Li Zhirui returned to the courtyard and couldn't wait to take out the Jade Spirit Pill recipe; he planned to master it quickly and then start concocting the Jade Spirit Pill!
For the next few days, Li Zhirui locked himself in the yard, not stepping foot outside the gate, focusing on comprehending the pill recipe and practicing the spells.
It was not until ten days later that Li Zhirui felt he had thoroughly understood the pill recipe and formed some ideas on how to concoct it, so he was ready to start making the Jade Spirit Pill.
Li Zhirui first went to the storeroom to borrow a Pill Furnace and washed it with clean water to remove any fire energy, preventing conflicts between water and fire during the alchemy process.
Then he poured one-tenth of the Spirit Water from the gourd into the Pill Furnace, took out several types of Spiritual Medicine required for the pill, and according to the pill recipe, began by using mana to preliminarily extract the medicine, removing impurities.
This step is the foundation of Water Method Alchemy and differs from the Fire Refinement Method; Water Refining requires cultivators to extract substances in the outside world rather than relying on Spiritual Fire to bake.
Soon, five clumps of Spiritual Medicine essence hovered in front of Li Zhirui, and he added them to the Spirit Water in order, according to the recipe, before finally sealing the lid of the furnace.
Li Zhirui extended his Divine Sense into the Pill Furnace, observing the changes in the essence while manipulating the spells to fuse the five clumps.
This spellwork is what is known as alchemy technique. Li Zhirui only learned the four basic spells of merging, fusing, dividing, and condensing from his family's "Basics of Pill Concocting."
More profound alchemy techniques include those basics as well as spells that can further extract, amplify medicinal effects, and reduce pill toxins.
This is why, even with the same pill recipe, the results can greatly differ in medicinal efficacy and pill toxicity!
After the five clumps of essence had completely fused into one, Li Zhirui changed his spell, as if an invisible hand was stirring the essence, merging different medicinal effects together.
This process determined the effectiveness of the Jade Spirit Pill.
As time slowly passed, the appearance of a hint of jade color in the essence signified that the fusion was nearly complete.
Li Zhirui was delighted, but before he could take further action, the essence suddenly dispersed!
Li Zhirui's expression stiffened; although he hadn't expected success on his first try at alchemy, he still felt somewhat frustrated by the failure.
After calming his emotions, Li Zhirui stood up and activated the prepared Memory Stone to review where he had made a mistake.
After several reviews, Li Zhirui finally realized his error—he was a beat too slow when he executed the Pill Division Spell, leading to the failure.
"Hoo—" Li Zhirui let out a long breath of turbid air and collected the mixed material in the Pill Furnace using the Hollow Gourd.
Although this mixture was a failed product, it didn't mean it was now useless.
This is also where Water Refining differs from Fire Refinement; if Water Method Alchemy fails, the essence will merge with the Spirit Water, but failure in Fire Refinement leaves nothing but ashes.
Despite the mixtures not having undergone further extraction and containing some toxins, they still hold Spiritual Energy, which, while harmful to cultivators, can be consumed by Spirit Beasts with a strong constitution or used to water Spiritual Medicine.
Li Zhirui, who possessed a space storage ability, certainly wouldn't feed such substances to Da Qing, but they were very suitable for watering the Spiritual Medicines in his space.
…
Washing the Pill Furnace, adding Spirit Water, removing impurities, combining essences, and merging medicinal effects—Li Zhirui completed all these steps well.
When he saw the flash of jade color, his spell changed and he immediately executed the Pill Division Spell. The essence, originally the size of a baby's fist, divided into ten parts, but before Li Zhirui could continue, the essence dispersed again.
After personally undertaking the task, Li Zhirui realized the difficulty of alchemy was far greater than he imagined, and after experiencing another failure, his mindset became very calm.
"Didn't people always say that failure is the mother of success in my past life?" Li Zhirui comforted himself, before he began to check the Memory Stone again, looking for where he went wrong.
Soon, he found the problem: the spell had been miscast slightly, resulting in an insufficiently condensed essence of the Spirit Pill after division!
This time, Li Zhirui didn't continue with alchemy, but instead recorded all the mistakes he had made and the problems he had encountered, planning to ask the family's alchemists for advice when the opportunity arose.
Meanwhile, he took out "Basics of Pill Concocting" and the Pill Recipe again, seriously reviewing them to make sure he hadn't remembered anything incorrectly or forgotten anything, before he once again began practicing alchemy.
But unfortunately, even as the moon rose high into the night sky, Li Zhirui had not succeeded in concocting the Jade Spirit Pill. The closest he came to success was thwarted by his many attempts exhausting his mana, causing the final Pill Condensation Spell to be performed less smoothly.
"The fiftieth attempt at alchemy has failed, reason for failure: insufficient mana," Li Zhirui recorded the reason for the last failure, but a smile involuntarily appeared on his face.
Because this failure wasn't caused by an error in his spells or timing, but rather because of insufficient mana! If he had enough mana at the end, he might have succeeded!
"It seems I do have some talent for alchemy," he mused. Otherwise he wouldn't have come so close to success after only fifty attempts.
However…
Li Zhirui looked at the Spiritual Medicine he had accumulated over so many years, seeing how much had been depleted in just one day, and felt both heartache and helplessness all at once.
The space had appeared on the day Li Zhirui broke through the first layer of his Qi Cultivation, and it had been ten years since then.
The Spiritual Medicine he grew were mostly the most common and prevalent type, that only needed one to two years to mature – so he had accumulated quite a lot of the commonly seen Spiritual Medicine.
He had planted the various Spiritual Medicines needed to concoct the Jade Spirit Pill in his space, but he had acquired one type too late and didn't have much of it in stock.
So, he could roughly gather enough materials for seventy or eighty batches, but after a day of extravagant use, he was left with just over twenty batches.
As for why Li Zhirui didn't sell his Spiritual Medicine? That was because the Marketplace in Bailang County was too small, and the shops that bought Spiritual Medicine, if not owned by his family, were owned by the Beast Taming Sect, and they all offered such low prices that he really didn't want to sell cheap.
…
Li Zhirui, dragging his weary body, unusually decided not to practice cultivation but instead went straight to bed and quickly fell into a deep sleep.
The next morning, Li Zhirui sprang up full of energy. He took half an hour to feed Da Qing and sprinkle Spirit Water across the Spirit Field before hastily exiting the space. He sat cross-legged in front of the Pill Furnace.
"Huff—"
With a breath of foul air expelled, Li Zhirui's state of mind became extremely calm. He poured in Spirit Water, drew in the five types of Spiritual Medicine one by one, extracting and merging the essences, performed Pill Division, and finally cast the Pill Condensation Spell!
A fragrance he had never smelled before wafted from the Pill Furnace, and Li Zhirui couldn't wait to open it. He saw five round, jade-colored Spirit Pills floating in the clear Spirit Water!
"I did it!" Joy shone in Li Zhirui's bright eyes, and his face was adorned with a resplendent smile.
From a batch of alchemy, at most ten Spirit Pills might be produced, and having five on his first successful attempt was a very good result indeed.
Li Zhirui took out the pre-prepared jade bottle and used his mana to extract the Jade Spirit Pills, treating them with the utmost care as if they were precious treasures, and cautiously placed them into the jade bottle.
Perhaps it was the experience of having succeeded once that allowed Li Zhirui to only fail five or six times in subsequent attempts.
After using up all the Spiritual Medicine, Li Zhirui's face was slightly pale, and a hint of fatigue could be seen in his brows and eyes, yet his spirit was extremely fulsome.
"In the market, one Jade Spirit Pill sells for three Spirit Stones. Even if a bottle of ten is discounted by two Spirit Stones, with the number of pills I've now produced, not only am I not losing money, I've actually started making a profit on Spirit Stones!" Li Zhirui excitedly muttered to himself.