The dark-faced man addressed as ‘Sect Master’ by Percy replied in a cold tone, “Is that a threat, Alchemist Ning?”
Ning Cheng remained unfazed, “I dare not. What I said just now was my fault; I apologise to senior. After all, senior is known for his generosity, so just pretend that I didn’t say anything.”
After saying that, Ning Cheng no longer looked at this dark-faced man again. He had already blacklisted the Void Star Sect when they refused to take out the Renewing Heaven Ripple Bone Pill materials. He believed that Percy could understand the meaning of his words. The matter of me refining the Renewing Heaven Ripple Bone Pill for your Void Star Sect would be the same as having not said anything at all. Better not mention it again.
The dark-faced man gave a cold snort. If this wasn’t the Pill Union’s home ground, and Ning Cheng dared to speak to him like that, he would have turned Ning Cheng into dust with a slap.
Percy, on the other hand, sighed. He didn’t have a deep relationship with Ning Cheng, yet he felt that Ning Cheng was a friend he could talk with openly.
He understood Ning Cheng’s temperament. As such, he never approached him with the attitude of taking advantage of him. In fact, he was even willing to take a loss. After all, only if one was ready to take some losses would one gain more later. In other words, Ning Cheng wasn’t the kind of person who treated his friends poorly.
Ning Cheng didn’t even give a damn about Man Huishan or Le Jiesheng, so he naturally wouldn’t kneel down and beg in front of the Void Star Sect. What’s more, his Void Star Sect was the one who had to beg him for his alchemic services, not the other way around.
Everyone in the square understood that Ning Cheng was asking the Void Star Sect to borrow the materials to challenge Le Xichen in refining pills. Listening to Ning Cheng’s tone, this matter had already been agreed upon previously. But for some unknown reason, the Void Star Sect had suddenly backtracked and wasn’t willing to take them out.
“Pill Sage Le has already finished refining a furnace of Supreme Essence Arterial Pulse Pill long ago. So why hasn’t Alchemist Ning responded to the challenge? Why hasn’t he started refining pills?” A man sitting beside Sheng Huotian suddenly spoke out and asked; his tone even carried a hint of disdain. He even called Le Xichen a ‘Pill Sage’ while addressing Ning Cheng with the generic ‘alchemist’. It clearly indicated that Ning Cheng became a ‘pill sage’ under suspicious circumstances.
As soon as Ning Cheng saw Sheng Huotian frown, he knew that this person, who clearly was from the Pill Union, didn’t have a good relationship with Sheng Huotian. There was probably some bad blood between the two.
“This fellow daoist, is there a time limit to refine pills during such a competition?” Ning Cheng asked, pretending to be puzzled.
“There naturally is no time limit. But is Alchemist Ning planning to stay standing on the stage like this for eternity? Alchemist Ning might have the time to do this, but we don’t have the time to stay here like you. After all, Alchemist Ning can refine pills without a pill art, while we all have to stick with our respective pill arts to refine pills. And to do that, we have to go back and study the pill arts, you see.” When this man heard Ning Cheng’s retort, his tone became even more disdainful.
Ning Cheng cupped his fists toward Sichen Qiutian and then cupped his fists towards the rest of the people in the public square. “Just now, Pill Sage Le took one day to refine his pills. If I do not refine a pill within a day, I will declare myself the loser.”
Hearing those words from Ning Cheng, the man could only shut up and not say anything. If he didn’t refine his pills in one day, he would voluntarily admit defeat. If Le Xichen took one day, why couldn’t Ning Cheng take one day? Not to mention that Ning Cheng had deliberately added the extra conditions himself.
Even if someone waited for eleven hours and succeeded in refining a pill in the last hour, it would still not be a foul.
“Fellow Daoists in pursuit of the Dao of Alchemy and all seniors who came to witness this Alchemy Discourse. Although I also have a few dao fruits, none can be refined into a Dao Pill of higher value than the Supreme Essence Arterial Pulse Pill. Even if I were to refine the most difficult pill from the materials that I have, at best, it would only result in a tie with Pill Sage Le…..”
Ning Cheng didn’t even get to finish his words before a cold laughing voice interrupted him. “A tie? Although Pill Sage Ning has a Dao Transformation Pill Sage’s qualification token, you can’t speak nonsense. Even if one is a Dao Transformation Pill Sage, there are still several grades. The Dao of Alchemy is a path of caution, and there is no room for dust or meaningless chatter. Pill Sage Ning is also someone who pursues the Dao of Alchemy. So I hope that Pill Sage Ning will wait until you refine an evenly matched pill before saying this.”
Ning Cheng didn’t bother to argue with this person and continued. “Fellow Daoists, today I’m here to make a promise. If someone can provide me materials for a pill more difficult to refine than the Supreme Essence Arterial Pulse Pill and is willing enough to let me refine it, I will refine it for you. Moreover, it would be completely free without any strings attached from my end.”
The Alchemy Discourse’s public square turned silent, and no one spoke or even whispered. If Ning Cheng had talked about an ordinary Dao Transformation Dao Pill, someone would have taken it out and asked Ning Cheng to help refine it.
But a pill more complex than the Supreme Essence Arterial Pulse Pill, except for a few that still had non-extinct ingredients, would mean a Dao Essence Dao Pill. Let’s not talk about a Dao Essence Dao Pill. Even if they looked at the other dao pills, which pill didn’t require at least one extraordinarily rare and precious spirit herb? How hard was it to collect such materials for these dao pills?
Taking out such incredibly precious materials for you to squander in a competition with no guarantee of a return, even an idiot wouldn’t agree to it.
Percy then turned his gaze towards his Sect Master. Don’t look at the fact that he had promised Ning Cheng. Just the fact that he and Ning Cheng had become friends should have been enough for them to take out the materials for the Renewing Heaven Ripple Bone Pills for Ning Cheng to refine. Now that the sect master didn’t take out the ingredients, it left Ning Cheng in the awkward position of having no pills to refine on stage. It made him lose all face to see Ning Cheng in the future.
Yan Ji clenched her fists. She hated herself for not having precious ingredients for Ning Cheng to refine his pills. It left Ning Cheng alone on the stage and made people look at him funny.
Sheng Huotian also felt quite helpless. He did have spirit herbs for such pills on him. However, he was one of the presiding judges for the Alchemy Discourse. There were already people whispering that he faked things for Ning Cheng. If he took out such precious materials to help Ning Cheng, the crowd would essentially turn the whispers into loud words. It wouldn’t die down even if Ning Cheng won fair and square in that situation.
Ning Cheng secretly sighed internally. He didn’t believe that none in this public square could take out the materials for a pill more difficult to refine than the Supreme Essence Arterial Pulse Pill. After all, this place gathered almost all the alchemic geniuses and the heads of all the major forces. Since such people came here to either spectate or participate in the Alchemy Discourse, what kind of ingredients couldn’t they come up with?
The only reason why they hadn’t brought them out was not that they didn’t have such ingredients but because no one here trusted Ning Cheng. In any case, such materials had an immeasurable value even if one looked at them individually.
After waiting for another half an incense stick of time, Ning Cheng decided to refine the Silent Dust Reincarnation Pill. The main spirit herbs for the Silent Dust Reincarnation Pill were the Dao Transformation Dao Fruits, Silent Dust Dao Fruit and the Reincarnation Tears. It was definitely one of the more challenging dao pills to refine. In fact, it could even be regarded as one of the top ten most difficult to refine Dao Transformation Dao Pills. But it still wasn’t on the same level as the Supreme Essence Arterial Pulse Pill. Unfortunately, Ning Cheng had no other choice but to choose the Silent Dust Reincarnation Pill. After all, it was the most complex pill he could refine with the ingredients at hand.
Sometimes during an alchemic discussion, even if your attainment in alchemy was higher than others, you would still have to admit defeat. Not for any other reason, but only because you didn’t have the required ingredients. After all, procuring ingredients could also be considered a part of alchemy.
“Alchemist Ning, I have a batch of ingredients. But I’m afraid you wouldn’t dare to refine it.” Ning Cheng had just turned around when a voice abruptly emerged from the public square.
Ning Cheng immediately turned around and zeroed in on the person who had just spoken. It was a silver-haired young man who looked a little demonic. However, Ning Cheng quickly understood why this silver-haired man came forward to help him with the alchemy materials. It most likely was because of the silver-haired woman sitting beside this man, a woman who Ning Cheng knew.
She was the same woman coerced by Man Jiuren to come to the Mysterious Yellow Starland. However, Man Jiuren trapped her in the Nine Emperor’s Peak in the Sacred Light City. He had freed her back then, and it could be regarded as him saving her life. Since this silver-haired man spoke about coming up with the alchemy materials, it must have been because of this silver-haired woman.
Sure enough, when she saw Ning Cheng look over, the silver-haired woman showed a faint smile and nodded to Ning Cheng but didn’t say anything.
Ning Cheng also nodded to her before turning to the silver-haired man. “As long as you can take out the ingredients, I will dare to refine it. However, if it ends up in failure, I’m afraid I won’t be able to pay you back for the ingredients, at least not for a short while.”
“Haha……” The silver-haired man laughed. “Since you dare to refine it, I will take it out for you to refine. As for compensation, you can just forget about it. I’m afraid you won’t be able to pay it back in your lifetime. If the refining does end up in a failure, I’ll regard it as this Gong Huayu’s failure. You don’t need to worry about it.”
All eyes immediately focussed on this silver-haired man. Ning Cheng was at the very least a Dao Transformation Pill Sage. Not to mention the wealth that he might have, just by his performance in the Illusionary Fruit Orchard, he was already richer than a majority of the alchemists here. Yet, this silver-haired man called Gong Huayu had such a big mouth that he said that Ning Cheng couldn’t afford to compensate for it in case of failure.
At this moment, all of them wanted to know what kind of pill Gong Huayu wanted Ning Cheng to refine.
“What I want you to refine is the Six Yin Soul Pill…..”
The words ‘Six Yin Soul Pill’ almost immediately choked every person in the audience. Even the top-tier alchemists found it hard to breathe after hearing those words. For a brief period, the entire venue turned silent. Even Ning Cheng felt a little incredulous. He did know about the Six Yin Soul Pill. In fact, he had explicitly looked up this pill and even knew a majority of the different recipes in circulation. In fact, this pill recipe wasn’t actually a secret at all, and every alchemist had a copy of it.
Later, he found another variation of the Six Yin Soul Pill recipe in the No Furnace. But there were slight differences between the Six Yin Soul Pill’s recipe from No Furnace and those in circulation outside. But despite the variations, Ning Cheng could tell that the Six Yin Soul Pill recipe left behind in the No Furnace was more accurate.
But whether it was the Six Yin Soul Pill’s recipe in circulation outside or the recipe from No Furnace, they all required the same three primary spirit herbs. The recipe also called for nearly two hundred auxiliary spirit herbs, but the quantity varied among the different recipes.
However, the most important among the three primary spirit herbs was the Six Yin Fruit, a dao fruit that contained a higher concentration of worldly laws. If one had to categorise it, it would be classified as a Dao Essence Law-infused Spirit Fruit.
In other words, the Six Yin Soul Pill was a Dao Essence Dao Pill. But the minimum requirement for refining a Dao Essence Dao Pill was a Dao Essence Pill Sage. On the other hand, Ning Cheng was ‘just’ a Dao Transformation Pill Sage.
In addition to this, the Six Yin Soul Pill had two other law-related spirit herbs. One being the Nine Curves Soul Grass, and the other being the Forgetfulness Flower. Both these law-related spirit grasses were conflicting Dao Transformation-grade law-infused spirit grasses. Because of this, the Six Yin Soul Pill was even more difficult to refine.
In fact, even among the Dao Essence Dao Pills, the Six Yin Soul Pill was one of the more challenging to refine pills. Truthfully, even the most ordinary Dao Essence Dao Pill wasn’t something the Renewing Heaven Ripple Bone Pill could compare to, let alone the Supreme Essence Arterial Pulse Pill.
Suppose one had to compare the Supreme Essence Arterial Pulse Pill to the Six Yin Soul Pill. In that case, it was like comparing a child to an adult.
Moreover, the Six Yin Soul Pill also had another characteristic: a perfect furnace would result in six pills, not twelve.
Ning Cheng had looked up the Six Yin Soul Pill because it could bring the dead back to life.
Whether in the true cultivation world, the starry skies or the grand realms, bringing the dead back to life was almost impossible. In fact, the only way currently available to bring the dead back to life is if the person’s essence spirit still remains intact, which wasn’t exactly being dead. However, once the essence spirit collapses, the spirit soul inside it would eventually dissipate, marking a ‘true’ death of a being. Coming back to life from this state was pretty much impossible.
However, the Six Yin Soul Pill gave a Dao Essence cultivator, with a broken essence spirit and dissipating spirit soul, a 40% chance of reuniting the spirit soul with the body. Of course, the prerequisite is that the corporeal body must exist; otherwise, it would be meaningless.
