Wei Yuan sat upright in the alchemy chamber, in no rush to fire up the cauldron. He intended to make the alchemists waiting outside cool their heels for a good while.
This time, Wei Yuan had gathered ingredients for five cauldrons of pills. The ingredients for the final two batches were purchased with his own funds, redeemed for a thousand merit points. Wei Yuan currently possessed somewhere in the upper hundreds of thousands of merit points, so he no longer paid attention to the Merit Board; likewise, when other disciples of the Palace of Grand Beginning discussed whom they aimed to surpass, they no longer gave Wei Yuan any thought.
Wei Yuan had drawn up a detailed plan for this session. For the first cauldron, he would refrain from using karmic luck or immortal spiritual qi, relying purely on his own alchemical techniques. For the second cauldron, he would incorporate karmic luck, followed by a two-hour rest during which the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World would conduct a comprehensive comparison of data between the two batches to investigate precisely what changes karmic luck brought about.
The third, fourth, and fifth cauldrons would gradually increase the input of karmic luck from lesser to greater amounts to pinpoint the optimal balance between investment and return.
Once these five cauldrons were finished, Wei Yuan felt he could rightly be hailed as a master of Mystic Breath Pills.
Calming his mind, he deployed three Dharma Idol warriors to guard the four cardinal directions alongside himself, then stationed several Dao Foundation warriors above and below. In this manner, several strands of divine sense would sweep through the alchemy cauldron every breath, harvesting data.
Half a day later, the first cauldron was complete. As it opened, golden light flooded the mouth of the vessel, and a waft of fragrant scent dispersed. Inhaling it, even Wei Yuan felt his cultivation bottleneck loosen slightly. The alchemists waiting outside the chamber thought to themselves that it was indeed as expected, each drawing deep, greedy breaths.
When a batch of pills was of exceptional quality, the first release of fragrance upon opening would aid one's cultivation and deepen one's comprehension of the alchemical dao.
Although Wei Yuan had neither altered the pill formula nor infused karmic luck into this cauldron, he had incorporated his findings in melting and preprocessing the ingredients. In the end, the cauldron yielded one hundred and twenty pills, over a dozen of which were single-ring. The entire cauldron was worth one hundred thousand—exactly twenty times the ingredient cost.
From this, Wei Yuan deduced that his pure attainments in the alchemical dao were already on par with Xu Henshui's.
Wei Yuan collected the pills, sat quietly for a quarter of an hour, and began the second cauldron. This time, it took a full two days before the pills were completed. Once karmic luck was introduced, the variations grew exceedingly complex; the volume of data recorded by the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World was more than fifty times that of the first cauldron!
This unexpected surge vastly increased the difficulty of comparative analysis.
When the cauldron finished, a reddish-gold light appeared at its opening. The pill fragrance condensed into faint misty clouds that drifted toward Wei Yuan, the Dharma Idol and Dao Foundation constructs present, and the alchemists outside the door as though imbued with life and spirit.
Upon absorbing the fragrance, Wei Yuan's Dharma Idol and Dao Foundation constructs—which originally lacked inherent spirituality—actually lit up with a faint flicker of spiritual radiance. This immediately gave Wei Yuan a glimmer of hope.
This batch yielded two hundred and forty pills: forty single-ring and ten two-ring. The entire cauldron was worth two hundred and fifty thousand, a full fiftyfold return!
This cauldron immediately caused a sensation among the alchemists waiting outside. When Wei Yuan unsealed the chamber and emerged to rest, they swarmed forward, eagerly bringing out unresolved dilemmas they had struggled with in the past to consult him with humble deference. Their attitude was entirely that of disciples toward their teacher.
It was Wei Yuan's first time resolving doubts for his fellow sect members. Thoroughly invigorated and flattered, he answered each question with patience. He spent an entire afternoon answering them, only finishing with deep satisfaction, his Dao Heart exceptionally lucid.
Wei Yuan spent the whole night readjusting his approach for the remaining three cauldrons, adding several more Dao Foundation constructs to harvest more comprehensive data before firing up the third, fourth, and fifth cauldrons.
The three cauldrons yielded two hundred and forty, two hundred and twenty, and one hundred and twenty pills respectively. The pill count of the final cauldron dropped sharply, yet it produced twenty two-ring pills and five three-ring pills, with most of the rest being single-ring.
From this, he reached a preliminary conclusion: introducing karmic luck was akin to increasing the origin qi of heaven and earth, enhancing the quality of the ingredients within the cauldron and thereby boosting both yield and grade. However, when an even greater amount of karmic luck was added, the ingredients' quality rose further and began purging impurities, ultimately causing the total yield to drop drastically while the quality surged.
Beyond providing the equivalent of a Mortal Tier cultivator's full year of bitter cultivation, a three-ring Mystic Breath Pill also possessed the effect of increasing the odds of sudden enlightenment. Wei Yuan estimated that each pill could sell for at least eight to nine thousand taels, nearly twenty times the price of an ordinary pill.
Afterward, Wei Yuan completed the formalities at the Alchemy Abbey, handed over one hundred and fifty ordinary pills, and took his leave.
Early the next morning, a notice appeared on the bulletin boards outside the castellan manors of Yong'an City and every other settlement: Effective today, Qingming has established the Immortal Fate Treasure Vault, where cultivation resources may be redeemed with merits. The first batch available for redemption consists of Mystic Breath Pills, with grades reaching up to two-ring spirit pills, totaling five hundred pills on a first-come, first-served basis.
To redeem cultivation pills, one had to hold the status of a Qingming commoner or above, have a Dao Foundation cultivator in the family, and use the pills solely for the cultivator's own practice, with resale strictly forbidden.
In addition, there was a condition not stated on the notice, but Wei Yuan specially sent people to inform the cultivators of the Palace of Grand Beginning: any Palace cultivator who had been in Qingming for more than half a year was eligible to redeem Mystic Breath Pills with their merits.
When this news broke, the mortals took it in stride, but the Qingming cultivators were beside themselves with excitement. They scrutinized every clause and discovered something crucial: the terms did not restrict the grade of Dao Foundation, which meant that cultivators who had formed template Dao Foundations were equally eligible to redeem them.
Template Dao Foundations had always been regarded as second-class, looked down upon even by Mortal Tier cultivators. They knew their foundations lacked combat strength, and having seen and heard of the marvelous feats performed by the Domain Lord, Bao Yun, Zhang Sheng, and Ji Liuli when they were at the Dao Foundation stage, they recognized reality even more clearly. They dared not vie or scramble for anything, never daring to put on the airs of senior Dao Foundation cultivators.
Yet after the Immortal Fate Treasure Vault was established this time, it seemed no special barrier had been set against template Dao Foundations—they were treated alike?
Inside the Weaponsmith Workshop, every cultivator had received the news, and all of them began discussing the Immortal Fate Treasure Vault. Ren Suxing sat alone in a small workshop. Checking his merit jade ledger, he discovered to his surprise that his merits were enough to redeem ten ordinary Mystic Breath Pills, or three single-ring Mystic Breath Pills!
Ren Suxing further realized that based on his monthly earnings, every three months was enough to trade for a Mystic Breath Pill. His expression turned peculiar at once. Calculating it this way, working in Qingming seemed even faster than occasionally heading out for trials from the main mountain. What was more, one could temper one's spirituality and improve one's aptitude here.
Ren Suxing had long reached the perfection of the Dao Foundation realm and no longer had use for cultivation pills, but he still had junior relatives, kin, and cherished family and friends. At this thought, Ren Suxing could not resist picking up his brush to write letters to several close fellow disciples still staying in the Sky Azure Hall, urging them to come to Qingming without delay.
Then he wrote another letter to his clan, instructing them to select fifty talented young scions to come take root in Qingming and establish a Ren branch family.
With this, Qingming finally possessed a path for advancing along the Dao. Though it only extended up to breaking through to the Dharma Idol realm, it was at least an established path, offering hope to thousands of cultivators.
Thus, Wei Yuan reaped another five hundred-plus strands of deep azure karmic luck. The karmic luck contributed by Dao Foundation cultivators began at deep azure. For mortals, it scaled from light azure to azure, up to deep azure, terminating within the azure spectrum. Cultivators, once achieving Scenery Command, could contribute purple karmic luck, which was far more potent and effective than azure mortal fortune.
Wei Yuan had not expected that merely announcing a policy, without distributing a single pill yet, would yield karmic luck contributions from over five hundred cultivators. Cultivators differed from mortals; virtually every Dao Foundation cultivator had karmic luck to offer. Moreover, Wei Yuan could see no discernible difference between the karmic luck contributed by a Heaven Foundation and a Mortal Foundation.
Perhaps the karmic luck granted by an immortal foundation would be different, but individuals with the aptitude for an immortal foundation were all haughty and proud; none contributed karmic luck to Wei Yuan. Zhang Sheng would have liked to bestow a strand upon him, yet she was simply unable to produce it.
Refining Mystic Breath Pills this time gave Wei Yuan a deeper understanding of the dao of karmic luck, and he saw even more clearly how immense its allure was to cultivators. It appeared he would have to place mass-producing Mystic Breath Pills on the agenda.
While he was pondering this, Wei Yuan's entire body suddenly shuddered, his sea of consciousness blazing with brilliant light. A purple pill-orb descended from the heavens, materializing out of nowhere within the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World. Inside this orb swam a tiny wandering dragon that circled ceaselessly within, extraordinarily wondrous.
It took Wei Yuan a moment to realize that this was actually purple karmic luck, likely originating from a cultivator. However, whereas the karmic luck he had previously obtained from grandmasters had merely resembled dense, misty vapors, this strand had actually condensed into a pill with a dragon swimming inside. Clearly, the contributor had not only offered it with wholehearted devotion, but must also be a renowned titan of the realm.
The pill-orb descended slowly, but before it could touch down, the three-eyed bird's head within the moon opened its massive beak and inhaled forcefully, swallowing the karmic luck in a single gulp!
In the end, Wei Yuan only had time to catch a distant glimpse before the pill-orb of karmic luck vanished completely.
Only then did Wei Yuan realize that the shadow in the moon also absorbed karmic luck; it simply required exceptionally high-grade luck and disdained ordinary purple qi.
After swallowing the karmic luck, the three-eyed bird shrank back, morphing into a mass of shadow, and went to sleep. Only when it had fallen fast asleep did a small head poke out from the sea of clouds, glancing furtively about. At that moment, Wei Yuan remembered that there was also a shadow dragon in his mindscape world—this creature did look somewhat like a dragon.
The full moon gradually shone with radiant brilliance, pouring down chilling moonlight. Frostlike, the moonbeams congealed upon the gateway of the Jade Mountain Gate. The ancient, rustic wooden doors opened slowly. The night ahead twisted, revealing a bottomless vortex that seemed like a passage leading to another world.
Wei Yuan appeared before the gateway at once and peered inside. All he saw within were crumbling walls and ruined ramparts, like an expanse of ruins. Dark silhouettes flickered faintly within, appearing and vanishing in flashes, moving too fast to track. All matter inside seemed twisted by an inexplicable force into bizarre, grotesque postures. What manner of world this was, no one could tell.
Chapter 611