Chapter 22: Frustration

  One night passed, and the next day, after morning classes were over, Lin Feng found that Yang Ze had already left. Having received Yang Ze's instructions earlier, he didn't think much of it and simply took the materials for five batches of Qi Cultivation Pills into the pill room on his own.

  Sitting in front of the dan furnace again, Lin Feng closed his eyes and meditated, without any movement for a long time. He was thinking about a problem. Since he successfully refined the first batch of Tiqi Dan three years ago, Lin Feng's alchemy skills had become stable after a period of instability, and his refining skills had become very proficient. However, in the nearly three years since then, the true dan rate of the elixirs he refined remained at around three layers, without any significant improvement, which made Lin Feng feel quite depressed, but also helpless.

  Just as Yang Ze said, a true elixir rate of over 30% is a rare occurrence. If you can achieve it, you are a master alchemist; if not, you're just one of the many ordinary people. This can be seen from the cost and selling price of Qi-gathering Elixir. The cost of one furnace of Qi-gathering Elixir is twenty-three low-grade spirit stones. Even with bulk purchases, the price won't drop much, after all, they are still low-grade elixirs. One furnace of Qi-gathering Elixir, calculated at a true elixir rate of 30%, would yield about two to three elixirs. At the price Yang Ze sells them to the market for seven spirit stones each, he would be losing money. Even if sold at the market's single-sale price of eight spirit stones per elixir, it would only barely break even, with no profit to be made.

  If the true elixir rate is increased to 40%, then whether it's a seven-spirit stone or an eight-spirit stone, you can guarantee that you'll only make money and not lose any. In other words, as long as the true elixir rate can be guaranteed above 40%, the alchemist will be able to steadily earn money without losing any. Only when an alchemist reaches this level can they be said to have truly succeeded, and all their cultivation expenses and alchemy materials can be earned through alchemy, no longer needing to risk their lives in the deep mountains and forests searching for spiritual herbs just for a few spirit stones or first-grade elixirs. It's clear that a true elixir rate above 40% is extremely important for alchemy apprentices.

  Although there are many benefits, it's not easy to break through. With the conditions that Lin Feng and Huo Mo have had for three years, they still haven't achieved their goal. This can be seen from this. Therefore, Lin Feng has been sitting in front of the alchemy furnace with his eyes closed, thinking deeply. Simply refining pills doesn't greatly improve his current pill-refining skills; what he needs is a new way of thinking about methods and approaches.

  Lin Feng now wants to break through the direction that has been encountered in the past few years of alchemy, which is the difference between the spiritual medicine's own wood attribute and the wood attribute spiritual energy contained within it, as well as the difference between the external alchemy fire and the fire spiritual energy contained within the spiritual medicine. If this distinction is considered with factors such as the five elements generating and overcoming each other, it would be very complicated, so Lin Feng temporarily does not plan to consider that much. This time, he only plans to consider the simple problem of spiritual energy changes during alchemy.

  In the past when refining elixirs, Lin Feng had always relied on his weak spiritual sense to separate different wood attributes and fire attributes, completely disregarding the changes in spiritual energy. He only focused on the changes in the earth fire and the wood attribute of the spiritual medicine itself during the refinement process. Now he increasingly feels that this is incorrect, as it actually only considers whether the elixir refinement process is correct or not, while forgetting that the essence of refining elixirs is to integrate the medicinal properties of the spiritual medicine with the spiritual energy, in order to achieve the true efficacy of the spiritual elixir.

  Thinking of this, Lin Feng realized that he had been putting the cart before the horse. In the early stages of learning to refine elixirs, the correct refining process was indeed crucial in guaranteeing the production of true elixirs, but what truly improved the success rate and quality of the elixir was how much medicinal properties and spiritual energy were left behind, a point that could be seen from the fact that mid-grade elixirs contained far more spiritual energy than low-grade elixirs.

  With this idea, Lin Feng suddenly felt as if he had been enlightened. Others might find it difficult to observe the other spiritual energies within the spiritual medicine due to their single or double spiritual roots, but he could clearly sense all the changes in the spiritual energies during the refining process. As long as he controlled these changes well, he would definitely be able to make the spiritual energy in the spiritual pill even more abundant, wouldn't that greatly improve the quality of the spiritual pill?

  Great, Lin Feng's eyes suddenly opened wide, the corners of his mouth slightly raised, unable to conceal the excitement in his heart, finally having a direction for improvement.

  "Hum!" A spell was cast, and the sealing array of earth fire flashed before bursting out with a loud rumble, enveloping nearly half of the dan furnace and starting to warm it up.

  "Puff, puff!" Not long after, the warm furnace ended, Lin Feng threw Di Guigen and Jinyue flower into the Dan furnace to start decocting. However, his divine sense was paying attention to the changes in the earth spirit energy of the two spiritual medicines. As for the changes in the dan liquid, he wasn't very concerned, as Lin Feng had already practiced the decoction process to the point where it was like second nature, and he could completely control it through experience.

  Lin Feng's current spiritual awareness is still very low, and with the cauldron in between, he can only feel two faintly discernible earth spirit energies constantly merging and dispersing. The merged part is the portion of the two spirit energies absorbed by the elixir liquid, while the dispersed spirit energy rises up, Lin Feng knows that this part is the spirit energy that must be lost during the refining process, and for now, there's no good way to preserve it.

  The two strands of spiritual energy in the Dan liquid soon merged into a ball, but due to the high temperature of the Dan furnace, the merged spiritual energy was still dissipating. Lin Feng's original intention for refining the elixir this time was to explore new ideas, with the main goal being to preserve as much spiritual energy as possible in the elixir. Although he felt that the current Dan liquid was a bit thin, he decisively ended the brewing process and quickly added the Fengyang fruit and Lingluo grass.

  "Hum!" As soon as the Fengyang fruit liquid entered the Dan furnace, it rose rapidly. Lin Feng, who was particularly paying attention to the changes in the water attribute spiritual energy, immediately discovered that nearly half of the water spiritual energy had dissipated with the fruit liquid. After the Lingluo grass entered the furnace, about 30% of the wood spiritual energy also dissipated.

  Pregnant Dan, the process of collecting Dan has not changed much, except that the water spirit of Fengyang fruit and the wood spirit of Lingluo grass have been fully absorbed when the Dan liquid is still a bit thin. To ensure sufficient spiritual energy, Lin Feng still collected the Dan decisively, but as a result, eight Dan were half yellow and half green, with very little milky white color, all of which were unformed waste Dan, clearly this refining Dan ended in failure.

  Lin Feng, who had mentally prepared himself, wasn't too disappointed. He took out a waste pellet and sniffed it, then lightly nibbled on it with his mouth to savor the taste. Suddenly, a smile appeared on his face. Although the pellets were waste products because their medicinal properties hadn't fully merged, the spiritual energy within this waste pellet was surprisingly rich, far surpassing any low-grade pellets Lin Feng had taken before. If not for the fact that the medicinal properties hadn't been fully refined, which would cause great harm to his meridians after consumption, Lin Feng almost wanted to try taking one.

  But it doesn't matter, with Lin Feng's current level of skill, he no longer cares about the materials for one or two furnaces. After cleaning the furnace, he started refining again. This time, to solve the problem of the dan liquid being too thin and the spiritual energy not fully merging, Lin Feng specially increased the fire power by threefold. The result was much better, and he successfully refined three low-grade dan, with a color that was almost as good as mid-grade dan. This made Lin Feng very excited, proving that his approach was correct.

  It was just that the Fengyang fruit, which had the greatest impact on the efficacy of the Tiqi pill, evaporated instantly in the high-temperature pill furnace, resulting in a huge loss of spiritual energy and medicinal liquid. If this problem couldn't be solved, there would be no way to fundamentally improve the true pill rate and the quality of the elixir. How to retain more Fengyang fruit's medicinal liquid and water spiritual energy had become Lin Feng's biggest puzzle at the moment.

  The scene of the elixir rolling in the alchemy furnace and the steam rising from the Wind Sun Fruit after entering the alchemy furnace kept flashing back and forth in Lin Feng's mind. Suddenly, an elixir appeared floating in mid-air, and the mist rising from the Wind Sun Fruit crashed into it and was quickly absorbed into the elixir.

  If the Dan liquid can really float in mid-air in the Dan furnace, then Fengyang fruit will rise from below and must have more contact with the Dan liquid. Can't the Dan liquid absorb the medicinal power and spiritual energy of Fengyang fruit better? Furthermore, if you can unfold the Dan liquid, the contact area is larger, isn't it possible to absorb more of Fengyang fruit's medicinal power and spiritual energy?

  Lin Feng thought of a way, but he was depressed. Because although there were many spell arrays on the alchemy furnace that could control its rotation, shaking, and even rolling, they couldn't make the elixir liquid inside fly out. Of course, cultivators could also use their divine sense to control objects remotely, but divine sense also had its strengths and weaknesses. At this distance, it would probably take a cultivator at the 8th or 9th level of Qi Refining to control the elixir liquid inside the furnace.

  Lin Feng is currently only at the third layer of Qi Refining, and his divine sense can barely reach through the alchemy furnace to feel the changes in the elixir. He wants to control it but still has a long way to go. This is also why Lin Feng feels frustrated, he just found a method, but because of his low cultivation level, he had to give up. From this, we can see that in the Cultivation Realm, whether refining pills or equipment, many auxiliary professions are closely related to the height of one's cultivation. Without high cultivation, wanting to refine high-grade items is simply a pipe dream.