Zhanxian (Immortal Executioner)

Chapter 76 – While Others Refine, I Practice

After the refining had begun, there was no work left for Yang Chen. His strength was indeed very low, so he wasn’t even able to refine the random elixirs required for the Heaven Seizing Pill and could only stare blankly at those other people doing their job.

Zhu Peng, Deng Yi and He LianYun did indeed deserve their reputation, apart from the minor gamble earlier where He LianYun had behaved rudely with Yang Chen, everyone of them had their own merits.

Although Yang Chen could be said to have achieved great heights in his control over fire, in his previous life he hadn’t painstakingly studied pill concocting and could thus only be counted as the most ordinary pill concocting master within the Heavenly Court. On one hand he didn’t have a magic tool grade pill furnace and on the other hand he was always hiding, so he never got the chance to practice. The little knowledge that he did have was due to coming in contact with many great pill concocting masters and interacting with them, but he never had the opportunity to actually practice. But currently he had the opportunity to observe these high grade pill concocting masters doing the refining at a close range.

Based on his previous life’s experience and the knowledge from the pill scriptures provided to him by the Greatest Supreme Elder, Yang Chen could determine the essence of these skills in a single glance. These pill concocting masters were really worthy to be called the mortal world’s highest grade pill concoctors. Every one of them had their own unique concepts and the skills which they were using had nothing in common, which broadened Yang Chen’s horizons.

Although their techniques varied greatly, they all had the same goal. Now Yang Chen had finally discovered which of the approaches mentioned within Greatest Supreme Elder’s pill scriptures these three pill concocting masters used for heat control and processing the ingredients. Furthermore, the techniques mentioned within the Greatest Supreme Elder’s pill scriptures had an even more outstanding efficacy when compared to those used by these three.

Although it was like this, it was not even a bit out of Yang Chen’s expectations. If the Greatest Supreme Elder’s pill scriptures were not sufficient, then which pill concocting master’s techniques would be more sufficient? He could almost be considered as the greatest pill concocting master within the heaven and earth, but unfortunately, even though the pill scriptures contained all kind of methods to process ingredients, but for the techniques to concoct pills as well as the methods to collect and condense the pills there wasn’t even a single recipe. Otherwise, if there was a recipe of even a single ninth grade JieDan pill and the proper ingredients, a single pill was capable of increasing his cultivation so that he would immediately be able to ascend.

Refining a pill was not a short time affair, Yang Chen didn’t mind chatting with Fan Shan for all this time. The main purpose of Fan Shan was to refine the primary spirit of that demonic beast. Frankly speaking, the primary spirit of the demonic beast was already equivalent to a primordial spirit of demonic beasts with a cultivation at the YuanYing stage or higher. The more powerful the demonic beast used, the higher the chances of the refining of the Heaven Seizing Pill being successful.

The demonic beast was acquired by Elder Wu himself, the demonic beast at YuanYing stage was almost one step away from being able to ascend and enter the spiritual world. Only a Da Cheng stage expert who was going to ascend, like Elder Wu was capable of capturing it without injuring it, other people would not be of any help in that regard. But after capturing it Fan Shan had to do the next step, that was to forcefully separate the demonic beasts primary spirit. This was something only the people of the Beast Taming Sect were specialized in.

Naturally Fan Shan would not talk about anything related to controlling beasts with Yang Chen, as Yang Chen was only a trifling qi layer disciple and did not have the qualifications to discuss with him in this respect. What Fan Shan was interested in was Yang Chen’s skill in controlling fire, everyone had all five attributes, but surprisingly Yang Chen had achieved such a level at qi layer. Anyone who saw this could easily determine that Yang Chen surely had a unique cultivation secret.

Unfortunately, regardless of any kind of insinuations made by Fan Shan or any kind of promises made by him, Yang Chen didn’t reveal anything regarding his cultivation method. This was not much of a surprise for Fan Shang, if other people asked him regarding his beast taming skills, he would also not calmly tell them. Since Elder Wu was here, nobody could attack Yang Chen and could only maintain a friendly relationship.

After Fan Shan was certain that he would be unable to obtain the cultivation secret from Yang Chen, he decided to make good friends with him. Fan Shan was able to reach the YuanYing stage so naturally he was no fool, a qi layer cultivator with such accomplishments, in ten or a hundred or a thousand years, Yang Chen would take the throne among pill concocting masters, if he was not able to build a good relationship with such a pill concocting master with boundless prospects, then he would indeed be an idiot.

Fan Shan was meticulously trying to build a relationship with Yang Chen, while Yang Chen was also interested in getting a powerful helper within the cultivation world, both of them clicked together and were very happily chatting with each other. Apart from matters regarding cultivation or other such matters, Fan Shan was telling Yang Chen everything he knew, from things of pleasure to material for magic weapons. Fan Shan was talking with Yang Chen about everything.

Elder Wu was paying close attention to the refining. The first stage was not very difficult, as everyone was at the level of a third grade pill concocting master. Adding to that the records of the early stages, the separate elixirs were all completely refined within a period of one year. Only a few comparatively high grade elixirs could not be refined the first time, all others were refined the first time itself.

Even these few troublesome, but comparatively high grade elixirs, after passing through refining several times, were also all completely refined. Of course, more than one batch of materials was prepared, every kind of material had reserves which could be used several times to be used as contingency.

While refining, everyone sensed that the ingredients refined by Yang Chen were exceptionally comfortable to use, the medicinal quality was just perfect, and was also at the extreme limit which they could handle. While refining, they also did not need to worry about whether the medicinal efficacy would reach the minimum qualifications. As long as they single mindedly devoted themselves to refining, they would have the most comfortable months of their pill refining careers.

The most comfortable thing for them was that every time they wanted to retrieve ingredients, they would find the ingredient in a region which they could reach very easily. Yang Chen had already placed all of the ingredients in accordance with the requirements. According to pill recipe on the record, all of the preparations were completely done. Even if he was just a servant to support them, he was also the servant which caused them the least amount of worries.

They never had to face failure because of Yang Chen having trouble with the ingredients or because Yang Chen’s preparations were unsuitable. The few times they failed was not because of heat control, but because they had made an error in their skills, or perhaps because the elixir itself was very difficult to make and had a low success rate, which had no relation with Yang Chen.

When assisting these people by preparing their ingredients, Yang Chen also observed their refining skills at a very close distance. Perhaps the other three pill concocting masters believed that if they themselves did not explain, other people watching their refining process would not be able to learn anything, so they were fearless and had never before guarded against it, but it was nevertheless a huge convenience for Yang Chen. Everyone’s unique skills and refining methods were thoroughly researched by Yang Chen.

Yang Chen had never been this brazen before, before the eyes of these three pill concocting masters he was secretly learning their pill concocting skills thoroughly and even improving on them. Unfortunately, nobody would know about this. From purifying to refining the ingredients, by now the refining of the elixirs was complete, within just a bit more than a year’s time. Within this time, apart from corroborating the skills of those high grade pill concocting masters with the pill scriptures of the Greatest Supreme Elder and discussing with Fan Shan, the rest of the time he was cultivating.

After absorbing the spirit power, Yang Chen’s cultivation had increased from the eighth qi layer to the peak of the qi stage at the tenth qi layer. In general, people believed that the quicker their cultivation increased the better, but even though he had broken through two layers, for Yang Chen, although his cultivation had increased, it was not the sort of increase which he desired.

In his view the most ideal way of increasing one’s cultivation was still to follow the prescribed order and break through one layer by one layer and accumulate the breakthroughs of small layers until one’s realm increased. From the cultivation experience of his previous life, Yang Chen had known that this was the most stable method for increasing his cultivation, which would cause him least amount of trouble later. Although very quickly increasing the layers could allow him to raise his realms faster, but the foundation would not be stable enough and in the future, because of not stabilizing the foundation properly, his strength would not be enough to break through many times at some crucial point. This was simply incomparable to spending some more years at the lower realm to build a proper foundation with which future breakthroughs would be very quick.

But the actual circumstances currently did not allow him to achieve this. Yang Chen was completely aware that after absorbing the flame, the increase in his fire attribute cultivation would not be something he could control, therefore, he had to think of every possible method to remedy this.

After increasing his cultivation quickly, he had to immediately stabilize his current realm and afterwards consolidate his current layer sufficiently. This was the best method for decreasing the inconsistency in his future cultivation, even if it would take him some time. This time, all that Yang Chen had to do was to consolidate his realm.

The refining of the Heaven Seizing Pill was chance which was hard to come by for Yang Chen. While making the pill for a Da Cheng stage expert who was going to ascend, even the high grade pill concocting masters like Zhu Peng, Deng Yi and He LianYun would not be able to guess the amount of spirit power accumulated within and Yang Chen could absorb some of it as a side effect during the process of refining.

The refining and purification by Yang Chen was not a process with improvisation in whatever way he wanted, instead they were in accordance with a certain order, beginning with the fire attribute, it was based on the five attributes rousing each other, one by one, during the refining. The ingredients consisted of things of all five phases and their yin and yang, moreover they were not some ordinary ingredients, instead they were the best ones, which allowed Yang Chen to borrow their medicinal qi and use it to rinse his meridians entirely, once.

Even if the medicinal qi was barely sufficient to refine the Spirit Power overflowing from the process, but it was enough for a qi layer cultivator like Yang Chen to completely remove his hidden damages, formed from the continuous increase in his strength, so it would allow to his current realm to stabilize properly and the Spirit Power becoming even purer.

The large amount of medicinal qi was nourishing not only Yang Chen’s realm, but also the Profound Spirit Furnace. The higher the grade of the ingredient was, the better it was in nourishing the pill concocting furnace. Yang Chen’s mind was almost linked with the Profound Spirit Furnace, he could even sense the plentiful Spirit Power congesting at every corner of the Profound Spirit Furnace.

Under the influence of these high grade ingredients, the Profound Spirit Furnace slowly began to mature and the body of the furnace began to show some slight variations. Although it still hadn’t reached the condition where it could increase by one whole grade, the pills refined by the current Profound Spirit Furnace would atleast have twenty percent more medicinal strength than before.

All of the basic pills were already completed, now what remained was using every kind of method to fuse these pills and Yang Chen’s work to purify the high grade blue-green zoysia. Within this time, Yang Chen’s fire attributed peak qi layer cultivation had already consolidated completely, not only that, his other attributes at the eighth qi layer, had also been extremely stabilized and had reached the required condition to be raised.

The refining and purifying of the top grade blue-green zoysia was Yang Chen’s opportunity. The main ingredient of the Heaven Seizing Pill was the blue-green zoysia, the immense amount of Spirit Power accumulated within it could be described as an ocean of Spirit Power, which could allow the Da Cheng stage expert to ascend. So even a little bit of medicinal qi absorbed at the time of refining and purifying was sufficient for Yang Chen to break through the peak qi layer and enter into the foundation stage.

All of the three pill concocting masters were racking their brains to think of the method for fusing all of the ingredients in the final stage, so who would pay attention to Yang Chen? Although He LianYun bore grudges towards him, in front of Elder Wu he didn’t dare to reveal even an inkling of it. Yang Chen would also be able to execute his plan with ease without any interference under the protection of the four YuanYing and one Da Cheng stage expert.

The top grade blue-green zoysia, although it could only be found in the depths of jade ore, it could be classified as a heavenly ingredient among all of the ingredients of all the five phases. It was also the key for the fusion of these other foundation pills. All steps in refining and purifying the blue-green zoysia followed a loop, if it weren’t for Yang Chen showing his almost perfect control over fire previously, this task would definitely not be given to him.

At that time, when Elder Wu had come looking for Yang Chen, although it looked like he was effortlessly carrying the blue-green zoysia within his hand, in truth he had to use thirty percent of his strength to endure the blue-green zoysia. This kind of heavenly material possessed intelligence, this meant that if someone was not careful, it would directly escape and run away out of someone’s hand. Even now Elder Wu rather carried the blue-green zoysia on his body, than keeping it near the other ingredients.

The box containing it was opened, little by little revealing the blue-green colored zoysia. It seemed like it had sensed its destiny, initially the zoysia was like a dead object, but then it started to get restless like a startled animal, but under the control Elder Wu’s formidable power, it could only squirm within a small area and change shapes, unable to run in the slightest.

At Yang Chen’s side, Elder Wu had arranged three layers of restrictions, this kind of arrangement was done so that, even if Yang Chen was unable to control the zoysia for some amount of time, the zoysia would still not be able to escape. It had to be known that, as long as the zoysia could touch the ground, it could immediately use earth evasion like an expert and escape.

“Are you absolutely certain?”

Elder Wu asked Yang Chen in a concerned tone before he started.

Everyone had very serious expressions, naturally Yang Chen didn’t say much, he only nodded his head slightly but the flame had already began to untangle within the furnace, it quickly formed an extremely complicated spell diagram. At the center of the spell diagram, pea sized flames were emitting specks of dark red light.

Looking at this spell diagram, Elder Wu showed a praising look. This was basically the restrictive spell formation which he had used to restrict the blue-green zoysia within the bottle. Laying this kind of proper foundation, the rate of success would definitely not be low.

When the high grade pill concocting experts saw that Yang Chen was capable of such manipulation within the pill concocting furnace, their faces turned serious. They fixed their gazes on the Profound Spirit Furnace within Yang Chen’s hands, afraid to miss anything.