Chapter Thirty-One: The Pill is Formed

The alchemy was finished.

In truth, Shang Luo was unsure if it could truly be called finished. The blood in the cauldron had evaporated completely; he either had to add another packet or call it a day right here.

[Do you intend to continue adding more?]

"Forget it. I think I understand why no one uses blood for alchemy. A person can only provide four hundred milliliters; any more than that and the body simply cannot handle it. Even on a low flame, I couldn't keep this going for more than a few hours. And if I were to use the blood of several people... I shudder to think what might happen. Let's stop here. Besides, you calculated that my method was correct, didn't you?"

[That Embroidered Uniform Guard also said the formula was sound, so it should be fine. The timing might be slightly off—but since you're already using your own blood, why worry about the schedule?]

"Fair enough..." Looking at the result before him, Shang Luo felt something was not quite right.

Inside the large tripod, there sat a mass of dark red, pitch-black matter. It looked just like a pot of sugar syrup that had been left to evaporate overnight—a thick, congealed mess. Of course, this stuff lacked the appetizing color of caramelized sugar; it was merely a mixture of dark, dried blood and a heap of minerals. It hadn't formed into pills at all, but rather remained a muddy, blood-red sludge.

"So, are you certain this stuff is edible? Are medicinal pills supposed to look like this? Why do I feel like I’ve just refined a pile of dregs?"

[Hmm... Perhaps you are missing the calcination step. You need to put these crude products into a proper alchemical furnace to scorch and solidify them before they take the shape of pills. Why not wait until he returns and ask him? I only know the formula; the actual operation is something you must master yourself.]

Shang Luo did not just sit and wait. Using a bamboo spatula, he carefully scraped the red mud from the furnace and tried to roll it into a ball, but it refused to hold its shape.

"My master says you should keep refining, don't stop. Is it done?" Wen Yuan’s voice suddenly appeared behind him.

"Whoa! Why do you walk without making a sound?"

"Whether there is sound depends entirely on whether you can hear it. My master always complains that I pace around too much and that my footsteps are too loud. Just being near him is enough to annoy him. That's the one downside of practicing the Thunder Method—the temper is too volatile. You probably don't have enhanced senses because the technique you practice is different from mine. Which lineage do you practice?"

"Didn't you already know I hadn't practiced anything?" Shang Luo countered. He remembered that the very first thing Wen Yuan asked after climbing in from the balcony was exactly that.

"You really haven't? I assumed you just didn't have a master and were practicing some wild, unorthodox style. Hold out your hand; let me check your pulse."

He sat down beside Shang Luo and pressed his fingers against his wrist.

Feeling a cold, probing energy tracing along his veins, Shang Luo asked, "Well? Do you have an answer?"

"Hmm..." Wen Yuan closed his eyes and pondered for a long while. "This isn't right. Perhaps my experience is too shallow, as I have only read the few techniques passed down within the Embroidered Uniform Guard. But you act completely differently from them. I don't feel any 'Qi' circulating through your body at all."

"What does that mean?"

"It means... it's as if there is nothing there. Yet, the abilities you’ve displayed truly seem like you can perceive 'True Qi.' After all, you repaired those generators at the guard station—surely you weren't just talking to the machines? Haha... Hahahaha~~"

"..." Shang Luo froze.

"???" Wen Yuan’s smile stiffened. "Don't tell me you really were talking to the machines?"

"Uh... perhaps, in a sense, one could put it that way."

"Wait a moment." Wen Yuan reached to his waist and pulled out his own jade tablet. "See what it's saying."

Shang Luo reached out to sense the tablet: "It feels a bit... anxious? It seems like something is attracting it, a very strong gravitational pull. The direction is... hmm?"

He reached to his own waist and drew out his own tablet.

The moment the two tablets entered each other's field of perception—*clack!*—across a distance of half a meter, the two tablets snapped together like magnets. Faint sparks of electricity flickered in the gap as they locked together seamlessly, so tight they couldn't be pried apart.

"You really knew?" Wen Yuan was stunned. This was a situation he had never encountered before.

"But this isn't a machine, is it? Aren't these just two tablets?"

"They aren't machines, but they are Dharma artifacts," Wen Yuan replied. "These are the Yin and Yang tablets, crafted from mammoth ivory and white jade. They are bound by Yin and Yang inscriptions, designed to pull together the moment they meet. The Embroidered Uniform Guards use them as tokens for secret rendezvous. So, you truly were talking to a Dharma artifact? What did it say?"

Shang Luo shared his sensation: "It didn't say anything. It was merely expressing a vague, muddled emotion."

"Incredible, truly incredible." Wen Yuan held the two tablets, yet he could sense absolutely nothing inside them. "Is my cultivation lacking? Or do you practice some esoteric technique I've never heard of? I can't figure it out... regardless, is your alchemical pill finished?"

"It's right here." Shang Luo made room for Wen Yuan to inspect the contents of the furnace.

"Oh~~ It looks the part; there is True Qi inside." To his surprise, Wen Yuan gave a positive assessment, as if the furnace truly contained a batch of fine pills.

"This lump is a Foundation Establishment Pill?"

"Though it doesn't look like much to the naked eye, the path is correct. It might lack a bit of heat to fully congeal into a pill; perhaps it needs an alchemical catalyst, or to be returned to the furnace for further calcination—let me explain why."

Wen Yuan gave him an analogy: "You know what an industrial mother machine is, right? The Great Ming’s technology is the best in the world because our craftsmanship is peerless. But an industrial mother machine cannot produce equipment with higher precision than itself. Similarly, in Southern Buddhism, there is the concept of the 'Sravaka Arhat.' This school of thought posits that the only way to achieve enlightenment is to hear the Dharma from a Buddha who has already attained it, hence the name 'Sravaka'—or 'listener.' But there is a problem with your case."

He pointed to the pill. "When I took your pulse, I couldn't feel any True Qi circulating. Yet, the pill you refined using your blood and these mundane materials actually has True Qi flowing within it. Although it is still a step away from becoming a true pill, it is only one step. It is truly mind-boggling. Could this be the power of heaven and earth's creation? Legend has it that upon ascension, the Heavenly Dao descends a lightning tribulation—a force drawn from above. Only through the tempering of the lightning tribulation can a person truly enter the immortal path. The lightning tribulation is the realm bestowed by the creation of heaven and earth. But here... could it be that you are able to draw upon the power of creation using these simple things?"