Chapter 63 - Alchemy Sufferings
There were many Martial Art Sects and they diametrically oppose each other. All of them could not wait for someone to be a little bit in the wrong and grab their weakness. Chen Xiang was somewhat surprised. Like Zhang Long, this young 8th level of the Mortal Martial Realm Practitioner was still not of any importance. It was highly likely that there were many powerful martial artists inside those sects. Only Martial Artists with extraordinary potential and a very promising future could be considered to be of great importance.
After things calmed down, Chen Xiang started learning alchemy and growing spirit herbs. He didn’t use the True Elemental Dan because Su Meiyao and Bai Youyou advised him that it would be most effective to consume it when he encountered a bottleneck.
After the Chen Family took over the Yao Family’s dan businesses, their overall price dropped down. This made many martial practitioners extremely excited as they eagerly supported the Chen Family. Due to this, the Chen Family was very popular among the masses and their action would be a great aid in their future development as a powerhouse.
In this world, the law of the jungle is rampant. In just one day, all of the wealth accumulated over eons by the Yao Family now belonged to the Chen Family! They had brought this upon themselves, if they had not opposed the Chen Family they would still be prospering.
After the annexation of the Yao Family, Chen Xiang simply did not have a shortage of spirit herbs he could use for alchemy. He was currently picking some spirit herbs from the former Yao Family herbal garden, preparing to refine a High-Grade Mortal Level Dan. Not only did the difficulty in refining a High-Grade Mortal Level Dan increase several times over, it also required much more precious spirit herbs.
There were not many types of High-Grade Mortal Level Dans, and even fewer types were widespread and frequently used. These were the most useful for martial practitioners but also seldomly refined. These were also the types of dans alchemists need to master, so obviously when Chen Xiang choose to learn how to refine High-Grade Mortal Level Dans, he choose one of these to refine.
“High-Grade Mortal Level Dan’s ranking on the tier list of dans is somewhat awkward! How should I put this? Undoubtedly in the martial arts world, there are many martial practitioner above 10th level of the Mortal Martial Realm and they are all quite rich! These people have high requirements, so when they buy pills they would obviously not choose Mortal Level Pills but rather buy Low-Grade Spirit Level Dans instead. Moreover, it would be bought in vast quantities and after they eat it, it would give them greater benefits!” Said Su Meiyao.
Chen Xiang asked “So in other words, those in Martial Art Sects at the 8th and 9th level of the Mortal Martial Realm are relatively poor?”
Su Meiyao answered “Of course. So they can only buy Mortal Level Dans with their wealth, but you have to know that even the effects of High-Grade Mortal Level Dans on the 8th and 9th level Mortal Martial Realm Martial Practitioners do not have any obvious benefits.
“So you need to master just the most expensive High-Grade Mortal Level Dans, which are the Cultivating Qi Dan, the Grand Elemental Dan and the Transforming Essence Dan.” said Su Meiyao
Chen Xiang already knew some of these dans and they were indeed among the most expensive Mortal Level High-Grade Dans. After taking them, their effects were also very evident and helpful. Cultivating Qi Dan mainly elevated someone's True Qi quality so that martial practitioners could refine their True Qi into a purer form.
Grand Elemental Dan was a cultivation boosting dan. After consuming it, a large amount of Spirit Qi was released, which could be directly refined into a large amount of True Qi without taking into account thin Spirit Qi or spiritual veins. Last was the Transforming Essence Dan, this dan would directly transform internal True Qi into spiritual power and was mainly used to enlarge the area of divine sense and practice it’s usage.
Chen Xiang had the Flame Dragon’s Brilliant Furnace, with this sacred level dragonic object, one could accelerate the time inside the alchemy furnace and thereby save a lot of time in the refining process of alchemy.
It should be known that some dans take years or even decades for refinement. With the help of the Flame Dragon’s Brilliant Furnace, Chen Xiang could drastically shorten the time required.
Chen Xiang was going to attempt to refine the Grand Elemental Dan first, because he wanted to take the dan himself and elevate his own power. Only after entering the 9th level of the Mortal Martial Realm, would he enter one of the big sects.
There were three main ingredients required for refining the Grand Elemental Dan. Although not much, they were all required to be more than five hundred years old, in addition to twenty other auxiliary materials The oldest of these being a hundred years old and the youngest being fifty or sixty years old. From this alone, the preciousness of a Grand Elemental Dan could be seen. If they failed to refine it, many alchemists would simply cry in despair.
“This stone like fruit is really tricky ah!” Chen Xiang had started refining. Originally, these herbs belonged to the Yao Family and there were only four sets, each of them being worth more than a hundred thousand large spirit coins.
Although the Flame Dragon’s Brilliant Furnace was more suitable for alchemy and the control of temperature was arbitrary, if one did not know about the degree of heating required by each herb, then even divine furnaces were useless.
At this time, Chen Xiang separated his divine sense into twenty or so separate parts and controlled the flame incinerating the twenty different spirit herbs. Moreover, these spirit herbs had to transform into herbal powder at the exact same time, so there needed to not be even the tiniest bit of time difference between them. Meanwhile, Chen Xiang also needed to use all of his brain to refine the various spirit herbs into herbal Spirit Qi. The consumption of divine sense would ordinarily have been too much, even for Chen Xiang. But the Flame Dragon’s Brilliant Furnace allowed him to decrease his consumption of divine sense so he did not need to resort to using dans in order to restore his divine sense.
Chen Xiang’s divine sense perceived a full day passing inside the alchemy furnace, but in actuality, only a small moment had past! This is because the Flame Dragon’s Brilliant Furnace sped up the passage of time inside it, so there was a large time difference between the two.
“Fucking Shit! I’m finished!” Chen Xiang was sweating profusely as he watched a clump of colorful mist rising from the Flame Dragon’s Brilliant Furnace, he could not help but curse.
This was already more than a one hundred thousand large spirit coins which had just suddenly transformed into a puff of colorful smoke. The fact that Chen Xiang didn’t cry was already considered resolute.
“Worthy of the title, Flame Dragon’s Brilliant Furnace, to not even explode after that!” Su Meiyao giggled and smiled tenderly.
“Sister Meiyao do not irritate me!” Chen Xiang muttered.
Just a moment ago, he had incinerated the spirit herb called Iron Element Fruit and failed. This was because that “Iron Element Fruit” wasn’t as hard as he had thought, when he had been baking it, nothing was going wrong, so he suddenly increased the heat of the flames. Who could have thought that the Iron Element Fruit would explode in the blink of an eye! The escaping Spirit Qi from the explosion caused all of the other herbal powders and herbal Spirit Qi to blend into a chaotic mess. This resulted in a variety of reaction with the end result of an explosion, all of which surged out from the Flame Dragon’s Brilliant Furnace.
“I told you that this fruit is very hard to refine! Even I failed a good number of times when I used this grey fruit! Now when I see someone failing in front of me like I once did, of course I’m going to be delighted!” Su Meiyao stuck out her rosy fragrant tongue and continued to laugh.
Every time Chen Xiang refined dans, Su Meiyao would come out. Sometimes, she would wipe Chen Xiang’s sweat, or perhaps gloat. Other times she would encourage him. Occasionally she would also take liberties or tempt Chen Xiang this innocent teenager.
Chen Xiang curled his lips and said, “You can afford the failures but there is no way for me. There are only three sets of ingredients left!” He exclaimed after learning that when Su Meiyao was trying to master alchemy, even with her extensive resources, had actually failed several times.
“Good brother, you shouldn’t be so discouraged. I just remembered the past and missed it very much.” Su Meiyao took out a silky handkerchief and sweetly smiled. She then walked towards Chen Xiang and wiped the sweat off his face.
Chen Xiang inhaled that refreshing body fragrance that Su Meitao emitted. Feeling her tender beautiful hands occasionally stroking his cheeks made him feel an inexpressible sensation.
After a quick break, Chen Xiang continued to refine….
The second time he had failed again, at the exact same stage when he was dealing with the Iron Element Fruit.
The third time, he managed to successfully resolve the issue with the Iron Element Fruit but at the last stage of congealing the dan, he could not control the fusion of the various herbal powders and herbal Spirit Qis, resulting in another small explosion inside the Flame Dragon’s Brilliant Furnace!
“Father is really prodigal ah… In just a two hour period, I’ve evaporated more than four hundred thousand large spirit coins.” Chen Xiang laid down on the ground, feeling extreme heartache as he watched the scattered mist in the private room.