Chapter 104: Vein Flow Calction Method
<span style="font-weight:400">At the summit of thergest mountain within The Great Trial of Water Crest, thereid a simple lone hut. If one were to venture inside, they wouldn’t find the typical interior of a structure. Instead, they would find themselves in a world of yellow clouds and purple skies. The clouds stretched across the horizon as far as the eye could see. Even the ground itself was made up of these same clouds.
<span style="font-weight:400">The entire expanse was empty except for three small glowing orbs of light that floated frantically about. They differed in color, consisting of orange, blue, and green.
<span style="font-weight:400">Most people would believe it was some sort of Qi art or phenomenon, but in reality, they were the artifact spirits of the mountain that were in charge of the trials.
<span style="font-weight:400">The artifact spirits were currently panicking. It was a rare sight to see them troubled, as they could view everything that went on within its grounds. Little fazed the experienced artifact spirits, which meant they noticed something unprecedented.
<span style="font-weight:400">They eventually stopped flying around aimlessly and fell into the clouds below. In an instant, three teenaged figures appeared in their ce. It was their habit dating back to a time when their master was still alive, transforming into a humanoid form whenever they discussed something serious.
<span style="font-weight:400">“What do we do? What do we do, green? At this rate, we will run out of energy entirely in a few years,” a teenage boy in orange robes asked with a frown, pulling on hispanion in green.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Get off me! Why are you asking me? I know as much as you do!”
<span style="font-weight:400">“...If only we could control the pocket realm to start absorbing the Qi from the outside world. Then we wouldn’t be having this problem.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Shut up, Orange! You know that’s impossible without someone controlling us. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t changed my mind and I won’t change it. I will never yield to anyone else as our master!”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Now, now, you two. Settle down. I’m sure Orange didn’t mean to say we should find a new master. We all swore to only serve our one true master for the rest of eternity.” The only female of the three mediated as she inspected her blue robes. “Since we do not know the root cause, we must remain vignt while monitoring the new challengers even more closely.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“That’s easy to say!” Green shouted. “But we have our master’s legacy at stake! At this rate, this will be thest trial we’ll be able to hold. Once we’re drained of Qi, it’ll be impossible to recover without someone at our reins! I say we should just banish every single one of those challengers right away! It may be against our master’s orders, but we were also told to carry out these trials for as long as we can.”
<span style="font-weight:400">The woman in blue robes said nothing and only gave Green an icy re. It instantly silenced the loud man.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Umm, calm down, guys. We’re only making it worse if we fight among ourselves.”
<span style="font-weight:400">Orange’s words drew the attention of both parties. The intensity in their eyes softened when theynded on the nervous young man in orange robes.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Orange is right. Master always said never to get emotional when making decisions. Let us continue to observe these new challengers. We know they are most likely the source of the anomaly. We must strive to deal with this without breaking any rules our master has set.”
<span style="font-weight:400">With that, the three artifact spirits all stared nkly out into the distance. They were directing their attention to the numerous cultivators below.
<span style="font-weight:400">“If the disturbance is this strong, it must be from one of the more talented challengers. We should direct more attention to monitoring the most talented among them. I will watch the girl wearing clothes that share my color,” Blue dered.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Then I’ll watch over the kid with white hair.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Then…I’ll watch the other girl in grey.”
<span style="font-weight:400">With their assignments delegated, the three figures soon turned back into glowing orbs of light and floated away.
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<span style="font-weight:400">Inside a splendid refining room, a lone boy waspletely focused on his task at hand. He had his hands on his pill furnace, and silverish-blue mes could be seen within it.
<span style="font-weight:400">With the intense pill-refining session going on, one would expect him to be drenched in sweat, especially having worked nonstop for the past four hours. However, his robes werepletely pristine. Only those who were in the room with him could figure out why. That was because the room’s temperature waspletely moderate, a far cry from what you would expect during a pill refining session.
<span style="font-weight:400">The Primordial Star Fire had allowed Li Lang to more precisely control the heat. While it synergized well with his mass-production method, the same could be said with the traditional alchemy methods.
<span style="font-weight:400">It allowed him another tool in his endeavor to nurture the nascent pill within his furnace. No longer would he have to worry about the fire suddenly ring up because a material drew a little too close. His mespletely enveloped the space within the furnace while being fully under his control.
<span style="font-weight:400">His practice of managing the temperature in different sections within the fire had been paying off. On his seventh attempt at refining a top-quality pill, Li Lang finally seeded! It may have appeared easy, but it had been backed up by weeks of hard work.
<span style="font-weight:400">He had spent so much time on it that he was left behind by all his peers. They had all moved on to thebat trials, as every bit of progress became harder and harder. It was also because they wanted a breath of fresh air, studying new techniques.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Fourth round passed. The challenger is awarded eighty trial points. The next round is starting shortly.”
<span style="font-weight:400">It was only after having read the notification that he hadpleted his task that Li Lang dared to rx and plopped himself down on the floor. The glowing words quickly changed to disy his next trial, but he barely paid attention to it.
<span style="font-weight:400">He was instead focused on the new pill he had just refined. It was his first and only top-quality pill. He couldn’t help but be mesmerized by it. He couldn’t wait to have Ruby analyze it. He may already have a good idea of what the results would be, but he still wanted to take a closer look at his handiwork.
<span style="font-weight:400">A top-quality Recovery Pill wasn’t something often seen on the market. At least not Mortal-grade ones. Usually, they were refined by apprentice alchemists, so they would be dubious in quality. The more experienced alchemist wouldn’t be wasting their precious time on the low-level version of the pill. All this made it a rare sight and usually doubled the price of the average quality version.
<span style="font-weight:400">Laymen may find the price not worth itpared to a standard Recovery Pill. That was because the effects were only thirty percent better at most. It could closerger wounds at a more rapid pace, but it still couldn’t deal with a lost limb.
<span style="font-weight:400">However, whatymen would fail to consider was how advantageous it was to have ess to such a pill in dire situations. One often didn’t have many opportunities to take a pill in the middle ofbat, so when they could, having a more effective pill could turn the tide of a battle.
<span style="font-weight:400">It was such a big advantage that the offspring of therge organizations would have space rings filled with Earth-grade pills and higher if they could use them. Unfortunately, for them, the power contained in those high-grade pills wasn’t something their body could handle.
<span style="font-weight:400">Before long, the trial deemed Li Lang had failed the fifth round. He had noted that the next trial was about creating an elemental variant of a Qi Replenishment Pill, but he was too exhausted to proceed. Even if he wasn’t, he knew he wouldn’t seed at an unfamiliar task without some time to research it. He was happy to receive the new reward that may help him in this endeavor and work his way one step at a time.
<span style="font-weight:400">This time, the trials didn’t award him anything unorthodox. It was an alchemy manual titled Vein Flow Calction Method. While he hadn’t gone over in detail yet, his skimming allowed him to learn that it was a technique to assess and calcte materials.
<span style="font-weight:400">It wasparable to a Qi version of a scanner. It allowed its practitioner to thoroughly analyze the properties of materials. Specifically, it allowed the practitioner to know what elements a material had an affinity for.
<span style="font-weight:400">Needless to say, Li Lang was ecstatic about his new reward. Despite being a top scientist back in his previous life, it didn’t mean he was multi-talented in all fields. Specialization was the norm, and he specialized in biodefense, specifically against alien biofaunas. That meant he couldn’t just recreate the advancedb equipment he used in this new world.
<span style="font-weight:400">The more advanced the society, the more people sought to make things easier. People from Li Lang’s old world relied on their fancy tech like AIpanions heavily. It gave Li Lang a lot offort knowing there were nobat Qi techniques that he could use to assist his research.
<span style="font-weight:400">With the reward in hand, he exited from the trials just in time for the daily meetups with hispanions. He let out a sigh of relief upon realizing he wouldn’t bete. It would’ve been awkward if he was tardy or missed the scheduled event.
<span style="font-weight:400">One month after Tang Yulian’s breakthrough, it was time for Li Lang to make good on his promise. He and hispanions were allowed to spectate the breakthrough in exchange for guiding Tang Yulian in the art of brushweaving.
<span style="font-weight:400">Walking into the mess hall, it was hard to miss the unrestrained aura of a Foundation Establishment cultivator. Tang Yulian noticed him from beginning to end, staring at him like a hawk. By her side was Sima Xue who watched on with a smug expression.
<span style="font-weight:400">However, Li Lang wasn’t fazed. That was because he was busy thinking up ideas to train his soon-to-be proteges. There weren’t a lot of chances to get a Foundation Establishment expert to listen to instructions. Li Lang couldn’t help but want Tang Yulian to test out some theories he had.
<span style="font-weight:400">He walked over with an unsettling grin on his face. Unbeknownst to the girls, the madman before them was entirely unafraid of making them into his guinea pigs!