Night had fallen.
Inside the room, the lights were extinguished, and Tang Jian sat upright on the bed, legs crossed.
Moonlight filtered through the cracks in the window, casting a somber glow on his face, accentuating his grave expression.
In his hand, he tightly clutched a white jade porcelain bottle containing the Yuan-Restoring Pill he had purchased during the day.
"I hope it works." Tang Jian murmured with a sigh.
With that, he popped the cork off the bottle and tilted it, pouring out a golden-yellow pill that immediately emitted a faint medicinal fragrance, reminiscent of peppermint.
After a brief inspection, Tang Jian raised his hand and tossed the pill into his mouth, swallowing it.
Once the pill entered his abdomen, a cool sensation traveled down his throat, spreading to his belly and渗透ing into his dantian.
As the Yuan-Restoring Pill's efficacy gradually unfolded, a sudden prickling pain like needle stabs emerged within Tang Jian's dantian, causing him to gasp and beads of sweat to appear on his forehead.
He took a deep breath and promptly closed his eyes to introspect.
He saw the flowing, light yellow spiritual liquid formed by the pill's power, trickling like a gentle stream within his damaged dantian, nourishing it like rain after a long drought, accompanied by faint "zizi" sounds.
Meanwhile, the magical power scattered throughout his body's meridians became restless, spontaneously gathering and slowly converging towards his dantian.
The yellow spiritual liquid and the magical power streams merged into a unique force, beginning to repair his dantian bit by bit.
In the center of the dantian, the pale golden flame flickered calmly, unresponsive to the changes around it, as if it had no connection to them.
Seeing this, Tang Jian felt slightly relieved. Despite the pain that made his forehead sweat, a smile couldn't help but curve his lips.
He struggled to sit upright, hands folded before him, and began meditating, silently reciting the incantation in his heart.
Around him, strands of faint, barely visible heavenly and earthly spirits slowly approached, gradually merging into him and converging towards his dantian, ultimately aiding in its restoration.
Time passed, and soon it was the morning of the next day.
Tang Jian still maintained his meditative posture.
Though his clothes and the bedding beneath him were soaked with sweat, his eyes remained shut, and he hadn't awoken.
It was not until the sun was high in the sky that his eyelids fluttered, and he slowly opened his eyes.
His eyes now had an inward glow, appearing even brighter than before.
After composing himself, Tang Jian leaped off the bed, shook his wrists and ankles, and felt a refreshing lightness throughout his body.
He gestured in the air, and a fist-sized crimson fireball appeared, pulsating "pupu" in his palm.
"Though not fully recovered, I can finally accumulate some magical power," Tang Jian said to himself, satisfied, as he closed his hand and extinguished the fireball.
Then, he picked up the white jade porcelain bottle, shook it, and continued, "There are still two pills left; they should be enough for recovery."
As he raised his hand to put the bottle in his bosom, the strong smell of sweat on himself overwhelmed him.
He quickly went to take a bath and changed into a new set of clothes.
In the following days, Tang Jian chose two days when Chen Guang wasn't forging swords to ingest the remaining two pills, finally completely restoring his dantian.
However, his cultivation level remained temporarily at the third layer of the Qi Refining stage, unchanged.
Tang Jian wasn't worried about this; as long as his dantian was healed, his cultivation would eventually return.
Time flew, and more than half a month had passed in the blink of an eye.
Tang Jian continued his apprenticeship under Chen Guang while also practicing at Yan's Sword Shop.
During the day, he still had no opportunity to personally participate in sword forging. It was only at night that he could use the discarded sword embryos forged by Chen Guang to practice swordsmithing on his own.
However, Tang Jian didn't use all the available scrap sword embryos for practice. He stopped after successfully forging two more magical swords.
The reason for this was that the success rate of forging swords from scrap embryos was not high. He had already consumed nearly half of the scrap, and if he continued to use a large amount, it might attract Yao Bin's attention.
Another reason was that forging swords from Chen Guang's embryos didn't allow for the addition of new materials. He was confined to a predetermined range, with too many restrictions, which didn't help much in improving his swordsmithing skills.
What Tang Jian wanted to try was to forge a truly high-quality magical sword.
However, he currently had no materials in hand, making it impossible to create something out of nothing. He planned to visit another shop in a few days to sell the second magical sword he had forged.
Although the second one was only a low-quality magical sword, selling it would make it much easier to buy the materials needed to forge a high-quality one.
One day, Yan Zi, who had been absent for a long time, suddenly appeared at the sword shop with Xiao Dingdang. Both of them looked solemn and hurried straight to the small building in the backyard.
They came and left in a rush, staying in the small building for only about half an hour before returning to the Yan family.
On the way, Yan Zi encountered Tang Jian in the courtyard but only greeted him without stopping.
Xiao Dingdang, however, turned back after a few steps and gave Tang Jian an apologetic smile.
The next morning, Yao Bin came to inform Tang Jian that his master was going into secluded cultivation for a while, and the sword forge would temporarily cease operations.
Although Tang Jian felt a bit puzzled, he didn't think too much of it. In the afternoon, he went outside the shop and found another merchant to sell the low-quality magical sword he had forged.