Was this the trial of the True Monarch's legacy?
When Luo Chen finished reading the unanswered question left on the jade slip—no, what ought to be called the Heaven Refining Demon Lord's conjecture—stormy waves churned in his heart.
To "mature" cultivators like them, it was an immutable truism that one could not cultivate without a spiritual root, and that only those endowed with spiritual roots, even those with the meager five spiritual roots, could embark on the great path of immortal cultivation.
Yet now, someone proposed using the power of medicinal pills to bridge the gulf between mortal and immortal, helping those without spiritual roots to absorb the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. How could Luo Chen not be stunned by something that so thoroughly defied common sense?
"This is truly beyond comprehension."
Shaking his head, Luo Chen moved to set the jade slip down.
Just then, an esoteric, profound sensation surfaced in his mind.
His expression shifted slightly. "Without concocting this pill, one cannot pass the first trial?"
This was the information conveyed by the jade slip.
For a moment, Luo Chen's outstretched hand hovered in midair.
He had to complete this conjecture and refine the corresponding pill in order to pass the trial.
And this was merely the first trial?
Luo Chen slowly lowered the jade slip and swept his gaze across the study. The shelves packed with bamboo slips and the books cataloging vast, meticulous herbal lore were the supplementary materials left behind by the Heaven Refining Demon Lord for the candidates.
Along with the adjacent dispensary and alchemy chamber, all of it could be considered an examination ground.
He had certainly prepared thoroughly.
Yet could such a pill truly be refined?
He stepped slowly out of the study and came before the stone house. Looking into the distance, green hills and verdant waters filled his sight.
Closing his eyes, he focused his concentration.
The next instant, he cast his divine sense out with a surge!
No longer radiating as a circular sphere centered on himself, it converged into a focused beam, extending outward to its maximum limit while conserving effort.
Luo Chen's current realm was the sixth layer of Golden Core, and the depth of his divine soul was exceptionally formidable, rivaling any cultivator of the eighth layer.
Even compared to the ninth layer of Golden Core, he was merely a step away.
Thus, the reach of his projected divine sense far surpassed that of ordinary Golden Core cultivators.
Now, condensed into a focused beam, its range pushed to its absolute limit.
Nine hundred li!
It skirted green hills, skimmed across the great lake, and pressed north all the way to the utmost boundary.
Vaguely, an invisible barrier blocked Luo Chen's way forward.
He switched directions!
...
After several attempts, Luo Chen slowly opened his eyes, conflicting emotions passing over his jade-fair face.
Before reaching the world's extremities, he had not realized boundaries existed here.
Only now, prompted by the jade slip, did he suddenly realize that this realm was like a massive prison, locking him firmly within.
"Must I truly attempt..."
"Forget it. Since I am here, I might as well make the best of it!"
In just a breath, Luo Chen adjusted his state of mind.
Or rather, from the moment he read the jade slip, he had already braced himself for this.
However, another problem now stood before him.
Namely, where was the pill formula?
The jade slip provided nothing more than a conjecture.
There was no concrete recipe at all!
Though Luo Chen's alchemy attainments were consummate, he had mostly followed existing guides and concocted medicine according to established recipes along his journey.
Even when he occasionally created formulas of his own, it was built on repairing incomplete recipes or improving existing ones.
Without an initial formula, he did not even have the opportunity to rely on his system to force an entry-level mastery.
For a time, Luo Chen sank into bewilderment.
His tall figure paced slowly in the courtyard.
After a long while, Luo Chen chuckled softly.
"Right. I've always considered myself an alchemy grandmaster, but what kind of grandmaster merely parrots the work of others?"
What made a grandmaster?
To be broadly learned, to absorb the strengths of many schools, to innovate upon tradition, and to establish one's own sect.
Even more, to create one's own theory from nothing and leave behind something bearing one's own lasting imprint.
Only by establishing a tradition and founding a school from that foundation could one be hailed as a grandmaster of an era!
Luo Chen asked himself: in the dao of alchemy, he could barely meet the first four criteria.
Yet when it came to formulating theories or developing pill formulas from scratch, he had achieved nothing of note.
Never mind high-tier formulas; he had not even created entry-level, low-tier formulas of the first or second tier.
Under such circumstances, even if an alchemist reached Tier 4, he could only be called a masterly figure, far from a grandmaster.
Evidently, the first trial was not only extraordinarily difficult, but it also demanded that one invent a pill formula out of nothing.
"I wonder if I can endure this?"
Luo Chen gave a self-deprecating smile and walked toward the study with unburdened steps.
The answer surely lay within those bamboo slips cataloging countless medicinal herbs.
First row of bookshelves, first level, third scroll.
[Withered Chen Zhi Bai: also known as Yellow Fleeceflower Root...]
With the bamboo slip in hand, Luo Chen emptied his mind of stray thoughts and immersed his entire consciousness within.
Within the Alchemy Realm, the four seasons cycled, and the sun and moon rose and set.
As night first fell, faint moonlight streamed through the window, draping over the silent figure standing before the bookshelf.
In the quiet study, only the crisp rustle of bamboo slips turning broke the silence.
...
Inside the Alchemy Realm's study, Luo Chen had become entirely intoxicated in the sea of herbal knowledge.
He loved reading.
This habit was not something cultivated solely during his lower cultivation stages.
Even before he transmigrated, he had enjoyed reading.
As a youth, he read all manner of extracurricular books; as he grew older, he immersed himself in classics and canonical texts; and even after becoming a corporate drudge, he had never ceased reading widely.
Some simple, lighthearted web novels had even served as his sanctuary to escape life's vexations.
After transmigrating, he still preserved this habit. Even during his busiest periods of cultivation, he would always carve out a little time to read miscellanies of the cultivation world.
As his cultivation realm rose, especially after he successfully established his foundation, the cleansing of his marrow and channels and the elevation of his divine soul enhanced his reading habits all the more.
He possessed the ability to read ten lines at a glance and remember everything he saw.
With the aid of his divine sense in particular, his memory had improved immensely. Often, reading a book once or twice was enough to imprint it deeply in his mind and apply it flexibly.
It had to be said that this habit had helped him immensely.
Whether in daily cultivation or in his travels and battles outside, the knowledge in his mind became an asset in other forms.
Just like this exploration of the Land of the Fallen Demon: his experience and breadth of knowledge had completely surpassed those of Cave Master Moyun, who was far older than him.
Had Taisui not been born and raised here, his performance might have fallen short of Luo Chen's as well.
Right now, inside this study, the immense sea of herbal knowledge surged into Luo Chen's mind like a tide.
Far from feeling dizzy or overwhelmed, he drank it in with relish.
Sometimes, after finishing a bamboo slip, he still felt unsatisfied and would take it out to read once or twice more.
At times he marveled at the heaven-defying medicinal properties of an unfamiliar herb, at times he sighed at the exquisite method for transplanting a spirit herb, and at other times whimsical thoughts struck him—would the effects be even better if he substituted certain herbs into the formulas he normally concocted?
Time flowed slowly.
Days and moons rose and set, oblivious to the passage of time.
Ten bookshelves, over ten thousand scrolls of bamboo slips, and hundreds of thousands—perhaps millions—of medicinal herbs took Luo Chen more than half a year.
When he finished reading them all, Luo Chen wore a look of lingering longing.
Yet he still remembered that he had not come here merely to read.
Under the barrage of countless herbal characteristics, flashes of inspiration had erupted in his mind several times over the past half year.
"This one, and this one... these several will do as well..."
Luo Chen moved among the various bookshelves, retrieving seven bamboo slips with effortless familiarity.
Carrying them to the desk, he studied them again.
A day later, Luo Chen returned four of them.
Such an action seemed somewhat peculiar.
Yet Luo Chen knew exactly what he was doing.
How was a mature pill formula conceived?
First was the reason for refining the pill! This question had already been settled: the Heaven Refining Demon Lord had posed the conjecture to shatter the barrier between mortal and immortal.
Second was what to use to refine this pill! Luo Chen had already summarized this: he needed to extract the primary ingredient.
Concocting pills required distinguishing between primary and secondary. The primary ingredient, in particular, dictated the medicinal trajectory of the pill and permitted no careless oversight.
Only after that did the auxiliary ingredients come into play.
As for a more mature pill formula? That was no longer the concern of the creator.
The evolution of time, shifts in the environment, and the changing demands of later generations would continually optimize and reform the original formula.
Right now, Luo Chen was stuck at this second step.
Selecting the primary ingredient.
"Above lies the Yellow Court, below is Guanyuan; behind is Youque, in front is Mingmen. Breathing through the cranial space down into the dantian, the clear water of the Jade Pool irrigates the spiritual root. He who cultivates this will endure long!"
"The so-called spiritual root is rooted in the base of the tongue!"
"The root at the tongue is the upper part. Besides that, the middle spiritual root resides in the dantian, which is why those whose dantians are naturally petrified cannot cultivate. The lower spiritual root resides in the essence chamber and womb, which is why cultivators must not discharge their primordial yin or primordial yang before Foundation Establishment—all to keep the spiritual root vigorous."
These theories stemmed from the time Luo Chen established his foundation.
After achieving Foundation Establishment, his understanding had deepened.
In particular, when the Luotian Sect recruited disciples in its early years, it would test their spiritual roots.
Luo Chen had faintly sensed those formations before; most worked by guiding spiritual energy of various elements to stimulate those three locations on a cultivator's body: the root of the tongue, the dantian, and the essence chamber or womb.
Thus, the seemingly imperceptible spiritual root was, in truth, traceable.
Once the essence of a spiritual root was understood, the path to generating one out of nothing likewise became traceable.
Strengthening those three locations to make them more attuned to the spiritual energy of heaven and earth would suffice.
Furthermore, the most crucial aspect was to provide a mortal without a spiritual root with a vessel capable of absorbing the spiritual energy of heaven and earth.
The Spiritual Root Pill was precisely that!
The pill Luo Chen intended to refine was named the Spiritual Root Pill—plain, simple, and direct.
In his view, what did not exist simply did not exist; even after taking a pill, it was impossible to conjure something out of nothing.
Therefore, this Spiritual Root Pill should not be refined and dissolved upon consumption; rather, it should reside permanently within a mortal's physique, helping them continuously sense the spiritual energy of heaven and earth.
A Spiritual Root Pill was, in truth, a Pill Spiritual Root!
With this, the selection of the primary ingredient gained theoretical backing.
It had to possess the medicinal property of automatically sensing the spiritual energy of heaven and earth.
"Monster core, Ancestral Origin Herb, Root of Heaven and Earth—all three possess this capability."
Looking at the bamboo slips recording the three materials, Luo Chen fell into contemplation.
Suddenly...
"Huh? The material of this bamboo slip?"
Luo Chen picked up the bamboo slip recording monster cores in surprise. Magic Power surged, and true fire swept over it.
A withered yellow glow flashed across its surface, finally turning into a pale charred brown, faintly exuding the lingering aura of a sea.
Seeing this, Luo Chen's expression altered slightly.
"This bamboo slip isn't the same kind as the ones on those shelves!"
He had originally thought a monster core was suitable as the primary ingredient for the Spiritual Root Pill.
This inspiration came from Foundation Establishment cultivators who failed to form a core and used monster cores to condense a false core, earning them the name "pseudo-core cultivators."
Moreover, monster cores were inherently used in medicine, so it was only natural for such information to be recorded on a bamboo slip.
Though there were no monsters within the Alchemy Realm, Luo Chen had quite a few monster cores in his storage bag.
If he truly wished to refine the Spiritual Root Pill with them, he had plenty.
Yet seen now, this bamboo slip had clearly been deliberately left in the study by someone else to mislead those who came after.
It was only because Luo Chen had previously experienced the incident with the Master of Baizao Mountain that he had developed a cautious guard against forged letters and bamboo slips.
Otherwise, he truly would not have noticed anything amiss with this bamboo slip right now.
"Who the hell is so utterly wicked!"
Luo Chen cursed with a dark face, completely devoid of any elegance.
It was no wonder he was so furious. If he had truly researched the Spiritual Root Pill formula in the direction of monster cores as the primary ingredient, setting aside whether it would even work, it was definitely not part of the Heaven Refining Demon Lord's trial.
Not to mention how much time would be squandered down the wrong path.
"Was it that predecessor?"
Luo Chen murmured. Azure flames flickered in his hand, incinerating the slip into ash.
He despised forgers most of all!
After calming his emotions, he looked at the remaining two bamboo slips.
Ancestral Origin Herb, Root of Heaven and Earth.
The latter went without saying; Luo Chen was thoroughly familiar with it, and in his view, it was extremely well-suited as the primary ingredient for the Spiritual Root Pill.
As for the Ancestral Origin Herb, it was an herb Luo Chen had not known before.
It grew in places where spiritual energy was chaotic, and rumors even held that it could absorb the origin energy of heaven and earth!
Luo Chen had occasionally heard Han Zhan discuss the difference between spiritual energy and origin energy in the past. It was said that once Soul Formation grandmasters touched upon the power of laws, they could use that power to absorb origin energy from the void to cultivate.
It was difficult to compare their potency, but spiritual energy was not present everywhere, whereas origin energy was omnipresent.
Therefore, the problem where cultivators before Soul Formation were often influenced by favorable terrain and weather during battle would be smoothed out upon advancing to Soul Formation, unless the battlefield environment was pushed to an absolute extreme.
"This Ancestral Origin Herb is a bit too high-end."
Luo Chen murmured.
In his eyes, the Spiritual Root Pill was meant for mortals with no cultivation, so its grade certainly could not be too high.
The Ancestral Origin Herb was overpowered!
The Root of Heaven and Earth, on the other hand, was far more suitable!
The Root of Heaven and Earth was an ingredient that could serve Qi Refinement cultivators in Foundation Establishment at the low end, and assist Golden Core figures in breaking through to the Nascent Soul stage at the high end.
It could be considered an herb without a fixed grade, possessing immense growth potential and virtually no upper limit.
Ultimately, after screening, Luo Chen finalized the primary ingredient for the Spiritual Root Pill—the Root of Heaven and Earth.
"Is it Providence at work?"
Luo Chen murmured, recalling past events.
He had heard of the Root of Heaven and Earth during Qi Refinement, obtained one after killing the Duan family ancestor, and even the first spirit herb he had hand-picked upon arriving in the Alchemy Realm was a Root of Heaven and Earth.
Now, the finalized primary ingredient for the Spiritual Root Pill was this very item.
Pursing his lips, Luo Chen retrieved a writing brush, ink, paper, and an inkstone from his storage ring.
Leaning over the desk, he set brush to paper to write.
"The Root of Heaven and Earth possesses pure medicinal potency, yet its attributes are exceedingly chaotic. For mortals devoid of spiritual roots, it signifies throwing wide the Gate to All Wonders... As this pill is to reside permanently within the body, the auxiliary ingredients should primarily diminish the violent potency of the Root of Heaven and Earth while fully eliciting its trait of absorbing the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. Nightplume Flower and Purple Monarch Leaf should be the top choices, while Wood Brocade Cotton, which aids in channeling qi, can serve as an alternative..."
Writing this took Luo Chen seven full days.
The resulting formula was complex and vast, with vague dosages; strictly speaking, it could hardly be considered qualified.
Yet at the very least, it had taken embryonic form.
Seven days later, Luo Chen stepped out of the study.
This was also his first time stepping out of the room in over half a year.
Dazzling sunlight poured down. Clad in black robes, Luo Chen exhaled a breath of turbid air, then carried a wicker basket on his back, took a medicine hoe in hand, and flew toward the three mountains and five lakes.
Next came gathering herbs, processing them, and then attempting to refine the Spiritual Root Pill.
In his view, the progress was quite swift.
In just half a year, he had produced the embryonic form of the Spiritual Root Pill formula from nothing.
From here, with incremental experimental comparisons, screening, and refining, he would eventually draw closer to success.
...
Meanwhile, in another part of the Alchemy Realm.
Inside a stone house of identical style, an old woman dressed in a loud green-and-floral gown with her hair swept up in a high Wangxian coil slowly raised her head from her desk.
Her features were plain, but her eyes were peculiar.
Her brows and eyes were wide, her eyelids long and narrow, and her pupils took the shape of five-pointed stars.
At this moment, a hint of surprise appeared in those weathered, five-pointed star eyes.
"My bamboo slip was destroyed... Has someone else chosen this path as well?"
After her astonishment, the old woman's expression shifted repeatedly.
To be able to see through the bamboo slip she had left behind was no small feat.
Even if such a figure was currently only at the first trial, catching up would be a matter of time.
"Perhaps I must pick up the pace and stop researching in such a steady, measured fashion."
Chapter 684