Chapter 56: Taiyin Increases Longevity

  In the Dan House, the "Extinction Golden Flame" blazed fiercely, a gigantic dan furnace that could only be encircled by ten people emitted swirling wisps of clear smoke.

  Chu Yi sat cross-legged, his divine sense slowly stirring, sustaining the steady burning of the Golden Flame of Silence and Extinction. His other hand pinched a mid-grade spirit stone to replenish his yuan energy.

  Alchemical refinement cannot be done without the aid of a divine fire; if one uses ordinary fire to refine alchemy, that is simply an insult to the heavenly principles. The spiritual materials of heaven and earth are not something that can be refined by ordinary fire, even after thousands of years of refining, there will still be no hope of achieving the elixir.

  The annals have records, there are hundreds of strange fires in the world, only the top eighteen strange fires can be used for great purposes. These eighteen strange fires are actually the greatest loves of alchemists. Chu Yi obtained the "Inferno Spirit God Decision" by coincidence and cultivated the rare fire species "Ji Mie Jin Yan" which is ranked fifteenth among the eighteen strange fires, unknowingly laying a solid foundation for him.

  The eighteen foreign fires are not all produced by spiritual practice, just like the unique "Huanglong Purple Flame" of the Supreme Xuan Yang Sect, which was naturally formed. It was created by the sect's founder who used his great spiritual power to subdue a large desolate dragon and took its demon dan fire seed, spending thousands of years of hard work to refine it into a foreign fire.

  With this strange fire, the alchemy room of the Supreme Mysterious Yang Sect can have an efficiency far surpassing that of ordinary alchemy rooms. Moreover, when refining the same elixir with "Huang Long Purple Flame" as the alchemical flame, it will be one grade stronger than the elixir refined with ordinary flames.

  At present, the Huo Yuan fire of the Wild Dragon Purple Flame is stored in the Dan Room of the sect. With the help of this strange fire, the thousand alchemists in the Dan Room can barely meet the demand for elixirs throughout the sect.

  In the Eighteen Great Dragon Ranking, Kōryū Shien is ranked ninth.

  To refine this furnace of 'Taiyin Increaser Longevity Dan', Chu Yi had consumed at least tens of thousands of spirit stones worth of spiritual materials to practice his skills in the past half year, until recently he successfully refined a furnace of "Three Yang Rebirth Dan", finally completely grasping control over the flame power of the extinguished golden flame, able to release and retract it as he pleased.

  This made him decide to refine the "Taiyin Increaser of Life Span Elixir", a rare elixir that, although it was only a third-grade spiritual elixir, had value comparable to that of a fourth-grade dao elixir.

  In the alchemical jade classics left behind by Chunyangzi, there are nearly a hundred dan formulas. Except for the "Jiuyang Zhuan Sheng Dan" which belongs to the fifth-grade Daoist dan, the value of this "Taishan Zengshou Dan" is the highest. Coincidentally, Chuyi also happens to have enough spiritual materials on hand to refine several furnaces of "Taishan Zengshou Dan".

  Although there are several spiritual materials that have not reached the required level, for others it is a difficult task, but for Chu Yi who possesses the Hongmeng space and the source of water, it can be easily solved.

  After three days and nights of fire refining, the temperature in the furnace had gradually warmed up to the degree that Chu Yi needed. Just this "warm-up" step alone had taken Chu Yi more than ten days to master when he first learned it.

  Refining the elixir is not like cultivating, it's a matter that requires patience. With wholehearted dedication, after these days of diligent research, Chu Yi's state of mind has become increasingly calm and peaceful. Half a year ago, such a time-consuming and painstaking process would have driven Chu Yi to madness.

  As the fire timing was just right, Chu Yi's originally slightly closed eyes suddenly opened wide. He raised his hand and with a single flick, the thousand-jin heavy cauldron lid was lifted by an invisible force, suspended in mid-air.

  At this moment, Chu Yi's hands moved so fast that they became a blur, and in the short span of several breaths, nearly a hundred types of spiritual materials were tossed into the alchemy furnace.

  This step is a great test of the Dan master's handwork. First, the speed at which the spiritual material is placed must be fast, and the furnace lid should not be opened for too long. The faster the spiritual material is piled up, the better it can control the fire in the furnace to its best state.

  Secondly, the order of placing the elixir materials cannot be wrong in the slightest, it is extremely particular. If you don't follow the prescription written by Dan Fang and randomly throw in the elixir materials, even if you have the best heterodox fire to refine the elixir, it will still not succeed in refining the elixir.

  Finally, and most importantly, the control of the quantity of spiritual materials required for various alchemy practices is like cooking a dish. If you add half a spoonful of salt, you can cook up a delicious dish. But if you add a whole jar of salt, even with the best ingredients, you won't be able to make an edible dish.

  Generally, Danfang will indicate the quantity of various spiritual materials required for alchemy, but in actual operation, under the premise of requiring the fastest speed and placement order, controlling the quantity becomes a difficult problem. Chu Yiyu's precise control today is entirely due to the hundred or so furnaces of waste pills he practiced over the past six months.

  "Slap"

  The cauldron lid that was suspended in mid-air finally fell to the ground, and Chu Yi could finally catch his breath. For now, everything seemed perfect.

  However, this is only the beginning in the process of refining the elixir. The truly difficult part is yet to come, and what he is currently refining, the "Taiyin Increaser of Life Elixir", is a rare spiritual elixir that can increase the lifespan of cultivators, and its difficulty of refinement is much higher than that of ordinary third-grade spiritual elixirs.

  In the blink of an eye, nine days passed, during which time Chu Yi did not sleep or rest, guarding the dan furnace, in order to maintain the continuous burning of "Ji Mi Jin Yan", just the high-grade spiritual stones used by Chu Yi as a supplement to his spiritual power had already exceeded two hundred, if converted into medium-grade spiritual stones, it would be a staggering number of 20,000.

  A fragrance of pure cinnabar wafted through the room, and Chu Yī's expression changed suddenly as if he had sensed something. The output of his spiritual energy increased tenfold in an instant.

  Boom

  Under the alchemy furnace, that one cluster of golden flames was wildly stirred by Chu Yiyu's frantic urging of the Valley Spirit's Original Energy, and suddenly violently surged upwards, actually overturning the large alchemy furnace into it.

  Chu Yi's face was solemn and serious, his fingers moved swiftly and decisively as he grasped the handle, exerting a great deal of effort to lift up the massive dan furnace that weighed over a thousand catties.

  Under the fierce flames, the dan furnace slowly rotated, after nine days of uninterrupted refining, the spiritual material inside the furnace had been burned into a liquid, and it was necessary to use this "turning dan" method to make it fully merge, so that the medicinal properties could be brought out to the maximum.

  However, this "transferring dan" method is not something that anyone can do. If one's cultivation strength is insufficient, how can they possibly lift a cauldron in mid-air? Even if they could lift it, to slowly rotate it and evenly distribute the fire for two hours continuously is not something that an ordinary cultivator can accomplish.

  Even though Chu Yi had a cultivation base of the ninth realm, this kind of exertion was still extremely costly. From the sweat dripping from his forehead and his urgent gasps for breath, it wasn't hard to see that he was supporting himself with great difficulty.

  Relying solely on spiritual stones to replenish, it was already impossible to restore the divine yuan force that Chu Yi had consumed. Fortunately, he had made preparations earlier and swallowed the "Yuan Yuan Dan" that he had been holding in his mouth, barely managing to stabilize himself.

  Two hours, neither long nor short, until the moment the dan furnace fell to the ground, Chu Yi plopped down on the ground with a thud, his face full of exhaustion. "Refining elixirs is really not an easy job!"

  Straining his spirit and guarding his dan Tian, it wasn't until the next day that Chu Yi gradually recovered.

  Thirty-six days later, the fragrance in Dan's house became even more intense, its effect was comparable to that of the first-grade spiritual elixir "Mind-awakening Elixir", and Chu Yu finally cut off the transmission of his divine yuan energy, revealing a hint of expectation.

  It's time to light up the stove!