Li Yunlong was entirely unaware of Agent Davids recent misfortunes. Given their successful cooperation during the unresolved mirror game case, he still held a favorable impression of the man and felt they could easily partner up again if a suitable opportunity arose in the future.
Once the two agents departed, Li Yunlong returned to his own affairs. On May 6th, Amelia paid him another visit, bringing encouraging news. The patent application for the Yin-Nourishing Decoction was officially on track. A friend of hers had assured her that the entire legal procedure would take roughly a year to complete. That interim period could not be wasted. Everything else was manageable, but the most pressing issue was that Li Yunlong needed to establish a standardized, repeatable manufacturing process for the remedy.
Yet on this precise point, not even Li Yunlong could give her a definitive answer. Substituting a lower-tier occult ritual-necessary for brewing the Yin-Nourishing Decoction-with a complex pharmaceutical protocol that ordinary people could execute was theoretically straightforward. In practice, however, the conversion process was agonizingly tedious. If a single step went awry, the entire sequence often had to be scrapped and restarted from scratch. Li Yunlong himself had no clear idea how long it would take to achieve a foolproof method.
Amelia grew visibly uneasy. «Lee… you won't still be working on this by the time the patent is approved, will you?»
«Absolutely not,» Li Yunlong reassured her quickly. «Set your mind at ease, Amelia. In fact, Ive already developed a working protocol.»
Amelia was far from naive. «Then whats the catch?»
«The current procedure requires blood sacrifice during execution,» he admitted.
As an elite forged in the capitalist world, Amelias ethical threshold proved surprisingly flexible. «Thats not impossible to work with,» she mused. «We can keep it as a backup plan. As it happens, the supply of Yin-Nourishing Decoction you gave me is running low. Mind if I see the process in action?»
Thinking it a practical suggestion, Li Yunlong escorted Amelia down to his basement laboratory. The staircase leading below had been crude but effectively partitioned, split into three airlock chambers with semi-transparent plastic sheeting, equipped with sterile gowns ready for changing.
Amelia had expected a scene straight out of a classic movie about sorcerers-a large wooden table pushed against the wall, littered with bizarre, unnameable trinkets; dark red paint tracing irregular magic circles across the floor, filled with symbolic runes; and a perpetual bonfire of heaped firewood heating a massive cauldron, filled with foul-smelling, bubbling potion.
What she actually saw was far different. Li Yunlongs converted basement lab was flooded with brilliant light. Though devoid of windows, artificial sources rendered the entire space illuminated and clear. A faint, continuous hum revealed hidden exhaust fans working tirelessly to keep the air fresh. Against the left wall stood a long lab bench, virtually indistinguishable from those found in university chemistry labs. Amelia suspected he had bought the setup directly from a chemical supply vendor, as the racks and test tubes looked oddly familiar. Along the right wall ran a small workstation, its low, steady vibration indicating it was actively processing data rather than sitting idle for show.
Opposite the door stood a custom cabinet, neatly organized with various categorized materials. Most striking of all was the classical Eastern alchemy furnace positioned dead center in the room. It stood roughly twice a persons height, missing the ceiling by a mere fraction of an inch-how Li Yunlong had managed to drag such a massive object inside remained a mystery. Nearly a hundred electrical heating units were mounted at various points along its surface from top to bottom. These, along with an equal number of electric cooling elements and even more temperature sensors, were connected to the workstation via a meticulously routed circuit board. Do ancient Eastern alchemy furnaces really use electrical heating and cooling systems? Amelia genuinely had no idea. A metallic ladder wrapped around the furnace, and between it and the doorway sat a custom circular stone altar. Judging by the dried stains on its surface, the blood sacrifices Li Yunlong mentioned were undoubtedly performed right there.
Li Yunlong pulled an operational manual he had drafted himself from a toolbox to the left of the door and handed it to Amelia. Her head throbbed the moment she took the volume-it was a sixteen-mo handbook, nearly as thick as a standard dictionary. Flipping through it briefly, she found herself completely defeated by the bewilderingly intricate procedures within. «Oh, my God… This is far too difficult. It would take me a month just to memorize it. Lee, could you demonstrate it for me?»
«Very well,» Li Yunlong replied, «so long as you have the patience.» To the right of the door sat a cage filled with small rabbits purchased from a pet shop. Li Yunlong had used his own power to put them all into a deep sleep, keeping them manageable and preventing any accidents. Reaching in, he picked up a rabbit, placed it upon the altar, and performed the blood sacrifice.
As the sacrifice took effect, Li Yunlong initiated a pre-programmed script on the workstation, using it to precisely manage the furnaces temperature. Using the wrapping ladder, he moved up and down around the alchemy furnace, adding pre-processed ingredients into the chamber in strict order and at specific entry points. He performed a second blood sacrifice midway through the process. After nearly an hour of intensive work, Li Yunlong completed a third and final sacrifice, marking the end of the primary brewing sequence. All that remained was roughly half an hour of controlled cooling before the batch would be fully ready. The sheer size of the alchemy furnace yielded over a hundred liters of Yin-Nourishing Decoction in a single run-enough to fill a massive drum, which Amelia could later portion out for her own consumption.
To Amelia, the protocol seemed like a resounding success. Hadn't he completed it on the first try? If this wasn't a fluke, it implied a near-perfect success rate. «Lee, isn't this protocol already fantastic? The success rate looks excellent! The blood sacrifice isn't a dealbreaker-we can just find some technical jargon to rebrand it.»
This was the divide between an amateur and an expert. An outsider saw only the surface result, blind to the underlying mechanics. Li Yunlong felt compelled to break it down for her. «Amelia, if I perform the process myself, the success rate is naturally above ninety percent. But you're forgetting that this complex procedure is a compromise. If I were to rely on occult rituals directly, I could accomplish the same thing far more simply.»
Amelia shook her head, finding occult matters thoroughly frustrating. «Still, what you just did didn't seem too absurd to me! Tedious, sure, but plenty of standard laboratory experiments are far more complex than your steps here. It shouldn't be that difficult, should it?»
«Amelia, did you actually read the protocol manual I gave you?» Li Yunlong asked.
Amelia had only skimmed it briefly earlier, without paying close attention. Hearing him say this meant there were crucial details she had missed. Returning to the living room, Amelia poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down to study the manual in earnest. Only then did she realize just how nightmarish Li Yunlong's process truly was.
The very first page outlined strict requirements for the operators state of mind: throughout the entire preparation process, one had to maintain a mental state as calm and still as unruffled water. To verify this, Li Yunlong had devised a specialized monitoring method. Wearable sensors collected biometric data from the operator, which was then processed through a computer algorithm to determine whether their mental state met the criteria. Amelia realized that this single requirement-maintaining absolute inner stillness for prolonged periods-would disqualify the vast majority of ordinary people. Flipping further, she saw that he demanded even more in terms of physical execution, listing over two hundred hyper-specific physical movements. Amelia cast a secretive glance at Li Yunlong. How many people on Earth could actually pull all this off?
Reading on, she discovered that the entire sequence was bound by rigid spatial and temporal constraints. Though travel time between steps was accounted for, it specified precise down-to-the-second timings for where the operator needed to stand, what standardized gesture they had to make, and ingredients weighed down to two decimal places that had to be added at that exact moment. Amelia set the manual down and massaged her temples to soothe a pounding headache. «Lee, can you really pull off this protocol yourself? If memory serves, half the movements you made down there didn't match the requirements in this book at all.»
Li Yunlong offered a helpless shrug. «Amelia, didn't I tell you? This protocol was designed for ordinary people. It's completely irrelevant to me.»
Amelia was left speechless. So these absurd demands were meant exclusively for others, while he himself remained exempt. «Lee, isn't this entire process far too convoluted? Can't we simplify it, or substitute some of these steps?»
«Id like to,» Li Yunlong replied. «But it isn't that simple. Ordinary people lack the necessary occult knowledge and innate power to direct the required rituals during the brewing process. The protocol I developed bypasses those requirements by tapping into the inherent spiritual essence that every living human possesses. The mental and physical demands ensure the operators spiritual essence remains as stable as possible. The spatial and temporal constraints fulfill the ritualistic requirements of the sacrifice. Through these combined measures, the operator unconsciously completes an occult ritual without ever realizing it.»
«Lee, couldn't you try a different approach?» Amelia suggested. «For instance… invoking the power of a deity?»
This highlighted a fundamental cultural divide. In a country like America, where Christianity dominated public discourse and god was invoked casually in daily conversation, people naturally assumed one could simply turn to a higher power for aid in any endeavor. Eastern traditions were vastly different. While ordinary Easterners might casually burn incense at any temple they passed and bow before whichever deity or Buddha sat inside-a classic trait of polytheistic culture-they rarely assumed a god's help came free. Beyond offerings and incense, asking for divine favor required making a solemn vow, and if the prayer came true, one was bound to return and fulfill that vow. For practitioners of the mystic arts, the taboos were far more severe, giving rise to the adage that inviting a god was easy, but sending one away was nearly impossible. Low-level practitioners might employ spells to summon spirits, possess bodies, or work divining boards, but the more powerful a cultivator grew, the less inclined they were to meddle with such entities. Most actively concealed their presence from gods and demons alike to avoid unwanted attention-a philosophy of respecting spirits while keeping them at a distance.
Though religious figures glossed over such details during sermonizing, powerful entities rarely operated without exacting a price. Unnamed local spirits aside, which truly formidable deity or demon was ever easy to deal with? As a rogue cultivator with limited resources and no powerful faction backing him, Li Yunlong had no desire to provoke such forces. Without a moment's hesitation, he turned down Amelia's proposal.