Chapter 172: Jade Liquid

The first difficult step in refining the Yangshan Pill was to peel the jade, specifically the Yangshan Jade.

Only the part of Yangshan Jade containing misty clouds could be used as material for the Spiritual Pill. The rest was useless as medicine—just plain jade. The so-called peeling process meant separating the jade with misty clouds from the Yangshan Jade.

The extracted jade could not have even a speck of ordinary jade mixed in. If it was contaminated by as little as one ten-thousandth of a gram of ordinary jade, it could cause the pill refining to fail.

Therefore, Jiang Xincheng peeled it very carefully. With his mid-stage General Realm Spiritual Sense as an aid and the powerful Primordial Force of the Bone Training Realm as a blade, he slowly removed the parts without misty clouds.

The hardest part of peeling the jade was, first, not allowing any residue of ordinary jade to remain on the Misty Cloud Jade. This required not only extreme precision but also excellent eyesight. Second, he had to preserve as much Misty Cloud Jade as possible so that more Yangshan Pills could be refined.

Fortunately, thanks to decades of experience refining Yangshan Pills in his previous life, peeling the jade, while difficult, was not an insurmountable challenge for Jiang Xincheng. After several hours, he extracted all the Misty Cloud Jade from four pieces of Yangshan Jade, with a loss of no more than one gram. This demonstrated his skill.

Looking at the pile of Misty Cloud Jade in front of him, Jiang Xincheng smiled slightly. This much Misty Cloud Jade was enough to refine dozens of Yangshan Pills.

After peeling the Yangshan Jade, it was time to peel the Hetian Jade. When refining Yangshan Pills, only the jade heart of Hetian Jade—the very center part—was needed. Although slightly less difficult than peeling Yangshan Jade, the challenge was not far off.

The most critical aspect was that the jade heart usable as a medicine appeared identical to the surrounding jade, making it extremely easy to confuse them. This required the one peeling the jade to possess exceptional experience, and Jiang Xincheng was not lacking in that.

Another few hours passed, and after finishing the peeling of Hetian Jade, Jiang Xincheng began refining the Yangshan Pill.

The coal-fired Yuanli Flame burned fiercely, flickering with blue-violet light. As the Primordial Force fire burned, Jiang Xincheng divided one piece of Misty Cloud Jade and one piece of Hetian Jade heart into thirty-six portions each, in a specific ratio.

Each portion consisted of a small piece of Misty Cloud Jade and a small piece of Hetian Jade heart, with a precise ratio of 2.21:1.13. No deviation exceeding one ten-thousandth of a gram was allowed; otherwise, the pill would be destroyed or even explode.

The second major challenge in refining the Yangshan Pill was to merge these thirty-six portions of Misty Cloud Jade and Hetian Jade heart. Since merging them all at once was too difficult and had a high failure rate, they were divided into thirty-six small parts. Each small part was merged individually, and then the successfully merged portions of jade liquid were combined together.

Even with his past life experience refining Yangshan Pills, Jiang Xincheng had to divide the amount needed for one pill into thirty-six portions to ensure he could complete this step as quickly and efficiently as possible.

In his past life, many Alchemy Masters, in order to refine Yangshan Pills, would divide the Yangshan Jade and Hetian Jade heart into over a hundred portions, or even hundreds, with some dividing them into thousands of pieces. They did this to minimize losses and increase their chances of success.

Jiang Xincheng’s Alchemy in his past life had reached the level of a fourth-grade high-rank Alchemy Master, and he was very close to becoming a fifth-grade low-rank Alchemist. Combined with years of experience refining Yangshan Pills, he was able to divide the Misty Cloud Jade and Hetian Jade heart into only thirty-six portions for refining.

Once everything was ready, Jiang Xincheng first placed one piece of Misty Cloud Jade into the Qingming Cauldron. When the Misty Cloud Jade had partially melted under the influence of the Yuanli Flame, he then added one piece of Hetian Jade heart. The two pieces faced each other and, under the effect of the Primordial Force fire, gradually turned into a milky-white liquid and a transparent liquid.

As time passed and both pieces of jade fully liquefied, Jiang Xincheng carefully began merging them together. Starting with small amounts, he merged them bit by bit, in exact proportions, without the slightest confusion.

Sweat appeared on Jiang Xincheng’s forehead. During this merging process, the slightest mistake could lead to an explosion. Given the energy contained in this small piece of Misty Cloud Jade and Hetian Jade heart, an explosion would be powerful enough to pulverize everything within several meters. Jiang Xincheng dared not be careless.

After a long while, seeing a single drop of water-blue jade liquid, intertwined and glowing faintly, a smile crossed Jiang Xincheng’s face. The first portion of Misty Cloud Jade and Hetian Jade heart had finally been successfully merged.

It seemed his Alchemy was gradually returning to its peak. If nothing unexpected happened, after refining a few more Yangshan Pills, his Alchemy would recover to the peak of his past life—the level of a fourth-grade high-rank Master—and he could begin attempting to advance to even higher Alchemy realms.

Even Jiang Xincheng found this recovery speed hard to believe. He originally thought it would take at least two or three years. Unexpectedly, with the help of the Stone of Wisdom, his Spiritual Sense realm advanced by leaps and bounds, directly soaring to the mid-stage General Realm. This laid a solid foundation for refining fourth-grade high-rank Spiritual Elixirs.

Additionally, having Primordial Force four times stronger and more abundant than other Practitioners of the same level, along with his rich past life Alchemy experience, allowed Jiang Xincheng to progress smoothly. His Alchemy was about to be restored in such a short time—a speed that could almost be called a miracle.

However, with his past life Alchemy experience, as long as his Primordial Force and Spiritual Sense realm met the standards in this life, recovery wasn’t as difficult as he had imagined.

The hardest parts were raising his Spiritual Sense realm and Primordial Force. Fortunately, Jiang Xincheng had already preliminarily met the standards in both areas, giving him the confidence to refine Yangshan Pills successfully.

After the first portion of Misty Cloud Jade and Hetian Jade heart was successfully refined, Jiang Xincheng began working on the second portion. With the experience from the first, the second portion was not difficult. Within just a few dozen minutes, a second drop of water-blue jade liquid appeared in the Qingming Cauldron.

Then came the third drop, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth… and soon he reached the seventh.

The melting of the seventh portion of Misty Cloud Jade and Hetian Jade heart went smoothly, turning into milky-white liquid and transparent liquid, respectively. Jiang Xincheng carefully controlled the merging of the two liquids.

Bit by bit, strand by strand, he dared not be the least bit careless. The first step of merging went well—after the milky-white liquid and transparent liquid merged, they formed a strand of water-blue jade liquid.

Jiang Xincheng smiled slightly and continued merging more of the milky-white and transparent liquids. Gradually, more and more was merged, and the seventh drop of water-blue jade liquid was almost formed.

But at that moment, Jiang Xincheng’s Spiritual Sense detected a flash of red light within the water-blue liquid. His expression changed. Without thinking, he pointed with both hands, and a drop of water-blue jade liquid suddenly leaped out, “whooshing” as it flew to an empty area dozens of meters away.

“Boom…”

With a deafening explosion, and to Jiang Xincheng’s dismay, that drop of water-blue jade liquid suddenly burst apart, emitting a dazzling red light that shattered everything within several dozen meters into debris. A violent shockwave roared toward Jiang Xincheng.