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Zhong Shuran had used up a great deal of his Divine Sense. He stood before the grand array and carefully inspected it once more, then wiped the sweat from his forehead. "All right, we can pile the materials in and start firing them."

Shan Heyuan checked it over as well. "Good. Help me hold the array steady."

Shan Heyuan piled the prepared materials in the middle of the talisman array and used spiritual power to light the fire.

With the talisman array reinforcing it, bright yellow flames sprang up in the center of the grand array, swallowing all the materials.

Heat spread from the fire to the edge of the talisman array, only to be blocked and driven back.

The air around the fire blurred from the heat, as though glass were melting.

Yet outside the talisman array, not a trace of heat escaped. The little river continued to freeze over quietly.

Standing before the fire with defensive talismans pressed against his chest and back, Shan Heyuan braved the heat and used a special technique to channel spiritual power into the fertilizer pile bit by bit, while also using it to turn the fertilizer.

His cultivation at the Qi Refining Eighth Stage was still a little too low, and he didn't have enough spiritual power. Before he was halfway through the process, two-thirds of the spiritual power in his body had been drained.

Fortunately, the spiritual tree sapling newly placed in his Dantian released a steady stream of spiritual power, quickly replenishing his empty meridians.

At the same time, he took the spiritual pills he had prepared in advance.

The pure spiritual power in the pills quickly dissolved into his meridians and, together with the power from the spiritual tree sapling, sustained him as he continued firing the fertilizer.

As the firing went on, he became utterly exhausted.

He had finished the spiritual pills, and the sapling was releasing less spiritual power than before.

In the end, Zhong Shuran lent him a hand as a friend, giving him some of his treasured high-grade spiritual pills to use for the time being.

The fertilizer had been firing for half a day.

That evening, Shen Duheng returned from his errand and came to see them.

Shan Heyuan's hair had been scorched, and Zhong Shuran's eyes were vacant, as if he had been hollowed out. The fertilizer still wasn't done.

Shen Duheng had brought Shan Heyuan more spiritual pills. "Is this batch of fertilizer that hard to fire?"

Shan Heyuan answered weakly, "Yes. I didn't expect it either. The Jade Slip said it wouldn't take much spiritual power, but I've nearly drained mine dry."

Zhong Shuran sat cross-legged outside the talisman array and gave a wry smile. "Maybe the other cultivators who fired it had higher cultivation levels?"

Shan Heyuan said, "That's possible too. We can only keep going. Shuran, can you still hold on? If not, let Brother Shen take your place."

Zhong Shuran said, "If you can grit your teeth and keep going, how could I not? Let's go again."

Shen Duheng stayed as he listened to them talk, sitting guard on the other side of the talisman array with his sword in his arms.

Shan Heyuan's stomach was empty, his meridians were empty, and his face was covered in soot, but he gritted his teeth and pressed on.

Perhaps because of the spiritual tree sapling in his Dantian, whenever he felt he was about to reach his limit and wanted to give up, another wisp of spiritual power would well up from his Dantian like a gentle breeze, soothing his meridians and his emotions.

For some reason, he thought of Qi Yuanbai's sword practice. Qi Yuanbai had said he wanted to cultivate a sword intent that renewed itself without end, and now Shan Heyuan finally understood what that felt like.

So it was the resilience of "wildfires cannot burn it away; when spring breezes blow, it grows again."

They kept firing the fertilizer until the latter half of the night.

The moment the fertilizer pile was done, Shan Heyuan had a strong and peculiar intuition: the fertilizer was ready and no longer needed the fire. It was perfect at that very moment; any more firing would be too much.

His weariness swept away, Shan Heyuan hurried to his feet and asked Shen Duheng to help remove the fire talisman.

Neither he nor Zhong Shuran had any strength left. Only Shen Duheng still had some to spare.

Shen Duheng helped remove it.

After the fire talisman was removed, the fertilizer pile continued to give off a steady stream of heat.

Shan Heyuan did not have them remove the protective array.

Letting it sit and simmer like this a little longer would be good too, helping its fertility settle.

Certain that the fertilizer was done, Shan Heyuan could hold on no longer. Without caring whether the ground was dirty or cold, he plopped straight down, stretched out his legs, and said to Shen Duheng in a hoarse voice, "I'm never pile-firing fertilizer again before Foundation Establishment. It's simply not work for a human being."

Zhong Shuran said, "Next time, I'm never taking your business again. This is more exhausting than going out hunting."

Shan Heyuan grinned. His teeth looked especially white against his soot-blackened face. "The next time I hire you, I'll double your pay."

Zhong Shuran fell silent for a moment. "Deal."

Shen Duheng smiled.

Shan Heyuan and Zhong Shuran sat on the ground, unwilling to move a muscle. Even though the village was right beside them, they needed to rest and gather enough strength to return.

Shen Duheng was in much better shape than they were and could still check on the fertilizer.

It was now the latter half of the night. The weather was cold, and the gray-blue night sky looked especially clear.

The cultivators also had excellent eyesight.

Even with only the stars for light, they could still see.

Shen Duheng used his spiritual sword to brush away the ash on the outside of the fertilizer and check what was inside.

Unexpectedly, when he brushed away the loose ash, he found little pellets inside, things that looked like spiritual pills.

Shan Heyuan had been completely sprawled out, but when he saw this, he exclaimed, "Huh?" He scrambled up on all fours and staggered over to the fertilizer. "What's this?"

Zhong Shuran came over for a look as well.

Shen Duheng nudged a fertilizer ball with his spiritual sword, sending it rolling. "A fertilizer pill?"

His face full of puzzlement, Shan Heyuan pulled the Jade Slip Ge Xuan's Notes from his storage ring and read the section on the Spirit-Imbuing Firing Method again. He projected the contents for Shen Duheng and Zhong Shuran to see. "The fertilizer fired according to the Jade Slip doesn't look like this."

Zhong Shuran probed the fertilizer pills with his Divine Sense. "Could it have failed? Surely not. Even an outsider like me can tell these fertilizer pills have excellent fertility."

Shen Duheng said, "Perhaps the finished products made by different cultivators vary somewhat."

Zhong Shuran said, "That seems right. Whether it's artifact refining or pill refining, every cultivator's finished product bears their personal mark."

Shan Heyuan said, "So they just look different, and the process didn't fail?"

Shen Duheng said, "Send them for appraisal, and we'll know."

Shan Heyuan hesitated. "Can these be sent for appraisal too? As spiritual pills?"

If he sent something like this in to be appraised as spiritual pills, wouldn't they refuse to take it?

Zhong Shuran also turned to look at Shen Duheng.

Shen Duheng said, "Don't you have a Growers' Association? Ask someone from the association to take a look."

Shan Heyuan caught on. "That works too. Once it's light, I'll ask Senior Wen to take a look."

He and Wen Chengyi had exchanged spiritual power patterns, so he could send him a communication talisman directly.

After a short rest, the three of them packed the fertilizer pills into boxes.

They packed a thousand pills per box, filling eleven boxes in all, with a total of 10,321 pills.

The fertilizer pills were clearly of somewhat higher quality than the loose fertilizer ash, though the loose ash still had fertility.

Shan Heyuan didn't waste any of it. He took out a separate bag and packed up the fertilizer ash.

They were truly exhausted that day. After packing everything and tidying up the site a little, Shan Heyuan and Zhong Shuran said goodbye and went back to their respective homes.

Shan Heyuan returned home and slept soundly, not getting up until the afternoon.

After getting up, he contacted Wen Chengyi and asked where he could send the fertilizer for testing.

Wen Chengyi sent him a message. "Wait at home. I'll come over and take a look. I haven't seen fertilizer pills in quite a few years."

Hearing that someone else had also fired fertilizer pills, Shan Heyuan felt greatly reassured. "I don't know whether these are fertilizer pills either. Please come and take a look, Senior. Only then will we know."

Wen Chengyi laughed. "From your description, they most likely are. At worst, the quality might be a little poor."

Wen Chengyi was a straightforward man. After sending the communication talisman, he brought several old friends to Gangzhi Village to see the fertilizer pills.

He was a third-grade grower himself, and the old friends he brought were all third-grade growers too.

Shan Heyuan had met these seniors when he took his professional skill grade assessment, so they were not complete strangers.

The growers had not expected Shan Heyuan, a junior who had been in the profession for less than a year, to have fired fertilizer pills.

They carried out all kinds of tests on the fertilizer pills and held all kinds of discussions.

In the end, they determined that these were indeed fertilizer pills, but not any known kind on the market. They were a new variety he had created.

The growers were quite curious about how he had managed to fire fertilizer pills like these.

One grower said, "I've read Ge Xuan's Notes too, and I also tried refining fertilizer. But my finished product was very different from yours, young friend Shan. It didn't form into pills."