Taking out the Alchemy Cauldron, Luo Cheng condensed the White True Fire and began his first attempt at refinement, he aimed to refine a Blood Qi Pill.
In the Alchemy Compendium, the Blood Qi Pill was a level 2 Alchemy Pill. It could purify the Mortal Qi Bloodline and even the Silver Bloodline, it also had a high chance of upgrading a Mortal Qi Bloodline into a Silver Bloodline. Only cultivators who had a higher bloodline level would not need to take this pill, as it would not have any effects on them.
Luo Cheng placed a stalk of red leaf root into the White True Fire and carefully started to refine it. He controlled the white True Fire's strength attentively. Luo Cheng did not dare to be even slightly careless.The four green roots quickly melted to become four clear drops of green liquid, this green liquid continuously boiled in the cauldron.
Luo Cheng took out a porcelain bottle he had prepared earlier. With a flick of his finger, he poured the liquid into the bottle.
Next up, Luo Cheng focused his gaze on the unmelted reddish green leaves. Before he awakened his Spiritual Awareness, he would have treated this leaf as garbage and thrown it out. Now that he knew of its medicinal properties, he naturally would not throw it out.
The leaves were obviously softer than the root, thus he had to lessen the temperature of his flames. Luo Cheng slowly reduced the temperature of the White True Fire.
Controlling this flame seemed easy but it was very tiring. Furthermore, it tested his abilities to control his flame to its extremes. If the flames temperature was too low, it would not be able to extract the medicinal liquid and If its temperature was too high, then the medicinal liquid would be burned. Only at that perfect temperature could he successfully extract the medicinal liquid. It was a good thing that the Alchemy Compendium had described this very clearly. As long as he was careful, it should not be too hard to achieve.
After he extracted five drops of green liquid from the leaves, the table was filled up with some waste products. Luo Cheng quickly took out the remaining four stalks of red leaf root to refine. However, he was not as fortunate this time.
Even when he knew how much to increase the temperature of the flames by, he still damaged a stalk of the red leaf root. All in all, he managed to extract sixteen drops of medicinal liquid from the red leaf root before he stopped.
Extracting a sufficient amount of medicinal liquid was just a small partof the initial step. Next up was to extract the medicinal liquid from three other alchemy herbs.
After taking a small break, Luo Cheng retrieved a blood ginseng and held it in his hands. He tried to use his Spiritual Awareness to establish amental connection with it. He focused his attention and the green sphere in his sea of consciousness took on the shape of a brook-like, long, and jade-green line. It traveled through the meridians in his arms and exited his body. The green line, which was invisible to the naked eye, made a connection to the blood ginseng.
Instantly, a bright red space appeared within Luo Chengs consciousness, as though it was right in front of his eyes. This time, Luo Cheng gained a deeper understanding of this medicinal herb's inner space.
Those flowing red threads should be the medicinal properties of the blood ginseng. The area that had the densest amount of threads was the place with the most medicinal properties. Thus, he could afford to be careless when it came to the other areas.
After a while, Luo Cheng opened his eyes and rescinded this strange state. After experiencing this mental connection, he now had a rough understanding of the sphere in his sea of consciousness.
The green sphere could be a Spiritual Core consolidated after he awakened his Spiritual Awareness. However, he did not know what level of aptitude this Spiritual Core, which was of the same size as a bean, was considered to be at.
Gathering his thoughts, Luo Cheng circulated his Qi condensing the White True Fire. He began to extract the medicinal liquid in the blood ginseng, extracting a total of five drops of red blood-like medicinal liquid.
Following that, he extracted the medicinal liquid of the remaining blood ginsengs and obtained two hundred drops of medicinal liquid. And then he extracted the medicinal liquid of the spirit grass and spearmint, both of them yielding fifty drops of medicinal liquid each.
Looking at the four porcelain bottles on the table, Luo Cheng took a breather and wiped the sweat off his forehead. The first step in refining the Blood Qi Pill had finally been completed.That alone had actually already exhausted one tenth of the Qi in his body...
The second step was to form the pill. It required the supplementation of an enormous amount of Qi. If he came up deficient in Qi whilst in the midst of this step, everything would be for naught.
Picking up the Alchemy Cauldron, Luo Cheng condensed the White True Fire and thrust it into the opening for fire under the Alchemy Cauldron. The White True Fire burned ferociously in the cauldron.
First of all, he poured the red leaf root medicinal liquid in. Under the purification of the white True Fire, the viscous liquid continued to churn, giving off a 'Zi Zi' sound.
The Alchemy cauldron began to give off a faint fragrance. Luo Cheng mentally kept track of the time and poured the second medicinal liquid in after a minute.
After four minutes, all the medicinal liquids in the four porcelain bottles were emptied into the medicinal cauldron. Luo Cheng placed the cauldron lid on and continued to supply Qi to the white True Fire in the Alchemy cauldron.
An invisible thread connected to the white True Fire under the alchemy cauldron, he made the Qi in his body flow out in a steady stream which kept the white flames alive.
This was the disadvantage of not having Soul Sense. If Luo Cheng could cultivate the Primordial Fiendgod Technique to the 2nd Heaven, and attain Soul Sense, he could directly use it to control the strength of the white True Fire. He would not have to wastefully expend his Qi as he did at present.
Within the Alchemy Cauldron, the four medicinal liquids of different colors continuously churned before slowly fusing together, turning into a viscous liquid that was continuously spinning. At this moment, the smell of medicine started to turn denser in the room.
Luo Cheng, who was without Soul Sense, was not able to see the situation inside the Alchemy Cauldron. He could only judge based on the fragrance that came out from the Alchemy Cauldron, that the four types of medicinal liquid had already fused together.
At this moment, Luo Cheng could no longer use a high temperature to purify it. He had to follow the direction of the spinning ball of medicinal liquid, controlling the white True Fire to wrap around it from a distance. The white True Fire also had to slowly rotate in sync with it, and the temperature had to be adjusted.
Sweat continuously trickled down from Luo Cheng's forehead, as this was a delicate step that exhausted more Qi than simply brute-forcing a True Fire to purify the medicinal liquid.
Each time the flames made a complete revolution, Luo Cheng felt the Qi in his body wither significantly. If he ran into a situation where he ran out of Essence, then everything he had done so far would be for naught.
The medicinal fragrance within the room took on another change. Luo Cheng could finally breathe easy. There was about a half of his Qi left in his body. The situation that he was the most worried about, running out of Qi, did not occur, fortunately. This level of Qi was enough to complete the final step in refining this pill.
Under the purification of the warm flames, the medicinal liquid in the cauldron had already condensed into a rough sphere-shaped pill embryo. A faint fragrance wafted out from the cauldron. As long as the final step of solidifying it was completed, then this Blood Qi Pill would be completed.
Luo Cheng opened up the cauldron lid, in which an even thicker fragrance wafted out and assaulted his nose. Looking at the rough pill embryo in the Alchemy Cauldron, Luo Cheng felt extremely content. For him to be able to make it all the way to this step without committing any major mistakes during his first refinement was very gratifying. If he could perfectly complete the final step, then it would be ideal.
Luo Cheng's eyes seemed to burn with excitement, but his heart remained extremely calm. This final step was the most important step. There was no room for mistakes.
Luo Cheng guided the White True Fire to slowly rise into the air, and the rough pill embryo similarly followed the white True Fire and rose up into the air. He stretched out his right hand and the pill embryo surrounded by white flame slowly descended onto his palm.
It was time to solidify it and shape it!
With his attention fully honed in on it, Luo Cheng's eyebrows were tightly knit into a frown.This would only happen in a situation where someone was concentrating extremely hard.
"Hu Chi!"
The pill embryo spun rapidly within the flames, and Luo Cheng did not even dare to let go of his breath. Sweat glistened on his forehead as it incessantly poured down his face, trickling downwards. The uneven pills embryo started to smoothen out and turn into a perfect sphere, and even a faint glow began to surround the pill.
Only once this step was completed could the Blood Qi Pills be considered true pills. Luo Cheng pushed down ferociously with his hand, sending the pills back into the cauldron. After closing the lid, he began the final heating.
At this moment, Luo Cheng still did not dare to relent in his focus. Until the pills came out of the cauldron, he had not succeeded. However, there was not much risk anymore. Before this Blood Qi Pills could be considered complete, it simply needed two more hours to simmer.
"Hu!"
Without any mishaps, after two hours, the Blood Qi Pills successfully formed its shape and solidified. In one breath, Luo Cheng had placed the pill back in the Alchemy Cauldron. After simmering for five minutes, Luo Cheng extinguished the White True Fire.
"Ka!"
There was a flash of brilliance three glowing pills came out from the Alchemy Cauldrons head with a 'plop', falling into the bottle that Luo Cheng had prepared earlier.
Wiping away the sweat dotting his forehead, Luo Cheng revealed a smile laced with a trace of contentment.This Blood Qi Pill was finally a success. However, this was only just the beginning.The Blood Qi Pills may be mystical, but it was only the lower version of a much higher pill available in the second level of the Alchemy Compendium.
Next, he intended to refine the Qi Nurturing Pill and Qi Returning Pill.These were the pills that he wanted to have.
As for the Qi Returning Pill, after consuming it, the Qi one has exhausted will begin to rapidly recover. If a situation arises where a cultivator has exhausted all of his Qi or has had a great expenditure in Qi, the perk in having a pill to recover Qi, regardless of it being in battle or refining medicines, would yield tremendous help in such clutch situations.
As for the Qi Nurturing Pill, it was of even greater use. It could increase the cultivation speed of cultivators in or below the Houtian Realm. Similar pills in the Great Thousand World would require at least a rank three alchemist to refine.
If Luo Cheng did not have the Alchemy Compendium, let alone with his current cultivation realm, he would have no way to refine a pill like this.
However, Luo Cheng was not in a rush to make these two pills. Instead, he continued to refine the Blood Qi Pill. In the Alchemy Compendium, these two pills were of similar grades to the Blood Qi Pill, but the difficulty in refining them was much greater. If he attempted to refine one of them without careful consideration, his chance of failure would be enormous.
Furthermore, Luo Cheng was only able to purchase one set of herbs for these two pills, as he did not have enough money. Every month, Luo Cheng would receive an allowance of a thousand mid grade spirit stones from the Leng Mansion.This was sufficient to purchase plenty of materials for the Blood Qi Pills.
However, it would be hard to purchase large amounts of materials for the Qi Returning Pill and Qi Nurturing Pill. If he factored in the rate of failure, then the amount of money needed would essentially be multiplied.
With regards to his lack of money, Luo Cheng had already thought of a solution and there fore did not feel too worried about it. His gaze was currently fixed on the Blood Qi Pills within that jade bottle. The most important thing now was improving his familiarity with alchemy.
Taking out the ingredients as outlined in the recipe for the Blood Qi Pill, Luo Cheng began to tirelessly refine one after the other.Time flew by without him realizing it; and only when his mind was completely exhausted did he cease refining the pills.
Glancing towards the jade bottle filled with Blood Qi Pills, Luo Cheng revealed a contented smile. This bottle had twenty seven Blood Qi Pills in it. With all the continuous practice, he had grown more and more familiar with the intricacies of alchemy. He had only failed once as a result of a mistake.
Sitting down cross-legged, Luo Cheng observed his dantian and circulated the Primordial Fiendgod Technique. He began to slowly recover the exhausted Qi. Threads of Qi in the room now saturated with a medicinal fragrance slowly entered his body before finally being absorbed by his dantian.
While in cultivation, Luo Cheng lost all concept of time. And when he opened his eyes again, the sky was bright already. He stretched his body, causing his stiff joints to pop into place with a cracking sound. His body felt incomparably relaxed as, in fact, the exhaustion from the previous night had completely vanished.
Luo Cheng hurriedly got up to take a bath. After taking a bath, Luo Cheng held and observed the jade bottle filled with the Blood Qi Pills, "I should get going to Green Leaf City and sell this pills to the Misty Cloud Pavilion."
Leaving the Leng Mansion, Luo Cheng found an isolated area and wore a loose black cloak, covering up his entire body before heading towards Green Leaf City in a hurry.