As the heavenly tribulation subsided, the pills that had been bounding about vigorously quieted down. The spirituality birthed in response to the tribulation transmuted entirely into medicinal potency, receding back into the pellets.
Gathering all the pills, Wei Yuan came to understand why this batch had summoned a heavenly tribulation. Following his usual practice, he infused human luck into every pill before its completion—typically several strands, the exact number governed entirely by the profound mystery of the moment.
For this furnace of pills, Wei Yuan had invested a total of three million strands of human luck, ultimately yielding five hundred thousand pills. Leaving aside the quality of the pills themselves, the sheer quantity and the human luck invested warranted a heavenly tribulation.
Wei Yuan noticed that deploying karmic luck seemed particularly prone to drawing heavenly tribulations. He kept this in mind, planning to study the matter thoroughly after some time.
Out of the five hundred thousand Base-Consolidating Pills, roughly ten thousand actually bore pill veins. With his current mastery of the alchemical Dao combined with the systematic scientific literacy acquired from the world beyond the heavens, Wei Yuan understood that while pill veins sounded profoundly mysterious, they were essentially patterns manifesting on the outer shell when medicinal efficacy was pushed to its absolute utmost. Pills of identical potency might develop two veins or three; it was not strictly fixed.
Among the ten-thousand-odd ranked pills, several hundred possessed two or more veins. Wei Yuan took one and ingested it. He felt a burst of thunderous power plunge into his stomach, sloughing away a bit of dead skin from his flesh along the way.
If it could scrape dead skin from Wei Yuan's flesh, its potency was enough to utterly dissolve the dharmic forms of template Dao Foundation cultivators. Never mind eating it—even a whiff would be intolerable.
Wei Yuan then sampled the other two varieties, gaining a clear grasp of their respective potencies. With each additional vein, the corresponding Dao foundation would rise by a tier. A two-vein pill corresponded to Earth Tier Dao Foundation cultivators, offering a chance to elevate their Dao foundation to the Heaven Tier.
Pills like these hardly seemed suited to the name "Base-Consolidating Pill" anymore. Thus, Wei Yuan packaged the three kinds separately, dubbing the single-vein variety the Lingxi Base-Consolidating Pill and the two-vein variety the Jade Void Base-Consolidating Pill, before ordering them delivered to Xu Henshui.
To refine five hundred thousand pills in a single furnace yielded an alchemical value beyond measure. What was mass production? This was mass production! If he did not show such a magnificent feat to Xu Henshui, Wei Yuan felt his Dao heart would remain unpurged of smugness.
Besides, the outcome of infusing karmic luck was never fixed. The luck in this batch had largely driven toward multiplying pill quantity, producing the miracle of five hundred thousand in one furnace. If his luck proved poor on the next furnace, he might only get fifty thousand.
Knowing he could not wait for the next furnace, Wei Yuan simply had every last pill sent to Xu Henshui under the dignified pretext of having him oversee their distribution.
***
Xu Henshui held a Base-Consolidating Pill, staring at it for an entire incense stick's time. A dozen disciples and assistants filled the room; some stared blankly at several massive chests of Base-Consolidating Pills in the center of the chamber, while others, like Xu Henshui, fixed unblinking gazes upon the pills in their hands.
Floating before Xu Henshui was a sheet of jade paper recording the recipe for the Base-Consolidating Pill. The formula was so utterly ordinary that any Dao Foundation cultivator could take a crack at it; it did not even warrant an imprint of true intent—a single sheet of jade paper was more than enough to record it.
Just then, a handsome youth spoke up: "This really is a Base-Consolidating Pill! How could refining a Base-Consolidating Pill trigger a heavenly tribulation? Have we already arrived at the Dharma-Ending Age?"
Xu Henshui glared fiercely at him. The youth stared back in bewilderment, having no idea what he had done wrong.
Every pill in this batch resembled colored glass, some translucent, others entirely transparent—plainly pills that had weathered tribulation. Xu Henshui's glare meant: the aura of heavenly tribulation is bleedingly obvious; anyone who isn't blind can see it, so what's the point of stating it?!
Xu Henshui shot another glare at the youth, suspecting this fellow was deliberately inflating Wei Yuan's prestige and was probably a plant Wei Yuan had slipped into his retinue! The youth was flashy without substance, frail enough to blow over in a gust, possessor of a handsome shell devoid of real talent—wholly unfit to stay by his side.
Xu Henshui resolved on the spot to demote the youth back to nominal disciple in the coming days, entirely forgetting that just yesterday he had been considering accepting him as a personal disciple.
After staring for ages, Xu Henshui finally set down the pill in his hand and picked up a single-veined "Lingxi Base-Consolidating Pill." He had been grumbling non-stop internally: it's clearly just a Base-Consolidating Pill that happens to have developed a pill vein, yet he had to coin a brand new name for it. Is he hoping to etch his name into the annals of alchemy? That's far too opportunistic...
He examined it as he asked, "This 'Lingxi Base-Consolidating Pill'—how many are there in total?"
A disciple answered, "Eleven thousand."
"How many?" Xu Henshui's hand twitched.
He picked up a two-veined pill and asked, "And this 'Jade Void Base-Consolidating Pill'—how many of these?"
"Five hundred and twenty-one."
Xu Henshui fell silent on the spot. He mentally tallied the alchemical value, but gave up halfway through. Pills capable of improving the aptitude of Earth Tier Dao Foundations were exceedingly precious even within the Palace of Grand Beginning; at current market prices, each would likely fetch over ten thousand Qingyuan.
Earth Tier Dao Foundations occupied an awkward middle ground: they had hope of charging into the Dharma Idol realm, yet their odds were slim. And yet they were vast in number, making up the largest share of Dao foundations within the Palace of Grand Beginning.
After all, the Palace of Grand Beginning maintained strict criteria when accepting disciples; the overwhelming majority started at Earth Tier Dao Foundation, with Mortal Tier accounting for less than ten percent.
Of course, that was in the past. Ever since a certain someone's Water Moon Hall set an unprecedented precedent, chanting slogans of "education without discrimination" and admitting hundreds in a single class—instantly expanding the Palace of Grand Beginning's intake thirtyfold—the overall appraisal of the Palace's disciples had shifted from "dragons and phoenixes among men" to "a mixed bag."
Yet Xu Henshui possessed far deeper and broader alchemical knowledge than Wei Yuan. His brow suddenly furrowed. "Bring me the documentation for this batch of pills!"
By the rules of the Abbey of Creation, when an alchemist finished a batch of pills, they had to record detailed notes on the recipe along with the quality and quantity of medicinal ingredients used for future reference. That way, if an issue arose with the pills, identifying the problem was straightforward.
Following tradition, Wei Yuan had attached documentation as well, opening with: "These pills were formed after enduring the Great Flame Heaven Glazed True Fire Tribulation..."
Xu Henshui skipped right past that unheard-of tribulation name to inspect the ingredient list behind it. When his eyes fell upon "jasper pearl rice," his eyelids twitched. Seeing "frost-dew cold chive leaf," they twitched again...
Xu Henshui combed through the document over a dozen times, pausing occasionally to calculate. He no longer cared about Wei Yuan's bizarre habit of putting spiritual rice and vegetables into alchemical mixtures.
After a long silence, Xu Henshui snapped his eyes open and declared, "There cannot be this many! Go ask the Realm Lord how many furnaces it took to refine this batch. Does the documentation only record the ingredients for a single furnace?"
Passing such messages was much faster; a reply arrived within an hour: "The Realm Lord says he only used a single furnace, and those were all the ingredients."
Xu Henshui did not grow angry this time; instead, he sank into profound bewilderment and even a touch of dread: "Only one furnace? Impossible! With this recipe and these ingredients, a single furnace should produce just over thirty thousand pills at most, and it would never trigger a heavenly tribulation!"
Xu Henshui's thoughts raced with creeping panic: "Though Wei Yuan is grandiose, obsessed with showing off, foul-mouthed, black-hearted, and possessed of atrocious taste... he wouldn't lie to me. The recipe and ingredient list ought to be genuine.
"Which means that during the refinement, he melted some unseen thing into the furnace! Just like the Second Generation Abbey Master..."
Brooking no delay, Xu Henshui grabbed a brush and penned a letter. Sealing it carefully, he ordered two True Persons of the Dharma Idol realm from the main Abbey of Creation to take the swiftest flying boat north, charging them with delivering the letter into Wei Yuan's hands personally.
Seeing Xu Henshui so utterly solemn, the two Dharma Idol cultivators dared not dawdle. Tucking the letter securely against their chests, they hurried to board the flying boat.
Xu Henshui looked back at the mountain of pills, and for a fleeting instant, felt as if some of them were oozing blood! He pressed a hand to his forehead to compose himself. For someone of his cultivation to experience hallucinations was clearly a symptom of an unsettled Dao heart.
Pacing back and forth across the room, his expression shifted between dark and pale: "Creating something from nothing during refinement... this must be the Tribulation of the Illusory World's Separating Fire—the greatest peril an alchemist can face. My ancestor died to it; otherwise, my Xu family would have produced two immortals under one roof.
"Yet this calamity is exclusive to peerless alchemists who appear once in an age, drawn by the convergence of alchemical fire and immortal qi. Wei Yuan is nothing more than a half-baked dabbler; how could he encounter such a thing? That's it—there must be something buried beneath the Lu clan's ancestral grounds that attracted the disaster... No, I must go find him. That fool has no idea how to handle this; he'd probably just laugh it off!"
His mind made up, Xu Henshui promptly ordered his attendants, "Seal this batch of pills with a grand formation! No one is permitted to use them!"
Yet a second later, he changed his mind: "No! Put the pills into the reward vault and distribute them according to merit. Move this batch to the very front of the queue—if any Dao Foundation cultivator requests pills, prioritize issuing these!"
The disciples and assistants had no clue why, but seeing the gravity on Xu Henshui's face, they knew it was of paramount importance. None dared dally; several immediately broke away to hoist the chests and carry the pills to the vault.
The efficacy of these pills was certainly genuine, but something unknown had been melted into them, multiplying the yield tenfold. The karmic burden attached was undeniably immense. Xu Henshui's decision to distribute them was aimed at getting the cultivators who consumed them to share that karma, lessening the burden weighed upon Wei Yuan.
Though Xu Henshui could not say for sure, he guessed it was most likely linked to Wei Yuan excavating the Lu clan's ancestral grounds. How could an immortal clan lack hidden contingencies? Wei Yuan was notoriously careless and cavalier; he had likely walked into a trap without noticing.
The more Xu Henshui pondered, the more anxious he grew, and he took off directly toward the Lu clan's ancestral grounds. Halfway through the flight, however, he took a detour to fetch Ji Liuli. Only by traveling together could he feel at ease—otherwise, Xu Henshui worried he wouldn't even make it to Ganzhou alive on his own.
As for the template Dao Foundation cultivators who would take the pills... cold ruthlessness flashed through Xu Henshui's heart. Some would surely suffer sudden, violent deaths, but others would absorb the karmic luck of the deceased, making tremendous breakthroughs in cultivation or encountering stroke after stroke of good fortune. Taken as a whole, it should balance out without gain or loss.
To Xu Henshui, this was the best possible outcome. Never mind breaking even—even if half of them died, so long as it diluted the karmic burden on Wei Yuan, he considered it acceptable.
And so, a solitary flying boat sped northward.
***
"Hahahaha!" Wei Yuan burst into unrestrained, boisterous laughter. Then he said, "You claim something crept into my alchemy furnace? Heh, within the World Refining Grand Array, escaping my divine sense? What monster could possibly possess such power?
"Besides, when this seat lights the furnace, it is to bring fortune to all living beings of Qingming. If that creature threw itself headfirst into my furnace, wasn't it fated to suffer this calamity? In other words, this demon was destined to belong to me!"
Xu Henshui wore a face full of helplessness, while Ji Liuli looked away, putting on an expression that declared she did not know this idiot.
Wei Yuan gave a grand wave of his hand. "No matter what, smelting a monster is a good thing! Distribute this batch to everyone quickly—have them take the pills while they're still hot!"
Though Xu Henshui had already done just that, he was still startled by the words and could not help asking, "These pills may involve an extraterrestrial fiend and carry a monstrous karmic burden. Are you really just going to let everyone swallow them?"
Wei Yuan replied, "It's precisely because the karmic burden is heavy that they must take them quickly! While I still have my hands free over the next few years, let whatever is coming come fast! In any case, so long as they don't leave Qingming, whatever karma arises will come at me first."
Xu Henshui's expression turned ugly; this was an angle he had completely failed to consider. Ji Liuli glared daggers at him, her look promising to deal with him later.
Wei Yuan turned serious, however, and added, "For something like this to happen, the secret buried beneath the Lu clan's ancestral grounds is likely far greater than I anticipated. I need to dig it up quickly before other troubles crop up. Mobilize the hundred thousand template cultivators newly promoted this year. They need to consolidate their Dao foundations anyway, and there's no training more character-building than excavating an immortal clan's ancestral tombs."
With the matter settled, Xu Henshui remained fraught with worry, but had no choice but to head back to Qingming first.
***
In an abyssal, boundless space, countless faint sounds stirred, eventually converging into an eerie, ethereal whisper:
"The Old Ancestor has ascended to the upper realm, but the passage seemed like an endless sea of fire. I fear this journey bodes ill..."
Chapter 1197