Xuantian Immortal Cultivation Record

In between fishing and cultivation, Zhang Yuanjing began to practice refining pills using the modern methods.

For any pill refining, a pill formula and method are required. Usually, the pill formula, in addition to specifying the types and proportions of medicinal materials, will briefly explain the refining method.

For example, the Mind Enhancement Pill formula provided by the Yin-Yang Creation Furnace specifies that it should be burned nine times alternately with Yang Fire and Yin Fire, each time for three breaths, and then burned with both fires simultaneously until it turns pure black. Without this guidance, it would be a pipe dream to refine the Mind Enhancement Pill using only three kinds of medicinal materials. The same applies to the commonly used pills in today's cultivation world. Therefore, he can only refine ancient pills with ancient methods and modern pills with modern methods.

Medicine refining is a crucial step in modern pill refining. If the quality of medicine refining is not up to par, the so-called pill burning is just empty talk. The materials used are naturally the several medicinal materials for refining the Hundred Spirit Pill. The main ingredient is called Five Elements Grass, and the auxiliary ingredients include Golden Star Seeds, Han Yu Fruit, Ai Dong Root, Li Yuan Grass, and Three Yang Grass, etc. In addition, a kind of metal and stone medicine called Ziyun Stone is added to neutralize the various medicines.

These spiritual herbs are of relatively low grade and not difficult to find. He found them all in the storage bags of Guo's four Foundation Establishment cultivators, Ling Yunzi, Ling Shu, and others. Moreover, he had cultivated a lot of them when he learned the art of pill refining before, so the quantity was very large. As for Ziyun Stone, it is a common item, and he searched for more than a hundred catties in Meng Mountain.

The refining of the Hundred Spirit Pill is divided into three steps. The first step is to mix all the medicinal materials together and mash them. The strength must be moderate, and each mash needs to be of equal strength, neither fast nor slow. Otherwise, either the medicinal power will be damaged due to excessive force, or the medicinal properties will not be combined due to insufficient force.

The second step is to grind the Ziyun Stone into powder, use a medicine spoon to pick out a thumb-sized ball of mashed medicine, and then slowly sprinkle Ziyun powder on it until the ball of medicine solidifies into a pill and turns purple all over. This step seems simple, but it tests eyesight and hand strength. Too much Ziyun powder will easily lead to the pill being scrapped during pill formation, and too little will cause the pill to fall apart during pill formation.

The third step is to place the condensed pills in a special container full of spiritual power to solidify, usually for about seven days. After these three steps, the original pill is made.

Mashing medicine is a meticulous task, testing not only patience but also the precise control of spiritual power. Zhang Yuanjing is not lacking in patience, but the precise control of mana is his weakness. At the beginning of mashing medicine, the strength would often become heavier unconsciously after only a few mashes, and by the time he realized it, the medicinal power had already been damaged. He didn't stop and continued to practice until all the medicinal materials became a paste.

According to Qin Wutong and Guo Yuqing, the genuine medicine paste is cyan and white, but the medicine paste he mashed was light cyan and white, and the cyan color was only faintly visible, indicating that too much medicinal power was damaged, and it was impossible to form a pill.

He practiced repeatedly until three months later, he finally made a qualified medicine paste. In addition, there was an extra gain, which was a great improvement in the level of his own mana control.

As for the step of condensing pills, several notes mentioned the criteria for judgment, which is 'cyan in purple', but how to be just right is a matter of experience. Moreover, for beginners, the success or failure of condensing pills cannot be judged by looking at the condensed pills. Only after the pill is formed can the grade of the pill be seen.

The secret book of Sanjingzhai did explain a few sentences, its text is 'Purple needs to be bright, not dark, cyan needs to be light, not white, the pill needs to be condensed, not heavy, the shape is round and without gaps'. He tried more than ten times, and whenever the pill was not heavy, it was difficult to be round and smooth, and there were always more than a dozen gaps; if he wanted it to be round and smooth without gaps, he always had to sprinkle more Ziyun powder, and the pill would be as heavy as a small stone.

He had to go back and study several pill-refining jade slips again, and finally got the eight characters 'uninterrupted flow, scattered like rain' in Guo Yuqing's notes. These eight characters say that the medicine paste should be held in the air with spiritual power to form a bead, so that it rotates rapidly like a top, and at the same time, the Ziyun powder is scattered like rain. The speed of the two complements each other, so that the medicine paste evenly adsorbs the Ziyun powder everywhere, so as to condense into a round and gap-free pill with the least amount of Ziyun powder. After that, according to the color and weight of the pill, continue to sprinkle Ziyun powder to form a qualified pill.

This seemingly simple step took him six months of repeated practice to become proficient and free, and finally condensed a qualified pill. Subsequently, he used up all the prepared Hundred Spirit Pill materials and obtained one hundred and twenty-six qualified pills, which were placed in a specially made pill-cultivating pot to solidify into the original pill.

The step of medicine refining alone took nine months. It cannot be said that the time is very long, but the consumption of medicinal materials is an astonishing amount, even a small sect would need many years of accumulation to provide it.

A few days later, he took out Qin Wutong's bronze pill furnace. The structure of this furnace is similar to that of the Yin-Yang Creation Furnace. An array is also engraved in the groove below the furnace tripod. As long as spirit stones are inlaid, the array can be activated to generate a flame.

This furnace produces a white flame. According to Qin Wutong, it is called Nine Yang Essence Flame. Although it is not as good as Heavenly Fire and Earthly Flame, it is also a very rare high-quality pill-making fire. Most of the pills used by cultivators below the Core Formation stage can be burned with this fire.

Once this Nine Yang Essence Flame is lit, it needs to be burned for three full days, the fire is stable, and the furnace temperature is sufficient before the furnace can be opened for pill refining.

Three days later, Zhang Yuanjing pointed his left hand with a magic formula, opened the furnace lid, and waved his right hand, sending a pile of eight original pills into the furnace. The heat in the furnace rose, and the original pills rolled back and forth in the heat. When Zhang Yuanjing saw that the situation was not different from what the secret book said, he changed the magic formula, put down the furnace lid, and sealed the heat in the furnace tightly.

Once the pill furnace is closed, you cannot look inside, otherwise it will disrupt the air and lead to the failure of pill refining. This is where the experience and discernment of the alchemist are tested. Generally speaking, it is nothing more than the four methods of looking, smelling, listening, and tasting.

Looking means looking at the smoke. The pill furnace is closed at the beginning. As the fire temperature continues to rise, it will constantly break open the tripod lid and escape a little heat. This can be used to judge the temperature in the furnace; looking down at the essence fire is the most important and basic skill of the alchemist. When to use what kind of fire requires the ability to distinguish subtle changes in the fire, so that there is no difference.

Smelling means identifying the scent of the medicine. The five senses of the monks are keen and can easily distinguish the smell, so this one is not too difficult.

Listening means listening to the movement in the furnace. When the original pill is refined to a certain level in the furnace, it will make a weak sound. This can be compared according to the secret book. Of course, if the pills recorded by the predecessors are not detailed, you can only explore them yourself.

Tasting is not tasting the pill, but tasting the pill qi. At the end of refining, wisps of pill qi will emerge from the opened furnace lid. The alchemist can slightly inhale it, carefully distinguish the medicinal properties, and judge whether the pill has been formed.

It is not necessary to use all four methods to refine the Hundred Spirit Pill. As long as two methods are used skillfully, it can guarantee more than 50% pill formation. Zhang Yuanjing is practicing pill refining techniques, so naturally the more the better. However, using all four methods will inevitably lead to neglect of one another, resulting in the difficulty of mastering one method.

After the Hundred Spirit Pill is opened, it is first burned with a strong fire. After about a quarter of an hour, it is turned into a medium fire to boil. When there is a slight crackling sound in the furnace and the pill fragrance is refreshing, it can be turned into a small fire to warm it. After about two hours, the pill qi is sweet, then the pill can be collected.

The records of several jade slips all say that the strong fire is white, the medium fire is white and yellow, and the small fire is warm yellow, but for beginners, adjusting the essence fire is not achieved overnight, and it is often necessary to slowly grasp the degree, so the fire will inevitably be a few points worse. Therefore, the changes in each step of the original pill formation are not synchronized with what the secret book says, and naturally what you hear and smell are different.

Zhang Yuanjing's first furnace of pills had a problem when the strong fire turned to medium fire. After that, every step was wrong, and in the end, naturally all the pills in the furnace were destroyed, and none of them formed.

In this way, after five failures, by the sixth furnace, he finally roughly mastered the method of adjusting the essence fire. There were no major mistakes in the transition from strong fire to medium fire and from medium fire to small fire. However, at the end, he tasted the pill qi and only got a slightly sweet taste, so he hurriedly collected the pill. As a result, all the pills in the furnace were a few points short of fire, and still none of them formed.

After this failure, when it came to collecting the pills in the seventh furnace, he thought to himself, since it is not easy to distinguish the degree, it is better to collect them later, so that maybe one or two can be formed. When the pill qi came out, he gently inhaled a wisp of fragrance, carefully distinguished it, but it was still slightly sweet and not sweet, so he continued to warm it and did not rush to collect the pills.

After another half a quarter of an hour, he tasted the pill qi again, and this time it was sweet and delicious. He wanted to collect the pills, but after thinking about it, it is better to wait a few more breaths to be more sure. He silently recited in his heart, and after five breaths, he inhaled another wisp of pill qi. When he tasted it with his tongue, he found that it was slightly bitter in the sweetness. He knew it was not good, and quickly cast a magic formula to open the furnace lid. The other hand gently took out the eight light cyan pills, held them in the palm of his hand, and took a closer look, but the color was a little black, obviously the fire was too high.

He moved his fingers slightly, flipped the eight pills a few times, picked out a pill with a decent color, threw it into his mouth, and swallowed it. When the pill melted, he already knew it in his heart. This pill can barely be a low-grade Hundred Spirit Pill.

Suddenly, a smile appeared on his face covered with smoke and dust, and then the smile grew bigger and bigger, and finally he laughed out loud. Isn't it a happy thing in life to get something after hard work!

After that, he refined three more furnaces of pills, each furnace with eight original pills. The first furnace formed four pills, the second furnace formed five pills, and the third furnace also formed five pills. The pill formation rate was more than 50%. The quality of the pills was all low-grade, which was mainly due to the low level of pill refining.

The medicinal materials used for the Hundred Spirit Pill are at most spiritual grade second-order. He cultivated them with the Thick Earth Transformation Technique, and the age of the obtained spiritual plants exceeded 150 years. Normally, the medicine produced should be top-grade. Now it is only barely reaching low-grade, naturally because he is a beginner and his level is too poor.

He did not use up all the remaining forty-six original pills in this one go. Instead, he waited a month, after precipitation and digestion, and adjusted his state before opening the furnace for pill refining again.

With the previous accumulation, this time the pill refining was quite smooth. Twenty-eight pills were produced in six furnaces, and the pill production rate exceeded 60%, including eight low-grade pills, fourteen middle-grade pills, and six top-grade pills. The probability of producing top-grade pills also reached 20%, which is far beyond the level of a qualified alchemist. This surprised him quite a bit, and he couldn't help but feel very proud of his talent in pill refining.

In fact, there is a key point in the middle, but he does not know it. Generally, because of the differences in the growth environment, even if the age is equal, there are always some differences in the medicinal properties of the pills, and some even have slight differences in the five elements attributes. These situations have a great impact on pill refining. Therefore, this is also why modern pill refining emphasizes identifying and matching medicines.

However, most of Zhang Yuanjing's medicinal materials are cultivated by him with the Thick Earth Transformation Technique, and the medicinal properties and the five elements are pure. Naturally, there is no interference caused by subtle differences during pill refining, and the success rate is naturally much stronger than that of ordinary alchemists.