Battle Through the Heavens and Earth

Chapter 73: First Refinement

In the narrow cave the flames within the cauldron casted shadows onto the cavern walls, creating shadows of dancing fangs and claws of wild beasts.

Xiao Yan concentrated with every fiber of his being as he watched the surging flame attentively, his pale face was streaked with beads of sweat. Refining medicine for long periods of time was a task that consumed an extreme amount of Dou Qi. Since Xiao Yan's Qi Method was the lowest ranked Low Xuan, his Qi foundations and endurance were nothing special. Thus it was not an easy task for him to persevere for almost two hours in front of the cauldron.

Yao Lao squinted his eyes as he gazed upon Xiao Yan, who had once again successfully refined a Blood Clot Grass into a fine white powder. Knowing that Xiao Yan had already reached his limit, Yao Lao gave a slight nod and gently said: "Well done, take a break."

Hearing this, Xiao Yan's shoulders immediately dropped and his body softly fell to lie on the ice cold floor as if all the energy in his body had been suddenly drained away. Gasping for air, his chest rose and fell rapidly; battered with exhaustion, he could barely even lift a finger now.

"Training now would give the best effect."

Yao Lao said indifferently as he cast a glance towards the Xiao Yan who lifelessly laid on the ground.

Laziness and diligence clashed in the heart for a mere moment before Xiao Yan internally howled in anguish as he unwilling sat up. His trembling hands formed into a training seal as he slowly closed his eyes.

Seeing Xiao Yan's stance, Yao Lao laughed as his sight turned towards the ten plus jade cases before the cauldron. These cases were filled to the brim with pale white powder refined from the Blood Clot Grass and were results of the efforts of Xiao Yan.

From left to right, the pale white color of the powder became richer and richer until the last case, in which the color of the powder had almost reached a pure white.

Gazing upon this extremely obvious improvement, Yao Lao felt pleasantly surprised as he nodded his head approvingly; in his heart he once again praised Xiao Yan's outstanding spiritual perception.

He shot a glance towards the Xiao Yan who was currently recovering his Dou Qi before sitting himself crosslegged against the stone wall, leisurely closing his eyes to recuperate. Xiao Yan had only refined the first type of ingredient, there were still two more types waiting for him to slowly practice on.

......

After training close eyed for almost an hour, the Qi Cyclone within Xiao Yan's body once again emitted a bright light after it had previously gone dark from the depletion of Dou Qi before. Furthermore, the brightness this time seemed to be a little bit clearer than it was a few hours before.

Gradually opening his eyes, the powerless feeling from before had retreated by more than half. Stretching his neck, the cracking sounds made Xiao Yan sigh in happiness.

"Done training? Continue then." Yao Lao smiled as he opened his eyes to look upon the now lively Xiao Yan.

Bitterly laughing as he shook his head, Xiao Yan who had experienced the painful process of alchemy had finally understood that he had been 'conned' by Yao Lao. When Yao Lao had previously done alchemy, all he did was twirl his hands about as he refined the ingredients to create the elixirs that people would go crazy for. This simple looking process had left a strong impression in Xiao Yan's mind that alchemy was extremely easy. Yet now that Xiao Yan had tried a hand at it personally, he now knew that alchemy was more difficult than being a miner.

This understanding had come too late, thus Xiao Yan could only sigh as he once more sat before the cauldron and started to refine the essence of the other two types of medical ingredients.