Chapter 47: Explosion of the Furnace
First, the materials needed for crafting the Foundation Building Elixir, Clear Accumulation Elixir, and Gathering Yuan Pill had to be procured.
Previously at the black market, he had taken a fancy to someone’s Hidden Dragon Pendant of the Azure Moon, and the trade they had agreed upon was not yet complete.
He needed a large quantity of materials to craft the elixir medicines that person required.
In addition, he also needed to stock up on materials for crafting the Wound Healing Elixir and Restorative Elixir.
The Wound Healing Elixir was used for healing injuries.
And the Restorative Elixir was for quickly restoring spiritual power after battle.
With the Demonic Beasts attack, these two types of elixir medicines were also very important.
He surmised their prices would skyrocket.
Later, Lin Jing remembered that the spirit plants for crafting Energy Gathering Pills in his System Space had also matured.
Originally, he had planned to craft a large quantity of Energy Gathering Pills to enhance his cultivation.
However, it was only during a recent failed breakthrough that he realized he couldn’t rely solely on elixir medicines to advance and needed to meditate to improve his Divine Sense Realm.
So, he wouldn’t be able to advance for the time being.
Therefore, Lin Jing planned to sell most of these materials, keeping only a small part for his own cultivation use.
However, even if he wanted to sell, it wasn’t the right time now, naturally; he would wait until the prices rose in the future before selling them off. As for what spirit plants to grow in the System Space afterwards, he hadn’t decided yet.
He could only wait to visit the Fang Market in a few days to decide then.
Besides this.
Lin Jing felt that even the Fang Market wasn’t too safe nowadays; a single Flame Poison Centipede had caused such great casualties.
This incident made Lin Jing aware of the dangers of the outside world.
If the beast tide happened again someday and a few more Demonic Beasts broke in, with his current strength, wouldn’t he be dead for sure?
Therefore, he needed to earn more Spirit Stones to prepare in advance.
Next time he encountered Demonic Beasts, he would try to crush them with talismans, or if that didn’t work, buy a Forbidden Artifact directly.
A Forbidden Artifact was equivalent to a one-time Magical Treasure, with tremendous power.
Lin Jing had heard that some Forbidden Artifacts’ power was comparable to an attack from a Golden Core Cultivator.
Only, those Forbidden Artifacts weren’t cheap.
But, as long as one had enough Spirit Stones, one would definitely be able to buy them.
By noon, Luo Luo awoke.
Not long after, Ning Yue also woke up.
Lin Jing told Ning Yue about the earlier events, and although Ning Yue wanted to return the Spirit Stones to Lin Jing, he refused.
Since it was noon and their house had collapsed, they naturally couldn’t cook for themselves, so the two of them took Luo Luo to the Fang Market restaurant to have a meal.
After eating, the three of them walked around the Fang Market again, and because their house had collapsed, some of the previous items were no longer usable, and they bought some daily necessities.
Not until dusk did the three of them return.
When they reached the outskirts of the Fang Market, their house was already fully repaired and looked like a new build.
Manager Jiang was right after all.
Indeed, those professionals were fast.
At night, Lin Jing entered the System Space and started to get busy.
“System Notification: Congratulations to the host for harvesting one acre of
Spirit Plant, reward received: 5 Harvest Points.”
“System Notification: Congratulations to the host for harvesting one acre of
Spirit Plant, reward received: 8 Harvest Points.”
“System Notification: Congratulations to the host for harvesting one acre of
Spirit Plant, reward received: 5 Harvest Points.”
In one night, Lin Jing harvested eighteen acres of the Spirit Field.
He also planted two acres of Three-Leaf Spirit Grass, which Lin Jing specially left to continue growing, waiting for the day they would transform into Five-Leaf Spirit Grass.
From these eighteen acres of Spirit Fields, Lin Jing had obtained a total of 99 Harvest Points.
Adding to his previous total, he now had 232 Harvest Points, bringing him one step closer to the next level upgrade of his System Space.
And these harvested Spirit Plants, Lin Jing estimated that if he sold them all, they would be worth roughly 4000 Spirit Stones.
Of course, that was the current price.
If he waited a few more days, once the price of alchemy ingredients rose, he reckoned it would be even more expensive.
Moreover, these Spirit Plants needed to be dried for a period before they could be used as Alchemy Ingredients.
And the System Space was the best place for that.
The next day, Lin Jing went alone to the Fang Market, browsed through a few shops, and incidentally purchased some Alchemy Ingredients.
And then the third day, the fourth day, the fifth day.
Lin Jing visited the Fang Market daily, and without realizing it, he had spent most of his Spirit Stones.
He only kept a few hundred Spirit Stones as a reserve.
Since the ingredients for second-grade elixir medicines were quite expensive, Lin Jing actually didn’t buy much; all the alchemy ingredients he acquired totaled just over 500 portions.
There were roughly 100 portions for each type of elixir ingredient.
After buying the elixir medicines, Lin Jing didn’t rest. That very night, he entered the System Space, ready to begin Alchemy.
As usual, he sat cross-legged in the Alchemy Room. Lin Jing first stilled his mind, calming himself down.
A stable state of mind was of great help to Alchemy.
Lin Jing first processed all these Spirit Plants, then lit the fire, sequentially adding the Alchemy Ingredients into the Pill Furnace.
Finally, he sealed the furnace, carefully manipulating the flame.
The time it took to refine a batch of second-grade elixirs was much longer than that of first-grade elixirs, with one batch generally taking about an hour.
Therefore, the requirements for an alchemist’s Divine Sense were very high. Other alchemists wouldn’t dare to attempt the refinement of second-grade elixirs until they were in the Late Stage of Qi Refining.
Lin Jing was different, however. With a 20% increase in Divine Sense strength from the Alchemy Room, even though he was only at the Mid Stage of Qi Refining, refining second-grade elixirs was no problem for him.
During Alchemy, one must concentrate fully and thus does not sense the passage of time.
Quickly, more than half an hour passed.
At this point, Lin Jing’s forehead was covered with fine beads of sweat. Perhaps because it was his first time refining a second-grade elixir and he wasn’t proficient enough, this Alchemy session seemed particularly taxing.
Lin Jing felt he was reaching his limit.
Nevertheless, he clenched his teeth and bore the pain.
Just as the elixir was about to be completed, Lin Jing suddenly became lightheaded, followed by…
“Boom”
A loud explosion as the Pill Furnace burst open.
Lin Jing was caught in the blast and sent flying, slamming heavily into the wall.
He spat out a mouthful of fresh blood, then collapsed to the ground.
After a long while…
Lin Jing finally regained a bit of strength, barely propping himself up to sit.
Looking at the mess before him, Lin Jing silently pondered:
“Is a second-grade elixir this difficult? Is it really impossible to refine at the Mid Stage of Qi Refining?”
When he previously discussed this with Elder Yu and Ning Yue, both had said that one needed to be at least at the Late Stage of Qi Refining to refine a second-grade elixir.
When Lin Jing asked why, both gave the same answer: because of the strength of Divine Sense. Alchemy greatly depleted it, and without sufficient Divine Sense strength, one could not perform Alchemy.
Lin Jing hadn’t taken their words seriously before, especially after the Alchemy Room was upgraded to level two.
The 20% enhancement to Divine Sense strength had made his Alchemy practice feels invincible, even to the point of being quite effortless.
That was why, back at the black market, he had so arrogantly claimed he could gather all the elixir medicines within a year.
But now, with the situation at hand…