Chapter 18: Heaven's Gift of a Rare Treasure

  Overjoyed, Lin Feng immediately took a pill of his own self-refined Qi-boosting Dan in the alchemy room. As soon as the medicine entered his stomach, Lin Feng manipulated the air-guiding technique, and suddenly the surging spiritual energy began to flow rapidly through his meridians. The speed was not comparable to the low-grade Qi-boosting Dan released by the Yang family, but it was more than twice as fast as his usual cultivation speed, which finally confirmed for Lin Feng that he had indeed refined a Qi-boosting Dan.

  With a happy heart, Lin Feng didn't waste this barely passable inferior-grade elixir. After nine cycles of circulation, he absorbed all the surging spiritual energy released by the elixir at the beginning, and only then did Lin Feng start refining his third furnace of elixirs.

  With the previous success, Lin Feng continued to refine three more batches of Dan, and under constantly changing minor details, these three batches of Dan respectively produced one and two Qi Dans, among which one batch was not well controlled, all of which were waste Dan. Although there were some mistakes, overall things were developing in a good direction. Especially the last time, not only did it produce two Ling Dans, but its quality could also be compared to the lower-grade Dans distributed by the Yang family.

  Although there are still many problems, and even more than before, Lin Feng knows that the path he is taking is correct. What he needs to do in the future is to practice more, become more skilled, and make his alchemy more refined, which will be his main direction for refining elixirs from now on.

  In the blink of an eye, another three years had passed. With less than half a year to go before taking part in the entrance test for Qingyang Gate, the Yang family had already begun making preparations for the test. This time, there were only seven people participating in the Qingyang Gate test. Apart from the five who entered with Lin Feng, the other two were from the Early Progression families. The others had lost their eligibility to participate due to being too old.

  Everyone is actively practicing, making a final sprint, hoping to go up another level and increase their chances of being selected. Among them, the most promising one is naturally Zhao Chun, this genius, in less than five years, he has already reached the seventh layer of Qi training, which can be considered a relatively high-level expert. It's said that recently he has increased his practice intensity, and Yang's family head is also carefully instructing him, maybe during the selection process, he will have hope to enter the eighth layer.

  As for the others, except for Wu Lin's astonishing achievement of reaching the fifth layer of Qi Refining, which made Yang's family's several Foundation Building stage masters look at him with admiration, those two who entered the family early and had been practicing for nearly five years also reached the sixth layer of Qi Refining. Zhou Lan and Wang Lei were only at the fourth layer of Qi Refining, but these four could only be considered average, and their chances of entering Qingyang Gate were not great.

  Even so, the four of them were actively preparing to participate in the Qingyang Gate's selection under the family's urging. As the head of the household said, cultivating the truth is also very particular about fate. If fate permits, it's possible that one or two people among them will be favored by some executive or elder of the Qingyang Gate.

  Based on this view, Lin Feng, who is suitable in age, has barely reached the third layer of Qi refining in the past five years, and his cultivation is pitiful. However, he was repeatedly reminded by Yang Ze to prepare for the election. But his main direction is not to improve his cultivation, but to refine alchemy.

  Indeed, in terms of cultivation, Lin Feng's three-layered cultivation foundation had no chance at all. However, considering his level of alchemy, it seemed like there was a glimmer of hope after all. Because, relying on more than four years of gathering herbs and refining pills, repeatedly, Lin Feng not only successfully refined the Qi Gathering Pill but also stabilized the true pill ratio at three layers, becoming a genuine alchemy apprentice.

  With this alchemy skill in hand, Lin Feng's chances of being taken in by the Qingyang Gate have greatly increased. Therefore, Yang Ze urged Lin Feng to temporarily reduce his cultivation and focus more on alchemy. Of course, the Yang family also provided him with more resources, and for the last six months, they added ten pieces of spiritual stone as a subsidy each month.

  Lin Feng naturally knew that whether or not he could enter Qingyang Gate was crucial to his future prospects in cultivation, and he also knew that the only thing that might impress Qingyang Gate was his alchemy skills, so he worked very hard.

  However, improving the level of alchemy is not something that can be done overnight. Without a large amount of spiritual medicine to support it and without repeated practice and experience, improvement is just a dream. Although the Yang family increased the supply of spiritual stones, Lin Feng himself also invested most of his savings in alchemy over the years, but the effect was not obvious.

  When there were less than thirty spiritual stones left, Lin Feng finally didn't dare to smash any more spiritual stones into it. Because he found that his success rate of continuous furnaces had not only failed to increase, but also showed a downward trend. Was it because he was too impatient and thus affected his own performance? Looking at the remaining spiritual stones and elixirs, Lin Feng began to reflect.

  No, this can't go on like this. Not only will the spiritual stones be used up, but even the confidence in alchemy will disappear. For now, I can only temporarily stop alchemy. But what should I do now? Cultivation seems impossible for me to calm down at the moment, after all, the selection of Qingyang Gate is imminent, and Lin Feng's pressure is also very great.

  After some thought, he decided to go into the mountains again to gather herbs. Firstly, it would help him clear his mind and think through the difficulties of refining elixirs, secondly, it would also replenish his materials, who knows, with good luck, he might even find some valuable spiritual medicine, and it would also alleviate the embarrassment of his empty wallet. Having made up his mind, Lin Feng told Yang Ze and then headed into the mountains.

  For the past few years, Lin Feng had been searching for spiritual medicine in these mountains and his experience was quite rich. He took the same old route as before, but once he entered the mountain forest, he became very serious and didn't let any place pass by without checking it thoroughly. According to his experience, those easily overlooked places might just have a lovely spiritual medicine hidden within. The dense forest of green trees, under the roots of big trees, beside the steep cliffs, and in the piles of green grass - these were all the kinds of places where spiritual medicines liked to hide and were especially easy to overlook.

  Sometimes Lin Feng couldn't help but wonder, why these spiritual herbs were called spiritual herbs, did they really have spirituality? Otherwise, why would they all be so good at hiding themselves? Or was it because the spiritual herbs in plain sight had already been collected, leaving only these hidden ones behind?

  This problem is unknown, but after having the experience of unintentionally discovering spiritual medicine in places that have been repeatedly searched, Lin Feng knows that his eyesight is limited. Even if he becomes a cultivator now and his eyesight is much stronger than ordinary people, it will still be difficult to pick up spiritual medicine if he just walks by casually.

  So Lin Feng walked very slowly all the way, until noon, and after entering the mountain, he had only walked about five miles. Not a single spiritual medicine was picked, but Lin Feng didn't mind, he randomly found a high point on the mountain slope, ate something, and then lay down, thinking about the difficulties of alchemy while resting with his eyes closed. At this time, he hadn't gone deep into the mountain, so he wasn't afraid of ferocious beasts suddenly rushing out.

  In a daze, suddenly, Lin Feng felt a bright light in front of his eyes, and he instantly woke up. He raised his head to look, and there was a round ball about the size of the sun hanging in front of him. Two suns! Was I still dizzy from sleep? Lin Feng clearly remembered that when he lay down, the sun had already passed noon, and he was lying with his back to the sun, so how did the sun get to the front?

  A sudden movement, Lin Feng turned his head to look back, and indeed, there was another Mingyang hanging behind him. He turned his head again, and the one in front of him grew larger, about three or four times bigger than the one behind him. Although Lin Feng was confused by this strange phenomenon, he quickly realized that the one in front of him wasn't the real Mingyang.

  As expected, in the instant when Lin Feng was certain that this wasn't the real Ming Yang, the light ball suddenly shone brightly and then disappeared, seemingly exhausting all its energy. It then turned into a tiny white dot, which would have been difficult to discover if not for Lin Feng's constant attention.

  Staring at the small white dot, Lin Feng suddenly became wide awake, because the small white dot in the sky was shooting towards him at an astonishing speed, and it seemed that he was the target. Upon realizing this, Lin Feng's soul almost escaped his body, with the speed of the white dot, if he were to be hit, even if he were a Foundation Establishment stage three cultivator, he would still die here.

  In the blink of an eye, the white dot had already arrived in front of him. Lin Feng didn't know where he got the strength from, but with the white dot less than a few dozen feet away from his body, he suddenly rolled his body to the side. In that brief instant, the white dot had already reached Lin Feng's previous position, barely avoiding its impact.

  But just as he hadn't exhaled a mouthful of air, he terrifyingly discovered that the white dot had inexplicably curved in mid-air, as if it was being pulled by an invisible force, and shot towards him again. This time Lin Feng couldn't dodge again, before he could react, the white dot flashed into his brow, and all he could react to was seeing clearly that the white dot was a palm-sized jade piece the size of a baby's hand.

  Lin Feng's body suddenly broke out in a cold sweat, thinking he was done for. He instinctively reached up to touch his forehead, but was shocked to find that not only was there no bullet hole as he had imagined, but there wasn't even a single drop of blood.

  What's going on? Lin Feng was startled and quickly released his spiritual sense to inspect his body, soon discovering that the foreign entity was hovering above the vortex of Qi in his Dantian. On the white jade-like substance, circles of colorful light were constantly spreading out from the center, looking very beautiful, peaceful, and harmless.

  But Lin Feng's face turned deathly pale as he looked at the air vortex below, because he discovered that this jade plate was absorbing his own spiritual energy vortex, which he had cultivated with great difficulty.