"I can't, she doesn't deserve to be made a testing dummy, I should have confidence in my own creations."
Arrogance was still engrained within this old man. If he truly forced someone to become his testing dummy wouldn't he be admitting that he didn't have confidence within his skills.
"Thank you for your help, I will be seeing you more in the future." Zhishi Wu quickly said his goodbyes and departed, he could not waste any time in testing this pill.
"Wai.." Jia Lin was about to say something before he vanished.
"Wasn't that a sky grade pill?" she thought to herself as she fell into thought reminiscing about the appearance of the pill and its aura.
"Shouldn't it be impossible to refine a sky grade pill using mortal grade ingredients." she said as she stumbled into the library trying to make sense of the situation.
…
Zhishi Wu returned to his cave aboad and thought about the situation.
"This pill seems to be a lot better than what that girl showed me initially. Could it be that I am a heaven blessed alchemist?"
Zhishi Wu thought about it for a moment before bursting out with laughter.
"Hhaahaha, as if life would be that convenient, this pill was only refined thanks to my masterful control of Qi and understanding of medicinal science. There's no such thing as luck."
He thought about how he should go about testing the pill, although he had spared the girl and was arrogant in the moment he didn't lose all rationality.
"I could find some random disciple or request to see if the sect has captives."
He let out a sigh.
"If the effects are negative I'll be found out by the sect leader and if I randomly request a captive I'll be seen as suspicious."
He held the pill up and looked at it, scanning every single aspect of it.
"Well there's no shortage of scientists testing their own medicines on themselves, let me not stop the tradition."
He took the pill and sat down slowly circulating his qi to feel the effects. If he had known what would happen next he might now have made this decision.
After about two minutes the effects started to show, first his sense of touch skyrocketed and he felt even the force of sitting on the ground seemed to become overwhelming, as if he was sitting on a bed of nails.
Next it was his sense of smell, he felt like someone had stuffed bottles of perfume into his nostrils, after that was his hearing even the sound of his own breathing began to hurt him, although he was not eating anything it did not mean that he did not notice the shift in his sense of taste, the air that entered his mouth in each inhale had its own unique flavor.
Finally, he opened his eyes and surprisingly they seemed to be normal, except his perception of QI improved even further, if he could see blurry streaks of blue before now they were far clearer, it was as if his Qi sight had gained glasses that cleared his vision.
"It seems that I will have to wait this out."
…
"Greetings Elder Kong." the three disciples said unanimously, we have brought the child.
The elder approached little Liu and assessed him.
"You were right, he seems to be lacking any impurities in his body."
"Indeed sir Sage has mysterious techniques." Pyari responded.
As Pyari and elder Kong and Pyari discussed details of the mission Kun Faya and Roshini were standing just behind them waiting to be dismissed.
"I wonder if he is still around. I would like to learn more about Sir Sage." Kun Faya said with a thoughtful expression, he was really interested in the methods employed by him.
"Me too, I want to see how handsome he is under that mask." Roshini responded with a serious face.
"..." Kun Faya was well aware of his junior's tendency but was unsure about how to respond, luckily he didn't have to.
"You two pay attention, to what the elder is saying." Pyari scolded the two as her brows furrowed.
"Sorry senior sister." the two said in unison.
"No problem, I'll lead little Liu to the outer sect and get him started, as for you three, the Sage has been granted the status of elder for six months, go greet him he will be teaching you for that duration."
The three disciples eyes lit up and they immediately bowed to Elder Kong before departing.
…
As the effects on Zhishi Wu's senses started to die down he slowly opened his eyes.
He looked around trying to figure out how much of the medicinal effect he had regained, his glasses effect on Qi observation was still there.
As he stumbled around the cave he started to notice other changes, although his senses weren't as heightened as before they were still far beyond what they had been before taking the pill.
"I wonder." he said as he expanded his spiritual sense and just as he expected the range of his spiritual sense had increased from 20 to 30 meters.
Zhishi Wu looked at himself but didn't notice any changes except that his hair had grown somewhat.
"These effects were truly miraculous, alas I feel as though taking another will prove useless to me, regardless thanks to the prolonged release it worked wonders."
The prolonged release let the pill's medicinal effects act as waves crashing against the shore instead of one strong and fast wave it was drawn out, the concept was the same as erosion over a longer period of time.
But now it was impossible to improve his senses any further the beaches that had to be molded to perfection were already eroded and gone leaving emptiness.
"This feeling is euphoric, almost dangerous." he slowly took a deep breath in and then out.
"Is this how they felt, absolute power being absolutely corrupting."
And this is how he felt despite being an ant in the grand scheme of things, he was doubting his ability to stay true to his his ambitions, it was terrifyingly easy to fall off the path.
"Regardless, I won't falter here, this power is but a mere stepping stone for me to attain knowledge that's all it will ever be."