Chương 50: Alchemy Experiments and a New Pill Recipe

Coming out of the Arena onto the main street of the Trading City, feeling a sudden good mood inside, An decided to go all out with his shopping today, not holding back on spirit stones. After a few hours of wandering between tents and several small shops that looked pleasant to the eye, with the sun setting behind the horizon, An finally arrived at his plot. Carefully looking around, he made sure everything looked as before. He exhaled and passed through the formation and approached the gate.

Stepping inside, the first thing he saw, in the center of his plot where he had planted spirit plants, several small sprouts had grown, barely a few centimeters long, and around them, bare earth had formed, not a single blade of grass within a meter radius. Looking around, he realized that his entire place, except for his stove and his planted plants, was completely overgrown with weeds and vines.

"Bok-bok?"

"BWAWK! CLUCK!" Hearing the sounds of the gates, Baldi stuck his head out of his burrow, trying to understand what was happening. Realizing it was An, he shot out of his hole like he'd been stung and ran toward him with all his might, started circling around him and squawking loudly, straining his voice, almost fainting from his cries. Letting the chicken circle around him, An smiled and, catching the right moment, carefully grabbed the rooster, lifted him into his arms, and began scratching his head.

"I thought you were starving to death here… And I'd come back and find only dried bones belonging to one stupid bird, but no… You managed to almost double in size… How many fish did you eat from the lake? Oh, and you broke through to the late stage of the first rank! At least something good!" Scratching Baldi, he walked toward the shore.

Hearing An talk about his weight, the rooster, with a dissatisfied look, tried to grab and bite his finger, but suddenly hearing praise about his breakthrough, Baldi immediately forgot about fingers and, with a proud face, raised his head up and crowed, as if to say: ' Keep praising me!' Approaching the shore, he set Baldi down on the ground and took out a small mountain of Kavana fruits and several pills, specially left for the chicken.

"Take it... I was gone for a whole year, so consider it a small compensation. Just don't eat it all at once! Or you won't even fit in your burrow anymore." An patted Baldi's head and threw a glance at the loose entrance to the hole in the ground. Taking the fishing rod lying on the shore, An carefully checked the condition of the line. Surprisingly, the material was very strong, having withstood a whole year of constant fishing. Checking everything, he slung the rod over his shoulder and walked closer to the lake.

Kicking off what's left of his sandals, he stepped into the water, only ankle-deep, and took out the barrel of alcohol from his pouch, the one he had bought at the Sect entrance from the old woman a whole year ago. Placing the barrel in the water, he rummaged with Qi in his pouch, and took out an old wooden bowl. Opening the barrel's plug, he poured himself a full bowl and brought it to his nose, taking a deep breath." Ugh... The old woman was right, this really does smell like piss..."

After a few more sniffs, he quickly got used to the sharp smell of the drink. Taking a big gulp, even though he could taste notes of some kind of swamp and old rags, when the familiar alcoholic kick hit his throat, all the negative associations disappeared, and a smile appeared on his face. Finishing the whole bowl in one big gulp, he began filling a second one." Eh... Too bad I probably won't be able to get drunk... unless I drink ten or twenty barrels at once... and even then, I'm not sure anything would happen."

"It would be nice to know what this stuff even is..." Taking a small sip this time, An cast the fishing line far out.

"Bok-bok?" Seeing the pills and fruits before him, Baldi was first delighted and was about to grab everything and run to his burrow, when he stopped and looked at what An was doing. Seeing him go fishing and drink something with a satisfied face, without thinking twice, the bird patted the pills and fruits, promising to return soon, exactly like how he was patted on the head, and ran toward the satisfied An. Approaching and jumping onto the barrel, he watched the bowl with interest.

"You want some?" An extended the bowl to him, right under his nose. Without even hesitating for a second, Baldi took his first gulp. Opening his eyes in surprise, he plunged his entire head into the bowl, greedily swallowing the liquid. Watching this, An took out another bowl from his pouch, slightly larger, and giving his old one to the bird, filled a new one for himself, and continued waiting for a catch.

After drinking more than a quarter of the bowl, the rooster finally pulled his head out, and only because he had started to choke. With a bleary-eyed look and a suddenly tired and relaxed body, he watched the float in the water. Seeing the drunk bird, An smiled, patted him on the head, and continued fishing. Almost a month later.

"Come on! Come on!" BOOM!" AH!" A loud clap was followed by a sharp cry, and then a second, even louder blast. BOOM!" Ugh... my back!" Emerging from the rubble of the collapsed shack and dusting himself off, An slowly walked back to the shore, clutching his aching lower back. On the shore, from where he had been thrown, right in the center of a crater, melting sand was turning into glass. Not far from it, a trembling head stuck out from the burrow, quietly clucking.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. Waving his hand, An deactivated the energy barrier of his own making around the crater with molten, viscous sand.

"What exactly is the problem here... too many conflicting energies, or is the concentration too high for stable formation..." Sitting by the sizzling high-temperature crater, he propped his head on both hands.

"Baldi, what do you think?" He threw a glance at the head sticking out of the burrow." CLUCK!" Realizing he was being looked at, the rooster cried out in fear and disappeared back into the hole." Hmm... You're right! What if I increase the output of my Qi during forming to the maximum and completely block any contact with neutral Qi from the surroundings during the process? You're a chicken genius!" An jumped to his feet and, waving his hand, extinguished the high temperature and filled the crater with sand.

"Bwawk ~" A weak, resigned voice came from the deep burrow. An activated a barrier around himself with a two-meter radius, sufficient for alchemy. Sitting down, he began the concoction. Tossing in more than twenty different spirit plants, An began concocting the pill. A tense hour swept past.

"Come on! Don't let me down!"

"Almost! Yes!"

"Now the main thing is not to mess up at the Calming technique stage!" Whoosh! Whoooosh! Holding a sphere of Qi before him, An finally brought the concoction process to its final point.

"Now... removing the Qi Cauldron..." He decided to name the sphere he had started using back in the dungeon simply and clearly, Qi Cauldron. He figured it was appropriate, and he liked the name. Whooosh! Upon deactivating the Qi Cauldron, the aroma of the pill spread in all directions. The moment it hit his nose, An felt as if he was ascending. His vision darkened as a literal bomb of potent aromas exploded his mind, a scent powerful enough to shatter all reason." Cluck! BWAWK!"

Immediately, catching the scent, the rooster shot out of the burrow and began running around An, jumping and trying to collect the residue slowly falling to the ground with his wings and stuff it into his mouth. When everything settled on the ground, everything around was colored in white, green, and gold. The earth, the grass, the shore, An, Baldi, even the water in the lake, everything was covered in the fallen residue from the pill, painting everything around.

Running around the plot, Baldi greedily licked it all up, barely handling the tremors he got from these residues. Watching the rooster run around and lick the settled particles, he noticed that his physical body and even his mentality were improving, albeit slightly, but improving. An began to mentally go through all the pills he knew from the book, trying to find something similar, something resembling this residue.

Realizing that nothing like this had been described in the book, chalking it up to the fact that his alchemy guide was meant only for beginners and failed to outline the unique, intricate details of high quality pills. He finally turned his attention to the pill he was holding in his palm. White, with gold and green veins, with real veins. Looking at the pill, An could see Qi running inside those two veins. Holding this pill in his hand, he understood that he had done something he hadn't even expected from himself.

When he had been in the dungeon, even though he had managed to bring a pill to perfect quality, the vein present on it was simultaneously real and pseudo, stuck in a borderline state, not knowing which way to go, but not this time.

"Perfect quality, two real veins. According to Elder Shoa's words, only a very talented and lucky Alchemy Practitioner can produce a pill with multiple veins… Even though I wouldn't call myself talented, I can only see Qi… Although, that's still a part of me, so. Ha!" With a satisfied face, An began tossing the pill.

"Who else is talented here if not me!" Grabbing the pill and putting it into a test tube, An wrote the name of his new creation on top.

"First Step of Body and Qi will be your new name… Hmm, the pill's effect is designed to strengthen the physical body, based on the Beginning of the Body Qi Path pill, and with a boost during cultivation, based on the Beginning of the Qi Path... Only the real effect, how it will work in practice, is not yet known..." Writing the pill's name on the flask, he doubted, looking at the pill.

"There's only one way to test the effect!" Gathering himself, he rolled the pill back out of the flask, tossed it into his mouth, and began to cultivate. The moment it dissolved, he felt his entire body begin to burn intensely. Used to this, he immediately started a cultivation cycle. Immediately, he noticed strong changes.

The boost increased the attraction of Qi particles dozens of times over, but he immediately noticed that it put enormous strain on his mental state, his body simply couldn't handle such a flow of particles passing through his body. He also realized that some of the Qi particles were distributed throughout his body, slightly strengthening it." Haa… Haaa! Haa!" Holding on for only nine minutes, An cut off the cycle and fell onto his back, with sweat on his face and a terrible headache.

Trying to stop the sudden, strong shortness of breath, he closed his eyes.

"The pill's effect is too strong... I can't handle the amount of Qi entering my body and dantian..."

"Nine minutes... equivalent to almost a full cultivation cycle..."

"Reducing the pill's effect is not an option, I'd just ruin it, and the expenditure of spirit plants would be unjustifiable for a reduced effect."

"I can handle eight minutes, and that won't reduce the effect too much... And the recovery speed of my mind will be significantly higher, and the pain itself will be slighty less... If I calculated correctly, now per day I can do six and a half cycles instead of three... which ultimately doubles my cultivation time per day..."

"Is it worth the spent spirit plants and spirit stones? And the terrible pain?"

"It's worth it!" Lying with a pale face, slightly even green, a crooked and trembling smile appeared on his face. Calculating the expenses when preparing the Beginning of the Body Qi Path and Beginning of the Qi Path pills and their effects and boosts, he realized that the new First Step of Body and Qi pill was much more profitable both in terms of cost and effects.

With difficulty turning his head toward the bloated rooster, looking like an overinflated balloon, An was greatly surprised, realizing that the bird's physical cultivation and mentality had greatly increased. Realizing what effect this residue had on the rooster, he decided that from now on, he could completely limit the chicken's pill intake, as this kind of residue would be more than enough for him."

Claaaaaack~" Lying on his back with his tongue hanging out, Baldi barely squeezed out satisfied sounds from his throat. Two months later.

"Feathered one! Bring the set of herbs!" With sweat on his face, hovering above the ground, he was holding the Qi Cauldron with all his might so that its energy walls wouldn't burst and cause an energy explosion inside.

"BWAWK!" With trembling legs, the rooster brought a large pile of spirit plants, and stopping before the energy barrier around An, the bird hesitated for a long time before entering, already knowing perfectly well what awaited him inside." Bok… bok…. Claaack!" Gathering himself and making up his mind, he jumped inside, passing through the barrier.

Immediately, the pressure almost threw him back, but managing to dig his little feet deep into the sand and falling to the ground, pressing the spirit plants down with his thick body, he held on with his last strength, constantly clucking, trying to attract attention to himself. An managed to separate a particle of Qi and, enveloping the plants under the bird's belly, began tossing them into his Qi Cauldron.

Realizing that there was nothing left under his belly, and that his work was officially done, Baldi lost his grip on the ground and, under the pressure of the surrounding Qi, was thrown out of the barrier. Lying on his back, the bird tried to catch his breath, looking with fear at the barrier and the man hovering inside.

"Come on! Come on! I've spent so much time and resources on you! You must succeed!" Maintaining the integrity of the Qi Cauldron, which was already at its limit and about to crack, he continued tossing in new spirit plants. Creating a homogeneous mass from them and seamlessly fusing them into a cocktail of ground-up spirit beast brains and Capybara hearts, which he had obtained long ago during the mandatory mission on the Sacred Beast Peak.