Chapter 78
Zhanxian
Chapter 78 – First Get Attached Before Falling Out
Yang Chen relaxed and took a breath, and at the same time, Elder Wu did the same. Now that the top grade zoysia had been refined, the success rate of refining in the later stages would once again be somewhat increased.
When Yang Chen was refining the blue-green zoysia, the others were also not sitting by idly and were discussing about the originally proposed plan for fusing all of the ingredients and had finally settled all of the issues. They had also referred to Yang Chen’s technique of merging fire and water, and although they were not able to find out the core of the technique, it had offered them a thought to resolve the problem.
Deng Yi had was the highest grade pill concocting master among the three, so she automatically became the leader and began to implement the plan.
The following refining continued for at least one year. Just fusing a few high grade elixirs had taken them such a long time, but actually completing it within one year was already an extraordinary arrangement.
Zhu Peng and He LianYun were also not lazing around, apart from providing all kinds of assistance to Deng Yi, they were also taking care of the constituent spirit of the demonic beast.
The demonic beast had the shape of a Flood Dragon, its torso was similar to a huge poisonous python and it had already cultivated for a thousand years, its figure was exceptionally close to a Flood Dragon and even had two horns sticking out of its head, it needed only one more step to ascend. Even if Elder Wu was able to capture a YuanYing demonic beast, it had to be one that was compatible with Fan Shan. This demonic beast was only captured after strenuous efforts. Elder Wu was still recuperating from an injury he received during this capture.
Apart from the blue-green zoysia, the most important ingredient of the Heaven Seizing Pill was the constituent spirit of this demonic beast, it would act as the Heaven Seizing Pill’s spirit, which even the constituent spirit of the zoysia could not compete with.
To deal with this poisonous Flood Dragon it required Elder Wu to be compatible with Zhu Peng and He LianYun. Naturally, Fan Shan was also an absolutely indispensable person, as he needed to control this poisonous Flood Dragon at the crucial point.
“Will you first force the Flood Dragon to consume all of the Spirit Power and afterwards extract the constituent spirit?”
This time Yang Chen could only be classified as a spectator, as he had no relation with this matter, but after hearing this method, he still couldn’t help but raise the question:
“This kind of method, wouldn’t it make the poisonous Flood Dragon’s constituent spirit weak and powerless?”
“Ignorant youngster, stop trying to sound smart and don’t talk without thinking!”
He LianYun was not even one bit courteous towards him and directly mocked Yang Chen’s questioning.
“Could it be that you really believe that using some minor tricks of controlling the fire, you could refine the Heaven Seizing Pill? Or is it that we three pill concocting masters are worse than you, a mere foundation stage youngster?”
The method to deal with the constituent spirit was agreed upon after the discussion between the three pill concocting masters. After all, the poisonous Flood Dragon was already a super demonic beast which was approaching its ascension, its constituent spirit was not something which these YuanYing stage pill concocting masters could control.
This powerful constituent spirit was not at all equal to the constituent spirit of the heavenly ingredients, like the top grade blue-green zoysia, which did not possess the ability to attack and only required some very hard labour to refine, which could even be taken care of by a qi layer disciple such as Yang Chen. The constituent spirit of the poisonous Flood Dragon was at least one realm higher than Deng Yi, if the control was not perfect, not only would the refining fail, but the pill concocting master might still have to suffer from the backlash; the lightest result would be getting some serious injuries, a serious one could be losing one’s life, so it indeed was incomparably dangerous.
For the successful refining of the Heaven Seizing Pill, the constituent spirit of the demonic beast was not allowed to create any problems, so they would be seeping away the Spirit Power until it became weak enough to be controlled. Moreover, the degree of weakness had to be grasped properly, it couldn’t be too powerful and at the same time it also couldn’t be too weak, otherwise it would not be sufficiently powerful.
“Since the name is Heaven Seizing Pill, with the two words ‘Heaven Seizing’, is this something that can be accomplished by a weak constituent spirit?”
But Yang Chen did not pay the slightest attention to He LianYun’s mockery, instead he stated his own reasoning, while wrinkling his brows.
“Although junior cannot make the Heaven Seizing Pill, junior still has some knowledge about it. If it is not powerful enough, who will be ready to take the blame?”
Although Yang Chen’s words contained some speculation, they were still somewhat reasonable, even during the previous discussion, Elder Wu had also raised this concern. But thinking about the cultivation of the pill concocting masters and the possibility of refining and secondly obtaining the completely intact constituent spirit of this vicious poison dragon was not possible without harming it. After discussing this with Fan Shan and the other three pill concocting masters, they had unanimously agreed to this conclusion. This way to control it was the easiest, most famous and also had highest chance of success.
In his previous life, Yang Chen had only heard about the difficulties in refining the Heaven Seizing Pill and hadn’t refined it personally. In addition to that, Yang Chen’s current cultivation could be said to be insignificant when compared to everyone else, so his words weren’t very persuasive. He had already successfully completed his job of purifying the blue-green zoysia and now, whether the refining of the Heaven Seizing failed or succeeded had no connection with him. The reason why Yang Chen had stayed behind was precisely to obtain his reward of the Real Sun Fire and increase his knowledge. At this moment, Yang Chen was trying to convince everyone else who were already determined on that plan, which was appearing to be impossible.
But Yang Chen felt in his subconscious mind that this kind of refining was not appropriate. If the Heaven Seizing Pill could even be refined with a weaker constituent spirit of a demonic beast, wouldn’t it be a joke? Although at this moment, the success or failure of the refining did not have any relation with Yang Chen, but he did not want to helplessly stare as this kind of opportunity was passing through his hands. If the Heaven Seizing Pill was successfully refined, then he would obtain an unprecedented reputation and also receive the invisible protection of many experts, so if he missed this, his losses would never make up for the gains.
Since he could say nothing to make everyone change their method, Yang Chen was smart enough to understand that there was no need for him to speak any more. In He LianYun’s eyes, Yang Chen’s silence meant that he had accepted his defeat, since he couldn’t convince them with his drivel. So He LianYun started making preposterous remarks immediately after taking out the furnace.
“Trying to display your measly skills before the experts here, what a disgrace!”
He LianYun immediately pelted ridiculing words at him and continued to berate him without any restraint:
“Ignorant youngster, get lost!”
“You must properly safeguard my Real Sun Fire so that it does not get broken by anything!”
But Yang Chen wasn’t enraged and instead replied this with a laugh. These words immediately turned the complexion of He LianYun ashen, his whole body trembled and he turned speechless.
He LianYun had always wanted to talk with Yang Chen regarding this matter and see if he could substitute the Real Sun Fire for something else, but he never dared to, for the fear of losing face. Just a moment ago when those words exited from his mouth, the only result of this meaningless bit of showing off was, that it had caused an even deeper misunderstanding, but not the least bit of benefit for himself. Yang Chen’s counterattack had given a shock to He LianYun, following which he could not even concentrate on doing his work.
Yang Chen no longer paid any attention to him and started to think in his mind about how he could decrease the influence of that method, so that he could increase the success rate of the Heaven Seizing Pill. After much deliberation, it seemed that only one method could help him. Only, that sort of method required many ingredients on one hand, and on the other it also required some more refining to be done.
He did not know where had Elder Wu had captured this Flood Dragon, neither did he care about it, nor was he going to take the initiative to inquire about it, but the one thing he was concerned about was how toxic this Flood Dragon was and also how formidable was his constituent spirit was, this concerned the extent of how effective the method would be, so he could not be careless about this.
Mentioning it was also somewhat troublesome, this kind of Flood Dragon, although its constituent spirit was needed at the time of refining, but the constituent spirit’s nature could have an instinct to use poison and if this kind of Heaven Seizing Pill was refined, then after taking it, maybe it would produce an intoxicating sensation within the subconscious of the user, which would require him to waste some of his cultivation to resist.
Yang Chen wanted to add a little bit of a detoxifying ability at the final stage. Of course he had no need to use any detoxifying medication, instead he could use the Flood Dragon’s constituent spirit to produce the effect of restraining its toxicity and then he could control the cultivation which would be wasted to resist the toxicity after taking the pill.
Additionally, when the constituent spirit of the Flood Dragon was extracted it would be utterly weak, under these circumstances, even if it successfully blended with the elixir and formed a pill spirit, the pill spirit would instinctively be weak. At that time the weakness of the pill spirit would lead to a greatly decreased medicinal efficacy. Seizing the Heavens, this was not something which an extremely weak, almost dead, pill spirit could accomplish.
“Elder Wu, for the time being I don’t have anything to do, I want to try to make some elixirs by myself, is it possible to grant me permission?”
Yang Chen directly turned to elder Wu and raised his request.
Elder Wu was worried that Yang Chen would cause trouble for He LianYun, so hearing Yang Chen take the initiative to go, he hurriedly replied:
“No problem, you intend to refine at some other place, right? Any kind of ingredient you need, instruct those servants outside to provide them to you and they will complete all of the other preparations for you.”
Elder Wu consented very quite magnanimously, but he also questioned him at the same time. If Yang Chen wanted to prepare his own elixirs, it would be best for him to go to another place, he must not disturb the refining here. As for what kind of elixirs Yang Chen wanted to prepare, Elder Wu did not care about it, he was even glad that Yang Chen would not be here to provoke He LianYun and affect the refining. As for the ingredients he required, Yang Chen, who had just reached foundation stage, how many high grade materials would he possibly be able to refine?
Yang Chen gave him a meaningful glance and immediately smiled:
“I will go outside to refine, but I need Elder Wu to provide me with a particular ingredient!”
Yang Chen was eager to go outside to refine as the thing refined by him could not be allowed to be seen by these people, especially He LianYun.
“What ingredient?”
Elder Wu asked, confused, if he needed to ask him to provide the ingredient, it naturally had to be quite a high level ingredient.
“I need some fine powder, shaved from the demonic dan of this Flood Dragon.”
Yang Chen asked, pointing towards the bestial pouch on Fan Shan’s waist and smiled. The Flood Dragon was being kept in the bestial pouch from the day it had been captured, furthermore it would receive its final destiny very soon.
Yang Chen was not very greedy, obtaining some powder from the demonic dan, this request was as simple as lifting a finger for Elder Wu. He was merely baffled as to why Yang Chen required this kind of thing. Because of Yang Chen’s earlier performance, even if he had asked for the demonic dan itself, maybe Elder Wu would not have refused it. But this was not the time to bestow such huge rewards and Yang Chen had also not asked for much so as to not give rise to the resentment of other people.
Just as he expected, He LianYun looked at him with a mocking gaze, as if finding it funny that Yang Chen was overestimating his capabilities try to refine an elixir by using powder of the dan. If a disciple who had barely reached the foundation stage could refine an elixir using the dan of such a demonic beast, then even a mortal could start concocting pills.
Despite sneering at him, it didn’t look like He LianYun wanted to stop him, instead he was waiting for Yang Chen to humiliate himself. Upon seeing this, Elder Wu only nodded slightly, but didn’t say anything.
The Flood Dragon had been captured a long time ago and had used all kinds of tricks to survive, but under the combined suppression of Elder Wu and Fan Shan it was simply unable to resist. In the restrictive spell formation laid by Elder Wu, it had recently gained some freedom and immediately manipulated its inner dan to attack that major enemy who held its life and death in his hands.
But Elder Wu calmly controlled his flying sword, regardless of how the big green demonic dan attacked, after the sword flashed for several times, Fan Shan controlled the bestial pouch to retrieve the Flood Dragon. Holding the flying sword in his hands, he walked in front of Yang Chen and asked:
“Is this enough?”
A small amount of green grains could be seen flickering on the flying sword, that was the powder he shaved from the inner dan just a moment ago, extremely fresh. Yang Chen carefully collected that fine powder in his jade bottle and nodded:
“It’s enough!”
Elder Wu retrieved his flying sword without saying anything, but gratefulness was visible within his eyes. Although Yang Chen was being targeted and insulted from the beginning, yet he didn’t create any trouble for Elder Wu, while his work was also extremely good, which satisfied Elder Wu greatly. A person who knows when to advance and when to retreat, this was Elder Wu’s assessment of Yang Chen.
Inside that manor, some distance not far from the place where the refining was taking place, Yang Chen looked for a room where he could concoct pils. He looked for a servant and instructed him about all of the materials he needed and asked him to prepare them. Naturally some unneeded materials were also mixed in as he did not want people to know what he was refining.
Elder Wu had already instructed the servants to fulfill all requirements of Yang Chen. Yang Chen did not demand excessively high grade ingredients, and moreover, in order to refine the Heaven Seizing Pill, Elder Wu had already collected as many top grade spirit medicines as he could. These slightly lower grade ingredients were all placed into Yang Chen’s room within one day.
The YuanYing pill concocting masters had already begun to remove the Spirit Power of the Flood Dragon within the bestial pouch. Since there were no means of replenishing the Spirit Power, the demonic beast began to weaken slowly. Whenever Yang Chen looked over there and heard the roaring of the demonic beast from time to time, he could not help but shake his head and take a long sigh, then soon afterwards he began to sort out the ingredients.
Although he had already reached the foundation stage, at this place Yang Chen did not want to reveal his cultivation techniques. Therefore, although he could once again refine his magic weapon, he forced himself to endure it and began to use the Profound Spirit Furnace to refine all sorts of ingredients as preparation for his own refining.
In a flash, a few months had passed by and the medicinal liquid of the blue-green zoysia had already mixed with forty different types of foundation elixirs but twenty more still remained. The refining was getting more and more difficult, Deng Yi could already not persist by herself, so Zhu Peng and He Lianyun had also entered the battle, and, controlling the medicinal liquid inside of the pill concocting furnace, they began to refine. Every time one person changed places with another, he was extremely exhausted and drained, after stopping the work, he would immediately use pills to recover the lost Spirit Power, not daring to delay in the slightest.
On Yang Chen’s side, all of the preparations were done. He LianYun and the others had no time to pay any attention to him, so after putting up a spell formation as a warning, Yang Chen used the powder from the inner dan of the poisonous Flood Dragon and carefully threw it into the Profound Spirit Furnace.