Library of Heaven’s Path

The pill formula that Fu Jiangchen had seen was simply horrifying. Even as a top apothecary in the Firmament, he still felt his heart pounding anxiously at the thought of it. He dared not believe that someone would dare use all those medicinal ingredients together!

The main ingredient of the pill formula, Grass of God King, was a medicinal ingredient that he had never seen or heard of before, but the other complementing medicinal herbs left chills running down his spine.

Putting everything aside, the sixth complementing medicinal herb, Spittle of the Green Serpentine Dragon, was known to be one of the most potent poisons in the Firmament. Even a God King would be unable to curb its poisonous properties! To actually use something like that to forge a pill…

Subconsciously, Fu Jiangchen was already starting to calculate the chances of a cultivator surviving if they consumed such a pill!

And the fourteenth medicinal herb, the Hundredleaf Violetscent Flower, despite possessing no poison at all, had the ability to freeze a cultivator’s zhenqi, preventing them from exerting their cultivation…

Should a Breakthrough Pill not be filled with ingredients that were rich in spiritual energy so that the cultivator could gather sufficient momentum for a breakthrough? But this medicinal herb would halt a person’s zhenqi! How was someone supposed to cultivate like that?

And the twenty-first medicinal herb, Pureblooded Dragon Blood…

Was that something that a normal cultivator could endure? Putting aside a single drop, even half a drop of it would be enough to make him explode!

With his many years of experience in pill forging, Fu Jiangchen’s conclusion was that… this was not a pill formula but an enigmatic hotpot filled with sketchy ingredients!

It was similar to how a cook might add pepper, onion, ginger, and anise into their meat in order to elevate its flavor… But if he added in a teaspoon of ash, a pinch of dust, and three spoonfuls of wood shavings into his cooking, could it be eaten?

That was just how illogical the pill formula appeared to Fu Jiangchen!

“I have already revised it once, and there are no problems with it,” Zhang Xuan replied.

“You have revised it once?” Fu Jiangchen was on the verge of clawing his hair out.

Was the young man that confident, or did he misunderstand what pill forging was?

Even the most skilled apothecaries he knew of would make sure to revise their new pill formula dozens of times before attempting to forge it so as to prevent wastage of medicinal ingredients. In fact, there were some who went to the extent of simulating the process hundreds of times to ensure that it was errorless before daring to move on to the forging process.

Yet… you only went through it once? Are you sure that this is fine?

It feels like you are making light of everything!

“Rest assured, I am confident in the pill formula. We’ll definitely be able to forge it,” Zhang Xuan replied with a chuckle to assuage Fu Jiangchen’s fears.

Even the Library of Heaven’s Path had given him the green light, so there could not be any problem with it!

Seeing how certain Zhang Xuan was, Fu Jiangchen knew that he would not be able to talk him out of it, so he sighed deeply and said, “Well, since you have already put it like that, I guess we can give it a try… However, I’ll need to give you a disclaimer beforehand. I have never forged such a pill before, so there’s a chance that all of the medicinal herbs might end up going to waste!”

If the pill forging process failed, it would usually result in all the medicinal herbs going to waste. The medicinal herbs required to forge something as potent as a God King Breakthrough Pill were bound to be incredibly valuable.

Even with the vast fortune that Fu Jiangchen had at his disposal, it would still take a huge toll on his finances if so many precious herbs of his went to waste.

“Don’t worry, it won’t go to waste!” Zhang Xuan smiled. “Brother Fu, as long as you follow my instructions carefully, there won’t be any problems!”

“Alright then.” Fu Jiangchen nodded.

The other party’s mastery of pill forging was clearly higher than his, so it could be possible that the other party was seeing a very different picture from him.

He was there just to help out anyway.

“Shall we begin then?” Zhang Xuan asked.

He only had half a day, and two hours had already passed so far. If he did not rush things a bit, he might fail to make it in time for the tournament.

“Un!”

With a flick of his wrist, Fu Jiangchen took out a cauldron. Then, with a wave of his hand, a burst of flame descended from the sky and fell right into the cauldron, setting it alight.

The cauldron that he used specifically for pill forging was God King-tier, and the flame that he used was a type of Celestial Flame. With these, he could refine even God King-tier medicinal herbs easily.

“You have my gratitude!”

Seeing that Fu Jiangchen had the equipment required to conduct the pill forging, Zhang Xuan heaved a sigh of relief. That happened to be something that he lacked.

With a wave of his hand, a huge pile of medicinal herb materialized before him, floating in the air.

He had managed to procure quite a lot of medicinal herbs back in the Sky of Drifting Specter through Qi Ling-er. Furthermore, when he devised the pill formula, he had altered it according to what medicinal herbs he had on hand so that he would not need to go looking for them.

Fu Jiangchen looked at the medicinal herbs floating around the room before asking with a frown, “Brother Zhang… you only prepared a set of medicinal herb?”

It was pretty standard for apothecaries to prepare three sets of medicinal herbs before beginning to forge their pill. This way, they would be able to quickly make adjustments if a problem occurred.

However, if there was only a set of medicinal herbs and a problem cropped up in the refinement of a certain medicinal herb, they would not be able to correct the problem right away, and this could lead to the entire cauldron of medicinal herbs going to waste!

“Just a set is enough. To be frank with you, I’m pushed for time, so I can only attempt the forging process once,” Zhang Xuan replied.

“You are pushed for time?” Fu Jiangchen was rendered speechless.

That, too, was a taboo of pill forging, especially for such an advanced pill.

Presenting me with a completely messed up pill formula that has only been revised once, preparing only a single set of medicinal herbs, and being in a rush before the pill forging’s even begun…

Are you sure you are here to ask me to forge a pill for you?

It was not too long ago that Fu Jiangchen had been completely impressed by Zhang Xuan, and he had even thought that the latter might be most capable apothecary in the Firmament with the exception of the Heaven Subjugation Monarch, but looking at it now…

How could an apothecary be this unreliable?

“Let’s begin right away!”

As Zhang Xuan said those words, Fu Jiangchen saw the young man grabbing one of the medicinal herbs and tossing it into his cauldron.

For a moment there, Fu Jiangchen nearly flipped his cauldron over, and he might have done so if not for the fact that they were in his manor.

The cauldron hasn’t been heated properly, but you have already started tossing a medicinal herb in… And the way you did it somehow appeared so amateur, almost as if you have never forged a pill before…

Fu Jiangchen felt his confidence level reaching a new low.

“I’ll pass it over to you now. Follow my instructions strictly, alright…”

Nearly having burnt his hand while tossing the medicinal herb in, Zhang Xuan immediately took a step back and held back his urge to continue tossing the other medicinal herbs in.

With a deep sigh, Fu Jiangchen said, “The cauldron isn’t warm yet…”

“There are some medicinal herbs that don’t require the cauldron to be too hot. On the contrary, if the temperature is too high, it might have adverse effects even,” Zhang Xuan swiftly explained before following up with the next set of instructions. “In two breaths’ time, place the Woodleaf Grass and Goldgazelle Leaf in. Increase the temperature of the flame by seven percent right away. After that, use the Wood Reversal Spirit Resurrection Forging Technique to place the Soleleaf Grass in…”

The procedure for forging the God King Breakthrough Pill was incredibly complex, and there were many details to take note of. In order to ensure that his words could reach in time, Zhang Xuan used his zhenqi telepathy to relay his instructions.

“You know of my Wood Reversal Spirit Resurrection Forging Technique?”

Fu Jiangchen had been filled with uncertainty a moment ago when he suddenly heard those words, and his heart skipped a beat.

The Wood Reversal Spirit Resurrection Forging Technique was a particularly obscure and profound forging technique. It had taken him nearly a decade in order to fully grasp it.

However, after he learned it, due to how obscure it was, there were hardly any pill formulas that necessitated its use, so he had ended up shoving it aside. A lot of time had passed since then, and he had nearly forgotten about it…

He did not think that Zhang Xuan would be aware of that pill forging technique, as well as the fact that he knew about it!

In any case, Fu Jiangchen knew that this was not the time to be asking questions. Without a moment’s delay, with his right hand, he quickly did as what Zhang Xuan instructed and threw stalk after stalk of medicinal herbs in with precise movements at precise timings.

As for his left hand, it was busy infusing spiritual energy into the cauldron in order to raise the intensity of the flame.

Tzzz!

While placing the medicinal herbs in according to Zhang Xuan’s instructions, Fu Jiangchen could not help but notice that the medicinal herbs, which looked as if they would burst into flames at any moment, would somehow melt together with impeccable timing and fuse perfectly together with one another.

Could this be… a perfect pill forging technique? Fu Jiangchen thought in disbelief.

The reason fire was required in pill forging was to fuse the individual medicinal herbs together better. However, due to certain incompatibilities in terms of flames and forging techniques, it could prove difficult to fuse some medicinal herbs together.

For most apothecaries, it was fine as long as they could mix the two medicinal herbs together to some degree.

However, by following the timing and forging technique as the young man instructed, he was actually able to make all of the medicinal herbs fuse together perfectly!

This was a perfect forging technique!

This was a legendary feat that even God Monarchs would find hard to pull off… but it was happening right before his eyes from the words of a young man!