The Path of Immortality: Starts With Creating Water Bear Gu

Chapter 21: The Spirit Fire Formula

The development of events completely exceeded Long Xuan's expectations. Initially, he thought that as a novice, he would have to endure numerous failures before achieving success and had already prepared himself for the disappointment.

Who could have imagined that alchemy would be so simple for him, as easy as drinking water or eating food? It was so straightforward that he was momentarily stunned, wondering if he was dreaming.

A total of one hundred spiritual herbs were swiftly refined by him. The extracted essence of these herbs was individually stored in one hundred bottles, neatly arranged on the table.

The success rate was astonishing. Except for a few herbs that burned to ashes due to the intense heat before he could save them, there were almost no errors with the other herbs.

With the help of this "golden finger" he didn't dare to claim a 100% success rate in alchemy, but his success rate was certainly far higher than other alchemists, even surpassing Elder Long.

Long Xuan was extremely excited, feeling that this was a pleasant surprise. It seemed he was truly suited to be an alchemist, and not just any alchemist, but one with exceptional talent. He was naturally fit for this profession.

Since the materials were refined, the next step was to place the essence of all the spiritual herbs into the alchemy cauldron in the correct proportions, allowing them to fuse and solidify under high temperature, and to form pills under the influence of soul power.

This step highly tests one's soul power. Any mistake could ruin all the materials, making the previous time spent refining the herbs a wasted effort.

Failure at this step often drives many to collapse, especially when the herbs are extremely expensive.

However, Long Xuan was not nervous. He sequentially added the essence of various herbs into the alchemy cauldron according to the correct proportions, then ignited the fire and carefully observed the internal conditions of the cauldron with his soul power, ensuring that all the liquids fully fused.

As expected, once all the herb essences were added to the furnace, the alchemy process progressed smoothly again. When the progress reached 100%, the pills would be complete.

If instability occurred during this process, it might not just be a matter of flame temperature but also an issue of soul control or operational technique, requiring attention to more factors, making Long Xuan even more cautious.

As time passed, sweat gradually appeared on Long Xuan's forehead, and his expression became extremely tense. He was highly strung, not daring to relax for a moment.

Even though he was a completely inexperienced novice and this was his first time making pills, with progress cheats, he managed to complete it without any major issues.

When the progress indicator on the alchemy furnace finally reached 100%, Long Xuan was overjoyed. He quickly walked over and opened the cauldron.

Instantly, a rich aroma of pills wafted out, and wisps of white mist floated from the furnace. The pleasant scent filled the entire room, invigorating Long Xuan's spirit, making him take a long sniff.

Looking into the cauldron, he saw golden spirit pills, large and round, seemingly glowing, mesmerizing him.

Achieving such results on his first try at alchemy was something he could be proud of.

Due to the abundance of materials, the cauldron was naturally filled with an astonishing number of spirit pills, a total of eighty-one pills.

This was a perfect batch of Hundred Flowers Pills, indicating that the alchemy process was flawless, without a single defective pill.

It is challenging for many alchemists to achieve a batch of pills without any defective ones.

The only regret was that the flames were too ordinary, leading to imperfect quality in the pills, but Long Xuan was already satisfied.

With this success rate and yield, he could afford to consume the pills like food, eating dozens of them daily, allowing his cultivation to soar like a rocket.

Long Xuan immediately grabbed a few Hundred Flowers Pills and threw them into his mouth, then stored the rest in bottles.

Given his exceptional talent in alchemy, he became even more dedicated to researching the formula for the Divine Ice Flame. After putting away the alchemy furnace, he sat at the table and continued working on the Divine Ice Flame formula.

That night, he was too excited to sleep and decided to stay up all night to work.

...

With the Hundred Flowers Pills, Long Xuan's previously stagnant cultivation started progressing rapidly each day.

Long Xuan's daily routine remained simple: he either stayed home working on the spirit fire formula, eating Hundred Flowers Pills when hungry, and occasionally consuming spirit chicken eggs for nutrition.

Alternatively, he would visit the market, looking for hidden treasures among the stalls, or sometimes set up his stall to sell the useless items he had collected in exchange for spirit stones.

The spirit stones he earned were used to purchase the confirmed materials for the Divine Ice Flame formula.

As time passed, his alchemy skills became more proficient. He managed to decipher the pill formulas from the waste pills he bought and occasionally peeked at some formulas from Elder Long. Thus, he accumulated a considerable number of formulas.

Alchemy is a highly lucrative profession. After learning a few common formulas, Long Xuan disguised himself and set up a stall in the market, selling spirit pills.

Unsurprisingly, his stall became popular, with various spirit pills being quickly sold out every time, never needing him to wait long.

His success rate in alchemy was nearly 100%, rarely wasting materials, and often producing full batches, meaning his profits were far higher than other alchemists.

Each time he made a considerable profit, he couldn't help but smile.

However, after a few times, he decided to stop.

On one hand, alchemy was too time-consuming, delaying his research on the spirit fire formula.

On the other hand, although spirit pills were high-end products, they were ultimately less valuable than Gu.

After all, spirit pills are consumable, while Gu can provide lifetime benefits.

The formulas he mastered were all of the lowest grade, even making three batches of healing pills wouldn't earn as much as selling a Little Strong Gu.

Moreover, alchemy required constant attention, while refining Little Strong Gu did not, allowing him to do other things.

Comparing the two, it was not worth it, so Long Xuan decided to only make Hundred Flowers Pills for himself and no longer for others.

Thus, Long Xuan continued making Hundred Flowers Pills and researching the spirit fire formula. His progress was swift, and with the help of Hundred Flowers Pills, he finally broke through to the mid-stage of Spirit Gathering after a year.

Simultaneously, after a year of day and night research, he finally completed the Divine Ice Flame formula.

The Divine Ice Flame formula required a total of three hundred materials. Though it seemed not many, each material was rarer and more precious than the last.

The main ingredient, the thousand-year-old Ice Marrow, was exceptionally hard to obtain, as the name suggests.

Many items couldn't be bought with spirit stones and could only be obtained through bartering or frequent participation in treasure exchange meetings.

In this world without a clear market price, and without a reference standard of spirit stones, Long Xuan had a vague idea of the cost of the Divine Ice Flame formula.

But he was certain the cost far exceeded the Eye of Heavenly secret creation cost.

The cost was even much higher than Elder Long's creation of the Purple Demon Flame, surpassing it by more than ten times, which was outrageous.

With such a high cost, if his created spirit fire wasn't more powerful than the Purple Demon Flame, he wouldn't believe it.

However, gathering such a massive amount of resources was daunting. It would take an indefinite amount of time, leaving Long Xuan feeling overwhelmed.