Sun Jinwang felt this way because he knew very well that the higher the grade of the mystic pills refined from a cauldron of medicinal ingredients, the lower the yield would be.
Take Sun Jinwang himself, for example-
With his pill-refining skills at the "eighth level of the Mortal Realm," even if he devoted all his attention to refining a single upper-grade Qi Recovery Pill, his success rate was only sixty or seventy percent.
Yet now, a boy of fifteen or sixteen actually dared to put in several portions of ingredients at once!
Was he actually dreaming of producing "multiple pills from one cauldron"?
What a joke!
Meanwhile, on the stage.
Seemingly sensing the crowd's strange reactions, Lin Taoshu stole a moment from his pill refining to glance toward Bu Wuchen.
That single glance made Lin Taoshu hold his breath!
"H-how could he possess such exquisitely refined fire-control skills?!"
Just then, Bu Wuchen abruptly raised his head and gave a roguish grin. "Hey, the more you watch, the more scared you get, huh?"
Lin Taoshu's face darkened at once. "Hmph, me, afraid of you? What a joke!"
"Fire control is only one small branch of the pill-refining process."
"If your other skills come up short and all you know is fire control, doesn't that just make you a lousy acrobat?"
Bu Wuchen smiled noncommittally. "Heh, then watch closely..."
Time ticked by, second after second;
Bu Wuchen began displaying his abilities without holding anything back.
Extracting medicinal essence, refining and combining medicinal potency;
Controlling fire, controlling Qi, controlling essence...
Every step flowed as effortlessly as drifting clouds and running water!
Beneath the cauldron, the pill fire brightened and dimmed in measured rhythm, its strength precisely controlled, dancing in a hundred enchanting forms and undergoing a thousand transformations!
Even to those outsiders who knew nothing of the Dao of pills, Bu Wuchen's pill-refining process was a captivating spectacle.
"Could this guy really succeed in making pills?"
Sun Jinwang swallowed.
"I'm gradually starting to believe what that boy said earlier about 'going easy'..."
Li Quhe's eyes were likewise filled with shock.
As for Xia Nuoyi.
Not a trace of gloom remained on that beautiful face that could bewitch all living beings. "Heehee, now you're looking a little more like a 'master'~"
Song Hechuan could not help letting out a breath of relief, either.
Dean Zhou's aged eyes shone as he thought excitedly, Not bad, not bad. This youngster is quite remarkable!
As the saying went, some rejoiced while others grieved.
On the stage, the arrogant smile had long since vanished from the corners of Lin Taoshu's mouth.
Without his noticing, cold sweat had already soaked his back.
No, impossible.
He definitely won't succeed!
How old is this little bastard, anyway?
If he really could divide his attention, refine several pills in one cauldron, and successfully complete them, he could get into the Imperial Capital Academy;
Why would he come to this cold frontier city and drift around without roots or ties?
Everything before this must have been nothing but gold and jade on the outside, rotten cotton within. That must be it!
Just then, Bu Wuchen's tightly shut eyes abruptly opened;
As his large hands suddenly flipped over-
"Condense!"
"Whoosh~~"
All at once, the flames beneath the cauldron surged more than ten feet up its walls!
The instant they reached their highest point, they dispersed into smoke...
Dean Zhou sprang to his feet. "P-Pill Fire Cauldron Scouring?!"
His aged eyes stared fixedly toward where the towering flames had appeared.
In a daze, he murmured to himself, "On the long road of pill cultivation, there's a saying-"
"Ten pills merely open the door; a hundred leave you half-raw;"
"A thousand bring an easy hand; ten thousand let you follow your heart."
"To scour the cauldron with fire, you must be favored by the gods!"
"How old is this Bu Wuchen?"
"To think he could actually perform the incomparably exquisite Pill Fire Cauldron Scouring!"
Those four lines of verse meant-
When a pill master refined a particular kind of mystic pill, successfully producing ten counted as barely stepping through the door;
Only after producing a hundred did they reach the half-raw, half-cooked stage.
Only after refining thousands upon thousands could they be considered to have reached the realm of "performing with ease and commanding at will"!
Yet even after refining over ten thousand mystic pills, successfully performing "Pill Fire Cauldron Scouring" still depended on luck!
Only when their luck overflowed and the gods favored them could success in Pill Fire Cauldron Scouring be assured...
One point needed emphasizing-
All of the above applied to the same kind of mystic pill at the same grade!
The difficulty was easy to imagine.
Li Quhe's and Sun Jinwang's faces were also filled with disbelief!
Naturally, they too had heard of "Pill Fire Cauldron Scouring"-
At the final moment before the pills formed, the pill master used mystic Qi in conjunction with soul power to control the pill fire, making it spiral up around the cauldron's walls and scour them as it surged upward!
This action created an instant of vacuum inside the cauldron.
That brief instant was precisely what shut out and isolated every impurity, ensuring the most perfect possible quality when the pills formed!
It was no exaggeration to say that mystic pills successfully completed with Pill Fire Cauldron Scouring as the finishing touch would, without exception, be flawless treasures!
Mystic pill masters all knew the miraculous properties of "Pill Fire Cauldron Scouring";
But in actual practice, the flames being a fraction too strong, the temperature a little too high;
Or the timing a moment too long or an instant too short-any of these minute details could prevent the pills from forming in the end, bringing all their efforts to ruin at the final step...
Now, everyone present held their breath and concentrated, waiting for Dean Zhou to announce the results of this pill-refining session.
The spectacle of "Pill Fire Cauldron Scouring" had indeed been dazzling;
But looking impressive alone was useless-
What mattered most was whether the ingredients had ultimately been refined into pills!
Under everyone's eyes, Bu Wuchen slowly stood, casually shook out his hands and twisted his neck, then said to Dean Zhou, "You can inspect the pills now."
Having just witnessed "Pill Fire Cauldron Scouring" with his own eyes, Zhou Wan'en was already itching unbearably to do so.
He hurried to the cauldron, taking three steps in two, and leaned over to look-
Inside the medicinal cauldron, seven smooth, lustrous, plump pills lay quietly;
With a gentle sniff, even the medicinal fragrance he inhaled seemed to have the wondrous effect of refreshing his spirits!
"Excellent, excellent, excellent..."
After repeating "excellent" several times, Zhou Wan'en excitedly announced, "Bu Wuchen has produced seven pills in one cauldron;"
"And every single one is a Mortal Rank Upper Grade Qi Recovery Pill of perfect quality!"
No sooner had Dean Zhou finished speaking than gasps of astonishment rose all around the martial training ground.
At the same time-
"Bang!!"
A sudden, tremendous explosion drew everyone's gaze to the other end of the martial stage.
All they saw was thick smoke billowing upward!
The medicinal ingredients inside the cauldron had long since become dregs;
With that tremendous explosion, they burst apart and scattered all over the ground!
As for Lin Taoshu, his hair was disheveled and his face filthy;
Half his left eyebrow had been burned clean away;
A few bits of medicinal dregs still clung to his soot-blackened old face...
How could the word "miserable" alone do him justice?!
After making such a grand spectacle with 'Pill Fire Cauldron Scouring,' he actually succeeded in refining mystic pills?!
And perfect-quality Mortal Rank Upper Grade Qi Recovery Pills at that?!
For a moment, Lin Taoshu felt as though he had plunged into an ice cavern...