Refining on Multiple Parallel Tracks

Lin Hao took a deep breath, stood before the workstation, and rested his right hand on the sterile reaction vessel.

The conventional method for refining a Primordial Qi and Blood Potion followed a strictly linear, single-threaded process.

First, three hours were spent purifying all the medicinal ingredients in separate stages.

Then the ingredients were combined in a fixed sequence, reacted under controlled pressure, and finally condensed into a potion.

One wrong step, and the entire batch went straight to waste.

Even experienced senior pharmacists only dared to follow the procedure steadily, afraid that a moment's distraction would lead to a mistake.

But Lin Hao was different.

Max-level fire affinity, and thirty years of a grandmaster pharmacist's experience controlling the fire element.

These gave him the confidence to break the refining process apart and rebuild it.

With a thought, two wisps of flame at completely different temperatures ignited at the fingertips of both hands simultaneously.

The flame in his left hand held steady at 127°C, precisely the threshold temperature for activating dried Origin-Returning Grass powder, and wrapped accurately around the medicinal powder inside the purifier.

The flame in his right hand was locked at 89°C, gently bathing the fresh Spirit Rhyme Flower extract and locking in its highly volatile active components.

The multistage purification that normally took three hours was compressed into ten minutes of simultaneous processing in his hands.

What others found even harder to fathom was that he had even overlapped the purification and ingredient-combining stages.

On one side, the purification of the Origin-Returning Grass had just reached its critical point.

On the other, he had already started the reaction vessel's pressure-control program in parallel.

The Primordial Peptide stock solution dripped precisely from the micropipette, completing the fusion at the exact moment when the ingredients' activity was highest.

The potion-refining process went extremely smoothly.

Yet at that moment, a pained expression appeared on Lin Hao's face.

He felt as though countless steel needles were churning repeatedly inside his head.

The splitting headache even brought tiny black spots swimming along the edges of his vision.

He knew that this was probably because refining on multiple parallel tracks placed an enormous drain on his mental energy.

And his mental power stat was a pitiful 0.12.

Fortunately, his fire affinity was maxed out, and he also possessed thirty years of grandmaster-level fire-control experience, allowing him to expend as little mental power as possible.

Otherwise, with that meager amount of mental power, he would surely have already reached his limit and passed out.

He drew a deep breath and gritted his teeth, forcing himself a little more alert.

Under his formidable fire control, the flames in his hands remained steady.

The sight sent the front rows of the spectator stands facing his station into an uproar.

At first, some people had pointed at him and laughed, assuming this strange refining method would turn into another farce like his earlier scorching of the herbs.

But as they continued watching, everyone's laughter caught in their throats.

"Holy shit! He's running two reaction vessels at once? Refining in two vessels simultaneously? Has he gone insane?"

"Look at his fire control! Those two vessels aren't even following the same process! What the fuck, is he turning potion refining into an art?"

"Look! Is he purifying and combining the ingredients at the same time? My master has refined potions for decades and wouldn't dare try that! Where the hell did this kid come from?"

"..."

Wave after wave of startled cries made Lin Hao a little nervous, afraid they would draw the attention of the patrolling examiner.

Fortunately, the competition grounds were large enough.

On the other side, a well-known contestant happened to produce a high-purity intermediate solution, drawing louder cheers and attracting the patrolling examiner's attention.

Meanwhile, at the neighboring station, Uncle Fu stared, transfixed. He tugged at Su Mo, who had his head down calibrating the potion parameters, his voice trembling. "Y-young master! Look! Hurry, look over at Mr. Lin!"

Su Mo's hand paused, and a hint of impatience surfaced on his face.

Lin Hao's earlier farce had already made him feel that his previous judgment had become a joke.

Now Uncle Fu kept bringing it up, leaving him feeling rather embarrassed.

"Uncle Fu." He did not look up, his tone displeased. "I know he's no genius. You don't need to keep reminding me."

"No! That's not it, young master!" Uncle Fu was so anxious that his voice changed pitch. "Look! Your earlier judgment was absolutely right!"

Startled, Su Mo frowned and turned his head in the direction Uncle Fu was pointing.

One glance was all it took for him to freeze on the spot.

The calibration instrument in his hand fell onto the workstation with a clang.

He was a once-in-a-century potion prodigy of the Su Family of Qingyang City.

He had earned his intermediate pharmacist qualification at fourteen, and his precision in fire control had never had a rival among his peers.

Yet even he only dared to attempt dual-track parallel processing when refining the most basic Qi and Blood Powder.

And out of ten attempts, he could only succeed two or three times.

As for the Primordial Qi and Blood Potion, the pinnacle of elementary potions, he did not dare try it at all.

Let alone such a madman's approach of breaking purification, ingredient combination, reaction, and condensation apart and carrying them all out simultaneously.

He could clearly see that the two wisps of flame at Lin Hao's fingertips seemed casual, but every tiny temperature adjustment actually aligned precisely with a critical point in the medicinal solution's reaction.

A fraction higher, and the ingredients would char; a fraction lower, and their activity would be insufficient.

With fire control at this level, never mind his peers-even his grandmaster grandfather, who presided over the Su Family, might not be able to make something so difficult look so effortless.

"Potions... can be refined like this?" Su Mo murmured, his eyes filled with shock.

Only after a long while did he come back to his senses.

He turned toward Uncle Fu and lifted his chin, his haughty air returning. "Well? What did I tell you? I wasn't wrong about him. Brother Lin is a true master who keeps his abilities hidden. Everything he did earlier was just a smokescreen."

Uncle Fu had also recovered by then and nodded repeatedly, but as he looked at Lin Hao's workstation, he frowned again. "But young master, look at the contestant information placard on the workstation. The name on it is Zhou Mingxuan, not Lin Hao."

Su Mo followed his gaze. Sure enough, the name Zhou Mingxuan was plainly written on the placard.

He froze for a moment, then smiled in understanding. "I get it. Masters always like to keep a low profile. It's perfectly normal for him not to want to enter under his real name."

Uncle Fu still could not make sense of it and scratched his head. "But if he wanted to keep a low profile, couldn't he simply not enter this competition?

"With Mr. Lin's abilities, entering a competition at this level serves no purpose other than showing off, to put it crudely.

"But if he wanted to show off, why didn't he register under his own name? And since he didn't use his own name, why did he tell you his real name earlier, young master?

"Besides, which of this Mr. Lin's names is actually real?"

The string of questions stumped Su Mo.

He opened his mouth but could not get a word out for a long time. In the end, he could only force an attempt to salvage his dignity, clearing his throat. "This is how geniuses think. Of course I understand it. It's just that this kind of thinking between geniuses would be difficult for you to understand even if I explained it."

This time, Uncle Fu did not question him and nodded in wholehearted agreement.

As he watched Lin Hao's movements, steady as Mount Tai, his aged face reddened, and his heart filled with shame.

Earlier, with his own paltry talent, he had actually dared to second-guess a genius of this caliber. He truly should not have done that.