Ch. 793 June
The assimilation process took less than six minutes, and when it was finished, a faint layer of purple light flowed across the surface of the furnace. Danqing's gaze paused on it for a moment before he gave a nod and turned his attention back to the lesson.
By now, he had already seen Alexei take out plenty of tools covered in that same purple glow. Yan had explained earlier that the glow came from Alexei's innate ability, which could enhance objects and make them easier to use, so he never found it strange. As far as he was concerned, innate abilities were no different from spiritual flames or special constitutions. They were just advantages cultivators were born with. Refusing to use them out of pride would only make someone look foolish.
"We have reached the final step," he said as he gestured toward the prepared herbs resting on the jade table. "The Butterfly Grass must first be squeezed to extract its juice. After that, drip the liquid into the furnace while maintaining a low flame and continue observing the medicinal properties. Once the compatibility between the Butterfly Grass and the Healing Herb reaches roughly 30%, extinguish the flame and remove the pill."
His refinement was nearing completion, and a faint medicinal fragrance slowly spread from the furnace as excess spiritual energy escaped during the final stage of the process. He guided the finished pill out of the furnace and into his palm before lowering his gaze to examine it.
Nine patterns lined the surface of the pill. One was slightly thinner than the others, but it was still a nine-pattern pill.
"It's acceptable," he said after a short inspection.
Ying looked at him as though she had just heard something absurd.
"You call that acceptable?"
She had already spent years studying alchemy, yet this was only the second nine-pattern pill she had ever seen in person.
To ordinary people, the difference between eight patterns and nine patterns sounded insignificant. It was only one additional line on the surface of the pill. Any alchemist, however, understood that the final pattern was a different realm of difficulty.
Below First Grade, successfully refining a nine-pattern pill was almost completely dependent on luck. Even for a first-rank alchemist, refining the lowest-grade nine-pattern Healing Pill while going all-out would still result in a success rate so low that one success in a hundred attempts was considered perfectly normal.
And how many first-rank alchemists even existed across the Eastern Territories?
Only twenty-two.
Twenty-three if the Pill Fairy was included, although Ying remained convinced that the Pill Fairy had already surpassed First Grade and entered the Saint Grade realm as a true Pill Saint.
Most alchemists would spend their entire lives without refining a nine-pattern pill. Many would never even see one. Yet Danqing had just refined one while explaining the process step by step as though it required no effort at all.
Seeing Ying's expression, Danqing felt fairly satisfied with himself. He had spent quite a bit of effort making it look easy.
His gaze soon shifted toward the other two, only for his expression to pause slightly.
Alexei looked interested, but not particularly shocked. After thinking about it, Danqing found that understandable. The kid had only recently started learning alchemy, so he probably didn't fully grasp what a nine-pattern pill represented.
Yan's reaction, however, caught his attention.
She showed a trace of surprise when the pill formed, but after taking a closer look, she lowered her head and returned to organizing the herbs on her table.
He stroked his beard.
She had an unexpectedly steady temperament.
Most beginners would either feel admiration or become distracted after seeing a successful refinement, especially one involving a nine-pattern pill. Yan, however, regained her focus quickly. She wasn't impatient, nor was she overly affected by outside things. For an alchemist, that kind of mindset was far more valuable than raw talent.
"Ying, you should learn from your master and senior. On the path of alchemy, controlling your emotions is just as important as controlling the flames."
Ying looked dissatisfied with the comparison, but after glancing at Yan's calm expression, she couldn't think of anything to argue with.
Danqing gave a light wave of his sleeve, causing more than a dozen medicinal herbs to appear on the jade tables in front of them.
"I've already shown you the process once. Now it's your turn to try for yourselves."
---
Yan's expression turned serious as she examined the ingredients laid out before her.
Over the past few months, she had been studying medicinal properties by comparing perfect-quality spirit plants with the refined essences extracted by her furnace. The process had given her a much clearer understanding of medicinal composition than ordinary alchemists could ever achieve. By observing the differences between the original ingredients and their purified essences, she could identify which portions were impurities and which contained the true medicinal effects.
As a result, her understanding of medicinal properties had improved at an astonishing pace.
Unfortunately, understanding alone wasn't enough to refine a true nine-pattern pill.
No matter how close she came, she always fell short when using ordinary materials. She had remained stuck at the limit of eight patterns without being able to take the final step forward.
However, after listening to Danqing's explanation, she understood where the problem had been.
It wasn't her comprehension that lacked depth, but her control.
During the alchemist examination, she had managed to refine a seven-pattern fifth-grade pill because her cultivation was still too low. Her spiritual energy control and refinement techniques couldn't support anything higher yet. Even reaching seven patterns at her current realm was already considered extraordinary.
If she wanted to refine an eight-pattern fifth-grade pill, she would first need to break through to the Dharma Aspect realm. Without sufficient cultivation to support the refinement process, forcing a higher-quality pill was impossible no matter how deep her understanding became.
Ying had already started processing the herbs beside. The Healing Pill was one of the most basic beginner recipes, and after refining it several times already, she didn't really need any guidance.
Alexei, meanwhile, sat in front of his own pile of ingredients and realized he had a problem.
Danqing's earlier explanation had gone by far too quickly. At the time, he had assumed he could figure things out as he went along, but now that he was sitting in front of the furnace, he discovered that he barely remembered the order of the ingredients, much less the finer details of the refining process.
Danqing noticed his situation, he had no intention of helping. After giving the two of them their instructions, he closed his eyes and entered meditation.
Nobody succeeded at alchemy on their first attempt. Even he had ruined several batches before successfully refining his first pill. This lesson was mainly about familiarizing themselves with the refinement process and learning how medicinal properties reacted to pill fire inside the furnace. Whether the final product succeeded or failed was secondary.
After staring at the ingredients for several seconds, Alexei turned his head toward Ying's workstation.
Ying noticed what he was trying to do. A helpless look crossed her face, but she still shifted her medicine grinder to give him a clearer view of what she was doing.
From that point onward, the process turned into Ying completing each step first while he followed along beside her. Whenever she processed a herb, he processed the same herb. And whenever she adjusted the flame, he adjusted his own right afterward.
Sometimes the assimilated furnace refined the ingredients faster than a normal furnace, which left him sitting there waiting for Ying to finish the next step before he could continue copying her again.
Before long, Ying began to suspect he was trying to learn alchemy by copying her directly.
If he truly wanted to imitate someone, shouldn't he be copying Danqing instead? She was only an apprentice alchemist herself. More importantly, alchemy couldn't be learned by reproducing another person's actions.
The medicinal properties of spirit herbs constantly changed throughout the refinement process, and the spiritual fire had to adapt alongside those changes. Even two herbs of the same type could behave differently depending on their age, quality, and growing environment. No refinement process could ever be copied perfectly.
When she glanced toward Alexei again, she discovered he had already finished the current stage before her and was now staring directly at her furnace.
The sight nearly disrupted her concentration.
Was he seriously throwing ingredients into the furnace first and figuring things out afterward?
His pill fire had already gone out several times during refinement, yet he still looked unconcerned. At this rate, she would be shocked if he managed to produce anything other than burnt ash.
Realizing she was getting distracted, she forced herself to refocus on her own pill.
The refinement had already entered the final stage. All that remained was extracting the juice from the Butterfly Grass and pouring it over the forming pill inside the furnace. Unfortunately, this was also the most exhausting part for a Qi Refining cultivator like her.
The spiritual energy in her body simply wasn't sufficient.
Under normal circumstances, the spirit stones placed inside the furnace were enough to maintain the spiritual flames throughout refinement. But preserving the Butterfly Grass' medicinal essence required the herb to be crushed by hand while spiritual energy continuously wrapped around the user's palm. Otherwise, too much spiritual energy would dissipate during the extraction process.
Alexei copied her movements, only for his eyes to widen when the herb in Ying's hand crumbled into pulp.
Looking down at the herb resting in his own palm, he tightened his grip, but instead of breaking apart, the herb merely wrinkled before slipping toward the edge of his hand.
He quickly tried to catch it, only for his fingers to close around empty air as the herb dropped straight into the furnace below.
FWOOSH!
Spiritual flames surged upward the instant it fell inside, swallowing the herb. Under the heat, the plant dissolved and turned to ash within seconds.
Alexei looked into the furnace before turning to Ying.
"This shouldn't affect the pill too much, right?"
Ying nearly choked on the spot.
At this rate, whether the pill retained its effectiveness was hardly the issue anymore. They would be fortunate if the furnace managed to produce a pill at all.
She had been holding herself back for the past several minutes. Every time she glanced at Alexei's furnace, she wanted to point out another mistake in his refinement process, but her own Healing Pill was already approaching completion. If she lost focus now, all her earlier effort would go to waste.
She could only force herself to ignore him and focus on the medicinal properties circulating inside her furnace instead. As the herbs continued to melt and merge together, she adjusted the intensity of the spiritual fire.
Several minutes later, her expression suddenly brightened.
"It's done!"
As soon as the pill fully formed, she sensed the difference. The spiritual energy inside it was unusually stable, and the medicinal properties had fused together far more smoothly than in her previous attempts. Even with Alexei distracting her throughout the process, the refinement had turned out better than expected.
The more she examined it, the more satisfied she became. There was a chance she had successfully refined a two-pattern pill.
The thought made her unconsciously straighten her posture, unable to suppress the smug look spreading across her face.
From now on, she wouldn't just be the youngest apprentice alchemist. She would be the youngest apprentice alchemist capable of refining a two-pattern pill.
To her, those were completely different titles.
---
Seeing that all three had stopped refining, Danqing rose from his meditation cushion. Although he hadn't watched them directly during the process, his spiritual sense had been enough for him to understand roughly how each refinement had gone.
Alexei's results were about what he expected.
The boy had copied Ying's movements from beginning to end without understanding any of the principles behind them. Out of the thirteen herbs he handled, not a single one had been processed properly, and when dealing with Butterfly Grass, he had even thrown the entire stalk into the furnace instead of extracting the spiritual juice first.
Still, he had never expected him to succeed in the first place.
Alexei had yet to learn herb extraction, medicinal transformations, or flame control. Letting him attempt pill refinement was a way for him to experience the process and understand how difficult alchemy was. If he succeeded too easily at the beginning, he would only end up underestimating the path ahead of him.
Failure wasn't necessarily a bad thing for beginners.
Only after seeing the gap between himself and real alchemists would he truly notice his own improvement. Once he understood how much he lacked, he would naturally have something to strive toward.
That was why Danqing had arranged Yan and Ying to refine pills alongside him.
Yan would serve as the long-term goal Alexei needed to chase, while Ying would become the rival closest to him in talent and age. Having someone within reach was often more motivating than staring at a distant peak that couldn't yet be touched.
With those thoughts in mind, he reached for Yan's pill first.
Yan's face still carried excitement as she handed over the pill. She had finally refined a nine-pattern pill through her own ability.
The final pattern was extremely faint, so thin that it was difficult to notice without careful inspection. Ever since she began studying alchemy, this was the first time she had succeeded in producing a nine-pattern pill with ordinary materials.
"Judging from your expression, the result should be quite good," Danqing said with a smile.
"I was only able to succeed because of your guidance," Yan replied, unable to hide the satisfaction in her voice. "Please examine it."
Ying leaned closer out of curiosity, but the instant she saw the surface of the pill, her eyes widened in disbelief.
"Nine patterns?"
Her voice rose involuntarily.
Three years ago, when her grandfather refined a nine-pattern ninth-grade Qi Replenishing Pill, he had celebrated the achievement with a banquet that lasted three full days. The entire city had heard about it by the end. Among alchemists, refining a nine-pattern pill was considered one of the highest displays of skill possible. Yet within a single afternoon, she had already witnessed two of them.
Danqing accepted the pill and examined the patterns across its surface before giving a nod of approval.
"Well done. Being able to refine a nine-pattern pill already places you above most alchemists in the Eastern Territories."
He stroked his beard as he looked at the pill.
Her talent in alchemy was far from ordinary. She had most likely been held back by her sect's lack of resources all this time. With enough medicinal herbs and proper guidance, becoming a First Rank Alchemist shouldn't be difficult for her.
As for going further and reaching the level of Pill Immortal or Pill Saint, that would depend on far more than alchemy talent alone. Those realms demanded immense cultivation to support them, and without exceptional spiritual roots, even the most gifted alchemist would reach their limit.
Judging from Yan's current cultivation and her age, her spiritual roots were probably only high-grade Earth-tier. That was already considered quite good, but it still fell short of what was needed to truly stand at the peak.
Fortunately, those concerns were still far away.
"At the beginner level, there is little left for me to teach you," he said as he withdrew his gaze from the pill. "From here onward, your progress will depend on your own comprehension and practice. Your future in alchemy is promising."
Ying looked at her master with admiration.
Yan noticed the expression on her student's face and let out a soft laugh before placing the nine-pattern pill into her hand.
"If you like it that much, you can keep it."
Ying lowered her head and stared at the pill.
"You're really giving it to me?"
Her grandfather treasured his nine-pattern Qi Replenishing Pill more than anything else. Whenever someone got too close, he would glare at them. Even she had only ever seen it from a distance.
Seeing Ying's reaction, Yan let out a soft laugh.
"If you like it so much, then keep it."
Ying's eyes lit up immediately.
Danqing watched the exchange quietly from the side. As an alchemist from the Eastern Territories, he understood better than most what a nine-pattern pill represented. Even among First Grade alchemists, very few people would willingly hand over a pill like that.
Most alchemists treated their successful pills like treasures. The more talented they were, the more attached they became to their achievements. Over time, that attachment would slowly turn into a restraint, making it harder for them to move forward.
Yan, however, didn't seem to care about such things at all.
The more he observed her, the more satisfied he became with her temperament.
She really was a good seedling.
"Ying, let's see yours now."
Hearing her name, Ying hurriedly placed the nine-pattern pill into a jade box and stored it before running over to her own furnace.
"I did much better this time," she said proudly while opening the lid herself. "Grandpa Hao, hurry and look."
Her expression made it obvious she was waiting to be praised.
Danqing smiled faintly and raised his hand. The pill flew out of the furnace and landed in his palm.
"Not bad," he said after examining it. "You've improved quite a bit this time. The second pill pattern has stabilized completely."
He lifted the pill and brought it closer to inspect before giving it a light sniff.
"The Bloodstop Grass and Silverbell Flower didn't fully harmonize with the Wood Spirit Mushroom. You were also slightly late when adding the Threeleaf Grass and Purple Dawn Root, and there wasn't enough morning dew mixed in. The other ingredients have a few minor flaws as well, but your biggest issue is still your cultivation. Your spiritual energy control isn't stable enough yet to handle the finer stages of refinement."
Ying listened attentively at first, but the longer he spoke without praising her, the brighter her eyes became with anticipation.
"And? What else?"
Danqing chuckled before nodding.
"Overall, this refinement was very successful. You've improved tremendously, but don't let it make you complacent."
Only then did Ying look satisfied as she nodded repeatedly.
Seeing her reaction, Danqing could only shake his head. She really was too similar to her mother. Both of them were impatient and far too easy to please.
"All right, let's see Alexei's pill next."
Hearing this, Ying walked over to Alexei and placed the pill she had just refined into his hand.
"Failing on your first attempt is completely normal. I also failed many times before I succeeded. This is the first two-pattern pill I ever refined, so I'm giving it to you. Make sure you take good care of it."
Alexei looked at her reluctant expression and accepted the pill.
"Thanks."
Danqing didn't bother using spiritual energy to retrieve the contents of Alexei's furnace. Even if something had formed inside, it was most likely just burnt residue and ash, so there was no reason to handle it as carefully as he had with the others.
He walked over and lifted the lid himself, already thinking about how to comfort the boy afterward. Failing the first attempt at alchemy was completely normal, and beginners needed encouragement far more than criticism.
"What Ying said is correct. Failing your first refinement attempt is no..."
The words suddenly stopped in his throat.
He stared into the furnace with widened eyes, then lowered the lid back into place before opening it again.
The contents inside remained the same.
He closed the furnace once more, took a slow breath, and reopened it more carefully this time as if changing the angle might somehow change what he was seeing.
But it didn't.
"Is something wrong?"
Ying stepped closer, unable to hide her curiosity anymore. Even if Alexei had completely failed, there should at least have been ash left inside the furnace. She had watched him throw in enough ingredients to fill half the chamber.
Danqing began to wonder whether something had gone wrong with his mind. Everything that had happened today already felt absurd enough, but the scene in front of him had pushed things beyond anything he could understand.
For a second, he even suspected he was dreaming.
But that explanation quickly fell apart. The medicinal fragrance lingering in the air was far too clear, and the spiritual fluctuations coming from the furnace felt real.
Dreams shouldn't feel this vivid.
"Ying... come check the furnace for me," he said while keeping his eyes fixed on the interior. "I think my eyesight is failing me. Old age really does catch up eventually."
Yan sighed and pressed a hand against her forehead. She already knew where this was going.
None of Alexei's abilities had ever followed normal logic. Every time he did something, cultivators around him ended up questioning everything they thought they understood about the world.
Danqing's worldview had already taken several heavy blows today. Judging from his current expression, this one was probably going to shatter it.
Ying looked confused by the request. Her grandfather had once told her that Danqing was even stronger than he was, so she couldn't understand how someone at that level could possibly have trouble seeing.
Still, she lifted the furnace lid before pulling the cauldron closer to herself. She narrowed her eyes and looked inside, then froze.
There was only one pill at the bottom.
She picked it up and handed it to Danqing.
"Did you leave your own pill in here?"
As she spoke, she glanced back into the furnace again.
"Where did Alexei's pill go?"
Danqing stared at her.
Did this girl really think he couldn't recognize his own pill?
The pill in her hand was already closer to a true nine-pattern pill than the one he had refined earlier. The final pattern had almost connected into a full circle, while the ninth pattern on his own pill had barely formed halfway.
But that wasn't what shocked him the most.
After leaving the furnace, the pill leaked almost no medicinal aura at all. Aside from the faint fragrance surrounding it, its spiritual energy was so well contained that even other alchemists might fail to notice anything unusual at first glance.
However, he could tell where the real problem lay.
The issue wasn't the pill itself. It was the ingredients used to refine it.
Ordinary spirit herbs should never have been capable of producing a pill this close to perfection. That overturned everything he knew about alchemy.
Yan opened her mouth to explain, but after seeing the expression on his face, she gave up on the idea.
There was no way to explain this properly. Saying that her junior's abilities defied common sense would only make her sound insane, especially when even she still had trouble accepting it.
Danqing sat down cross-legged on the ground. He closed his eyes and circulated his spiritual energy.
Perfection in medicinal utilization should not exist in the first place, let alone appear in the hands of a boy who had never even touched alchemy before today. The more he thought about it, the more unsettled he became, until a terrifying possibility surfaced in his mind.
What if none of this was real?
What if his ascension tribulation had already begun without him noticing?
According to ancient records, the Heart-Questioning Tribulation was capable of trapping cultivators inside flawless illusions without leaving behind the slightest clue. Some people supposedly spent their entire lives wandering inside those false worlds, never realizing anything was wrong while their real bodies slowly withered away outside.
If Alexei's refinement process hadn't been so absurdly unnatural, he might never have noticed anything amiss.
Yet the more he considered the possibility, the less sense it made.
The spiritual energy density of the Eastern Territories was nowhere near sufficient to support an ascension tribulation. Even if he stood only a step away from the Immortal Ascension realm, he should still need several hundred more years of cultivation before reaching that stage.
More importantly, he had neglected cultivation for several centuries.
So why would his tribulation arrive now?
"Master, what's wrong with Grandpa Hao?"
Ying's voice sounded distant to Danqing.
Yan shook her head, unable to understand what was happening either. At first, she thought Alexei's pill might have triggered some kind of enlightenment, but the more she looked at Danqing's pale face and sweat-covered body, the less likely that explanation seemed. Enlightenment shouldn'tleave someone looking this miserable.
She was already considering taking both of them back to the residence to rest when Danqing stood up so abruptly that both Ying and Yan were startled.
"No, that's not right..."
His breathing had become uneven as countless thoughts flashed through his mind one after another.
If this were the Heart-Questioning Tribulation, then he shouldn't even remember what the Heart-Questioning Tribulation was. Once someone fell into it, every related memory disappeared. Even the name itself would vanish from their mind.
But he still remembered everything.
At the same time, he had already circulated spiritual energy through his divine sense several times, yet his consciousness remained clear the entire time.
That meant he was neither trapped in a tribulation nor caught inside some illusion or dream.
As the last possibility disappeared, he came to a realization. Everything he had just witnessed was real.
"Senior Danqing?"
Yan's voice pulled him out of his thoughts again.
Danqing exhaled and forced himself to calm down.
Alexei's process had been wrong from beginning to end, yet somehow every ingredient had fused together under the perfect timing, proportions, quality, and medicinal compatibility by sheer coincidence. In the end, against all logic and common sense, the result was this pill that stood close to perfection.
He could only sigh inwardly.
The world was truly full of endless mysteries. Just because something had never happened before didn't mean it was impossible.
Maybe the problem had never been the alchemists themselves, but the refining method passed down through generations. If the conventional process was flawed from the very beginning, then failure was only natural.
Alexei had stumbled onto a different method by accident.
He stored the pill inside a purple jade box. Even that left him feeling distressed. The box alone was worth a top-grade spirit stone, but compared to the medicinal power the pill had already lost while exposed to the air, the cost was nothing.
No matter what happened in the future, he wouldn't take this pill out again unless it was necessary.
This was no longer just a perfect pill.
Once word spread, the entire alchemy world would be thrown into chaos. Countless alchemists would obsess over reproducing it, while sects and factions across the continent fought to uncover its secrets. The frenzy could easily continue for hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of years.
By the end, he was clutching the jade box in both hands.
"Hahahaha! This is destiny! My student has the bearing of a Pill Saint!"
Ying blinked at him in confusion, while Alexei looked at the old alchemist as though he had just said the most ridiculous thing imaginable.
Yan could only press a hand against her forehead. Danqing had misunderstood something about Alexei's abilities, but after thinking it through, she realized his conclusion wasn't wrong either.
So far, every furnace assimilated by Alexei had been capable of stably refining nearly any pill below the Immortal tier. They hadn't tested Immortal-tier pills yet, but everything else had succeeded without issue. The only limitation came from the quality and type of medicinal ingredients used during refinement.
For Alexei, that wasn't really a problem.
His spirit herb plantation produced perfect-quality herbs with such absurd consistency that even she still found it difficult to believe sometimes. Looking at it from that angle, Danqing's earlier declaration was fairly accurate.
Danqing coughed awkwardly into his fist, trying to calm himself after laughing hard. Even now, his eyes remained fixed on Alexei, while Alexei himself was starting to look alarmed by the old man's reaction.
"Could you refine another pill for me to observe?"
Rationally, Danqing knew what they had just witnessed should have been impossible to reproduce. Even so, he couldn't stop himself from wanting to see it happen again.
Alexei shrugged.
"It only takes a minute or two anyway."
For him, refining ordinary ingredients was easy. Most medicinal herbs only needed a few seconds of refinement before they fused together successfully. Earlier, the only reason he had taken longer was because he had been waiting for Ying to finish each step first so he could copy her process exactly.
"Use these ingredients."
After sitting back down, Danqing waved his sleeve and swept away the arranged herbs on the table, replacing them with a disordered pile of fresh materials.
Alexei looked down at the mess covering his workstation and felt a headache coming on. Earlier, the ingredients had already been sorted in order for him, so all he had needed to do was grab them one after another and throw them into the furnace. Now it looked as though someone had dumped an entire herb garden onto the table.
How was he supposed to know what came next?
Fortunately, he still remembered that Bloodstop Grass was the first ingredient. Since he couldn't remember the exact amount, he grabbed what seemed about right and tossed it into the furnace before adding Silverleaf Herb afterward. After that came Blossom Dew, followed by Wood Spirit Mushroom.
"The third ingredient is Century Ginseng, not Blossom Dew," Ying said as she watched him continue reaching for herbs. "And Wood Spirit Mushroom comes fifth. You still need Greenheart Grass and Silverbell Flower before that."
Alexei lowered his head and looked at the ingredients in his hand before turning toward the furnace.
He tossed some Century Ginseng into the furnace as though that somehow fixed the problem, then added Greenheart Grass and Silverbell Flower afterward.
Ying could only stare at him.
Danqing did the same.
Ch. 803 June
"Next is Purple Dawn Root, then Blossom Dew. Though you already added the dew..." Ying said while watching Alexei handle the ingredients.
Halfway through speaking, she frowned. "You skipped a step. How did you..." Her voice trailed off as she stared at the flames for another second before sighing and waving her hand. "Forget it. This batch is ruined already, so just do whatever you want."
Alexei, however, was still waiting for her to continue. When no further instructions came, he turned toward her. "And then?"
Ying looked at him in silence. Beside her, Danqing was also staring at him with an unreadable expression. Even Yan was beginning to feel a headache coming on from watching the entire process unfold.
In the end, she walked over herself, grabbed the remaining herbs from the table, and tossed all of them into the furnace in one go.
Ying's eyes widened, while Danqing blinked repeatedly as though he had just witnessed something unreasonable. Alexei, however, looked enlightened.
"So you can do it like that? I thought pills had to be refined one herb at a time."
Yan nodded and left it at that.
She had avoided explaining Alexei's situation to Danqing because she feared the old man wouldn't be able to handle it well. Cultivators like him had spent centuries building a stable understanding of cultivation, alchemy, and the laws governing the world around them. If that understanding was overturned too abruptly, the backlash could damage their mental state and even affect their cultivation foundation.
For older cultivators especially, their comprehension was deeply tied to their state of mind. Once that balance cracked, it wasn't uncommon for them to suffer qi deviation on the spot.
Letting the old master slowly piece things together himself would be far safer.
Besides, there was also Ying to consider.
The girl's talent in alchemy was exceptional, and she was fully committed to the Dao of Pills. Before reaching the Core Formation realm and tempering her mental state, however, exposing her to this kind of shortcut-based alchemy would only hurt her future development.
Right now, those perfect-quality spirit herbs and refined essences were enough for her. If she became too focused on Alexei's methods, she might start relying on shortcuts before building a solid foundation for herself.
Talent could always be improved later with spirit seeds and other treasures, but once someone's foundation became unstable, repairing it was far more troublesome.
While Danqing was still thinking about this, the flames beneath Alexei's furnace continued burning steadily until they faded away on their own after several seconds.
He stepped forward and opened the furnace lid. The instant he looked inside, his entire body stiffened.
He stood there staring into the furnace without saying a word.
Ying's curiosity rose when she saw his reaction. She hurried over and leaned forward to look inside as well.
Then she also froze.
There were only four people here, yet three of them could apparently refine nine-pattern pills. Even worse, one of them had copied her pill assignment and somehow ended up refining a nine-pattern pill instead.
Ying started wondering whether her grandfather had lied to her all these years.
Weren't nine-pattern pills supposed to be priceless treasures?
So why did they feel so common?
Danqing himself was equally shaken.
He had lived for nearly 3,000 years and witnessed more strange things than most cultivators could imagine, yet even he couldn't understand what he had just seen.
Alexei's entire refining process had looked careless from beginning to end. The ingredients had been thrown in out of order, several crucial steps had been skipped, and some materials had been added so randomly that he couldn't even tell what purpose they were supposed to serve.
According to every principle of alchemy he knew, the furnace should have produced nothing except ash.
Instead, a perfect nine-pattern pill rested at the bottom of the furnace.
He stood beside the furnace for a long while before turning around and walking back to the teaching station. He began recreating Alexei's refinement process from the beginning. Even the timing of each ingredient was nearly identical.
The furnace remained stable until the refinement neared completion. Then, with a muffled puff, pale yellow smoke burst from the top and forced the lid several centimeters into the air before it dropped back down.
He frowned as smoke continued leaking from the edges of the furnace.
"How did it explode? Every step was correct."
He sent spiritual energy into the furnace to clear away the burnt residue, then picked up the entire thing and carried it over to Alexei before setting it down on the table.
"Do it again like before. I refuse to believe the problem is with my technique."
Alexei shrugged and walked over. He had already wanted to see how far the MC-enhanced furnace could go anyway, so this time he didn't even bother adding the ingredients properly. He grabbed every herb left on the table and shoved them all into the furnace together before pouring in two entire gourds of water.
The lid bulged upward from how full the furnace was, yet the formation beneath it continued operating as though nothing was wrong.
He examined the furnace and figured out the problem. It didn't contain enough stored spiritual power.
With his current cultivation and qi control, fully converting his spiritual energy would only be enough to support around eighteen refinements. Fortunately, the spiritual circuit array reduced consumption by 60%, raising the total to roughly 40. Since each alchemy session consumed about twenty refinements worth of energy, the furnace had almost run dry after two sessions, and the remaining power was nowhere near enough for another full refinement.
Without thinking too much about it, he pulled a low-grade MC spirit stone from his inventory and tossed it into the furnace. He didn't feel any reluctance at all. The mob farm alone guaranteed him at least nine low-grade MC spirit stones every day, so compared to before, his attitude toward wealth had changed quite a bit.
The flames inside the furnace continued burning for nearly a minute before weakening. Once they died down, Danqing stepped forward and lifted the lid.
Another perfect nine-pattern pill lay at the bottom of the furnace.
His expression stiffened as he looked at Alexei.
Just what kind of heaven-defying alchemy physique did this boy possess?
At least when it came to refining ninth-grade pills, Alexei was already outperforming him.
The more he thought about it, the more absurd the situation felt. He had originally brought Yan and Ying here so Alexei could see what true dedication to alchemy looked like and give himself something to strive toward. In the end, things somehow turned around, and he found himself becoming the one under pressure instead.
What made it even worse was that he had become so distracted watching Alexei refine pills that he had forgotten about his own demonstration.
Letting out a dry cough, he waved his sleeve and summoned another pile of ingredients onto the table. This time, they were materials for an eighth-grade pill.
Alexei tossed all the ingredients into the furnace again, closed the lid, and lit the fire.
This batch took a little longer to refine. Nearly a minute and a half passed before he opened the furnace and took out another nine-pattern pill.
Danqing stared at the eighth-grade Vitality-Enhancing Pill in silence. Then he brought out the ingredients for a seventh-grade Marrow Cleansing Pill and handed them over.
Alexei refined that one just as easily.
After that came a sixth-grade Vein Protection Pill, a fifth-grade Clear Mind Pill, and then a fourth-grade Talent Nurturing Pill.
By the time Danqing took out the ingredients for a third-grade Emerald Jade Pill, Alexei paused and picked up one of the spiritual herbs.
"Oh, I know this one. Emerald Cloud Fruit, right?"
Danqing's eyelid twitched, but he still nodded.
After the Emerald Jade Pill came the second-grade Spirit Soul Pill.
Alexei tossed the ingredients into the furnace and refined the pill without any issues. As soon as he opened the lid, the entire furnace crumbled into powder.
CLANG!
A pale blue nine-pattern pill rolled out from the ashes and spun across the floor before coming to a stop.
The room fell silent.
Even Alexei looked surprised as he stared at the pile of dust where the furnace had been. Since coming to this world, this was the first time he had ever seen equipment break from durability loss.
"So... should we continue?" he asked while glancing at the ruined furnace and Danqing's stiff expression. "I can just use another furnace."
Ying opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
Danqing felt his entire worldview shaking.
He had spent centuries saving resources and preparing himself so he could one day pursue higher realms of alchemy. Yet before he even had the chance to truly begin, a boy who had started learning alchemy this afternoon had already reached a level he could barely comprehend.
At this point, that so-called top alchemy prodigy from the outer regions seemed far less impressive.
During all his years traveling, he had never encountered anyone capable of refining nine-pattern pills with a perfect success rate. Even back at his peak, when his name stood on the alchemy leaderboard, his success rate for ninth-grade nine-pattern pills had only been around one in seven attempts, and that was already considered exceptional among alchemists of his generation.
Once the pill grade rose, the difficulty increased exponentially. By the fifth grade, the odds of successfully refining a nine-pattern pill had already fallen below one in a thousand. As for second-grade nine-pattern pills, he had only managed to refine two throughout his entire 2,700 years of life, both achieved through overwhelming luck rather than skill.
Beyond that level, he had never succeeded even once.
And the most terrifying part was that the top talents from the major sects weren't much better than him in this regard.
The more he thought about it, the more unsettled he became. Watching this boy refine pills felt less like witnessing talent and more like watching something unreasonable unfold before his eyes. If this continued any longer, he feared his Dao heart would become unstable enough to attract a tribulation.
In the end, he could only suppress the turmoil in his heart and escort Yan and the others out of the dwelling.
After sending them away, he stood at the entrance for a long while before letting out a tired sigh.
Right now, all he wanted was some peace and quiet.
He sat beside the teaching furnace for a long time, staring at the second-grade nine-pattern Spirit Soul Pill he had recovered from the ashes. Eventually, he flicked his sleeve and summoned another set of ingredients onto the table before starting a new refinement attempt.
This time, he refined the pill with extreme care from beginning to end. His concentration never wavered as he controlled the flame and monitored the medicinal properties inside the furnace. He avoided every mistake he could think of, yet when the furnace opened, the result was still only an eight-pattern Spirit Soul Pill.
He picked up the pill before glancing at Alexei's nine-pattern pill in his other hand. The more he compared them, the more frustrated he became. No matter how carefully he refined it, he still couldn't cross that final gap.
Had all his years traveling across the continent truly been meaningless?
That thought lingered in his mind as he stared at the eight-pattern pill. In the end, he lost even the desire to properly store it. Instead of taking out a jade box, he shoved the pill into his pocket and walked toward the bamboo grove to clear his head.
---
As soon as Danqing stepped out of his cave dwelling, he heard the familiar sounds of spirit monkeys playing in the bamboo forest.
"Chitter chitter!"
"Screech!"
Several monkeys swung between the bamboo stalks while chasing each other through the snow, but after spotting someone emerge from the cave, they quieted down and started climbing away.
He watched them for a second before glancing at the eight-pattern pill in his hand. In the end, he clicked his tongue and muttered, "Forget it. Keeping this thing around is annoying anyway. I might as well give one of these monkeys a lucky opportunity."
He raised the pill and called out, "You there. Come over."
One of the black monkeys stopped halfway up a bamboo stalk and pointed at itself.
"Chit?"
"Yes, you."
Hearing that, the monkey scrambled down and ran over on all fours.
Danqing placed the Spirit Soul Pill into its hand.
This pill could awaken intelligence and spiritual awareness in beasts, and an eight-pattern version was something cultivators would fight over. Even thousands of high-grade spirit stones might not be enough to buy one.
After taking the pill, the monkey sniffed it twice and tilted its head before placing it back into Danqing's palm.
Danqing hadn't even processed what happened before the monkey started rubbing its hands through the snow, scrubbing them several times before wiping them clean against its fur. Seeing that, the muscles in his face twitched.
The monkey itself seemed completely unconcerned. It reached into the pouch hanging from its waist and pulled out a handful of golden-yellow pills, causing Danqing's gaze to lock onto them.
Dense patterns covered every pill from top to bottom, glowing faintly. He subconsciously began counting the markings, his eyes moving from one line to the next until his thoughts stalled.
The pills in the monkey's hand had ten patterns.
Even ordinary nine-pattern pills were already considered near-perfect quality, yet the markings on these pills were smoother and more balanced than anything he had ever seen. Every line maintained the same thickness as it curved around the surface, forming complete circles without the slightest irregularity.
While Danqing was still trying to process the shock, the monkey selected one from the pile and dropped it into his hand. Then it glanced at the eight-pattern pill resting in Danqing's palm, hesitated for half a second, and took that away as well.
Only then did Danqing understand.
The monkey hadn't returned his pill out of disgust. It had cleaned its hands first because it intended to exchange pills with him properly.
The thought made the entire situation feel surreal, especially when combined with how naturally the monkey handled the trade. Unfortunately, that impression lasted only until the monkey turned around, took two quick steps forward, and twisted its entire body.
Whoosh!
The eight-pattern pill shot into the distance and disappeared from sight.
The monkey clapped its hands before glancing back at the old man, who was still standing there with a stiff expression. Seeing that Danqing had yet to react, it lost interest in waiting around and grabbed onto a thin bamboo stalk, swinging across the snowy grove. One bamboo bent under the weight of the snow, then another, and within seconds the monkey had vanished into the forest.
Danqing remained where he was, his eye twitching.
As for picking up the pill the monkey had thrown away, that was out of the question. If word spread that he had reduced himself to collecting discarded pills from a monkey, his reputation would never recover.
His gaze soon lowered toward the pill resting in his palm.
A ten-pattern pill?
No matter how he looked at it, he found the idea absurd.
Legends about ten-pattern pills had circulated through the alchemy world since ancient times. Many old texts mentioned them, and countless alchemists treated them as the ultimate realm of pill refinement, but very few people believed such things could exist. Perfect ten-pattern pills belonged in the same category as true immortality or omniscient divine pills. They were theoretical concepts people chased because they were impossible.
Yet the object in his hand made his thoughts waver.
He spread out his spiritual sense and examined the pill, only for his expression to become stranger.
There was nothing.
His spiritual sense passed over the pill as though it were empty space. If not for the fact that he could see and touch it, he might have doubted whether the thing even existed at all.
He lifted the pill closer and examined the patterns on its surface.
They resembled ten complete pill patterns, and unlike the unstable, incomplete ninth pattern found on ordinary nine-pattern pills, every line on this pill was balanced and clear.
Even so, he still found it difficult to believe what he was seeing. He searched for another explanation, wondering whether the object in his hand was some mutated spirit beast core or perhaps a rare heavenly treasure that merely resembled a medicinal pill.
Yet no matter how he tried to rationalize it, a thought continued to surface in the back of his mind.
What if this really was a ten-pattern pill?
And if ten-pattern pills truly existed, then how much of his understanding of alchemy had been wrong all along?
Danqing closed his hand around the pill and walked back toward his dwelling.
----------
[POV: Alexei]
Since the alchemy lesson ended early due to Danqing needing time to recover from his existential crisis, Alexei returned to the courtyard while there was still plenty of daylight left. Naturally, the first thing on his mind was the mob farm and the strangely absent zombie villagers that had refused to appear for quite a while now.
The situation was frustrating because the rest of the farm had already exceeded his expectations. After integrating Nether Stars into the spawning platform's mineral composition, the zombies inside the tower had started dropping black iron armor and cloud essence armor directly. The drop rate was high too. In less than half an hour of farming with a weapon enchanted with Disarming, he had already collected more than a dozen black iron ingots and cloud essence ingots.
None of that solved his actual problem, however. He still needed more zombie villagers. Things would have been much easier if the villagers started breeding on their own, but so far, there had been no progress at all.
He had considered crafting zombie spawn eggs to bypass the issue, but that plan ran into another obstacle because zombie spawn eggs required zombie heads, and zombie heads could only be obtained by having zombies killed in explosions caused by charged creepers.
Which brought him to the next problem.
How was he supposed to get a charged creeper in the middle of winter?
Thunderstorms were not something he could rely on whenever he needed them. Realistically, he would have to wait until spring, then use a lightning rod together with a Channeling trident during a thunderstorm to create charged creepers himself.
He had briefly considered looking for a workaround through cultivation methods instead. Some lightning-element techniques could theoretically produce a similar effect, and borrowing the help of a sect member was also an option. Unfortunately, after asking around a little, Alexei discovered that nobody in the outer sect possessed particularly strong thunder-element abilities. As for himself, his thunder-element aptitude was only two, which was nowhere near enough to forcefully recreate natural lightning.
In the end, he could only give up on shortcuts for now.
People often liked to claim that zombie spawners were inefficient compared to other mob farms, but those people had never transmigrated into a cultivation world with Minecraft mechanics before.
His ten-floor tower currently spawned around fifteen or sixteen mobs per minute, and after removing skeletons and creepers from the count, getting five or six zombies was already considered decent output. Even so, it still couldn't compare to simply summoning two rounds of mobs with spawn eggs.
As for automating the pill furnace, he still had no real ideas. After thinking about, he realized he didn't even have any pills worth mass-producing in the first place. The only reason he had started researching automated alchemy was because the idea seemed possible, and once that thought got into his head, he couldn't help wanting to see whether he could make it work.
Sometimes building something was more satisfying than whatever it produced.
By the time he finished sorting through everything in his head, it was already close to eight in the evening. Since there was no such thing as having too many wither skulls, he spent another half hour AFK farming wither skeletons before returning to the courtyard and dropping onto the wooden recliner beneath the pavilion.
Qingxue glanced up from the scroll she was reading. "How did your alchemy studies go today?"
Alexei leaned back comfortably.
"Danqing said I have the potential to become a Pill Saint."
The page in Qingxue's hand stopped turning as surprise flashed across her face.
"A Pill Saint?"
She had known Alexei's talent in alchemy was good, but she hadn't expected it to be high enough for Danqing to make that kind of evaluation. Yan had once told her about the title while talking about the legendary alchemists of the Eastern Territories.
Pill Saint was neither a cultivation realm nor an official rank. It was simply a title used for alchemists who stood at the peak of their generation, and every person who had ever received it was remembered as a legendary figure in the Dao of Pills. According to Yan, the Eastern Territories hadn't produced a new Pill Saint since the heavenly tribulation centuries ago.
The two continued chatting for a while before Alexei stood and stretched.
"I'm going to sleep."
Qingxue lowered her gaze back to the scroll and nodded lightly.
"Sleep well."
Alexei headed back toward his building while Qingxue remained beneath the pavilion, quietly reading as the courtyard settled into silence beneath the night sky.
----------
[POV: Stormwind Sect]
The next day around noon, the main hall of Stormwind Sect was unusually lively.
Sect Master Feng sat at the head seat while the elders occupied both sides of the hall. As they listened to Elder Liu from Coldstream Sect explain the situation, skepticism spread across their faces.
Elder Liu himself remained calm throughout. He stood with his hands behind his back and continued speaking, "...the spiritual energy density inside the realm is roughly three times higher than the outside world. The danger level is still manageable for Foundation Establishment cultivators, and we've already confirmed the existence of rare minerals and spirit herbs inside."
The hall fell silent after he finished speaking.
Then one of the Stormwind elders frowned and said, "Elder Liu, forgive me for being direct, but your explanation sounds far too exaggerated. If a realm with triple spiritual energy density, low danger, and abundant resources truly existed, why would Coldstream Sect willingly share it with others?"
Several elders nodded in agreement.
Feng raised a hand to stop the discussion from becoming too noisy, though the doubt in his eyes didn't lessen at all.
"You should understand why we're hesitant to believe this. What you're describing sounds less like a secret realm and more like something out of a legend."
Elder Liu wasn't surprised in the slightest.
Honestly, if Stormwind Sect had accepted everything immediately, he would have found that far stranger.
"Everything I said is true. If you still have doubts, then Stormwind Sect is free to investigate the matter yourselves. If any part of our information proves false, Coldstream Sect will take full responsibility."
He reached into his spatial ring and pulled out a sword, drawing the attention of several elders.
The golden blade was around 1.2 meters long, with a faint purple glow running along the edge.
"This is a treasure we recovered from the ancient realm," he said as he held the sword across both palms. "Please examine it."
Feng spread his spiritual sense toward the blade, but his brows furrowed when he failed to detect even the slightest trace of spiritual energy from it. Aside from the purple glow surrounding the weapon, it felt no different from an ordinary mortal sword.
Curious, he sent out a strand of spiritual energy and tried to lift the blade remotely. The sword remained still.
His expression darkened. Increasing the flow of spiritual energy, he tried again, only for the result to remain the same.
"What's the meaning of this?" he asked as he looked up at Elder Liu. "Are you mocking us?"
Elder Liu looked startled by the accusation.
"You misunderstand."
"Then why are you still holding the sword?" one of the elders asked with a frown. "If you want us to inspect it, release it first."
Elder Liu froze briefly before letting out a helpless laugh.
"So that's the issue. Forgive me. I should have explained earlier."
He adjusted his grip and lifted the sword with both hands.
"This weapon weighs approximately 4,300 kilograms. It remained in an environment almost devoid of spiritual energy for far too long, causing the spiritual essence inside the blade to dry up. The spiritual circuits within it have also fallen dormant. Under normal circumstances, manipulating it with spiritual energy wouldn't be difficult. But in its current state, if you want to move it remotely through spiritual energy alone, you would need to exert at least 8,600 kilograms of force."
Silence spread through the hall as the elders stared at the sword in his hands.
Then several of them rose from their seats.
"4,300 kilograms?" one of the elders blurted out.
Even Feng was shaken.
The shocking part wasn't the sword's weight, but what that weight implied.
On the continent, every weapon refiner relied on compression forging, yet there was always a limit to how far the process could go. Even the greatest refiners in the world could only push compression close to a hundredfold, and nobody had ever truly surpassed that boundary.
The level of compression determined far more than a weapon's weight. It also affected the number of spiritual circuits that could be engraved into the material, which in turn determined the weapon's rank.
An ordinary black iron sword, for example, weighed only two kilograms before compression forging and couldn't support any spiritual circuits at all. Only after being compressed eighteen times would it gain enough capacity to hold the simplest spiritual circuit and reach the level of a low-grade Yellow-tier artifact. At that point, its weight would rise to 36 kilograms.
Even if a refiner somehow pushed black iron to its theoretical limit with a hundredfold compression, the sword would weigh only around 200 kilograms, and its quality would at most reach low-grade Earth-tier.
Of course, no experienced weapon refiner would waste effort trying to forge an Earth-tier artifact out of black iron. The material itself simply wasn'tsuited for it.
Yet the golden sword in front of them weighed more than 4,000 kilograms. That meant its level of compression had already gone beyond anything the weapon refiners of their world could achieve.
The burly elder standing nearest to the table stepped forward.
"May we inspect the weapon ourselves?"
The other elders voiced their agreement.
Seeing their reactions, Elder Liu placed the golden sword onto the table, causing the wood to creak under its weight.
"Naturally," he said as he reached into his spatial ring again. "I brought three swords with me this time, so you can examine them together."
Two more identical golden swords appeared beside the first.
Several elders stared at the table in shock.
The Stormwind Sect elders gathered around the tables and began examining the weapons. Some reached out to lift them, only for their expressions to change when the swords refused to budge. Others tested the edges with their fingers or inspected the craftsmanship up close. A few even pulled out appraisal artifacts and started checking the weapons in detail.
By the time Feng returned to his seat more than an hour later, his hands were still trembling slightly from excitement.
"What is Coldstream Sect asking in exchange for information about this realm?"
Elder Liu had already expected the question. Before he left, his sect master had given him clear instructions. Recover the debt first, then ask for somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 low-grade spirit stones from each sect. There was no need to push too aggressively since maintaining a good relationship mattered more in the long run.
"Coldstream Sect still owes Stormwind Sect 8,000 low-grade spirit stones from our previous transaction."
Feng nodded. He remembered the debt, although he had assumed Coldstream Sect would never be able to repay it.
"Our proposal is simple. The debt will be cleared, and Stormwind Sect will pay an additional 18,000 low-grade spirit stones in exchange for complete information regarding the realm's location and entry methods."
The hall became quiet.
"18,000?"
Feng had already prepared himself to be overcharged. Considering the value of those swords, he had expected Coldstream Sect to ask for at least 50,000 spirit stones. Compared to that, 18,000 was barely different from repaying the original debt.
"That's correct. Sect Master Yan specifically instructed us not to make things difficult for Stormwind Sect. Our two sects have maintained friendly relations for many years, so we wouldn't take advantage of old friends over such a small matter."
One of the Stormwind elders leaned over and whispered something into Feng's ear. Feng listened silently while keeping his eyes on Elder Liu.
50,000 low-grade spirit stones was already close to the limit Stormwind Sect could pay without affecting the sect's foundations. 18,000, on the other hand, was an amount they could easily afford.
Which was why the situation felt strange.
He studied Elder Liu's expression, trying to find some trace of hidden intentions behind the offer, but the other party looked sincere.
After thinking it over, he nodded.
"Stormwind Sect accepts the offer."
The negotiations continued afterward, and once the remaining details had been settled, several Stormwind elders exchanged glances.
Their impression of Coldstream Sect had improved during this meeting.
In the cultivation world, it was common for sects to seize every opportunity for profit, especially when dealing with weakened allies. Coldstream Sect, however, had shown none of that greed. Instead of exploiting the situation, they had lowered the price to maintain goodwill between both sides.
By the time the meeting ended, the Stormwind elders already felt far more favorable toward Coldstream Sect than before.
Truly, this was a sect that understood righteousness.
----------
[POV: Alexei]
Around midday, Alexei sat in the spirit stone storage area of the Aureate Summit Sect base with his arms crossed, staring at the dropper as his frown deepened.
The thing had been silent for more than half an hour.
That shouldn't have been possible. The dropper was specifically designed to eject low-grade spirit stones continuously as long as the mob farm below remained active. Since the entire system depended on people entering the Nether through the portal, the machine should have kept running nonstop unless something had interrupted the flow.
Yet for the past thirty minutes, not a single spirit stone had come out.
"Did people stop entering the portal?" he muttered, though even he found the idea unlikely.
By this point, the news about the ancient battlefield should have spread pretty far. If anything, more cultivators ought to be entering the Nether, not fewer.
While he was still trying to figure out what had happened, the dropper clicked.
Clack.
A low-grade spirit stone rolled out and bounced across the floor.
Then a second one followed.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
The dropper returned to its usual rhythm, ejecting spirit stones one after another as though nothing had happened in the first place.
Alexei watched the output stabilize again before bending down to pick up several stones from the floor. After checking them over briefly, he tossed them into the nearby storage chest.
"Looks normal now."
He relaxed as he sat back down to continue monitoring the machine.
----------
Outside Verdantree City, the area around the Nether portal had become even livelier than before.
The Coldstream Sect had already withdrawn several days earlier after wrapping up their business, but their departure only created space for others to move in. Four different sects now occupied the perimeter around the gate, all of them having purchased information about the ancient battlefield from Coldstream Sect. At the time, the price had felt steep. Now, after seeing the portal for themselves, every one of them felt they had profited immensely.
None of the sects had expected the realm to be so close to Verdantree City either. Through gaps in the forest, they could even make out the distant outline of the city walls.
Before long, the first group of disciples returned from inside the realm.
One Foundation Establishment disciple came sprinting out of the portal with flushed cheeks and wide eyes, clutching two fist-sized gold nuggets against his chest.
"Sect Master!" he shouted before he had even fully stopped running. "It's true! The ground in there is covered in gold!"
He raised the nuggets for everyone nearby to see.
"Coldstream Sect wasn't exaggerating at all! You can pick it up straight from the ground!"
The four sect masters near the entrance turned toward him.
Before any of them could question him further, two more disciples rushed out through the portal carrying gold of their own while loudly repeating the same claims.
The sect masters exchanged glances before heading straight for the portal together.
After feeding spirit stones into the collection funnel and waiting for the iron door to open, they stepped into the ancient battlefield.
The disciples inside were already fighting the piglins roaming through the area. Their formations were stable, and the battle itself looked under control, but the four sect masters barely paid attention to any of it after entering.
Their eyes were drawn to the ground beneath their feet.
Gold nuggets covered the battlefield. They were scattered everywhere in dense layers.
One of the sect masters bent down and grabbed a handful, his expression turning strange after feeling the weight in his palm.
"Sect Master!" a disciple shouted as he hurried over while carrying a sword in both hands. "The pig monsters drop weapons after they die!"
Nearby, another disciple was struggling to put on a set of oversized armor stripped from one of the corpses, while a third examined a shield covered in unfamiliar engravings.
The four sect masters looked around at the battlefield, their expressions becoming serious as more and more treasures entered their sight.
Then the entire group reacted at once.
"Send word back to the sect!"
"Bring every available Foundation Establishment cultivator here!"
"Set up transport teams near the gate!"
"Collect every weapon on the ground, even the damaged ones!"
Within an hour, what had started as four sects investigating a rumor had turned into a large-scale resource operation.
The disciples organized themselves without needing much instruction. Foundation Establishment cultivators focused on clearing out the piglins while Qi Refining disciples gathered the dropped items, transported gold, and sorted artifacts into storage vessels outside the portal. Before long, someone proposed separating the entrance and exit routes through the gate to keep people from getting stuck in traffic, and the idea was adopted by the other sects.
News spread even faster than expected. By the time night fell, three more sects had arrived after receiving urgent messages from their allied disciples, bringing the total to seven.
With more manpower joining the operation, the harvesting speed increased once again. Groups of Foundation Establishment cultivators rotated through the ancient battlefield in shifts, killing piglins faster than the creatures could reform, while long relay lines of Qi Refining disciples moved gold and artifacts back outside. Storage vessels piled up one after another near the gate, and several elders had already begun discussing where to temporarily store everything if the operation continued for several more days.
Inside the wooden cabin the Coldstream Sect had built near the portal, the seven sect masters and their senior elders gathered around a large table to discuss the situation.
Although everyone tried to remain calm, the excitement in the room was impossible to hide. Even the smaller sects had never seen resources flow in at this kind of speed before.
Still, the operation was consuming spirit stones at an alarming rate.
One of the sect masters soon placed several calculations onto the table and said, "At this pace, our reserves won't last longer than three days. Keeping the gate open requires a constant supply of spirit stones, and the consumption rate is far higher than any of us predicted."
The atmosphere in the cabin became heavier.
After exchanging looks with the others, an elder from one of the smaller sects suggested, "Then why don't we borrow spirit stones from nearby sects? We can use the gold and artifacts as collateral. If production continues at this rate, repaying the loans shouldn't be difficult."
Several sect masters frowned after hearing the proposal. Borrowing such a large amount of spirit stones would inevitably expose the existence of the ancient battlefield to even more factions.
Feng, however, nodded in agreement.
"We already have a stable source of gold and magical equipment, so any sect willing to lend to us would get their money back within a week, probably even sooner. Debt was never the real problem. Time is. How long do you think it will take before the other major sects realize what's happening here? With an operation this large, there is no way we can keep it hidden for long."
Several expressions around the table changed.
"So we borrow as much as possible now, expand before the others can react, then repay everything from the profits afterward," one of the sect masters said as the idea clicked for him.
"Yes."
After hearing that, the hesitant sect masters no longer looked as resistant as before. Between the logic itself and the excitement spreading through the room, they were persuaded.
Before long, the meeting came to an end, and the seven sect masters split up to negotiate short-term loans from every source they could reach.
---
Three days later, the atmosphere on the ship was no longer as relaxed as before.
The first sign of trouble came when a storage supervisor knocked on the cabin door and informed everyone that the primary warehouse was full. Nobody paid too much attention to it at first, but twenty minutes later, another supervisor arrived to report that the secondary warehouse had also reached capacity.
By the time the third report came in, the sect masters had already gathered inside the cabin again.
Feng stood in front of his sect's assigned storage area, staring at the rows of overflowing chests piled one after another across the deck. Every single chest was filled with gold. The sheer quantity was shocking. His sect had probably never possessed this much gold in its entire history.
Unfortunately, gold was still just gold.
In the mortal world, such wealth could buy kingdoms. In the cultivation world, however, it had little practical value. Cultivators couldn't use it to improve their cultivation, refine pills, forge spiritual artifacts, or trade for spirit stones at any worthwhile rate.
The weapons and armor dropped by the piglins were at least somewhat useful, but even those had started piling up faster than the sects could distribute them among their disciples.
What had initially looked like an unbelievable windfall was turning into a storage problem.
The loans they had taken out three days earlier were already coming due.
"That son of a..." One of the sect masters cut himself off halfway and exhaled slowly before forcing his expression back under control.
"Coldstream Sect didn't lie to us. The information they sold was accurate."
The more he spoke, the uglier everyone's expressions became.
"We can't even blame them for this," another sect master said. "We were the ones who made the decision."
Feng remained silent from beginning to end, his brows furrowed as he looked at the mountains of gold piled in the distance.
A steward standing behind him lowered. "Sect Master, what are your orders?"
"Recall the disciples. We've already reached the storage limit anyway. Continuing this any further is meaningless."
The steward left to carry out the order while Feng continued staring ahead.
Seeing this, one of the Stormwind elders hesitated before speaking, "Sect Master... regarding the loans we borrowed earlier, should we perhaps approach Coldstream Sect and discuss some kind of arrangement..."
"I'm not attacking Coldstream Sect."
"That wasn't what I meant," the elder said quickly.
"I know." Feng waved him off before he could continue. "And the answer is still no. They told us what they were selling, and the information was real. We made our own choices after that."
The elder could only fall silent.
Feng turned away from the storage area and walked back toward the cabin with his hands behind his back.
"We'll sell the information to the other sects. As long as the price is enough to recover our investment and repay the loans, we won't lose anything. The information itself is real anyway. Coldstream Sect already proved this method works."
Coldstream Sect had borrowed spirit stones from neighboring sects, used those resources to operate the realm, then discovered that the gold inside was nowhere near as valuable as expected. After realizing the profits couldn't justify the cost, they had sold the information to someone else, repaid their debts, and escaped with a small profit before the truth spread any further.
Feng slowed to a stop just outside the cabin door.
If that was the case, then Coldstream Sect had almost certainly known about the issue with the gold from the very beginning. Selling the information for only 18,000 spirit stones had never been generosity. They had thrown the problem onto the next buyer before the losses became impossible to contain.
He felt his face twitch slightly.
"Those..."
He exhaled slowly, suppressed the irritation rising in his chest, and straightened his robes before pushing open the cabin door.
"We can't delay this any longer. The sects we borrowed from will eventually realize what's happening. Once the news spreads, the information becomes worthless. I want teams sent to every sect within reach before the day ends. All senior elders will move out."
The elders exchanged glances the instant they saw Feng's expression.
No one needed an explanation.
They rose from their seats and began making preparations to leave.