Chương 29: Story 3 - Spiritual Vines and a Smokey Pill Cauldron (Part 20)

The first thing I did when I returned to my station was clean everything using the provided supplies a helpful clerk brought me. I also vehemently complained about my inability to use a damn 5th Layer technique due to it risking a worsening of my internal injuries. And that Little Spring couldn't help me. Fuck, I was bad at cleaning by hand, but it was necessary. The others, who could all use the cleaning technique were already started preparing the ingredients.

After I was done wiping down my worktable, my side hurt like a bitch. But it was just the normal burn I expected. Shit. Why didn't these assholes let people rest after each pill? I secretly made imagined plans to eventually overthrow their leadership. Then I kept going. The trick to dealing with constant pain was to keep momentum. Momentum helped me get through each day with a headache, and it would help me get through this tournament with internal injuries.

Another Employee came over with the various white boxes filled with spiritual plants and set them up at my station before leaving. Since I was in too much pain to give a shit about what others thought of me, I sat in the lotus position on the floor of my workstation and cycled my cultivation technique to refill my well and to briefly clear my mind. This eventually turned into thinking. Nine Snakes Explosive Tempering Dan.

I hadn't practiced this pill before, but I had concocted higher-ranked pills that were even more volatile, so I knew how to handle this one. I also understood from the description that the volatility of it, the near explosivity of it, was what Body Cultivators needed. This pill would first cause immense pain to the ones taking it as it broke down cells then repaired the damaged areas using spiritual energy. Of course, this saturation of energy in the body would strengthen and reinforce it.

This meant that one pill could make a body cultivator jump a whole small realm. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. But it was also a pill that could only be taken three times at most, with diminishing returns each time. Next, I reviewed what I knew about each plant in the recipe and discovered the two most volatile of the plants... They also happened to have the most redundant names, Frozen Yin Ice Grass and Scalding Yang Fire Peony.

This beautiful peony was so hot it could literally catch things on fire. The only reason it stayed peacefully in its box was that it had formations within it to keep it chill. It also had a massive amount of very positive energy. The next, Frozen Yin Ice Grass, was a crystal clear chunk of grass that resembled a maze of ice crystals. It could freeze things that came near it. And it had a massive amount of very negative (not in the evil sense) energy.

If someone from my original plane of existence came around and read a book on these two plants, they might think, 'Oh, I'll just put these two together and they'll cancel each other out.' And there were a few rational people from this world who might think that way too. But this was not the case. Instead, when you put these two opposing forces together it, for some god unknown reason, broke the damn universe and instead caused a violent energy-filled reaction.

This was also what made them the most important main ingredients in this crazy pill that only someone insane like a Body Cultivator would take. But, because of this reaction, they needed to be placed first and last. Next, were the two oddest spiritual plants in the bunch — Vibrant Dual Serpent Weed and Bitter Root of Thwarted Arrogance. Vibrant Dual Serpent Weed was a bright green weed that grew in the shape of two serpents attempting to consume each other.

There was this whole mythology going on with this plant about two snake-type spirit beasts but it was just cute bullshit that didn't matter in the long run. What was important was that this was one of the ingredients so significant that it helped give the pill its name. This spiritual plant, when paired with Nine-Starred Ghost Anise, was actually a very good healer at the molecular level, for injuries that had immediately occurred. So, it was useless to me in my condition.

But this pairing needed to go into the cauldron near the end. And, since it didn't work well when placed near the Frozen Yin Ice Grass, that meant that the Peony had to go in last. I wasn't exactly happy about that part since finishing a volatile solution with the second most volatile plants in the pill was a 'recipe' for disaster. I could still make it work, though, being as impressive as I was.

Of course, the most volatile was the Fire Poisoned Stinging Lily, but it was also the easiest to deal with as it could be paired with the Frozen Yin Ice Grass.