cultivation was going. The corners of Feng Lingtian's mouth lifted slightly. He sat cross-legged and closed his eyes. The furnace fire flickered across his face.