Demoness, Stop! - Chapter 47 - Chapter 47 – Trying To Refine First-Rank Pills

Zixiao Peak, Piaoxiang Pavilion.

Zhou Zixuan kept saying she didn’t want to, but she still, together with Li Yu, devoured all the food like a whirlwind. Ignoring her manners, she leaned back in her chair, gently touching her slightly swollen belly, a satisfied expression on her pretty face.

It had been a very long time since she had eaten something so delicious.

The dishes here were indeed expensive, but they were truly delicacies of the mortal world.

Even the slight oppression she felt from prolonged intense cultivation since arriving at the sect had been greatly alleviated by these tasty dishes.

After the meal, Li Yu voluntarily paid the spirit coins and then brought her to the Danxin Pavilion.

This was Zhou Zixuan’s first time there, so she asked Li Yu, “Are you going to buy pills?”

Li Yu had already used up his monthly quota for Meridian Clearing Pills and had to wait until next month to buy more. Using Zhou Zixuan’s identity jade token, he purchased three Meridian Clearing Pills from Junior Sister Xu’s counter.

Junior Sister Xu looked a bit troubled and said, “Senior Brother Li, Meridian Clearing Pills can only be consumed on the spot by the owner of the identity jade token.”

Li Yu smiled and said, “Don’t worry, I’m not buying them for myself.”

He handed the three Meridian Clearing Pills to Zhou Zixuan and said, “These are for you.”

Zhou Zixuan was slightly stunned, then quickly waved her hand, saying, “No, no, no, I don’t want them. They’re too precious.”

Li Yu said, “Take them. Otherwise, the monthly quota goes to waste. Consider it me treating you.”

Zhou Zixuan was speechless and stunned. Who ever treats someone to Meridian Clearing Pills?

Each of these tiny pills cost a thousand spirit coins apiece—she’d have to save up for nearly two years just to afford one!

Holding the precious pills in her hand, she couldn’t help but feel a strange sense of being… kept. On Biyun Peak, there were a few female disciples who, in pursuit of faster cultivation, had chosen to “devote” themselves to Foundation Establishment Elders, who would in turn give them generous monthly stipends.

But even those girls—even them—couldn’t get half a Meridian Clearing Pill out of their “sponsors” each month.

She looked at Li Yu, dazed. “This…”

Li Yu rolled his eyes and said, “Do you really have to be so formal with me?”

Zhou Zixuan looked at Li Yu, feeling a slight sweetness in her heart. Although they now met less often, Li Yu was still the same Li Yu from Baiyun Temple. She no longer refused and gently placed one pill into her mouth.

The Meridian Clearing Pill dissolved instantly, turning into a stream of clear spiritual energy that effortlessly blasted open an acupoint she had spent ages trying to clear through hard cultivation.

After taking three Meridian Clearing Pills, her Wood Spiritual Vein had already cleared five acupoints. Just four more and she would reach Qi Refinement second level.

After leaving Danxin Pavilion and sending Zhou Zixuan back to Biyun Peak, Li Yu leisurely flew alone toward Danding Peak.

He was a person who understood gratitude. When at Baiyun Temple, Senior Sister Zhou had truly treated him and Jiang Li well. Sometimes during missions, she would rather earn a few fewer spirit coins herself just to bring Li Yu and Jiang Li along.

Of course, besides gratitude, there were other reasons.

Although Li Yu had never been in a relationship, he wasn’t clueless. He could sense, more or less, the feelings of girls. Men always tended to take extra care of pretty girls who liked them.

When Li Yu returned to his residence on Danding Peak, even he was startled by the grand reception awaiting him.

“Congratulations!”
“Congratulations, Junior Brother Li!”
“From the first day I met you, I knew you were different!”
…

Usually familiar faces from Danding Peak gathered around his courtyard door, all offering their congratulations. Li Yu politely responded to each of them. Only after they dispersed did he return inside.

He sat on a stone bench, stretched out his hand, and the space ring on his finger emitted a faint glow. A pristine white jade box appeared in his palm.

Li Yu opened the box to find thirty white Meridian Clearing Pills neatly arranged inside.

This was the sect’s reward for winning first place in the grand competition—something he had been eagerly anticipating for days.

He received it immediately after the competition ended.

It took him the entire day, until noon the next day, to finish consuming all thirty Meridian Clearing Pills.

The thirty pills were evenly divided among his five spiritual veins, six acupoints cleared per vein. At this moment, Li Yu’s five veins each had eighteen acupoints opened, marking his just having entered the third layer of Qi Refinement.

However, his spiritual power was deeper than that of a peak ninth-layer Qi Refinement practitioner who only cultivated one vein.

The difference was that others only needed one more small step to successfully establish the foundation and experience a qualitative leap in strength, while Li Yu’s path to foundation establishment still seemed very far away.

After resting for a while, Li Yu went to Elder Han’s place.

Upon seeing Li Yu again, Han Tiancheng’s eyes looked as if he was gazing at a monster.

First place in the alchemy apprentice grand competition—that level was so high that even if Han Tiancheng himself participated, he might not enter the top ten.

If Li Yu didn’t have such low cultivation talent, he would at least be a direct disciple of some third-rank alchemist, and Han Tiancheng himself would have to be very polite when meeting him.

Of course, Han Tiancheng was very courteous to Li Yu now.

Even with limited potential, the top apprentice in the competition was still above Han Tiancheng.

He showed a kind smile and said, “Congratulations, Li Yu. I saw you during yesterday’s competition outside—you really brought honor to our Danding Peak…”

Li Yu smiled and chatted with Elder Han for a bit before asking, “Elder Han, are there any pills you need me to refine recently?”

Han Tiancheng pondered. Li Yu had already completed all the monthly low-rank pill orders; only some first-rank pill orders remained. But the difficulty of refining first-rank pills was incomparable to low-rank ones—99% of alchemy apprentices couldn’t master them.

Han Tiancheng shook his head. “No, there aren’t any.”

Thinking of Li Yu’s extraordinary talent and multiple meridians, and that he might be able to do what others couldn’t, Han Tiancheng added, “I have some materials for you—perhaps you can give it a try…”

A first-rank alchemist needed to produce a certain amount of pills for the sect each month. The sect provided the medicinal herbs and spiritual herbs needed. Since not everyone could produce ten top-quality pills per batch, the sect provided triple the materials.

If an alchemist could produce even one batch with three sets of materials, that was considered acceptable. Any leftover materials could be kept for personal use, and if more were needed, the alchemist wouldn’t be required to pay out of pocket. But if the alchemist failed to produce qualified pills for a whole year, their rank and benefits would be downgraded accordingly.

Han Tiancheng had been having a good run with his pill crafting this month and had some ingredients left over—just enough for Li Yu to test his hand.

Li Yu was a bit eager and cupped his fists. “Thank you very much, Elder Han…”

Han Tiancheng replied, “No need for thanks. Come with me…”

The pills Li Yu had refined previously—whether they were Hemostatic Pills, Peiyuan Pills, or detox pills—were all low-grade, unranked pills. Any ordinary pill furnace could be used to make them.

First-rank pills, however, were different. These pills required herbs and plants filled with spiritual energy. When the medicinal essences were combined, using a subpar furnace could easily cause it to explode.

Elder Han led Li Yu to his alchemy chamber and pointed to a pill furnace in the corner. “This is the furnace I used when I was first promoted to a first-rank alchemist. You can try using it. Start with the simplest—Fasting Pill.”

Han Tiancheng was currently preparing to break through to a second-rank alchemist and used a higher-grade furnace. The one he used back then was still more than sufficient for Li Yu now.

In theory, anyone at around the fifth level of Qi Refinement could refine a first-rank pill.

But doing so at such a low cultivation level required extremely refined technique—something that was mostly theoretical. Most alchemy apprentices only attempted first-rank pills after reaching the eighth or ninth layer of Qi Refinement.

As for cultivation, Li Yu had no issues—his spiritual power already surpassed that of the ninth level of Qi Refinement.

There was another major difference between low-grade pills and first-rank pills. With low-grade pills, there weren’t many rules—you just tossed all the medicinal liquid together and refined it. First-rank pills were completely different. They had strict requirements on the quantity of each ingredient—too much or too little would both lead to failure. The order in which the ingredients were added also had to strictly follow the recipe. Add something too early, too late, or in the wrong sequence, and the refinement would fail.

Since he had nothing else to do, Han Tiancheng personally explained the process of refining Fasting Pills to Li Yu.

Li Yu could clearly feel that the difficulty of refining first-rank pills was at least ten times that of low-grade ones.

Fasting Pills required thirteen ingredients—not a single ordinary herb among them. They were all rich in spiritual energy. Fortunately, they were only first-rank spiritual herbs, no higher than the likes of Blood-Clotting Vine. The furnace within Li Yu’s body didn’t even bother to absorb such low-level herbs.

Following the procedure, Li Yu first crushed the herbs to extract the liquid, then had to filter and purify the liquid at least three times—a step not required for low-grade pill refinement.

Since there were so many ingredients, it would have taken forever for Li Yu to prepare them all by himself. Han Tiancheng stepped in to help him purify the medicinal liquids.

While helping, he said, “Once you become a first-rank alchemist, you can apply to the sect for an attendant disciple. That disciple will help you with all these chores while you focus solely on refining pills…”

Li Yu listened with great interest as Elder Han described the benefits of being a first-rank alchemist. Every month, a first-rank alchemist received a stipend of 1,000 spirit coins—twice that of an ordinary Foundation Establishment stage elder.

In addition, a first-rank alchemist was entitled to one attendant disciple. This disciple would run errands, purify medicinal liquids, take care of daily life matters, and basically act like a personal secretary. The assistant would receive a salary of 100 spirit coins per month—paid by the sect.

On top of that, becoming a first-rank alchemist meant being assigned a private residence on a spiritually rich mountain peak.

This residence was several times larger than the small courtyards given to alchemy apprentices. Not only was the spiritual energy far more concentrated than on Danding Peak, but it was also protected by formation arrays. Once activated, no matter what happened inside, nothing could be heard from outside.

This reminded Li Yu of his current courtyard, where the sound insulation was terrible. If Wu Tong coughed in his room, Li Yu could hear it from his own. Doing anything was inconvenient.

He had long wanted a private space. It seemed he really needed to become a first-rank alchemist as soon as possible.

“If I ever get rich, don’t forget about me,” Li Yu thought. By then, he’d bring Sister Zhou over as his little assistant. Don’t be fooled by how easily he handled low-grade pills—one major reason was that his internal furnace didn’t even bother to absorb such weak herbs. When it came time to refine higher-rank pills, he wouldn’t be able to handle the ingredients directly with his hands. He would absolutely need someone dedicated to purifying them.

That person, of course, could only be Sister Zhou.

First, she was trustworthy. Second, her cultivation aligned with the Wood Spiritual Vein, making her an ideal partner. One handled the herbs, the other refined the pills—a perfect match.