After Jin Ming finished teaching, he did not stay in the Earth Fire Chamber for long. He left Zhao Sheng with six portions of fish marrow pills and then left under the pretext of having something to do.
When Zhao Sheng was the only one left in the fire chamber, a glint flashed in his eyes, and an expression of barely suppressed excitement appeared on his face.
He turned around, sat cross-legged on the futon, and began refining the fish marrow pill for the third time.
This time, he will go all out.
Half an hour later, black smoke curled from the alchemy furnace, and Zhao Sheng's eyes blazed with divine light. Two beams of blue light shot out from his eye sockets, each over three inches long, and the alchemy techniques he used created afterimages.
"Condense!"
With a low shout, three Fish Marrow Pills suddenly burst out of the furnace, flew swiftly to Zhao Sheng's front, and stopped in mid-air.
Looking at the elixir emanating a rich fragrance, Zhao Sheng narrowed his eyes slightly.
Alchemy is indeed not as simple as I imagined.
Even with his talent, Zhao Sheng underestimated the complexity of refining elixirs. The other batches of elixirs either failed to meet the standards for condensation due to insufficient fusion of medicinal properties or incomplete elixirization reactions.
"Again!"
Zhao Sheng put away the fish marrow pill and moved the silver-white pill furnace that Jin Ming had specially left behind with a wave of his hand.
The next second, the Nine Dragons Cauldron flew out, growing to more than a person's height, and landed steadily on the alchemy platform.
boom!
As the eight red toads spewed out scorching pure blue earth fire from their fire-breathing vents, the Nine Dragons Cauldron quickly became scalding hot.
As expected of a spiritual artifact-grade alchemy cauldron, Zhao Sheng wielded it with ease, making it ten times smoother than the silver-white alchemy furnace.
With the help of the Nine Dragon Cauldron, Zhao Sheng clearly felt that the medicinal herbs were refined faster, and the medicinal properties were extracted more thoroughly and in a more balanced manner during the fourth refinement of the Fish Marrow Pill.
The effects become even more pronounced when it comes to refining the medicinal properties. The bubbles on the liquid are finer and the volume shrinks faster. The temperature changes during alchemy are also easier to control than in a silver-white alchemy furnace, and the precision and accuracy are an order of magnitude higher.
This fourth alchemy attempt immediately gave Zhao Sheng a huge surprise.
This time, a total of five pills were produced, four of which were of excellent quality, and only one had a slight flaw, but it was still considered to be of good quality.
Zhao Sheng was greatly encouraged and took the opportunity to begin refining the fifth batch.
Half an hour later, the refining failed, and the reason for the failure was unknown.
...
The sixth batch yielded only three pills, because the quality of the medicinal materials was poor.
The seventh batch yielded seven pills!
After seven batches of refining, all the medicinal herbs left by Jin Ming were exhausted, and the number of Fish Marrow Pills produced was as high as seven. Most importantly, he only failed to refine them once!
If other alchemists knew about his success rate in alchemy, they would be immediately stunned.
This guy is inhuman!
Zhao Sheng was satisfied with the result, but it wasn't good enough. He felt he still had a lot of room for improvement.
When Zhao Sheng emerged from the Earth Fire Chamber and left Sunset Peak, it was already late, and the sun was setting in the west.
The dim sunlight shone on Sunset Peak, turning the vast expanse of white clouds drifting above the peak into a blood-red hue, like crimson clouds hanging across the sky.
At this moment, the plume of smoke rising from the summit of Sunset Peak was tinged with pink, looking from afar like a red ribbon falling from the heavens, an extremely beautiful sight.
But such a beautiful view could not attract Zhao Sheng's attention.
As soon as he left Sunset Peak, he headed straight for Danhuo Market.
Upon arriving at the market, he didn't go directly into the Treasure Medicine Pavilion to buy many portions of medicinal herbs for refining Water Spirit Pills and Fish Marrow Pills.
Not only that, he also purchased several other kinds of spiritual herbs for refining first-tier spiritual pills, intending to have Jin Ming teach him alchemy in the future.
The next day, a muffled cracking sound came from the Nine Dragons Cauldron in the Earth Fire Chamber. Although the sound was not loud, it made Zhao Sheng's heart sink and his face turn somewhat ugly.
After hesitating for a moment, Zhao Sheng sighed and stopped the fire. Then he stepped forward, waved his hand, and the lid of the cauldron flew up. He peeked inside and, sure enough, only a pile of dregs remained.
Zhao Sheng shook his head, flicked his finger, and a water dragon materialized out of thin air and flew into the alchemy furnace, quickly and repeatedly washing the inner wall.
This was his fifth attempt to refine the Water Spirit Pill, and his second failure!
In terms of success rate, the Water Spirit Pill is indeed more difficult to obtain than the Fish Marrow Pill.
After rinsing the alchemy furnace, Zhao Sheng had emerged from the shadow of failure and regained his composure.
He returned to the futon with a blank expression, pondered for a long time, and after summarizing the lessons learned from the failure, he began to refine the sixth batch of Water Spirit Pills.
Refining elixirs sometimes requires practice to master, much like leveling up in a game; the more you play, the more skilled you become.
...
Seven days later, Jin Ming and Zhao Sheng met again.
Before Jin Ming could ask, Zhao Sheng immediately showed the results of his seven-day intensive alchemy training.
One batch of fish marrow pills yielded three pills.
One batch of Water Spirit Pills yielded two pills.
The most impressive thing is that he didn't fail twice!
Seeing Zhao Sheng's humble yet eager expression, Jin Ming took a deep breath, unable to utter a word of criticism.
Seeing this, Zhao Sheng seized the opportunity to suggest, "Fellow Daoist Jin, I've heard you're also skilled in refining Jade Yellow Pills. I happen to have prepared twenty portions of medicinal herbs. Why don't you teach me how to refine Jade Yellow Pills today?"
After hearing this, Jin Ming couldn't help but gasp for breath. For some reason, he felt a lump in his throat, causing a sharp pain in his lungs and making him feel extremely suffocated.
He clutched his chest and painfully agreed, "Okay!"
Zhao Sheng was overjoyed upon hearing this, ignoring Jin Ming's pain. He grasped Jin Ming's hand and thanked him, saying, "Fellow Daoist is indeed magnanimous. I admire you greatly!"
As he spoke, Jin Ming felt a hard object in his hand. Looking down, he saw a mid-grade pure Yin spirit stone emitting a faint glow between his fingers.
Upon seeing this, Jin Ming immediately felt much better and said loudly, "Fellow Daoist, you are too kind! Since you are so sincere, I will teach you everything I know to ensure your satisfaction!"
Zhao Sheng patted his hand knowingly and said with a smile, "I dare not say anything else, but you will see my sincerity in the future."
"Alright, I'll start refining a batch of Jade Yellow Pills right away," Jin Ming said readily.
...
Two years have passed in the blink of an eye.
The core of Jiuzhen Island is the spiritual island of Chunqiu Island. On the east side of the island stands a large three-story palace-shaped building with a vast area. Above the main entrance of the first floor hall hangs the three gilded characters "Gongdetang" (Hall of Merit).
The interior of this building is very spacious. The main hall on the first floor is fifty or sixty feet in size and is divided into many areas, which are separated by jade counters.
In the center of each area stands a huge white light wall, with lines of black, red, yellow, green and white characters appearing on its surface, corresponding to the five mission levels.
The Hall of Merit is where the Spring and Autumn Alliance issues various tasks to its members, the island's independent cultivators, and the guest elders.
Due to their different functions, the corresponding tasks in each area are quite diverse. There are ordinary tasks such as hunting monsters, finding spiritual herbs and medicinal materials, as well as professional tasks related to alchemy, weapon crafting, and talisman crafting. There are also special tasks such as hiring, assassination, and guarding, and there are even tasks for recruiting sons-in-law and apprentices.
It can be said that as long as you dare to assign a task, Gongdetang will dare to accept it, provided that you can afford the reward and task commission.
In the cultivation world, special places like the Hall of Merit are actually quite common. Any slightly larger cultivation sect or family will have similar places. For example, the Guiyuan Sect, where Zhao Sheng stayed in his previous life, established a Hall of Good Deeds that was very similar in function to the Hall of Merit, except that it did not dare to openly display any task like the Hall of Merit.
At this moment, in front of a huge wall of light
Zhao Sheng, dressed in black, stood still, his eyes flickering as he followed the changes in the characters on the light wall.
A moment later, he suddenly had a thought and raised his hand to reveal a jade tablet.
"Class C Mission No. 11"
With his low shout, a beam of white light suddenly shot out from the surface of the light barrier and disappeared into the jade tablet in his hand.
After a burst of white light shone from the surface of the jade plaque, a line of small characters suddenly appeared:
"Twenty Water-Repelling Pills, one thousand merit points!" Zhao Sheng glanced at the task and immediately understood its details.
It turns out that this Water-Repelling Pill is a special type of first-tier spiritual pill that is quite difficult to refine.
A cultivator who takes a Water-Repelling Pill can breathe freely underwater for up to three days.
Alchemy is an extremely expensive art, and even though Zhao Sheng was wealthy, he still found it too much to handle.
Especially when he tried to learn how to refine second-tier elixirs from "The Complete Guide to Alchemy: Hundred Elixir Formulas", the cost of any failed attempt was over three figures in spirit stones.
It wasn't that he was dissatisfied with refining first-tier spirit pills; it was simply that his progress was too fast, and Jin Ming had already been completely drained half a year ago.
Zhao Sheng learned all twenty-one methods of refining first-tier spiritual pills that he had mastered.
As for second-tier spirit pills?
Unfortunately, Jin Ming can only refine one type of second-tier Golden Essence Pill, and the success rate is pitifully low.
It takes ten attempts to succeed only once or twice, and each attempt yields a maximum of two pills, not to mention the quality.
Zhao Sheng had considered becoming an apprentice of other alchemists, but after he occasionally heard rumors that he was an "alchemy genius" and was visited by some Foundation Establishment cultivators many times, he decided to leave.
To avoid further trouble, Zhao Sheng had no choice but to temporarily abandon the idea.
At the same time, Zhao Sheng secretly reduced the number of times he went to the Earth Fire Chamber, as well as the number and frequency of times he sold spirit pills.
Zhao Sheng has been visiting the Merit Hall more frequently in the last two months.
Firstly, he took on a few alchemy tasks to earn some spiritual money and recoup his investment.
But he came primarily for the spiritual fire of heaven and earth.
Unfortunately, the spiritual fire of heaven and earth suitable for alchemy is rare and hard to come by.
For months, Zhao Sheng had visited all the markets and merit halls on the island, and had seen several kinds of Heaven and Earth Spirit Fire, but none of them met his requirements.
I finally found a golden flame from the Earth's core, perfect for alchemy.
However, before he could make a move, the Earth Core Golden Flame was bought by the upper echelons of the Alchemist Guild.
Zhao Sheng was merely an alchemy apprentice, and no one paid him any attention.
Although no one on the entire Nine True Island knew that he was already a first-level alchemist except for Jin Ming, who had a vague idea about it, no one else knew.
...
After accepting the alchemy task, Zhao Sheng looked at the other task walls but found no clues about the Heavenly Spirit Fire task.
After a moment's thought, he immediately stepped out of the Merit Hall, threw his Golden Essence Flying Sword around his body, and suddenly transformed into a sword rainbow, flying straight towards the cave on the edge of the island.