Wei Yuan had previously tried modifying the formula for the Great Sun Morning Splendor Pill, only to fall flat on his face. Having learned his lesson the hard way, he had no intention of repeating the mistake.
Old Daoist Zhidan had called on them to bring forth the new from the old, but innovation didn't strictly require altering the recipe. Wei Yuan intended to approach the challenge from an entirely different angle. In any case, the formula itself was not to be touched.
By this point, Xu Henshui had already finalized a new recipe, removing one auxiliary herb and introducing three new ones. Zhidan Sanren swept his divine sense over the manuscript and nodded in silent approval.
The several disciples from the Monastery of Creation who had accompanied Zhidan Sanren were filled with heartfelt admiration. To alter an established recipe on the fly while enhancing rather than diminishing its medicinal efficacy demonstrated a terrifying mastery of the alchemical path. Xu Henshui was truly worthy of being considered a successor to the seat of monastery master.
The reason no one called him the front-runner was simply that True Monarch Danming was still in his prime. Any succession for Xu Henshui lay three to five centuries in the future at the earliest, and three to five hundred years was more than enough time for anything to happen; nothing was set in stone.
Wei Yuan set to work on his own preparations.
With a broad wave of his hand, dozens of cultivators came rushing through the entrance in a clamorous throng. Every one of them was bustling with vigor, lugging all manner of apparatus as if they were moving house.
Working in unison, the cultivators began assembling various pieces of machinery on the spot. Their division of labor was orderly and their movements swift. In the blink of an eye, they had erected an entire workshop inside the pill monastery, taking up well over half the courtyard along with the pill chamber itself.
The gathered alchemists watched in bewildered shock. Refining pills was an art of supreme elegance. Many masters shut themselves away in their cave dwellings for decades or even centuries to produce a single peerless furnace of pills, known to the world only when the medicine was complete. When had anyone ever witnessed a spectacle like Wei Yuan's? This hardly looked like alchemy at all—it looked like opening an open-air marketplace.
Wei Yuan surveyed the scene, decided he was still short on hands, and waved again. Another dozen-odd cultivators poured through the gate.
Old Daoist Zhidan watched with a cool, detached gaze. He could tell these were all Wei Yuan's puppets, but he said nothing, simply observing.
Once his crew was assembled, Wei Yuan set the process in motion according to predefined steps. Every Dao Foundation warrior received their instructions at once, promptly retrieving, sorting, and weighing the herbs before beginning preprocessing.
First, the warriors gave the ingredients a thorough washing and careful trimming. That part was normal enough, but what followed grew increasingly bizarre.
Some sliced, some shredded. Some boiled ingredients in water, while others stir-fried them in pans. Some steeped roots in wine, others soaked materials in oil, and several pressed items repeatedly to extract liquids. Some ground ingredients into fine powder, mixed it with water, and introduced a few drops of an unknown reagent, instantly causing thick, flocculent clumps to form at the bottom, which they carefully scooped out.
One particular herb was even brushed with seasoning before being roasted over an open fire.
Before long, rich aromas filled the air, as though one had stepped into a medicinal restaurant.
Zhidan Sanren's long brows twitched, but his centuries of refined patience kept him still.
Next, several warriors assembled an assortment of vats, basins, pots, and conduits into a single apparatus. They removed the pill furnace's lid, mounted the complex contraption directly on top, laid out a formation underneath the furnace, and installed five units equipped with blast nozzles around its base.
After all that frantic commotion, it was finally time for refinement. Several disciples from the Monastery of Creation sneered. They had already noticed that Wei Yuan hadn't altered the recipe in the slightest, which meant he had already lost the first contest.
Even so, there was no denying that many hands made quick work. While Xu Henshui was still processing his ingredients, Wei Yuan had already begun refining, though his methods bore little resemblance to ordinary alchemy.
Over a dozen Dao Foundation warriors took up positions around the furnace. Five sat below at the nozzle assemblies, while three climbed onto an elevated scaffold above, each attending to a different port on the intricate machine.
Then came kindling the flame. With a flick of Wei Yuan's sleeves, the furnace ignited. A line of more than ten Dao Foundation warriors filed past, depositing the pretreated ingredients inside one by one to commence refinement.
Up to this point, things were relatively standard, but what came next departed from all tradition. Several Dao Foundation warriors with exceptional divine sense encircled the furnace, taking simultaneous measurements of flame temperatures at the upper, middle, and lower sections, as well as the outer edges and core.
The complex device mounted atop the furnace lit up, projecting an image of the interior. Though somewhat grainy, it was far clearer than what an ordinary cultivator's divine sense could perceive.
The onlookers soon discovered that this apparatus could also feed herbs into the furnace. Depending on requirements, it could dispense materials into the upper, middle, or lower chambers, drop solid chunks, blow fine powder into the interior, or feed liquid medicines drop by drop.
The contraption then began to flash, displaying the furnace's five-elements spiritual energy levels in five distinct colors, with fire naturally taking prominence.
From that point on, the monitoring Dao Foundation warriors tracked furnace temperature, five-elements spiritual energy, and the melting of herbs without pause. If ingredients were failing to fuse properly, an internal mechanism could even stir the contents to ensure uniformity.
Whenever the five-elements spiritual energy fell out of balance, the five devices below discharged flames accordingly, blowing spiritual fire of the appropriate element directly into the chamber. The five warriors operated with single-minded focus, listening solely for instructions: when told to blow fire, they blew; when told to stop, they stopped.
Of the three warriors stationed on the scaffold, two managed the yin-yang twin qi, while one dharma idol warrior was tasked with using dao force to shatter tiny clumps within the liquefied medicine.
Through comparative analysis, the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World had determined that these minuscule, unevenly fused clumps were the primary culprits behind degraded pill quality. Wei Yuan had therefore assigned a dharma idol warrior exclusively to crush them.
The disciples from the Monastery of Creation looked on in dazed, slack-jawed astonishment. Only after a long while did someone suddenly realize something: What was Wei Yuan doing?
Searching around, the disciple spotted Wei Yuan sitting comfortably under the shade of a tree, thoroughly engrossed in a storybook. Soon, the other Monastery disciples noticed as well, hardly able to believe their eyes. From the very beginning, Wei Yuan had not lifted a finger to touch the furnace himself.
Since when did refining pills not require an alchemist?
Watching the dozens of Dao Foundation warriors bustling about over an extended period, the alchemists began to discern the underlying patterns. Whenever the five elements fell out of balance, the corresponding elemental fire was applied. When yin and yang drifted, twin qi was introduced. Temperatures were tracked constantly, and unevenly mixed medicine was treated immediately.
These were all fundamental techniques of alchemy, well within the capability of every elite disciple present from the Monastery of Creation. Yet none of them had ever imagined that several dozen ordinary Dao Foundation puppets, utterly ignorant of alchemy, could each be assigned a handful of simple tasks and collectively function like a master alchemist of the Monastery of Creation.
By then, Wei Yuan had finished his first storybook and pulled out a second. He was not merely reading, but reading with relish, even jotting down dense margins of commentary, as earnest as if he were studying the Daoist Canon.
In the blink of an eye, three storybooks were finished. Only then did Wei Yuan rise, check on the furnace, bow respectfully to Old Daoist Zhidan, and stroll right out the door.
The Monastery of Creation disciples were left completely bewildered. The furnace was still burning! How could Wei Yuan just leave? He really just walked away?!
By this stage, the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World had fully taken over the refinement process. A Dao Foundation warrior seated beneath the furnace, for instance, received only simple instructions: blow fire... cease fire, blow fire... cease fire.
He received no other commands, igniting when told and stopping when told.
The other Dao Foundation warriors operated in much the same way. Only the few stationed on the periphery had slightly more involved duties, such as locating specific herbs, weighing out precise portions, and feeding them into the furnace as required. Even that required no deep thought—so long as one had hands, it could be done.
Having departed, Wei Yuan first visited the construction site in the Nether Cold Realm, then entered Eldest Senior Sister's dreamscape to play... to observe for a short while. Naturally, he once again declined the invitation to serve as cult master of the heretic sect. Ancient tradition called for three polite refusals before acceptance, and Wei Yuan was one to observe ancient etiquette.
After making a round of inspection through Qingming and confirming that all was peaceful, Wei Yuan reestablished the Twelve Heavens Immortal Forging Array. Wielding the Primal Chaos Immortal Blade, he cleaved a stroke through the void, condensing a wisp of primal chaos qi.
He did not consume all of it, keeping a small portion stored upon his person.
By now, it was the ninth day since the furnaces had been lit. Nine was the utmost number, and Xu Henshui opened his furnace.
A tricolored beam of radiant light surged toward the heavens, accompanied by drifting celestial blossoms, lingering heavenly melodies, and an overflowing medicinal fragrance. The doors of the pill chamber swung open, and Xu Henshui emerged with a smile, carrying a tray of pills.
There were twelve pills on the tray: three with two veins, and nine with one vein. There was not a single unranked bald pill among them!
Such extraordinary quality moved even Zhidan Sanren, who offered a few words of praise. Zhidan Sanren naturally saw that Xu Henshui had bent the rules slightly with his ingredients—the three auxiliary herbs he had added had come from his private stores, every one of them over five hundred years old and packed with potent medicinal power.
Nevertheless, Zhidan Sanren saw no need to bring up such a minor detail.
Xu Henshui thoroughly basked in the congratulations of his sect brothers, strolling happily out into the courtyard. He glanced toward Wei Yuan's side and froze.
The scene on Wei Yuan's end was as grandiose as before, with dozens of Dao Foundation cultivators bustling about. Watching for a moment, however, revealed that they were essentially repeating the same few tasks in an endless cycle.
The problem was, Xu Henshui could not see Wei Yuan anywhere.
"Where is Wei Yuan?" Xu Henshui asked a junior brother beside him.
"He left on the very first day of the refinement," the junior brother replied, "and hasn't shown his face since."
Xu Henshui was stunned. "He's relying entirely on these people to refine his pills?"
"Indeed." The Monastery disciple could not resist rolling his eyes.
Filled with doubt, Xu Henshui stood by and observed. He realized that every Dao Foundation cultivator had a clearly defined role. Work that a single alchemist would typically perform had been carved into dozens of separate tasks, partitioned with remarkable logic—bustling, yet orderly.
He stole a glance at Old Daoist Zhidan's expression. The patriarch had his eyes closed, resting his spirit as his consciousness roamed the Great Void.
Knowing the patriarch as he did, having no reaction was the most significant reaction of all. It meant Wei Yuan's bizarre method possessed genuine merit, or at least had not provoked the patriarch to thunderous fury.
At that moment, Zhidan Sanren spoke in a measured tone. "Absurd though this method may seem, it is genuinely effective. What is truly remarkable is that over nearly ten days, not a single mistake has occurred. To dismantle the art of alchemy into so many discrete procedures demonstrates an understanding of the Dao of Alchemy far beyond ordinary men.
"Yet this manner of refinement carries far too much artisan craft, devoid of innate spiritual grace or strokes of serendipitous genius. If any of you wish to be ordinary alchemists, you may learn from this. But if your aspiration is to craft fine grade, superior grade, or even transcendent grade pills, it will not do."
Which of the disciples from the Monastery of Creation would ever settle for being an ordinary alchemist? Every one of them aspired to produce spirit pills bearing Dao veins. Hearing Zhidan Sanren's assessment, their minds were immediately set at ease. Wei Yuan's technique was nothing more than a way to mass-produce mundane goods. No matter how plentiful mundane goods were, without spirit pills, one could hardly claim to be an alchemist.
Everyone was eager to see what sort of nonsense Wei Yuan's antics would ultimately yield.
In the blink of an eye, the eighteenth day arrived. Having cleaved another stroke of primal chaos from the void, Wei Yuan received an alert from the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World and promptly returned to Qingming, stepping back into the pill monastery.
Zhidan Sanren let out a soft murmur of surprise and opened his eyes, looking at Wei Yuan with a hint of perplexity. The disciples from the Monastery of Creation felt that something about Wei Yuan had subtly changed, though none could say what, feeling only an unprompted sense of trepidation and unease.
Zhidan Sanren gave a slight nod. "Ah. So you went out to harvest qi."
"Fortunately, I made it back in time for the pills to emerge." Wei Yuan stepped up to the furnace and tossed in a thousand strands of azure qi. The pills inside were already fully mature; blessed by karmic luck, they instantly burst with five-colored radiance, sending a brilliant pillar of light shooting straight into the firmament!
One spirit pill after another soared out of the furnace, swept into Wei Yuan's waiting tray with a flick of his sleeve. Eighteen days, a full eighteen Great Sun Morning Splendor Pills—and every single one bore one vein!
While the disciples of the Monastery of Creation stood utterly flabbergasted, Wei Yuan gave a casual flick of his fingers, releasing two wisps of primal chaos qi. The spirituality of two pills abruptly condensed into something deep and enigmatic, and upon each of them, a second Dao vein rose to the surface.
Chapter 653