After he took a bath, Luo Cheng changed into a fresh set of robes. He sat cross-legged on his bed and began going through the Alchemy Compendium in his head. He previously acquired the Alchemy Compendium from the Ancient Scroll he found in his past life.
The Alchemy Compendium was divided into three levels, and only the first level was accessible while the other two were blurred out. The first level of the Alchemy Compendium contained a list of Alchemy herbs and pills, it also the process of refining said pills.
Alchemist was one of the most respected profession in the Great Thousand World. The respect came from their pills that could heal wounds, their miraculous pills that could improve the body's talent for cultivation, and the pills that could speed up cultivation.
To every cultivator, alchemy held a certain level of attraction. Alchemists were rare and they were highly demanded, this naturally caused the profession to be respected far more than the others.
Lou Cheng went through the information in the Alchemy Compendium. This Alchemy Compendium was not very thick, it only contained tens of pages.
Luo Cheng skimmed through the first level of the Alchemy Compendium and finished it in no time.
There were important information inside and it provided Luo Cheng with helpful insights on refining alchemy pills. Luo Cheng benefitted from this, as he now possessed a better understanding of alchemy.
Alchemists in the Great Thousand World could be separated into nine ranks, with one being the lowest and nine being the highest. All of the ranking examinations were conducted by the Alchemist Association of the Trade Alliance. The Trade Alliance is an organization that consists of various professions headed by the Alchemy Association and the Blacksmith Guild.
To become an alchemist, there were three prerequisites.
First, one needed to gain True Fire after breaking through to the True Qi Realm. In other words they needed to have the ability to condense True Fire. Different from normal fire attributed bloodlines or fire attributed martial techniques, the True Fire is most suitable for refining Alchemy Pills.
The second prerequisite has to do with ones knowledge of alchemy herbs. This condition requires very solid fundamentals and an individual had to have a very thorough understanding of alchemy herbs and their usage. There were no shortcuts to this, it could only be accomplished by gradually learning.
The third prerequisite was spiritual awareness. This was the vaguest condition and it seemed very enigmatic. Spiritual awareness was similar but distinctly different to soul sense.
Even if an individual had progressed very far on the road of cultivation, they still might not be able to awaken their spiritual awareness. Cultivation and spiritual awareness were not directly linked. There were some individuals who had awakened their spiritual awareness and possessed a very great spiritual awareness, however, they did not manage to have any accomplishments in terms of cultivation.
This so called spiritual awareness referred to the intuition, senses and mental connection of the alchemist. The most important of these was their mental connection to alchemy herbs. If their mental connection could be fast, stable, and meticulous, then they would be able to go far on the path of alchemy.
Luo Cheng thought about these prerequisites and checked himself. He had the white True Fire, thus he had naturally cleared the first prerequisite. Additionally, he had memorized the alchemy Compendium and was able to recall the information on alchemy herbs in detail. After reading the alchemy compendium, he was already familiar with it as the back of his palm. Thus, Luo Cheng had cleared the second prerequisite too.
As for the third prerequisite, it seemed very mysterious. The first level of the alchemy compendium did not have much information of spiritual awareness in it. However, he was not worried, even if he did not possess spiritual awareness or only had a weak spiritual awareness, he was still confident that he could learn to refine alchemy pills. Furthermore, the pills recorded on the alchemy compendium was more profound and mysterious than the pills of this world. For example, he intended to refine the Blood Qi pills.
This pill could improve the purity of a cultivators bloodline and also has a chance of upgrading the level of the bloodline after its consumption. This kind of effects was unheard of in this world.
Luo Cheng brought the alchemy herbs out of his spatial ring and inspected them carefully.
Twenty spirit grass, fifty blood ginseng, ten spearmint, five red leaf root...
Luo Cheng carefully counted them one by one. He picked up a stalk of red leaf root to examine it carefully.
The topmost part of the foot long herb had four reddish green leaves. As he looked at the stalk of red leaf root that was no more than 600 years old, he felt quite puzzled. Luo Cheng thought, what is the spiritual awareness? How do i make a mental connection with a herb?
He held the herb gently in his hands and closed his eyes as he sank his consciousness downwards. His consciousness flowed with his Qi as it slowly moved towards his right hand. His Qi left his body and wrapped around the herb gently. However, his consciousness was stuck in his body, hindered by the skin and flesh of his palm. It was unable to break out of his body.
Even after he attempted a few times, his consciousness was still unable to make any kind of connection with the red leaf root. Consciousness and spiritual awareness were quite different. Just as Luo Cheng was about to give up, his consciousness that was hovering around his palm suddenly managed to catch hold of a strange green energy net.
There were many small threads of energy that flowed and into his body via the essence from the green energy net. It rapidly connected together with his consciousness and a green space immediately appeared i Luo Chengs consciousness.
Within the green space, there was a complicated network of threads, it looked like a complex maze. Streams of the green energy extended everywhere in this green space. The energy then firmly connected with Luo Chengs consciousness. In that instant, Lou Cheng felt as though he could feelthe red leaf roots breath and pulse. It was a very mysterious feeling.
Luo Cheng felt incomparably joyful, this must be that spiritual awareness! Within that firm connection, he felt as if the herb was part of him. Under such a state, he would be able to bring his understanding and control of the herb to a deeper level. During a refinement, he would be able to accomplish twice the effect with half the effort. It was no wonder that spiritual awareness was a requirement to becoming a good alchemist.
As Luo Cheng withdrew his consciousness, a stream of green energy traveled from the meridians in his hand to his sea of consciousness. After the green energy circulated a few times, it formed a green sphere and merged with Luo Chengs consciousness.
Luo Cheng was puzzled by this green sphere in his sea of consciousness. However, he decided not to bother with this sphere for now. He tossed aside his bewilderment as he opened his eyes and looked at the red leaf root once again. He now had a deeper understanding of the herb, it leaves had many medicinal properties. It was not like what was written in the first level of the alchemy compendium, which stated that only the roots were useful. With this deeper level of understanding, he was even more confident in his ability to refine alchemy pills later.