Out of the Body

"When simmering these medicinal pills, the fire can't be a bit too strong or a bit too weak. You can't add too much of an ingredient, and you can't add too little. It can't take too long or be too short. The medicinal ingredients can't be too old or too young. The pill-refining environment can't be poor, and a poor Pill Furnace is even more unacceptable..."

Xu Yuan was going back to Ba Commandery, so Zhang Xuezhou showed him what he could do, simmering the medicinal ingredients Xu Yuan had brought on his little donkey's back.

He picked through them, then got an earthenware pot from the shopkeeper to simmer the medicine.

After a whole night of talking, a layer of brown medicinal paste finally appeared in the pot.

With so many conditions imposed by Zhang Xuezhou, the quality of this Origin-Nurturing Pill paste was naturally not high.

If he wanted to refine good pills, Zhang Xuezhou needed a place to refine them, a Pill Furnace, and the right combination of medicinal ingredients from Xu Yuan.

Xu Yuan's medicinal ingredients were not even good enough to refine Origin-Nurturing Pills, let alone ingredients at the level needed for Spirit-Forging Pills. That required Xu Ji's involvement. At the very least, Xu Ji had to show Xu Yuan the ropes at the beginning and connect him with contacts in the Agricultural School, thereby forming a real trading network.

Although something had gone wrong with his own cultivation, Zhang Xuezhou still very much wanted to tie Xu Ji to him and build up a stock of the Spirit-Forging Pills he needed for cultivation. If he needed them someday, he wouldn't have to clutch at Buddha's feet at the last moment, searching everywhere for pills.

Just as he had helped advance Zhang Manqian's cultivation, Zhang