Elian snapped out of his daze and quickly lowered his head, saying, "It's improper to look. I apologize for my rudeness."
Jiang Linglong maintained a calm expression and asked seriously, "Am I beautiful?"
"Ah…" Elian was taken aback but followed his heart and replied, "Senior's beauty is unparalleled, even celestial maidens of the Nine Heavens cannot compare." (This time he called her Senior, because he remembered her previous words)
Jiang Linglong pondered for a moment before nodding seriously.
"You're right."
Elian: "…"
"Why have you come to see me this time?" she asked with a hint of amusement in her eyes, clearly enjoying his reaction.
Hearing her return to the main topic, Elian immediately presented the Thunder Roc's demon core and said, "I'm here to ask you to refine a batch of Foundation Establishment Pills."
Jiang Linglong accepted the demon core, nodding in approval.
"Being able to kill it shows that your strength has increased significantly over the years."
"By the way, have you prepared all the supplementary ingredients for the Foundation Establishment Pills?"
Elian handed her a storage bag and replied, "The time was too short, and we couldn't find seventeen of the required spiritual herbs."
Jiang Linglong glanced into the storage bag and remarked, "When we breached the Wood vein last time, we obtained many spiritual herbs. I should have the missing ones here."
"Follow me."
After checking the contents, Jiang Linglong led Elian to her alchemy room. For alchemists, their techniques were often closely guarded secrets. However, Jiang Linglong didn't avoid Elian and allowed him to observe her process of refining Foundation Establishment Pills.
Watching a high-level alchemist refine pills was a rare opportunity. Elian observed attentively, determined not to miss any chance for improvement.
Once she began refining, Jiang Linglong used the power of a third-tier Earth Flame. It didn't take her much effort to process the supplementary ingredients.
After completing this step, she retrieved the third-tier demon core, explaining as she worked, "There are two suitable primary ingredients for refining Foundation Establishment Pills: the Purple Marrow Fruit and Purple Mansion demon cores."
"The Purple Marrow Fruit takes a thousand years to mature and consumes a vast amount of spiritual energy. In the Chu Kingdom, only the three major sects can cultivate them on a large scale. Other cultivator families simply can't manage it."
"On the other hand, the vast Desolation is home to countless demon beasts, making Purple Mansion demon cores relatively more common."
As she explained, she used her spiritual energy to extract the pure power and transformative essence from the demon core.
Elian listened quietly, gradually understanding that the yield of Foundation Establishment Pills was often determined by the grade of the Purple Mansion demon core.
An early-stage Purple Mansion demon core contained limited transformative essence and power, producing at most five pills. Mid-stage cores could yield up to eight pills, while late-stage cores, with their immense transformative essence, could produce two batches.
"This demon core comes from a Thunder Roc and contains volatile thunder essence, which is harmful for cultivators establishing their foundation," Jiang Linglong continued.
"With my cultivation, I can separate the thunder essence using spiritual energy. However, your cultivation isn't sufficient. To refine Foundation Establishment Pills from this core, you would need to neutralize the thunder essence with elite water elements."
As she spoke, she activated her spiritual energy to eliminate the thunder essence, isolating the pure transformative essence and energy. She then combined it with the supplementary ingredients and continued refining.
Elian observed closely, feeling as though a veil had been lifted from his understanding of alchemy. His comprehension of the art grew significantly.
Noticing his newfound insight, Jiang Linglong smiled slightly and accelerated the refining process.
Soon, she divided the refined liquid into four portions and, after simmering it over a gentle flame for seven days, successfully produced four Foundation Establishment Pills.
Elian couldn't hide his delight. Producing four pills from a single batch was close to the limit for a third-tier lower-grade demon core. The difficulty of refining Foundation Establishment Pills was immense, and even many fourth-tier alchemists struggled to achieve such a success rate.
The limited yield was partly due to the quality of the demon core. The Purple Mansion Thunder Roc was only at the first stage of Purple Mansion, and the transformative essence it contained was rather sparse.
After refining the pills, Jiang Linglong handed them to Elian with a smile. "Four pills—quite a good result."
Elian took the pills and set aside two, offering them back.
"You provided many of the supplementary ingredients, and the pills were entirely refined by you. Please accept these two as payment."
"Oh?" Jiang Linglong's eyes gleamed slightly. She accepted one pill and said, "I do have a disciple who urgently needs one, but you should keep the others. Your family needs these more."
After a moment of hesitation, Elian accepted three of the pills. With the pills distributed, he produced the Thunder Roc's bones.
"Can these bones be refined into a third-tier magical treasure?"
"This Thunder Roc actually awakened Thunder Flash Escape," Jiang Linglong remarked in surprise after examining the bones.
Elian realized that not all Purple Mansion Thunder Rocs could awaken this innate ability. The one they had slain was exceptionally gifted, even among early-stage Purple Mansion beasts.
After some thought, Jiang Linglong said, "These bones naturally possess incredible speed and could retain the Thunder Flash Escape ability when refined into a magical treasure."
"I can refine them in two ways."
"The first is to create a small third-tier flying vessel. It would be capable of flying thirty thousand miles in a day, and activating Thunder Flash Escape would triple its speed temporarily. However, it could only carry one or two people."
"The second option is to use the bones as the keel and add other materials to craft a medium-sized third-tier flying vessel. Its speed would be limited to eighteen thousand miles per day, but it could carry up to thirty people."
Elian hesitated. The first option offered a superb tool for pursuit or escape, while the second would become a valuable asset for the family.
If he were a lone cultivator, he would undoubtedly choose the first. However, as part of the Chen clan, he had to consider the family's needs.
He asked, "Could the medium-sized vessel still activate Thunder Flash Escape?"
"Yes," Jiang Linglong nodded.
"But due to the increased weight, the speed boost would only be doubled."
"That's fine. Let's go with the medium-sized flying vessel," Elian decided.
The medium-sized vessel would greatly facilitate personnel movement and resource transportation between the Chen family's bases. Previously, it took Qi Refinement cultivators over ten days to travel between locations; with the vessel, they could do so in a day.
Additionally, the family's trade of fire elemental energy with Tianxu Mountain would become far more efficient. Instead of cultivators spending half a year on round trips, the vessel could complete the task in just one or two trips.
...
46+ chapters ahead on patreon: patreon.com/David_Lord
I need POWAAA! Gimme Power Stones :D