Word Count: 2,840 Words
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Xiao Yan kept both hands in his pockets and looked at the Nine Mysterious Golden Lightning before him. His eyes narrowed slightly as a strange gleam flashed through them. "Since fate has brought us together, I can refine you into a Lightning Calamity Pill."
Fury surged into the Nine Mysterious Golden Lightning's eyes the instant it heard Xiao Yan wanted to refine it into a medicinal pill. Golden lightning boiled across its body as though it meant to self-destruct and drag him down with it.
Xiao Yan paid no attention to the outburst. Let alone now, even before it had attempted to gather a spirit, he had never believed the Nine Mysterious Golden Lightning capable of perishing together with him.
"Don't be so impatient. I'm only refining you into a pill. I never said I was going to eat you." His expression remained calm. Since that Pill Tower senior from a thousand years ago had been able to refine an existence like the Pill Tower's Old Ancestor, why couldn't he do the same!
Was I, Xiao Yan, inferior to that Pill Tower senior in alchemy?!
A Mysterious Pill!Xiao Yan was going to challenge a Mysterious Pill!
And this Mysterious Pill would be a Lightning Calamity Pill, a Lightning Calamity Pill refined from the Nine Mysterious Golden Lightning itself!
He had planned this from the very beginning. The Nine Mysterious Golden Lightning's failed spirit-gathering would release an enormous amount of golden lightning energy, and he intended to use that very energy to refine a Lightning Calamity Pill. With the Nine Mysterious Golden Lightning as the primary material, the resulting pill would reach the Tier 9 Mysterious Pill level. In other words, he had long since prepared himself to challenge a Mysterious Pill, and today was the day!
But after watching the spirit-gathering fail, he found himself with another idea entirely.
Refining an ordinary Mysterious Pill was no longer much of a challenge for Xiao Yan. Give him two or three sets of materials, and producing a Tier 9 Mysterious Pill level Lightning Calamity Pill would not be a problem.
But would an ordinary Mysterious Pill be enough?
The Yao Clan's Medicinal Ceremony was, in practice, a gathering of the greatest alchemists on the Dou Qi Continent. Even if the Yao Clan was no longer what it had once been, the title of Medicinal Ceremony champion still remained the highest honor in the hearts of the top alchemists.
Hun Tiandi had already spoken and demanded that Xiao Yan take part in the Medicinal Ceremony. And what Hun Tiandi needed was for Xiao Yan and Hun Huzi to join forces and refine a Di Tier Embryonic Pill. Producing only an ordinary Mysterious Pill was clearly nowhere near enough.
He might not even measure up to Hun Huzi.
So when his gaze settled on the failed Nine Mysterious Golden Lightning, an idea crystallized in his mind. Since the Pill Tower's Old Ancestor already existed as a precedent, why not refine this golden lightning directly into a peak Tier 9 Mysterious Pill, something akin to the Old Ancestor?!
Now that was a real challenge! Only someone capable of refining a peak Tier 9 Mysterious Pill had the qualifications to seize first place at the Medicinal Ceremony!
"Whether you can one day become an existence like the Pill Tower's Old Ancestor, one that can cultivate Qi Methods and Dou Techniques, roam the world, and travel the mortal realm, will depend on the fortune shared between you and me." Xiao Yan's gaze was calm, but the confidence burning deep in his eyes could not be concealed, nor did he intend to conceal it.
In a fight, he might not be number one in the world. But when it came to alchemy... after experiencing a hundred lifetimes of reincarnation and fully inheriting everything Yao Chen had left behind, Xiao Yan held absolute confidence in his own skills!
No need to imitate the Pill Tower's Old Ancestor. I will surpass him!
ROAR! ROAR! ROAR!!
The Nine Mysterious Golden Lightning forcefully raised its battered body and shot upward. Its enormous dragon head leveled with Xiao Yan's, stopping less than ten meters away. Even injured, it still carried itself like the invincible sovereign of all thunder, its eyes brimming with overbearing majesty.
Xiao Yan remained utterly steady before that colossal form blocking his entire field of vision. His eyes still carried that same trace of confidence.
He had never refined a Tier 9 Mysterious Pill before, yet here he was, about to challenge a peak Tier 9 Mysterious Pill!
For a moment, the deepest region of the Void Lightning Pool fell into a silence so heavy it was almost frightening. The surrounding Black Demon Lightning went perfectly still, as though time itself had frozen.
A crisp crack broke the stillness. Fissures began spreading across the Nine Mysterious Golden Lightning's massive body, and rays of golden light burst from within. More and more cracks appeared until they covered its entire form like a spiderweb.
BOOM!
Its enormous body exploded open, revealing what lay inside: its origin essence!
Just like a Heavenly Flame or the Bodhisattva Ancient Tree, that gigantic body had merely been the accumulation of energy gathered over countless ages. Its true origin had always been hidden at the deepest core, somewhat akin to the tree spirit of the Bodhisattva Ancient Tree.
What emerged was a strand of origin essence shaped like a bolt of lightning yet also vaguely resembling a true dragon. One look was enough to tell that the spirit-gathering had failed completely. Compared even to the Bodhisattva Ancient Tree, it was far more illusory.
Strictly speaking, this origin essence could not even be called a true spirit. To put it plainly, the Nine Mysterious Golden Lightning did not possess a complete soul. It was more like a remnant soul, incomplete and fragmentary, and that was exactly why it had wanted to gather a spirit in the first place.
Ordinarily, refining a Lightning Calamity Pill required only the Nine Mysterious Golden Lightning itself. But a pill refined that way would merely be a strength-boosting medicinal pill. It could never undergo a mutation and become something like the Pill Tower's Old Ancestor.
The Nine Mysterious Golden Lightning, however, possessed a faint spirituality. If its origin essence was included in the refinement, there would be no need for Xiao Yan to do what that alchemist had done when creating the Pill Tower's Old Ancestor: sacrificing his own life and offering his body to the pill so that it could mutate.
And Xiao Yan was not without experience in this regard. He had once helped Little Fairy Doctor refine a special pill using a Heavenly Flame's origin essence.
Of course, the Lightning Calamity Pill and the Poison Pill were fundamentally different. The Poison Pill Method had been devised specifically for Little Fairy Doctor's Woeful Poison Body, while the Lightning Calamity Pill was, at its core, still an ordinary medicinal pill.
The Nine Mysterious Golden Lightning voluntarily revealed its origin essence, and Xiao Yan knew at once that it had agreed. It did not want to spend its entire existence in a muddleheaded daze, drifting between sleep and the endless absorption of lightning, never knowing when it would next awaken.
To the Nine Mysterious Golden Lightning, meeting Xiao Yan felt no different from the blink of an eye. Its consciousness was far too vague, far too incomplete. It wanted to become whole.
"Jie Jie hahahaha! Good. So even you know how to read a situation. You've got guts; I admire that."
A trace of madness mixed with confidence flickered through Xiao Yan's eyes. Refining this special Lightning Calamity Pill demanded more than formidable alchemy alone. The Nine Mysterious Golden Lightning itself had to be willing to gamble. Back when he had refined the Poison Pill, it would have been impossible if the Ghostly Poison Flame had not already been subdued by him. Otherwise, it would have resisted with everything it had.
Truthfully, he had not expected the Nine Mysterious Golden Lightning to really dare place such a bet. After all, even if he gave the refinement everything he had, failure would mean the complete end of the Nine Mysterious Golden Lightning.
"Mao Wu, take away the excess energy." Xiao Yan waved a hand, and Mao Wu slipped out from the void and began devouring the energy the Nine Mysterious Golden Lightning had released.
The immense energy it had accumulated over countless years would naturally serve as the price of his alchemy. How could he possibly refine a pill for free? Fees had to be collected.
He waved his hand again, and thousands upon thousands of medicinal ingredients poured from the storage ring Ya Fei had given him like a great flood.
There was only one set of ingredients. He had only one chance!
Medicinal fragrance flooded the region in an instant. The vast mass of ingredients swirled around Xiao Yan and the Nine Mysterious Golden Lightning's faint origin essence like a vortex.
Rumble!
Mao Wu sealed away half of the released energy, leaving only a portion of the Nine Mysterious Golden Lightning behind. Refining a Lightning Calamity Pill still required the Nine Mysterious Golden Lightning itself, after all. A portion had to remain as the primary ingredient.
The sky erupted into a thunderous roar as the medicinal ingredients filled the air. Golden light surged against the wind, and rolling thunder sparked wave after wave of storms overhead.
Xiao Yan drew a deep breath and brought himself to his absolute peak.
He was not entirely without grounds for confidence. First, his Spiritual Strength had already reached the perfected Heavenly State, perhaps even the half-step Emperor State. Second, his cultivation was close to 6-star Dou Saint. Third, the Flame Mantra had evolved to God Class, and his control over fire had reached an almost unbelievable level.
Most importantly of all, after a hundred lifetimes of reincarnation and two full years within the Demon Flame Space, Xiao Yan had finally created an alchemy technique that truly belonged to him alone.
He suddenly opened his eyes. A strange light flashed across them.
"Let's begin."
His hands blurred into motion, forming seals with lightning-like speed. In the next instant, a violent beating erupted from his chest.
Thump. Thump.
A strand of jade-green light spread outward from the center of his body.
The Bodhisattva Heart! This was the Bodhisattva Heart Xiao Yan had refined!
The Bodhisattva Heart could see through all falsehoods, and it could bring wisdom to its possessor. Once activated, it allowed him to enter an incomparably calm state, utterly free of distraction. There was no state more suited to alchemy.
"Refining Sky Ancient Formation, open!" Xiao Yan waved his hand, and Little Yi emerged from the Acceptance Soul.
"Yi wa! Refine!"
Little Yi spat out an endless torrent of milky-white flame. In an instant, the Purifying Lotus Demon Flame formed two ancient formations, each several hundred meters wide. Yet this time, the Refining Sky Ancient Formation differed from the one used inside the Demon Flame Space. From the upper and lower formations, strands of milky-white flame wove together into the image of a Bodhisattva Ancient Tree.
"Bodhisattva Hundred Lifetimes Refining Sky."
This was the special alchemy technique Xiao Yan had created by combining the Refining Sky Ancient Formation with the alchemy experience accumulated across a hundred lifetimes of reincarnation. He would use the Purifying Lotus Demon Flame and the Refining Sky Ancient Formation together to temper the ingredients and refine this pill.
The Black Demon Cauldron was no longer sufficient for something like this. It would likely shatter the moment the Nine Mysterious Golden Lightning's berserk energy struck it.
"Ingredients, enter!"
Xiao Yan's Spiritual Strength surged out and seized the medicinal ingredients floating around him with a rumble. The recipe for the Lightning Calamity Pill flashed through his mind in an instant. Locking onto each ingredient, he guided the torrent and sent it streaming into the Refining Sky Ancient Formation.
The moment the ingredients entered, the formation began to turn. It was like a millstone. Terrifying milky-white flame transformed into a giant Heavenly Flame grinding wheel that engulfed the incoming ingredients, burning them down and extracting their medicinal essences.
One ingredient after another flew into the formation in perfect order. As it revolved, each was broken down into powders of all different colors.
Yet the wondrous part was this: once their medicinal essences were extracted, they were not set aside. Instead, each was wrapped in demon flame and drawn into the roots of the Bodhisattva Ancient Tree image, flowing along a mysterious route as though being absorbed. Then, under the catalysis of Xiao Yan's wood-attribute Dou Qi and after passing through the reincarnating cycle of the Bodhisattva Ancient Tree, those essences were refined into the exact perfect state he required.
A soft puff sounded, and a leaf slowly sprouted from the tree. That leaf had formed from the medicinal essence extracted from the ingredients just now.
Then a second appeared.
Then a third.
Soon, more and more leaves began to grow.
Extracting the ingredients and catalyzing them was only the first step of alchemy. But when refining a Tier 9 Mysterious Pill, even the simplest step could not be treated carelessly. Everything had to be perfect. The medicinal properties had to fit together with absolute precision, without the slightest error.
Even with the Refining Sky Ancient Formation and the Purifying Lotus Demon Flame processing them, refining tens of thousands of ingredients still required a great deal of time.
Half a month passed before all of the ingredients were finally extracted. Yet these tens of thousands of ingredients were merely supplementary materials. The true primary ingredient was the Nine Mysterious Golden Lightning!
Within the upper formation, Xiao Yan sent a silent command to Mao Wu through their mental link. Mao Wu inhaled deeply, and the golden lightning energy drifting throughout the surrounding space began pouring ceaselessly into the Refining Sky Ancient Formation.
The endless Nine Mysterious Golden Lightning gathered together and took the shape of a golden dragon, only half the size of its former body, trapped within the formation.
But unlike the Nine Mysterious Golden Lightning from half a month ago, this golden dragon's eyes were icy and empty, devoid of all spirituality. It was nothing more than a torrent of pure energy.
Xiao Yan's hands flew through a rapid series of seals, and the Refining Sky Ancient Formation began spinning madly. A powerful suppressive force descended, and the Nine Mysterious Golden Lightning's refinement began in earnest.
Under the formation's relentless power, great swathes of the golden dragon turned into viscous golden liquid that floated within the array. Vast, incomparable energy fluctuations pulsed from that golden liquid.
Alchemy naturally had no use for the berserk factors within the Nine Mysterious Golden Lightning. Only the purest energy was needed.
Once the thick golden energy liquid had formed, it turned into streams of nutrient fluid that poured into the roots of the Bodhisattva Ancient Tree.
Buzz!!
The moment that majestic golden liquid irrigated it, the Bodhisattva Ancient Tree Xiao Yan had constructed from Heavenly Flame seemed to come alive. Golden veins lit up across its trunk and branches as it absorbed and refined the energy liquid extracted from the Nine Mysterious Golden Lightning.
Xiao Yan's expression grew serious. The true test had arrived. These golden energy liquids now had to be matched with the medicinal essences.
The proportions were of utmost importance. The fusion between different medicinal essences and the Nine Mysterious Golden Lightning's energy liquid was like nitroglycerin. The slightest mistake would destroy all the work that had come before.
Under Xiao Yan's control, so exquisitely precise it reached the particle level, every extracted medicinal essence was matched in the most perfect ratio. One by one, the 'medicinal leaves' hanging from the Bodhisattva Ancient Tree began to radiate waves of golden light.
From a distance, the entire Bodhisattva Ancient Tree looked as though it had been forged from gold. Golden liquid flowed through its trunk and branches, while the leaves in particular looked vivid and alive, breathtakingly beautiful.
Even the Nine Mysterious Golden Lightning's origin essence, hovering nearby and watching, was stunned. This was the first time it had ever witnessed someone refine a pill, yet instinct told it that the technique of the man before it was transcendent, peerless beneath the heavens!
Xiao Yan channeled a steady stream of Dou Qi while Little Yi controlled the Refining Sky Ancient Formation, ceaselessly refining the Nine Mysterious Golden Lightning.
Xiao Yan was effectively dividing his mind into three separate tasks: one controlled the speed at which Mao Wu absorbed the Nine Mysterious Golden Lightning, another directed Little Yi in refining it, and the third managed the entire Refining Sky Ancient Formation as it fused the medicinal ingredients.
But the truly terrifying part was not merely that he could divide his attention three ways. It was that he controlled all three with flawless precision, his mastery so fine it reached the minute realm, almost miraculous in its perfection.