The Journey of Immortal Cultivation
Chapter 78 - 68: Beginner Alchemy Technique_2

Chapter 78: Chapter 68: Beginner Alchemy Technique_2

Her anger sent the fish in the pond darting off in all directions. Luckily, when the merchant team passed through the last county, she had cleverly purchased a big wooden barrel, which allowed her to enjoy the wood barrel bath she so envied on Earth—her uncle’s bathroom was too small for a shower, let alone a bathtub or wooden barrel.

The spring water was cool and refreshing, and it was not until she immersed herself that she realized how tired and weary she was, with every muscle in her body going on strike, deepening her resentment towards Changtian.

She soaked for nearly half an hour before the heat on her body dissipated, as well as her anger. Perhaps sensing her mood, Changtian remained silent the entire time.

She turned her head, gazing at the hopeful field beside her—the soil, burdened with a heavy task, could not revert to being a small jelly for the time being. From the light yellow soil, a tender sapling now sprouted, barely two feet tall, with round leaves and green stems, resembling the potted plants sold in supermarkets, exuding an adorably clumsy aura.

Such a cute thing, in Ancient Times, could make both immortals and Great Demons fight over it to the death? Without witnessing it herself, she found it hard to imagine.

After drying her body, she changed into clean clothes and went down to the bottom layer of the God Demon Prison. The Pill Furnace she bought in Siping County sat neatly on the Black Stone floor, with firewood already stuffed into the furnace, slowly preheating. It seemed that Changtian had done the preliminary work for her.

"It’s already late evening. I’ve stoked the fire for you, the rest is up to you to complete," Changtian, buried in a pile of books, didn’t even raise his head, "Today, you still refine golden sore medicine and Quhuang Powder. From tomorrow on, you can try refining Small Peiyuan Pills."

It was truly magical, the medicines in this world are all produced in small workshops by hand—whether by Immortal families or the common folk, they all must be refined in a Pill Furnace, naturally, the potency and effects of the resulting medicines are varied and peculiar. The golden sore medicine and Quhuang Powder she was refining tonight are entry-level elixirs in Alchemy, also known as mortal medicines. The former is effective for stopping bleeding, relieving pain, and healing external injuries, while the latter is a poison-avoiding and detoxifying medicine, useful in the wilderness to ward off toxic miasma and poisonous insects.

Changtian has an Elixir recipe book containing Elixir Pills with miraculous effects. It’s too bad that her current level is too low and without Innate True Fire to use as alchemy fire, she can not refine such Immortal medicines. But just because she can’t now doesn’t mean she can’t in the future, so Changtian insists she starts from the basics with Alchemy, with nightly lessons dedicated to Alchemy.

The Elixir recipe she is currently using was acquired from a medicine shop in a small county they passed by. She bought medicines worth eighty taels of silver, and the shopkeeper, grinning from ear to ear, threw in a set of Elixir recipes, guaranteeing with a pat on the chest that these were treasured handwritings of a master that others absolutely could not obtain. She didn’t buy into this, and sure enough, upon returning to the wagon, it turned out to be just a collection of entry-level elixir refining methods. It seems that swindlers are cunning in every world.

Waiting for the temperature in the furnace to rise, she squatted down and started placing the first few ingredients into the furnace in the correct order. Alchemy is particularly demanding on the heat, quantity, and sequence. After several days of practice, she casually pinched up ingredients like musk, beeswax, and dragon’s blood; her measures of quantity and weight had become fairly accurate.

This world has an "alchemy scale" specifically for measuring medicinal ingredients, but it is not as precise as the one from another world. Therefore, a skilled Alchemist places great emphasis on cultivating the sense of touch.

A slight crackling sound came from inside the furnace. She was about to throw in the frankincense when she suddenly heard Changtian say, "Wrong, the frankincense is five coins too heavy!" She weighed it again and found indeed there was a very subtle difference.

This demon, able to detect a mere five-cent difference, whose hands are these medicines actually in, and why does he know the exact weight? This is unscientific! (Ancient measurement method: 1 tael = 240 coins) But the oddities of Grand Steward Changtian do not stop there. At the beginning of learning Alchemy, even when she used the alchemy scale, the results never satisfied him.

"Not bad, now the deviation is only five coins. Twenty days ago, your error was as much as twenty coins." Is this a compliment or pointing out flaws?

Changtian was odd tonight, though he was quiet and reading as usual, but her highly sensitive sixth sense told her that he was suppressing a surge of anger. Sigh, maybe man, oh no—Divine Beasts also have a few days each month with a low mood?

Thoughts swirled in her head, but her hands never paused. Over the past twenty days, she had learned to refine three or four kinds of medicines; even though they were standard remedies, they still had a certain market in city and county medicine shops. More importantly, after looking over the Elixir recipes she brought back, Changtian casually modified a few ingredients, and the effects turned out to be vastly different. Like the golden sore medicine she was currently refining, its blood-stopping and wound-closing abilities were twice as good as ordinary golden sore medicine.

Don’t underestimate this difference, for those struggling to survive in the wilderness, their lives might depend on this slight difference in medicinal efficacy.

Ning Xiaoxian sat silently, silently counting in her mind. Although she was usually restless, she concentrated fully when refining Elixirs, even Changtian was somewhat surprised. Perhaps the natural talents of some people need to be deeply explored to be discovered. When she counted to four hundred and fifty, she suddenly reached out and lifted the lid of the Pill Furnace, and steam mixed with the scent of medicine rushed out.

The timing of lifting the lid is crucial; too early, and the Elixir is underdone; too late, and the effectiveness decreases. When is it just right? Honestly, nobody knows. It all depends on the experience and intuition of the Pill Master. The reason Changtian wanted her to repeatedly train was, in essence, about that very intuition.

As the steam dispersed, the medicines inside the furnace revealed their full form: a black paste spread across the dish, unattractive in appearance but emanating a fresh fragrance. Success!