"Everyone knows that Senior Martial Sister Leng not only possess unparalleled beauty, but also has generosity as vast as the seas. I naturally have no doubt that Senior Martial Sister Leng means what you say about rewarding those who deserve it!" Zhao Yunxiao chirped while tending the fire.
"Oh? Is that how the outer disciples view me?" Leng Huiqi probed with an amused smile.
"No! Senior Martial Sister Leng! How can you say that?" Zhao Yunxiao showed an expression of shock. "Saying it like that is a gross understatement of your stellar reputation. What I just mentioned is something that is known throughout the entire sect, not just among the outer disciples!"
"Heh, I guess you can be said to know quite a bit!" Leng Huiqi smirked.
Zhao Yunxiao was not completely lying. Leng Huiqi was truly known among the disciples as a great beauty.
In fact, there were quite a few male disciples in the sect who had openly declared their pursuit of her. There were even disciples of other sects who had expressed interest in her, wanting to be her cultivation partner.
On top of that, Leng Huiqi was also known to treat her followers well, expressing her generosity by showering them with gifts and resources.
However, that was limited to her followers.
Leng Huiqi's huge ego made it such that if you were not with her, you were against her. Because of that, in addition to her beauty, she was also known for being arrogant beyond compare!
Of course, Zhao Yunxiao was not nearly dense enough to mention that.
"That is not all either," Zhao Yunxiao quickly added. "I've also heard that Senior Martial Sister Leng is greatly talented at cultivation, and picks up things extremely fast. Many people are already speculating that Senior Martial Sister Leng will be next in line to join the list of core disciples!"
Leng Huiqi did not reply, but Zhao Yunxiao knew that his words were working as he could see her smiling to herself through her reflection on the bronze cauldron.
"Have the elders already approached you about this matter, Senior Martial Sister Leng?" Zhao Yunxiao timidly asked.
"How is it that easy?" Leng Huiqi shook her head with a smile. "You might not know since you are just an outer disciple, but becoming a core disciple is no simple matter. I'd rather they approach me sometime in the future. If they really approach me now, I'd actually be quite bothered by which elder to join under."
"Ah, that's true! The elder to join under really does matter quite a lot as it might determine your future path," Zhao Yunxiao nodded profusely. "As expected, Senior Martial Sister Leng's foresight is extraordinary!"
"Heh, enough about me," Leng Huiqi sat down on a wooden stool. "I happen to be in a good mood today, so let me give you some advice about cultivation while you are heating up the cauldron. Is there anything that you are unclear of and need clarifications about?"
"This…" Zhao Yunxiao answered hesitantly.
"What is it? Is there something wrong?" Leng Huiqi frowned.
"I know this is a rare opportunity for me to clarify my doubts, but I can't quite remember what I don't understand all of a sudden," Zhao Yunxiao sighed regretfully. "Had I known that this is possible, I would have written down everything in a notebook to come and consult Senior Martial Sister!"
It was a lie.
Zhao Yunxiao might not be talented at cultivation, but he had a very good memory.
He remembered everything that he did not understand during cultivation, but Leng Huiqi was simply not the right person to consult.
Firstly, Leng Huiqi had a short temper.
What if Zhao Yunxiao caused her to become irritated when he could not understand her explanations?
If this ended up leaving a bad impression on Leng Huiqi, wouldn't he be causing trouble for himself then?
Secondly, unlike what Zhao Yunxiao said just now, Leng Huiqi had never been known for her cultivation talent.
While she was definitely more talented than himself, she could only be considered slightly above average in comparison to the other inner disciples.
Rather than racking his brain over advice from her that might not be all that reliable, Zhao Yunxiao would rather wait for an elder to enlighten him on his doubts!
"Tsk," Leng Hui clicked her tongue with a frown. "This is why you are still unable to become an inner disciple after so many years. You need to make sure you remember all these things in the future, do you understand? Who knows how many more of such opportunities will you miss if you don't?"
"Understood, Senior Martial Sister Leng, I have learnt my mistake. I will surely keep that in mind in the future." Zhao Yunxiao scratched the back of his head in embarrassment.
"Don't scratch your head with your hands full of coal! It's dirty!" Leng Huiqi chided. "You already don't have much talent in cultivation. If you want to appear more charming to your junior martial sisters, you should at least make sure that you are always in a clean state. Let me tell you something. I will be going for a hunt with Deng Wei after this. If he dares show up in a state as dirty as you are right now, I will just walk away immediately!"
"Oh?" Zhao Yunxiao perked up after catching something interesting. "You are going for a hunt with Senior Martial Brother Deng later?"
This Deng Wei was an inner disciple just like Leng Huiqi, and was also one of the disciples who had openly declared his interest in the beauty.
For them to be going hunting together later, did that mean…?
"Don't read too much into it," Leng Huiqi swiftly cut off Zhao Yunxiao's imaginations. "It's just that he has been begging me for so many weeks, so I decided to just go with him once out of pure sympathy. Nothing more."
"So that's why…" Zhao Yunxiao nodded. "That is true as well. Senior Martial Sister Leng is someone destined to be with a son of heaven. How can Senior Martial Brother Deng possibly match up to you? That said, Senior Martial Sister Leng truly has a big heart to willingly sacrifice your time in order to grant Senior Martial Brother Deng's wish."
Leng Huiqi silently nodded to herself before suddenly narrowing her eyes. "All right, enough. You can stop heating the cauldron now."
But it is not the right temperature yet?
Zhao Yunxiao thought that in his head, but did as he was told nevertheless.
As a duty disciple tending to the cauldron room, Zhao Yunxiao could be considered rather experienced when it came to controlling the heat level, having grown sensitive to detecting the heat level over time. This allowed him to realise that Leng Huiqi was stopping him just slightly prematurely as compared to the ideal temperature for refining Winterwarmth Pills.
However, being a duty disciple tending to the cauldron room also meant that he should only take on a supportive role and not interfere with the alchemy process.
That being the case, Zhao Yunxiao silently backed off as Leng Huiqi approached the cauldron with a confident smirk.
"Let senior martial sister show you how it's done!"
Leng Huiqi moved her hands, and the previously stale air within the cauldron room was stirred up spontaneously.
Her long hair and robe fluttered wildly in the wind that seemed to pick up with each wave of her arms, as if nature itself was responding to her every movement.
Of course, this was not truly the case. Instead, it was her use of essence energy that was stirring up the world origin energy in the room, creating such a phenomenon.
Tapping upon her essence energy not only allowed Leng Huiqi to heighten her senses, but also aided her in simultaneously control the flames and handle the pill ingredients with well-practiced efficiency. Just like that, Leng Huiqi kept throwing different ingredients into the cauldron at varied intervals without any hint of hesitation.
Zhao Yunxiao stood back and watched, just as he had always done.
Now that the alchemy process had begun, there was no longer anything for him to do until the clean up at the end.
This meant that, exactly like what Leng Huiqi had said, this was the perfect opportunity to watch and learn whatever he could from how she performed the alchemy, be it good or bad practices.
Leng Huiqi might not be known for her alchemy skills, but this was not the first time that she was refining a Winterwarmth Pill. She did not lose focus despite the long alchemy process, carrying out the entire process without committing any obvious mistakes.
Zhao Yunxiao took in the entire process, superimposing the image over Leng Huiqi's previous alchemy sessions, as well as that of other disciples whom he had witnessed in the past.
9/10.
That was roughly what Zhao Yunxiao would give if asked to score Leng Huiqi's performance today as compared to her previous sessions.
Zhao Yunxiao could still spot a few points where she could improve on, but things were always easier said than done. Overall speaking, it was not a bad score at all.
He would like to think that this good performance from her was largely due to his compliments prior to the alchemy process, lifting her mood and in turn improving her focus level.
"And... done!" Leng Huiqi revealed a rare look of nervousness as she took a step away from the cauldron, her fringe slightly damp from the sweat droplets that dotted her forehead.
The cauldron before her was closed tight, but the rumbling from within could be felt.
After all the earlier work of heating and mixing the individual pill ingredients, the alchemy process had finally entered its final stage where the resultant mixture was being refined into a solid pill under heavy pressure and heat.
Now, all that remained was the decision on when to open the cauldron.
A few moments passed and Leng Huiqi suddenly narrowed her eyes, then shot forward in an instant to lift the cauldron lid.
Sizzle-!
A thick cloud of white steam escaped the cauldron the moment the lid was lifted, but Leng Huiqi did not even take a second glance at it.
Instead, she struck the side of the cauldron with her bare hand, causing the contents of the cauldron to shoot up along with the white steam.
One, two, three, four... twenty!
Zhao Yunxiao managed to count the number of pills that had escaped the cauldron before Leng Huiqi swept them in with a quick wave of her hand.
Twenty pills were completed, just as Leng Huiqi had intended. This meant that there were no failed products at least.
Now, all that was left was verifying the quality of the completed pills.
Zhao Yunxiao and Leng Huiqi exchanged glances, and he could sense a hint of nervousness in the latter's eyes despite her efforts to conceal it.
Just like Zhao Yunxiao, Leng Huiqi could feel that she did rather well this time as well. However, having a good feeling did not always translate to positive results.
Now that it was time for the reveal, she could not help but feel nervousness strike.
But Zhao Yunxiao did not find it strange at all, for it was only natural to be nervous.
Winterwarmth Pills belonged to a family of pills called cultivation pills which, as its name suggested, aided a cultivator by increasing the rate of cultivation.
In this world where the strongest prevailed, boosting of one's rate of cultivation was naturally a miraculous effect that all cultivators sought after. Unfortunately, there was a limit to how much external nourishment a cultivator could absorb in a day.
Most cultivators would only be able to take a single cultivation pill to aid in their cultivation every day, with subsequent cultivation pills providing little to no effect.
Since it was meaningless to take multiple cultivation pills, the efficacy of each cultivation pill they took became the primary concern.
All cultivators looked towards taking cultivation pills of greater efficacy to gain a greater boost to their rate of cultivation, and this efficacy was directly correlated to the quality of the pill.
Because of that, the value of cultivation pills increased drastically with each increase in quality tier.
Unfortunately, even the best inner disciples would not be able to perfectly replicate the way they performed alchemy every single time, so the quality of the resulting pills would always vary with each session of alchemy.
This made it such that the revealing of the completed pills was always a nerve wrecking process.
Inferior quality pill or common quality pill.
After investing all that time and hard work into the pill refinement process, these different outcomes made a huge difference to the level of benefits obtained!
As a result, not only would the disciples performing the alchemy process be nervous, but even duty disciples like Zhao Yunxiao who were merely watching from the side would find the reveal exciting.
Leng Huiqi took in a deep breath before slowly opening up her hands, pouring the pills onto a piece of cloth that Zhao Yunxiao had spread out on the tabletop.
The twenty pills rolled out promptly.
At one glance, it was already obvious that there were differences among the twenty pills.
All of them were white in colour, but some had a brighter shine to it than the others. This shine was the best indicator of the pill quality, which would in turn determine the efficacy of the pill.
Leng Huiqi and Zhao Yunxiao quickly scanned through the pills, counting the pills of varying quality.
"Five inferior quality pills... thirteen common quality pills... and two uncommon quality pills!" Zhao Yunxiao exclaimed in surprise. "Congratulations, Senior Martial Sister Leng, for successfully refining two uncommon quality Winterwarmth Pills!"
Despite the exhaustion from refining the pills, the excitement in Leng Huiqi's heart easily showed through on her face.
Two uncommon quality Winterwarmth Pills!
Usually, she would only manage to refine such a pill on a good day every month or so. But this time, she actually managed to refine two in a single batch!
Seeing the look on her face, Zhao Yunxiao could not help but smile as well.
From the looks of it, his reward today would not be too shabby at all!