Published: December 25, 2024
Qin Chen smiled slightly and said, “This alone, of course, cannot be the deciding factor for me to refine a top-grade elixir. However, I just observed your refining process, and it was full of errors, even worse than an apprentice. If you really managed to refine a top-grade Meridian Nourishing Pill, that would be a strange occurrence.”
“Pure nonsense!” Qinghong Dan Master immediately became furious.
As the deputy master of the Alchemy Pavilion, he was a well-known figure in the Alchemy City, with a respected status. Yet, in the words of the other party, he had become… worse than an apprentice!
How could he not be angry?
“Whether it’s nonsense or not, you just need to listen.”
Qin Chen didn't waste words and approached Qinghong Dan Master’s dan furnace. “Then let me start from the very basics!”
“Any alchemist knows that to refine a good elixir, one must have strong control over the dan furnace and the true fire. Different dan furnaces, even standard ones, will have differences. As for the true fire, there's even less to say.”
“But just now, Qinghong Dan Master, you summoned your true fire and started refining. How much do you really know about this dan furnace?”
“You don't need to refute me by saying that these dan furnaces are all pretty much the same, the standard ones commonly found in the Alchemy Pavilion. I can clearly tell you that with the same medicinal materials, the same true fire, and the same dan furnace, the elixirs refined will still be different because of these tiny differences. Sometimes, even a slight difference can lead to failure in refining.”
Gently touching the dan furnace, Qin Chen continued, “If you don’t believe me, I’ll tell you right now. This dan furnace is a standard king-grade furnace prepared by the Alchemy Pavilion for this grand competition. All standard king-grade furnaces throughout the Tianwu Continent are the same, usually standing three feet six inches tall and two feet one inch wide. They are made from black mysterious iron and refined star sand crystals, usually crafted by a seventh-grade king-level artifact master. Such a dan furnace can be used to refine general king-grade elixirs, and can barely refine mid-level king-grade elixirs, but for higher-level king-grade elixirs, it often falls short.”
“Of course, it is more than enough for refining Meridian Nourishing Pills. But you must understand that the Meridian Nourishing Pill is, after all, a mid-level seventh-grade elixir, requiring very stringent standards for the dan furnace, including even heat distribution without excessive heat loss.”
“However, this dan furnace has many problems. It may have encountered collisions during previous use, and this part has clear fine cracks. There are a total of seven such fine cracks on the entire dan furnace. Refining ordinary elixirs is naturally unaffected, but refining a mid-level seventh-grade Meridian Nourishing Pill will lead to uneven heating of the seventh-grade spirit herbs inside, causing uneven medicinal power refinement. In the end, when the elixir is formed, the medicinal power dissipates, resulting in defects.”
“Besides that, this furnace might not have been carefully refined by the artifact master, causing one side of the furnace wall to be thicker by one millimeter three tenths compared to the other side. Even if the black mysterious iron and star sand crystal materials conduct heat very well, this would lead to one side reaching the required temperature three breaths later than the other side. In terms of the refining speed of spirit herbs, there would be a four percent error.”
“Among the many spirit herbs used for refining the Meridian Nourishing Pill, seven herbs like Heart Dream Leaf and Green Vein Fruit Flesh are very sensitive to temperature. A four percent error would directly lead to a loss of over thirteen percent in their effectiveness, resulting in differing medicinal effects…”
“Is that true?”
“A single dan furnace has so many details?”