Chapter 8: The Difficulty of Refining the Elixir

  "Master!" Lin Feng saw Yang Ze was about to leave and hastily called out.

  "Anything else?" Yang Ze stopped and asked.

  "Your meaning is that while refining the elixir, one can also increase their cultivation?"

  "It can be said that the main purpose of alchemy is to enhance one's spiritual power, which is also known as divine consciousness in the cultivation world. The stronger one's divine consciousness, the easier it is to control one's spiritual energy during cultivation, and naturally, this has a great benefit for increasing the speed of cultivation. From this point of view, alchemy can indeed help improve the speed of cultivation."

  Yang Ze thought for a moment and said, "Actually, it's not just alchemy that has this effect. Alchemy, talisman-making, equipment-refining, beast-taming, and array-cultivation - all these auxiliary professions in the cultivation world can be helpful to one's cultivation. But what I want to emphasize is not the benefits gained from learning these professions, but rather that if you don't have exceptional innate talent in the cultivation world, then you need to learn how to utilize these auxiliary professions to improve your cultivation speed. And taking spiritual pills can be said to be the fastest and best method - there's no other way."

  In fact, even if a cultivator has great talent, in order to achieve faster and better results, they often can't do without the help of spiritual pills. However, you are different from them in that not only do you need to take spiritual pills, but also learn how to refine them, this is called refining and nourishing through taking, otherwise, with your qualifications, without a large amount of medicinal pills' assistance, how could you go further on the path of cultivation?

  "Oh, Lin Feng understood, thank you Master Uncle for pointing it out. As for the elixirs, I also know a thing or two about them. I know they can greatly increase cultivation speed and even help break through bottlenecks, but I've heard they're very precious and worth a lot of spirit stones?" Lin Feng said as he looked around at the spiritual herbs and medicines scattered everywhere outside, thinking to himself how many spiritual pills could be made from these herbs.

  "Yes, the elixir is expensive, so I asked you to learn alchemy. As long as you master it, whether selling spiritual stones or taking them yourself won't be a problem. With the help of the elixir, how can your cultivation not improve?" Yang Ze said with full confidence and a smile.

  "Oh, Master Yang Ling said I have a fire-wood attribute spiritual root, which is most suitable for learning alchemy, so now I should play to my strengths and learn alchemy first, and then improve my cultivation after mastering alchemy, right?" Lin Feng immediately understood what Yang Ze meant.

  "A child can be taught, but there's one thing you're wrong about. You have all five elements of spiritual roots, so whether it's learning to refine dan, create talismans, refine arrays or refine equipment, you'll have an unparalleled advantage that others can't match. It's just that our Yang family is slightly more skilled in refining dan, so you can only learn how to refine dan." Yang Ze was still very pleased in his heart. Lin Feng was only ten years old, but he had a high level of intelligence and had been following him for several years. In the future, there might be a day when he would surpass him.

  Although Lin Feng's learning auxiliary profession has obvious advantages, the disadvantages are also obvious. Because these professions have a close relationship with each other, whether they are high or low in cultivation, the problem of slow cultivation has come full circle and become a constraint on Lin Feng's practice of auxiliary professions. Of course, at this time, Yang Ze was trying to comfort Lin Feng, or give him a direction, so he didn't want to say anything that would discourage him. For Lin Feng, having one more path is better than bitter cultivation.

  "Thank you, Master Yang, for your guidance. I will definitely study the art of alchemy diligently." Lin Feng bowed deeply and respectfully to Yang Ze. Although Yang Ze had not agreed to take him on as a disciple, the kindness he had shown in teaching him was genuine, so he had to show his gratitude with a deep bow.

  "Slow down!" Yang Ze stretched out his hand to stop Lin Feng and said, "Don't be too excited just yet. Refining pills isn't as simple as you think it is. Do you know why I agreed to teach you pill refining techniques but didn't take you on as a disciple?"

  "Please, Master Yang, enlighten me." Lin Feng was also a bit curious, actually he rather hoped to have someone like Yang Ze as his alchemy master.

  "Because I don't dare and also don't have the ability to take on an apprentice," Yang Ze said with some disappointment.

  "Isn't Master Yang already a primary alchemist? How...?" Lin Feng had already known that alchemists were divided into Dan Tong, Alchemy Apprentice, Primary Alchemist, Intermediate Alchemist, Advanced Alchemist, and Alchemy Master. He himself was only a Dan Tong, so it was more than enough for Yang Ze to teach him, which is why he found Yang Ze's words puzzling.

  "Alas!" Yang Ze sighed before reluctantly explaining the reason.

  Originally, the alchemy Yang Ze spoke of in the Cultivation Realm is strictly called external alchemy. It is made by refining various spiritual medicines containing spiritual energy through an alchemical furnace, so it's also called spiritual elixir. Some people casually refer to it as dan medicine. Although dan medicine is very helpful for cultivators' cultivation, the spiritual medicines used to refine dan medicine are not easy to find. These spiritual medicines aren't ordinary herbs used by mortals, but rather heavenly materials and earthly treasures that have absorbed the spiritual energy of heaven and earth and grown. Their rarity isn't as extreme as phoenix feathers or unicorn horns, but they can still be described as scarce.

  Lin Feng had only just begun to realize the preciousness of elixirs, but he was still far from understanding the impact of the scarcity of resources in the cultivation world on cultivators. Cultivation was originally a defiance of heaven's will; apart from one's innate talent and cultivation techniques, the influence of heavenly materials and earthly treasures on cultivation was also extremely great. To make a simple comparison, if Lin Feng were to be provided with ten elixirs that increased his cultivation speed every month, while Zhao Chun didn't use any elixirs, then even someone like Lin Feng, who had exceptional talent, might not necessarily cultivate faster than Zhao Chun. This showed just how enormous the impact of heavenly materials and earthly treasures was on cultivators.

  Although the effect is great, there are not many things. This principle is also very simple. Since it is a heavenly material and earthly treasure, it naturally gathers the spiritual energy of heaven and earth to form. To say nothing of the small quantity, just in terms of the time it takes to form, even low-grade spiritual medicine takes two or three years to ten or more years to mature, while high-grade spiritual medicine above rare treasures takes hundreds of years at least, and thousands of years at most to nurture, truly using one lessens one. On the other hand, looking at the cultivators in the Cultivation Realm, they are like locusts, with several thousand to tens of thousands emerging every year, which is still considered few. Even if there were many heavenly materials and earthly treasures, they could not withstand the endless harvesting by countless people over such a long period of time. As time goes on, it naturally forms a situation where there are too many monks but not enough gruel.

  Speaking of which, it's worth mentioning that Tianyuan Star actually has a lot of heavenly treasures and earthly riches, especially in those deep mountains where spiritual energy is abundant. Because few people have set foot there, you could say that treasures are everywhere. However, those places aren't somewhere ordinary people can just go to, because the spiritual energy is abundant, and on Tianyuan Star, not only are there all sorts of ferocious beasts, but also countless demons that absorb the spiritual energy of heaven and earth to cultivate themselves.

  The name of the demon is a general term for various other creatures that can be cultivated in the Xiuzhen world, but are not human. Because most of them are beasts, Xiuzhen practitioners generally divide them into one to nine levels according to their strength, among which the first to sixth level demons correspond to the power of human Xiuzhen practitioners roughly equivalent to the first to ninth layers of the foundation period, and the specific high and low differences are due to the different types of demons.

  However, the demon beasts of the 7th to 9th levels have their demon cores already formed into a physical entity, so they are basically equivalent to the early, middle and late stages of the human Golden Core period. This shows just how powerful these demon beasts are. Moreover, most of them reside in deep mountains where spiritual energy is abundant, so although there are many spiritual herbs there, few people dare to go and collect them, which is also one of the reasons for the scarcity of spiritual herbs.

  Another impact of the scarcity of materials is that it has led to a significant reduction in the number of practitioners of auxiliary professions such as alchemy, equipment refinement, array formation, and talisman creation in the cultivation world. The level of these professions has also declined across the board. The reason is simple: there are not enough materials for them to practice with. It costs a lot to cultivate an auxiliary profession, which is why Yang Ze didn't dare take Lin Feng as his apprentice. To put it bluntly, he was too poor, and even preparing the medicinal materials for his apprentices to practice with was difficult.

  Yang Ze was a primary alchemist, and at his level, he was already considered to be one of the top alchemists. He was quite wealthy, as primary alchemists could refine second-grade pills, which had a higher success rate than first-grade pills. As a result, they could earn more profits from refining pills.

  So, personally speaking, Yang Ze is considered wealthy. However, Yang Ze is not alone; he has a whole Yang family to support. In the Yang family, Yang Ze's cultivation level is the lowest among several foundation-building cultivators, but his status is the highest. The reason is simple: 40% of the Yang family's total income from cultivating comes from selling medicinal pellets earned by him. For the sake of the Yang family, Yang Ze has already devoted everything; he doesn't have any spare energy to cultivate a disciple.

  It can be seen that the profession of Dan Master is also a very lucrative one, and of course, the prospects are when you reach the level of primary Dan Master. As for intermediate to advanced Dan Masters, they are objects that various major sects and families want to win over, and it's hard to see them outside.

  Just like Yang Ze, a primary alchemist, if he could further advance and become an intermediate alchemist, the Yang family wouldn't have to struggle so hard to find ways to get into Qingyang Gate. Instead, Qingyang Gate would come knocking on their door to recruit him. However, this step is not that easy.

  As for the alchemy masters above, they have become legendary figures. No one has ever heard of any large family or sect having a master-level person, whether it's an alchemist, equipment refiner, or talisman maker. Of course, limited by their status and position, ordinary people not knowing about them doesn't mean they don't exist. Maybe some large families or sects are hiding these legendary figures. After all, the cultivation world is not peaceful either, so no one would take out such a precious person to show off everywhere.