An Alchemist's Path to Eternity

Luo Chen finished his dealings with Heaven Smelter, returned to his own residence, and immediately began refining his life-bound treasure. This was no longer the simple refinement carried out within the sea of qi. Instead, he placed the Primordial Unity Cauldron outside and guided the Withering-Flourishing True Fire to heat it up and temper it little by little.

The cauldron floated in the air before him in its full size. Luo Chen focused intently, carefully controlling his true fire. Beneath the scorching azure flames, the plump and round Primordial Unity Cauldron visibly began to slim down. Strands of black impurities seeped out bit by bit in the form of liquid and vapor. These were all impurities contained within the raw materials. It was precisely because of these impurities that Luo Chen was unable to wield the cauldron smoothly.

After a round of refinement, Luo Chen felt a trace of fatigue. He formed a seal and pointed with a finger. The massive cauldron immediately shrank down to three cun, appearing more like a child’s toy. He opened his mouth and inhaled, and the small cauldron turned into a streak of light that entered his body. He patted his stomach, and a sense of satisfaction rose within him.

After resting briefly, Luo Chen resumed his cultivation. Much of his mana had been consumed recently in refining his life-bound treasure, so his cultivation speed had slowed slightly. However, it was only a slight slowdown. Over these past six months, his cultivation had continued to advance. The third stage of the Golden Core Realm was well within reach.

***

About halfway up Green Parasol Mountain, a platform stood beneath the winter sky.

The demon Holy Land was now buried beneath a thick layer of snow. It differed somewhat from how the mundane world imagined an immortal Holy Land. In their imagination, an immortal Holy Land would surely enjoy springlike weather all year round, with a mild climate and no bitter cold or scorching heat. This idea was not entirely wrong, as many sect territories in the Eastern Wilderness human cultivation world were exactly this way.

However, this Holy Land of the avian demon race lay deep within the unknown reaches of the wild mountains for good reason. For demonic beasts, closeness to nature and comprehension of the Great Dao mattered far more. Born of nature and raised by nature, there was no reason to abandon it after their cultivation had borne fruit.

On the contrary, because of the Heavenly Dao cycle of the four seasons, some demonic beasts could thrive even better. For instance, while Luo Chen refined pills on the mountainside platform, many ice- and water-element Demon King birds gathered nearby to watch.

After refining a few bottles of Imperial Nectar, Luo Chen did not stop as he usually did. Instead, he calmly and deftly took out various materials from his storage ring. Seeing this, the flock of birds immediately grew excited and started chirping noisily.

”He is going to refine Transformation Pills again.”

”I wonder if Master Luo will succeed this time.”

”Little Man calculated before. If I am not mistaken, Master Luo Chen has already failed seventy-eight times.”

”Yes, this is the seventy-ninth attempt. I feel this is the one!”

”I’ve heard that with human alchemists, once they succeed the first time, the second comes right after. As long as he can get a good start, it should keep going.”

Though the chirping was hardly restrained, Luo Chen seemed not to hear a thing. Using the various alchemy techniques he had mastered and improved, he carried out each step in an orderly manner. At the very end, he poured in that drop of blood essence that contained Heaven Smelter’s Nascent Soul power. This scene left the flock of birds somewhat astonished.

”Strange. Didn’t he usually add the blood essence first?”

”Yeah, why did he add it at the end this time? And it doesn’t look like he plans to fuse it directly either.”

Three years had passed since Luo Chen’s arrival. Due to watching him for so long, there were indeed a few demonic beasts on Green Parasol Mountain with high comprehension who had acquired some basics of the Dao of Alchemy. Because of this, they could notice the differences in Luo Chen’s refining process. Yet the more they understood, the more they realized how much they did not understand.

As he refined the materials, Luo Chen kept pondering and analyzing. Because Azure Frost had helped with the creation of the Primordial Unity Cauldron, it had ended up with a large space inside divided into multiple partitions. How useful that would be in combat was hard to say, but for alchemy, it was incredibly useful. Those small spaces allowed Luo Chen to separate the ingredients and refine them at the same time. Then, with his mana guiding the process, everything came together smoothly, in one go. This way, the process of pill formation was far more natural, and this approach aligned far better with the essence of transformation that Luo Chen had to embody with the Transformation Pill.

Luo Chen formed the Convergence Seal. Instantly, the spaces within the cauldron shifted, and the many refined medicinal liquids began to merge simultaneously. That phenomenon was just like a demonic beast undergoing transformation. It was not a gradual change, but a complete transformation, all at once. Then, at the final moment...

Hiss...

A scorched smell spread out, and everyone was deeply disappointed. Another failure!

What no one noticed was that a faint smile had appeared at the corner of Luo Chen’s lips. The reason was simple. On his status panel, a new entry slowly emerged.

Fourth Tier: Transformation Pills Beginner (1/100)

Ha! I haven’t succeeded even once, but it still shows that I have reached the Beginner level. That completely goes against the system rules I thought I’d worked out. But it only goes to confirm what I thought. Failure isn’t meaningless, it’s experience. It took seventy-nine failures for me to reach basic mastery of the formula. If that’s the case, the actual success can’t be far off.

No one knew of the joy in Luo Chen’s heart. He briefly cleaned the Primordial Unity Cauldron, then drew it back into his sea of qi and proceeded to nurture it with mana, as usual. He also carefully stored away the failed pill concoction to study it later in private. By the time he finished tidying up, the flock of birds had already dispersed.

Luo Chen stood at the mountainside and looked at the scenery below. The north wind wailed as the world below lay wrapped in white. It was a scene of thousands of li sealed in ice. The smile at the corner of his mouth gradually faded.

”Three years... Three years have passed since I fell into this state. I’m even just a step away from breaking into the third stage. I wonder how they’re doing now....”

A trace of faint sadness surfaced on his face. After the sudden joy came a rising sense of sorrow. He found himself missing the people of the Luo Tian Sect. He thought of the strong and capable Sima Huiniang, and the radiant Gu Caiyi. He wondered whether Wang Yuan had advanced to the Furnace Realm. He wondered if Qu Lingjun had slackened in cultivation, whether his alchemy had improved, and whether he’d mastered the second-tier Spirit Passage Pill, Blood-Burning Pill, and other alchemical formulas Luo Chen had left behind. Yuan Dongsheng had already reached the end of his lifespan and passed away a long time ago, but the daughter he’d left behind was truly talented. He wondered whether her uncle Li Yingzhang could nurture her into the next rising star of the Luo Tian Sect. And what about Duan Feng? What about Zeng Yilong...

That sudden moment of absent-mindedness made Luo Chen’s solitary figure on the mountainside platform seem especially out of place.

Inside the Daylight Palace, Azure Frost cast a glance in that direction, a trace of pity flickering in her eyes. But in the next moment, she straightened herself as a dark figure suddenly flew in.

”Little Azure, were you looking for me?”

Azure Frost’s expression turned slightly grave. With a beckoning motion of her finger, a snowflake landed in her palm. ”I feel that something is wrong.”