Chapter 15: The First Alchemy Practice

  Yang Ze then refined two furnaces of Xiao Pei Yuan Dan and three furnaces of Ti Qi Dan. The Xiao Pei Yuan Dan turned out okay, with five pellets one time and six pellets another time, but unfortunately, no medium-grade pellets were produced. The Ti Qi Dan each time produced more than six pellets, also without producing any medium-grade pellets, however Yang Ze was already relatively satisfied, it seemed that medium-grade pellets weren't so easy to refine after all.

  After the refining was completed, Yang Ze turned around and left, but handed over the task of sweeping the dan furnace to Lin Feng. Lin Feng was delighted and busied himself with a flourish. From this moment on, Lin Feng could truly be considered a qualified Dan Tong. At the same time, it also meant that from now on, every time Yang Ze refined the dan, he would have the opportunity to observe in person, so he was extremely happy about sweeping the dan furnace and dan room.

  Yang Jiaxiu's four-layered true fire comes from Yang Ze's alchemy, so Yang Ze is extremely hardworking, almost every two or three days he will refine several furnaces, sometimes even continuously refining for four or five days. Of course, such a large amount of medicine is impossible to collect by himself, among which there are other disciples who collect and exchange for dan, but more are bought by Yang Ze in the market.

  So frequently refining the elixir, Yang Ze was indeed exhausted to death, but Lin Feng was overjoyed. Through observation and Yang Ze's explanations, Lin Feng's knowledge of refining the elixir grew rapidly. In less than three months, Lin Feng began preparing his own materials for refining the elixir.

  After another refining of the elixir, Yang Ze did not leave immediately. Instead, he stood up and made way for Lin Feng, who sat down in front of the furnace with a mixture of anxiety and excitement.

  Yes, Lin Feng came today not only to observe and learn from Yang Zhan's alchemy, but also to try his hand at refining a furnace himself. Of course, it was just a Qi Gathering Pill for now. Lin Feng didn't have the experience or many spirit stones or spiritual herbs to practice with, so the simplest and cheapest Qi Gathering Pill was a good choice.

  Although Lin Feng's spiritual sense was relatively weak due to his cultivation, he was still quite confident in the experience he had gained from observing for several months under the coordination of the fire and wood double spirit roots. He thought he understood alchemy fairly well, especially when it came to refining Qi-gathering pills. Having already studied the methods for refining Qi-gathering pills in the Alchemy Guide, after personally experiencing it, he felt even more assured that it was a sure thing.

  Sitting in front of the dan furnace, Lin Feng carefully placed the five kinds of spiritual medicine that he had finally gathered around him. He took a deep breath, sat quietly, and calmed his mind before casting the spell to increase the earth fire by about one-third, starting the first step of warming up the furnace.

  Yang Zeben was calmly sitting on the side, seeing Lin Feng doing the warming furnace in a proper manner, and couldn't help but approve in his heart. To know that the Dan furnace had just been refining the Qi-raising Dan, which didn't need this step of warming at all, and warming was actually the simplest step, beginners often neglected it easily.

  However, the old master of alchemy was very clear that alchemy did not start from throwing in spiritual medicine, but from the warm furnace, it had already entered the process of alchemy. The reason is simple, just like stir-frying, some dishes need to be cooked quickly, and after a few stirs, they are done, which requires the pot to have enough heat, otherwise, the dish will cool down as soon as it's put in, and there's no point in continuing to stir-fry, you might as well just boil it. While other dishes don't need such high temperatures at first, they need to be slowly heated up, so the fire doesn't need to be that big either.

  The alchemy furnace is based on this reason, of course it's much more complicated than stir-frying, and the temperature control is extremely strict. For example, what temperature should a certain pill be at before adding medicine, how much will it change after adding a certain herb, whether to raise or lower the temperature, how high to raise it, how low to lower it, etc., all these complex changes rely on experience and intuition to judge, but the required precision is astonishing, and it's also one of the most difficult points in alchemy.

  Yang Zehan approved of Lin Feng's actions because Lin Feng definitely knew that the warm-up was no longer needed, but he still wanted to start from scratch again in order to keep the dan furnace at its most ideal temperature. This shows that he is extremely meticulous and serious about every aspect of alchemy, which is a good habit that an excellent alchemist must possess.

  With a flourish, he struck out the seal, controlling the size of the earth fire. Since the dan furnace was already hot, it didn't need to be warmed for too long. In less than five breaths' time, Yang Ze said, "The temperature is just right."

  Lin Feng understood as soon as he heard, the formula was released, and the alchemy furnace automatically opened. His right hand had already thrown the Golden Paralysis Flower and the Earthly Arrival Root into the furnace, and then closed the alchemy furnace. The entire action was a bit rushed, but fortunately, there were no mistakes.

  After all, it was the first time to refine the elixir, and saying that he wasn't nervous would be a lie. After closing the cauldron, Lin Feng also let out a big sigh of relief, then controlled the earth fire to slightly increase the firepower, starting to simmer the medicinal liquid.

  While sensing the changes in the dan furnace temperature and the wood spirit energy, one must also control the size of the earth fire, advancing and retreating, which is the basic technique for controlling the fire. A skilled person will be calm and composed, with a sense of ease, while an unskilled person will be busy and flustered, which is quite normal. The simple process of simmering, yet Lin Feng was sweating profusely, unlike Yang Ze's earlier dan refining, where he was as calm as a gentle breeze on a spring day.

  Yang Ze sat beside him, watching Lin Feng busy with a big sweat on his head, but didn't say a word. This process of refining the elixir liquid is most common in alchemy, mainly controlling the temperature, experience is especially important, talking too much is useless, and needs Lin Feng to feel it himself.

  After a while, Lin Feng, who was busy and dizzy, felt that the temperature in the dan furnace was a bit high, and just as he was about to lower it, Yang Ze suddenly said: "The dan liquid is almost dry!"

  "What, the elixir is almost dry, is it time to add the wind and yang fruits?" In a flurry of activity, Lin Feng busied himself controlling the fire, but forgot to pay attention to the changes in the wooden spirit energy in the alchemy furnace. Only when he took a closer look did he realize with a start that the wooden spirit energy had become extremely thin, indicating that the Golden Lotus and Earthly Root had fully merged.

  "Hum!" After hastily opening the dan furnace with a spell, Lin Feng pinched the Wind Sun Fruit into pieces and tossed them into the dan furnace. The half-liquidized fruit kernel of the Wind Sun Fruit was completely vaporized by the furnace temperature in an instant, rising like a mushroom cloud, colliding with the original dan liquid in the furnace, instantly becoming a misty and hazy scene, with smoke swirling around.

  "Lingluo Grass Liquid!" Yang Ze's voice rang out again.

  Lin Feng knew that using the Lingluo grass liquid was to fix the spiritual energy in the Dan liquid, mainly not to let the medicinal properties of the Fengyang fruit rise and escape. The efficacy of the Tiqi Dan depends on how much of the medicinal properties of the main herb Fengyang fruit can be retained, so without any hesitation, at the same time Yang Ze's voice sounded, he had already poured the Lingluo grass liquid into the dan furnace.

  "Bang!" After closing the dan furnace again, Lin Feng gradually reduced the earth fire. Now that all the medicine had been added, the Qi Gathering Pill had entered the fetal pill stage. He only needed to pay attention to not letting the dan liquid dry too quickly and maintain a slow pace of forming the pill.

  Lin Feng's heart didn't have a single shred of confidence that he could successfully refine the dan, earlier except for the warm-up stage which was somewhat acceptable, other stages were not ideal and had a feeling of being flustered, if Yang Ze hadn't reminded him in time, this furnace dan would probably have been burnt to ashes.

  Shaking his head to throw away the extra thoughts in his mind, Lin calmed down again. No matter what, he had already entered the Yuan Dan stage. Whether or not he could refine the dan would depend on this final step. Everything else was already in the past, and thinking about it too much would be useless.

  The elixir churns and rotates in the crucible, slowly becoming drier and drier until it is suddenly flung into small pellets the size of a thumb, which shrink at a visible rate and solidify.

  "Receive the elixir!" Yang Ze shouted loudly, he had been paying attention to the situation of the alchemy furnace.

  Lin Feng heard the sound inside the furnace and felt that the elixir in the alchemy furnace was still a bit moist. At this time, collecting the elixir was a bit too early. He had wanted to incubate it for a while longer, but due to his trust in Yang Ze, he immediately chanted the incantation and opened the furnace to collect the elixir.

  "Puff puff puff......!" A string of elixirs flew into the jade bottle, until the last one entered, Lin Feng continued to cast his spell, closing the furnace and sealing the fire, his movements smooth and natural.

  But when he turned to look at the elixir he had refined, Lin Feng was speechless. The Qi-gathering pill in the jade bottle didn't have a hint of spiritual energy, it was black, white, yellow, green, and some colors that couldn't be distinguished, a mess of five colors, with no spiritual energy at all, except for the occasional whiff of grassy scent from the raw materials, everything else was just a burnt smell.

  "Bring it here and let me see." Yang Ze stretched out his hand to take the jade bottle, but Lin Feng suddenly withdrew his hand and said: "Master Uncle doesn't need to look, I failed, all of them are waste elixirs!"

  "Haha, I knew it was all fake pills from the start. I knew this furnace would produce fake pills even before you started refining them. It's strange that you think you can refine real pills on your first try. I'm just taking a look at your pills to see where you went wrong."

  "What? Master Yang, you...you knew all along that I would definitely produce a waste pellet?" Lin Feng was instantly shocked, originally thinking that he had prepared thoroughly and observed many times, already having enough confidence to produce the pellet, but never thought that in Yang Ze's eyes, he had already been destined to fail in producing the true pellet.

  Although severely disappointed, Lin Feng still handed the elixir over to Yang Ze. Yang Ze took the jade bottle and casually said: "To be honest, I already knew you were going to fail, but what I didn't expect was that you actually managed to refine a waste elixir, which is already a pretty good achievement."

  What, refining waste pellets is a good achievement, but isn't this too discouraging? "Master uncle, I know my talent is poor, but you don't have to be so harsh on me!" As the two became more familiar with each other, Lin Feng sometimes dared to protest slightly against his master's unfairness.

  "Hit you? I'm genuinely praising you, do you think anyone can succeed in refining a pill on their first try? If it were up to you, then when I was an apprentice and my first attempt at refining a pill ended in failure, blowing up the furnace, would I be slapping myself in the face?" Yang Ze said nonchalantly, not feeling embarrassed about his own failure in refining a pill for the first time, while gazing at the elixir in the jade bottle.

  "Really? Then I can rest assured, this means I still have the talent for alchemy, right, Master?" Lin Feng's face lit up with joy upon hearing this, and his depressed mood improved a lot.

  "Don't be too happy yet, you see these pellets, they are not uniform in size. The eight pellets of medicine, you refined six, which means that the control of the pellet furnace is uneven. Looking at the color, yellow is Jin Jie Hua and Di Lai Gen, indicating that the fire was not enough during the decoction and was not even. Green is Ling Lu Cao, it was not divided evenly when entering the furnace and did not spread out enough, so they were stuck together. As for black, I won't mention it, using Ling Lu Cao liquid to suppress Feng Yang Guo's ascension, it was a bit slow, resulting in Feng Yang Guo being burned by the hot pellet furnace. Overall, except for the initial warming of the furnace which is passable, every other step has some problems."

  Lin Feng, who had just regained a bit of confidence, was suddenly deflated by Yang Ze's words. Thinking back to when he was brewing the Dan liquid and his hands were busy controlling the fire, causing him to neglect the solidification of the Dan liquid and leading to a series of mistakes, it really was as Yang Ze said - he was full of loopholes!

  Yang Ze took a look at Lin Feng's disheartened appearance and couldn't bear to continue criticizing him. He changed his tone and said, "Don't be discouraged either. These problems are all due to lack of practice. You've already grasped the method for refining the Qi Gathering Pill, the key is to keep practicing. If you refine a few more furnaces, you might just succeed in refining a true pill."

  It was supposed to be encouraging words, but Lin Feng couldn't get excited, joking that after refining a few more furnaces, where would there be so many spiritual medicines? He himself had spent seven or eight days collecting this one portion of spiritual medicine. Thinking of this, Lin Feng suddenly looked at Yang Ze's bulging storage bag and smiled obsequiously at Yang Ze: "Master Uncle, you..."

  "Stop!" Yang Ze knew what Lin Feng was about to say and immediately interrupted him, saying: "This is public property, don't even mention you, I wouldn't dare use it arbitrarily. If you want to learn alchemy, go pick herbs yourself or bring spirit stones to buy them. I have something else to do, I'll leave first, you clean up the dan room..." After finishing speaking, he didn't wait for Lin Feng's response and turned around to run out of the dan room.

  "Stingy ghost!" Lin Feng fiercely glared at Yang Ze's back, but was also helpless. Now he already knew that the Yang family in the cultivation world was just a very small clan, with no spiritual mines or veins, and no medicine gardens or beast gardens. Four-tenths of their cultivation resources came from Yang Ze messing around with low-grade elixirs, indeed there was nothing extra to spare for himself to practice with. It seemed that if he wanted to learn alchemy, he could only rely on himself.