Chapter 23: The Five Elements Enter the Minute

  Sitting in front of the Dan furnace for half a day, Lin Feng couldn't help but start to feel anxious and his thoughts began to wander. Suddenly, an idea flashed through his mind - since the precious jade within him could see spiritual herbs and minerals within eighty zhang, having an effect similar to expanding his field of vision, then couldn't he use it to expand his divine sense as well?

  This thought flashed through his mind, and Lin Feng was also treating a dead horse as if it were alive. He closed his eyes and sank his consciousness into the jade, and suddenly, everything in the dan room was completely displayed in his mind, just like when he opened his eyes.

  No, there is still a difference. What is this? The alchemy furnace, unexpectedly... can actually see inside it. Lin Feng couldn't believe that he had really released his divine sense outside of his body and used it to "see" the situation inside. To know that with Lin Feng's current cultivation at the third layer of Qi Refining, his divine sense could only "see" the situation within three meters of his body, and for things inside the alchemy furnace, he could only rely on feeling to perceive, like perceiving changes in temperature through touch. But now, he could see it clearly, which means that the strength of his divine sense should be at least at the level of an ordinary Qi Refining cultivator at the eighth layer.

  Could it be that Bao Yu really has the ability to expand his spiritual consciousness? Lin Feng was extremely shocked, but the facts were right in front of him, forcing him to believe. What kind of heavenly material and treasure was this jade, that it was so mysterious and powerful? Lin Feng didn't know, but he was extremely excited, because he believed that this must be an invaluable treasure.

  It took Lin Feng a long time to calm down from the emotional fluctuations brought about by Bao Yu. Now that he had this divine sense amplifier, Lin Feng decided to try again his new method of refining Dan, focusing only on the changes in spiritual energy, and trying to preserve the steps of the Wind Yang Fruit's spiritual energy.

  The refining process went smoothly, and soon the Fengyang fruit was about to be put into the alchemy furnace. Linfeng tried using his spiritual sense to lift and flatten the elixir liquid, but it felt a bit strenuous. Because his spiritual sense wasn't strong enough, even lifting the elixir liquid from across the alchemy furnace was already extremely slow, let alone trying to flatten it further.

  What to do? As the elixir slowly dried up, Lin Feng had no choice but to take a risk and try again, otherwise all the materials would be wasted. His divine sense slowly lifted the elixir upwards until it reached the top of the furnace, whereupon Lin Feng quickly opened the furnace lid and threw in the Wind Sun Fruit. In that instant, his divine sense released the elixir, which violently collided with the rapidly rising Wind Sun Fruit liquid, only to be enveloped by the newly added Spirit Dew Grass liquid... Sealing the furnace, nurturing the elixir.

  Lin Feng began to refine the Dan with a nervous heart, and just now the whole process was not bad. Although the water spiritual energy of Fēng Yáng Guǒ did not absorb to the maximum extent due to the reason that the elixir liquid could not be unfolded, it absorbed about four layers more than before. As for the result, it depends on the situation after the Dan is out.

  "Puff...!" A burst of elixir shot out of the crucible and fell into the jade bottle, making a beautiful sound. Lin Feng looked at the successive falling of the Qi-booster pills into the bottle, and he couldn't help but laugh with joy. Without needing to look further, more than half of the eight pills had already turned milky white, which fully demonstrated that his method of improving the success rate of alchemy by controlling spiritual energy had succeeded.

  Excitedly pouring the Dan medicine into his hand, Lin Feng was somewhat stunned. Among the eight Dans, except for two obvious grey-black Dans that were waste products, there were actually six true Dans. Five of them showed a clear milky white color with some impurities, which was the characteristic of lower-grade Dans. However, the small amount of impurities made them high-quality products even among lower-grade Dans.

  And the most eye-catching one is that among them, there is a dan that has no impurities at all, and its whole body is milky white. Although it doesn't have the bright light of a medium-grade dan, based on the difference between medium-grade dan and low-grade dan, this dan with no impurities can indeed be considered as a medium-grade dan.

  I actually refined a medium-grade Qi-tonifying Pill? Lin Feng couldn't believe it, after all, even Yang Ze's master uncle had to rely on luck to refine a medium-grade pill. Yet he, a dan-refining apprentice who had only been practicing for less than five years, was able to refine a medium-grade Qi-tonifying Pill with such ease - this was something that no one would believe if told.

  He confirmed the pill again, and indeed it was a medium-grade pill. Lin Feng shook his head and muttered to himself: "Is it luck? I'm so lucky?" The appearance of the medium-grade pill made him feel too shocked, he couldn't even believe himself, and even forgot that one furnace produced six true pills, which was also an astonishing fact.

  It wasn't until quite a while later that Lin Feng came back to his senses from the shock of having successfully refined six True Dans. He then realized that this batch had produced six True Dans, whereas normally, a batch of Qi Gathering Pills would produce eight Dans. The fact that he was able to refine six True Dans meant that his success rate had already reached eighty percent, which was already on par with Yang Zhan's abilities.

  This made Lin Feng realize that he might have really found a new way to refine the elixir, and this method should be far superior to the original refining method. Otherwise, with his own level, it would not be possible to suddenly improve so much.

  Is this true? Heart movement is not as good as action, Lin Feng decided to use this method again, no need to produce middle-grade elixir, nor do you need to reach 80% of the true elixir rate, even if the true elixir rate is above 50%, that's enough to prove that his own method is better than the original method.

  No change at all, almost a complete replica of the previous furnace, refining, pregnancy, collection, and familiar actions that couldn't be more familiar. The only difference was the excitement in his heart. When the spiritual elixirs flew into the jade bottles one after another, Lin Feng became so excited that he could hardly control himself.

  Without a closer look, with his mature experience and cultivator's intuition, he had already determined that this time there were six true elixirs. Lin Feng's blood was boiling, surging, and he couldn't stop himself from getting excited, causing the hands of someone who had cultivated for nearly five years to tremble uncontrollably.

  Yes, success is hard-won, with so much bitterness, stubbornness and frustration from repeated failures! For five years, due to the slow progress of his practice, he, who was strong and proud, although not saying a word, had countless times silently screamed in his heart that he must succeed, and yet been whipped by failure time and again. But he persisted tirelessly in his practice, alchemy, never once thinking of giving up. And today, his persistence finally paid off, making significant progress in alchemy, which would also be the most solid step forward on his path to becoming a true immortal...

  After calming down, Lin Feng began to study the results of this alchemy. This time, a middle-grade pill actually appeared again, which made Lin Feng excited once more. This showed that his method was indeed much better than the original one, otherwise the quality of the pills wouldn't have improved so significantly.

  Moreover, success also proves that the thinking behind one's alchemy is correct. The fundamental goal of alchemy is to preserve the medicinal properties and spiritual energy of the elixir to the greatest extent possible, and this should be the guiding principle for future improvements. It can be imagined that if one's divine consciousness is strong enough to control the unfolding of the elixir liquid and completely absorb the water spirit of the wind yang fruit, what kind of result would it be? Would it produce even more middle-grade elixirs, or perhaps even high-grade elixirs?

  Lin Feng felt that he had thought too far ahead, but improving his cultivation and divine sense had become the top priority for him at this moment. However, cultivating was not like refining pills, where once you found the trick, you could ascend to heaven in one step. This required a step-by-step, foot-by-foot arduous cultivation, and now was not the time to be impatient.

  Lin Feng soon thought of whether this method could be applied to the refining of other elixirs, and after careful analysis, he felt that it should be feasible. Because most spiritual elixirs are refined with the ultimate goal of preserving their medicinal properties and spiritual energy, as long as the absorption of medicinal properties and spiritual energy is judged according to the special attributes displayed at different stages, the purpose of maximizing preservation can be achieved, thereby improving the quality of the spiritual elixir.

  To confirm his inference, Lin Feng immediately fired up the furnace and refined a batch of Shun Qi Dan. Shun Qi Dan was also a first-grade dan, used to treat minor deviations in qi flow that occurred during the cultivation of qi-refining stage cultivators, and its market demand was far from that of Ti Qi Dan, but it was still a commonly stocked dan among ordinary families.

  Because the elixirs are different, the materials are different, and the refining process is also very different. Lin Feng made a lot of changes to the original refining method, but the central guiding ideology behind all these changes was to follow the new Tiangong Dan's refining method, with the goal of preserving the spiritual energy and medicinal properties of the elixir to the greatest extent possible. The application of this method also requires Lin Feng to use his own five-element spiritual roots to control the five-element spiritual energy, which is also a unique feature that only he can use. Fortunately, the final result was good, and the Shunqi Dan refined out, although it did not appear in the middle grade, but its quality and true elixir rate were far higher than the original method.

  After once again proving that Lin Feng's new method was far superior to the original, Lin Feng also thought of a shortcoming of this method. That is, when using this method to refine the elixir, one must make precise control over the changes in the spiritual energy of the spiritual medicine and the elixir liquid throughout the entire process, otherwise it would be easy to appear biased.

  For example, a dan master with only one fire spirit root uses this method to refine the dan, it is difficult to control the subtle changes of the other four systems of spiritual energy, and it is easy to make mistakes, resulting in a large number of waste dans. Similarly, even if a dan master has all four systems of spirit roots, when using this method to refine the dan, he cannot grasp the spiritual energy changes of the system that he does not possess, otherwise, there will also be biases. Of course, using this method to refine the dan, a dan master with all four systems of spirit roots is far more effective than one with only one spirit root, after all, under mutual verification, he can get more effective information to make correct judgments.

  To put it bluntly, this method is actually the most suitable for Lin Feng, who has a complete five-element spiritual root. Only he can grasp the changes of various spiritual energies in the alchemy process and make the most perfect judgment. It's not an exaggeration to say that this is a unique alchemy method exclusive to those with a five-spiritual-root constitution.

  Lin Feng also realized this and since he invented the method, he gave it a name called Wu Xing Ru Wei Fa for convenience.

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