Failures Can Increase Proficiency Too?

*Pfft!* Staring at the charred, blackened clump in the pot and smelling the acrid stench of burning, Luo Chen's eyes turned bloodshot, his face ashen. Failed! The sixth batch had failed again! This was the sixth day of refining the Myriad Wonders Pill. At a steady pace of one batch per day, he had carried out the process methodically. The final outcome cut deep. Not a single success! His best attempt had only yielded a pot of faint reddish sludge. He was certain the pill formula specified the finished product was supposed to be deep crimson—redder than a patriot's beating heart! Dejected, he picked up the pot and dumped the blackened mess onto the opposite bank of the creek. Squatting by the water's edge, he listlessly scrubbed the pot with a loofah sponge. In his mind, he replayed the entire refining process over and over. *The proportions were definitely not the problem. I measured them to absolute precision on the scale.* *The order of adding the ingredients couldn't be wrong either. Every addition was timed right when the medicinal signs appeared.* *Was it heat control? Or the firewood? But the formula said any peach wood would do. A mere Tier 1 pill couldn't possibly be that demanding.* *Or could it be my technique?* Repeated failures were making Luo Chen doubt himself. He even started wondering if he had any talent for alchemy at all. Perhaps his success with Fasting Powder was entirely thanks to the previous owner's talent, which had gotten him past the beginner hurdle. He was merely piloting an account someone else had leveled up, sprinting down a path already paved. *Splash! Splat!* Water sprayed across his face. A large carp had swum past, leaping out of the water right by him and drenching his face. Fish had been growing more plentiful in the creek lately, likely swept over by rising waters from the Lancang River. Watching the fish prepare to swim off, Luo Chen's temper flared. "Balala Power!" "Fireball Art!" A chunk of black charcoal bobbed to the surface of the water, then drifted away with the current. He looked down at the squeaky-clean iron pot in his hands. *Could the problem be the equipment?* Luo Chen could not help letting out the wry, bitter smile typical of a webnovel protagonist. How could he not know the dire state of his alchemy setup? He had no guidance from a master, no clan resources to support him, and as for equipment... Others used fine artifact cauldrons fueled by heavenly spirits and earthly fires. Meanwhile, he was stuck here brewing pills in an iron cooking pot. Yet a decent artifact cauldron cost ten times more than a flying sword of the same grade! Even defensive artifacts—the prized favorites of rogue cultivators—paled in value before an artifact cauldron. Scraping together the raw materials for ten batches of the Myriad Wonders Pill had already bled him dry. Buying a cauldron or medicinal crucible was entirely out of the question. Besides, even the shabbiest cauldron could not be heated by ordinary firewood. It required at least Tier 1 spirit wood for fuel, combined with an alchemist constantly channeling spiritual energy to modulate the flames. He could not afford Tier 1 spirit wood, and constantly fine-tuning heat with spiritual energy required cultivation he simply did not possess! Sometimes he wished he could be like the alchemists in legends, producing a dozen sleek, round pills straight from the furnace, rather than having to knead the scalding medicinal paste into balls with his bare hands while it was still piping hot. Who didn't know that stuff burned like hell? Some pastes even came with negative side effects on the flesh! He simply lacked the means! After a bout of self-pity, Luo Chen set the pot back onto the stove, untied his apron, and sat down in the doorway. Basking in the golden rays of the setting sun, he slapped himself twice on the cheeks. *Why waste time thinking about pointless nonsense!* *I already bet my entire net worth on this. Even if I run straight into a brick wall, I'll smash right through it before giving up!* *I won't brew tomorrow. I need to get my head straight first.* Haste makes waste—everyone understood the principle. Yet when push came to shove, people often had to bump their heads bruised and bloody before realizing how impatient they had been. With nothing to do in the evening, Luo Chen felt a ball of stifled frustration burning in his chest. He needed to vent it! And so... Fireball Art! Fireball Art! Fireball Art! The creek suffered dearly, and the fish in the water cried bitter tears. Nine consecutive full-power Fireball Arts completely drained his spiritual energy. Having earned nine points of proficiency, an exhausted Luo Chen trudged back into the house, sat cross-legged, and circulated the Eternal Spring Art. One full major heavenly circuit restored one-fifth of his spiritual energy. Another major circuit restored another fifth. Well, that was it. Low-tier cultivators lacked physical constitution, and their minds and souls had undergone no qualitative leap. Cultivating two or three times a night was pretty much their limit. In the second half of the night, Luo Chen crashed into a deep slumber. When he woke the next morning, less than half his spiritual energy had recovered. His meager spiritual energy was, in truth, also the reason he could not rely on grinding spell proficiency to break bottlenecks and earn achievement points. Grinding the Fireball Art for a single day took five full days to recover from! Even the low-cost Cleansing Art required ample time to replenish. Luo Chen was not living anywhere particularly safe either; he had to keep a reserve of mana at all times just in case he needed to flee for his life. Getting out of bed that morning, he felt a wave of lingering fear. He had truly lost his mind last night, actually draining every drop of his spiritual energy. If a stray monster beast had wandered into the area, he would have had practically zero ability to fight back. "Can't ever do that again. Remember this! Remember this!" Muttering to himself, he sat cross-legged and completed another circuit of the Eternal Spring Art. His spiritual energy replenished by another fifth. Then, he brought up his status panel. [Name: Luo Chen] [Lifespan: 27/75] [Spirit Roots: Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, Earth] [Realm: Qi Refinement 3rd Layer: 75/100] [Cultivation Method: Eternal Spring Art (Adept): 249/300] [Spells: Cleansing Art (Novice): 51/100, Entangling Art (Proficient): 176/200, Fireball Art (Perfect): 304/500] [Skills: Tier 1 Alchemist: Fasting Powder (Grandmaster): 507/1,000, Myriad Wonders Pill (Novice): 3/100] [Achievement Points: 1 (Usable to initiate cultivation methods, spells, and skills of the corresponding realm)] Staring at the status panel, Luo Chen was momentarily dazed. Barring any surprises, the lifespan limit was probably his lifespan from before he transmigrated. The original owner of this body had died long ago; his remaining lifespan would have been zero. The real reason Luo Chen was so eager to earn spirit stones was to cultivate and seek immortality. Whenever he thought about how he would have only lived to seventy-five on Earth had he not crossed over, he felt a pang of sorrow. He wouldn't even have reached eighty to qualify for a joyous funeral where descendants could dance and party—though he had just been a bachelor dog before transmigrating anyway. Therefore, in this life, he was determined to climb step by step to the very peak and live the longest life possible! Then cold, hard reality slapped him across the face. Nearly half a month had passed, and he had practiced the Eternal Spring Art twice a day without fail. Yet his realm had not budged an inch. Even with a balanced five-element spirit root physique, could a person really be this hopeless of a scrap? How had the previous owner ever cultivated to the third layer of Qi Refinement? Surely the owner of that skeleton hadn't left him several big bottles of Qi-Nourishing Pills! After the sting of cold reality came the comforting warmth of his transmigrator perk. His Eternal Spring Art proficiency had gone up by twenty-six points, though he couldn't feel much difference. In the spells column, the Cleansing Art had gained two points—once when he used it to wash his robe, and once to wash the iron pot to thoroughly cleanse any lingering odors from previous batches of Fasting Powder. The Entangling Art had barely changed. He had no desire to pull off some Blue Silver Entanglement nonsense to leap tiers and kill Golden Core cultivators down the line anyway. The Fireball Art, on the other hand, through his maximum allowance of two casts daily plus his binge last night, had surged by thirty-six proficiency points. It had blasted straight past the Adept rank, reaching the Perfect rank in one fell swoop. It had even granted an achievement point for breaking through a tier. *Heh heh, a Perfect-tier Fireball Art. I wonder what that feels like?* However, his spiritual energy was not yet fully restored, so he reined in his excited heart and twitching hands. With that thought, Luo Chen moved to close the status panel. Just before closing it, his gaze instinctively flickered past the achievement points. He blinked, then hastily reopened the panel. "Wait a minute!" "[Skills: Tier 1 Alchemist: Fasting Powder (Grandmaster): 507/1,000, Myriad Wonders Pill (Novice): 3/100]" He remembered clearly that after using an achievement point to initiate the Myriad Wonders Pill, its proficiency should have been just one point. Yet now it read three points. But he hadn't successfully refined the Myriad Wonders Pill even once! "Failures can increase proficiency too?"