Published: March 2, 2025
CHAPTER 180: The Bottleneck of Alchemical Pill Refining
Time always passes unconsciously, with the sun rising and setting, marking another cycle of four days. During these four days, Liu Yu devoted all his efforts to hastening the ripening of the Return to Origin Flower and other spiritual herbs needed for refining the Azure Origin Pill.
Through the black spiritual farmland of the Immortal Abode world, he spent over one thousand five hundred spiritual stones and obtained fifty portions of spiritual herbs required for refining the Azure Origin Pill.
Four days later, Liu Yu sat cross-legged in the alchemical room with his eyes closed, the Yellow Mysterious Cauldron placed not far in front of him.
Gathering his energy and spirit, embracing the origin and guarding the one, he adjusted his body and mind to an optimal state before suddenly opening his eyes.
With a wave of his hand, the foundation establishment true fire appeared and swiftly descended beneath the Yellow Mysterious Cauldron, beginning to preheat the cauldron.
After a brief moment, the preheating was completed. Liu Yu controlled the first type of auxiliary herb to enter the cauldron, extracting the essence and discarding the dross.
Igniting, preheating, refining essence, merging essence, congealing the pill, and opening the cauldron.
The alchemical pill refining process generally consists of these six steps. Overall, the first three steps are relatively similar and do not vary much.
However, different elixirs present significant differences in medicinal properties due to varying formulas and quantities of spiritual herbs, leading to completely different changes. The fusion of spiritual herb essences, methods of congealing pills, and the time for opening the cauldron can vary greatly.
Therefore, the last three steps test the alchemist's skills and experience the most. Even for a highly skilled alchemical pill master, refining a new elixir for the first time without prior experience is unlikely to succeed.
Since Liu Yu's success rate in refining the Vitality Pill reached thirty-five percent, his alchemical skills had not progressed for quite some time. This was partly due to his lack of a good mentor, relying almost entirely on self-exploration and summarization.
It was a helpless situation; in just twenty years, he progressed from refining Spirit Gathering Elixirs in the early stage of qi refinement to the Vitality Pill and Azure Origin Pill in the foundation establishment early stage. This progress was indeed astonishing and rare, a talent that one might encounter only once in several hundred years.
Yet only Liu Yu knew that this was entirely the result of extensive practice. The spiritual herbs wasted over the years for refining elixirs could be converted into tens of thousands of low-grade spiritual stones. With such a large amount of spiritual stones, he could have bought one or two magical treasures.
This also made him unwilling to reveal his true alchemical level to others. Even Jiang Qiushui was unaware that the Vitality Pill had never been sold in the jade alchemy hall. He pondered for a moment about the inferior pills from the last few vials and decided to keep them in his storage bag without releasing them.
The method of alchemical pill refining was another reason why Liu Yu's alchemical skills stagnated. He was still using basic refining techniques, which had long been unable to keep up with the increasingly complex alchemical processes, significantly impacting his success rate.
Liu Yu took this very seriously. Although the Immortal Abode could hasten the ripening of spiritual herbs, it should not be wasted carelessly. What would he do if future formulas required materials that could not be hastened by the Immortal Abode?
He had already instructed Jiang Qiushui to pay attention to this information, and he had inquired at various shops in the market, but there had been no progress.
Every alchemist has their unique refining techniques and often keeps a hand when teaching apprentices, usually only passing it on to their direct descendants or disciples. Unless some unforeseen event occurs, alchemists are not short of spiritual stones and are unlikely to sell their refining techniques easily.