Chapter 45 Something is Wrong

"You were simply born to refine pills!" Why did this sentence sound so familiar? After pondering for a good while, Zhou Shuo finally figured it out—wasn't this precisely what the Sect Master Senior Brother had praised him with just a moment ago!

Looking into the distance once more, he saw his precious daughter smiling brightly as she praised Wan Yi.

As for the recipient of this praise, Wan Yi was grinning from ear to ear with a silly, foolish expression, his limbs completely uncoordinated as he walked!

Upon seeing this scene, Zhou Shuo's face instantly darkened as he thought to himself: "Was the Sect Master Senior Brother just blowing smoke at me earlier?!"

With this thought, any sense of superiority he had previously felt vanished completely into thin air!

Just as he stood there with a dark expression, intending to turn and leave, Zhou Tong's words in the distance stopped him in his tracks.

"Little Yi, I never expected your self-created pill-refining technique to be so amazing. You didn't even blow up the cauldron on your very first try at alchemy!"

Hearing this, Zhou Shuo's anger flared up instantly.

Pill refining demanded strict adherence to rules and step-by-step precision; not a single step could be treated carelessly. Yet Wan Yi had just started learning alchemy and was already creating his own techniques—wasn't this sheer nonsense?

True, there had been a lot of trouble these past few days, and the cultivation world had been thrown into complete chaos by those inexplicably appearing cannibalistic monks.

He had been busy handling affairs alongside the Sect Master and hadn't had the time to teach Wan Yi alchemy himself, which was why he asked Zhou Tong to teach him some introductory basics first. But that didn't mean they could just mess around like this!

Growing more and more furious, Zhou Shuo decided to go over and give Wan Yi a stern reality check.

However, when he reached their side, he slowed his pace, an expression of sheer disbelief creeping onto his face.

Right at that moment, Wan Yi was sitting cross-legged in front of a pill cauldron. While manipulating the furnace fire to refine pills, he was holding a spirit stone in his hand and channeling spiritual energy directly into the cauldron.

And looking closely at that spirit stone, it was actually of the Metal attribute!

One had to know that the medicinal herbs used for refining pills were entirely of the Wood attribute. The principle that Metal overcomes Wood was something even a newly initiated medicine boy understood.

The essence of Metal would suppress the medicinal properties of spiritual plants, and some grand alchemists went so far as to avoid using pill cauldrons containing metallic materials just to maximize medicinal efficacy.

Yet look at Wan Yi now: not only did he not avoid these things, but he was deliberately channeling Metal-attribute spiritual energy into the pill cauldron. It would be a miracle if this batch didn't turn out entirely into ruined pills.

Wishing to teach Wan Yi a lesson he wouldn't forget, Zhou Shuo approached without interrupting him.

He planned to wait until Wan Yi finished this batch of pills, and only lecture him when he saw that the result was a complete failure; only then would the lesson truly sink in.

At this moment, Zhou Tong spotted the approaching Zhou Shuo and opened her mouth to speak, but Zhou Shuo stopped her with a look.

Meanwhile, Wan Yi, who was utterly engrossed in his pill refining, remained completely unaware of anything amiss and continued his work.

Before long, a look of delight appeared on his face, and he cheered aloud, "Little girl, look! The pills are about to form!"

Before his voice had even faded, a rich medicinal fragrance wafted through the air.

The next instant, Wan Yi forcefully slapped the cauldron lid open with one hand, while his hand made a sweeping motion in mid-air. "Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh..." Ten plump Soul-Nurturing Pills were drawn directly into his palm.

Zhou Shuo, standing behind him, looked as though his wits had been startled right out of him. Wearing the expression of someone who had just seen a ghost, he muttered in utter disbelief, "How can this be possible?!"

Though his voice was soft, it reached Wan Yi's ears. Putting the pills into a porcelain bottle, Wan Yi hurriedly turned around and said, "This disciple pays respects to Master."

At the same time, Zhou Tong stepped forward and hugged Zhou Shuo's arm. "Dad, did you see Little Yi's pill-refining technique just now? He created it all by himself! I wouldn't even know how to begin learning it!"

Recovering from his shock, Zhou Shuo said to Wan Yi, "Show me the pills you just refined."

Hearing this, Wan Yi did not dare to delay. Presenting the porcelain bottle containing the pills with both hands, he said with a tangled expression, "Master, this disciple doesn't know if something went wrong somewhere; the pills I refined look somewhat different from the ones Senior Brothers make."

Zhou Tong chimed in immediately, "That's right, Dad. Little Yi's pills are a bit strange, but I can't quite put my finger on what makes them so. You should take a look right away."

Listening to the two of them, Zhou Shuo thought to himself: "As expected, something did go wrong with these pills! I knew it—who ever heard of channeling Metal-attribute spiritual energy into a pill cauldron? Of course there would be problems!"

With these thoughts in mind, he naturally launched into a lecture: "You two are simply being utterly ridiculous!

Is a pill-refining technique something you can just change on a whim?! You've only been learning alchemy for a few days, yet you dare to invent your own techniques. You have no idea what you're doing!

I'll let you learn a hard lesson today so see if you ever dare to..."

As he spoke, his voice cut off abruptly, because by this moment he had already emptied all the Soul-Nurturing Pills from the porcelain bottle.

Gazing at the ten plump Soul-Nurturing Pills resting in his palm, Zhou Shuo dropped his jaw in shock!

Surrounding all ten pills was a layer of hazy purple vapor.

This purple aura was practically tangible, lingering persistently around the pills and emitting a misty, gentle radiance!

Regaining his composure at last, Zhou Shuo swallowed hard, picked up one of the pills, and tossed it directly into his mouth.

He tilted his head back, narrowed his eyes, and began to savor the medicinal efficacy of the pill within his mouth.

A few breaths later, his eyes snapped wide open, and when he looked at Wan Yi again, his gaze was filled with a frantic fervor.

Stepping forward, he grabbed Wan Yi's arm and demanded with intense excitement, "How did you do it?!"

Wan Yi and Zhou Tong were both startled by Zhou Shuo's crazed demeanor.

Recovering her senses, Zhou Tong stepped forward to pull Wan Yi's arm free from Zhou Shuo's grip, scolding, "Dad, what are you doing? Why are you suddenly acting like a madman?"

As for Wan Yi, he sighed inwardly: "It seems the pills I refined really did have problems after all!"

Yet in the very next second, Zhou Shuo's words left the two of them stunned beyond belief.

"What do you two know? The mist wrapping around these pills is called pill aura. It only appears when the medicinal power within the pills reaches its absolute peak!

Pills imbued with pill aura can boost their original medicinal efficacy by more than thirty percent!

Furthermore, pills possessing this aura carry zero side effects.

You might not notice it much with these low-grade Soul-Nurturing Pills that you're refining now, but what if you were to refine Realm-Breaking Pills, which are used to shatter cultivation bottlenecks?"

Wan Yi had only just begun learning alchemy and was not very familiar with the "Realm-Breaking Pills" Zhou Shuo mentioned.

However, Zhou Tong understood her father's meaning all too well and hurriedly explained to Wan Yi, "Some cultivators have limited aptitude and find themselves completely stuck after reaching a certain realm. To break through, they take Realm-Breaking Pills.

Although Realm-Breaking Pills can shatter bottlenecks and elevate one's cultivation realm, their side effects are severe. Taking them over a long period will drain a person's vitality and leave their mind muddled!"

Hearing his daughter's explanation, Zhou Shuo nodded excitedly and said, "Tong'er is completely right.

However, if one could refine Realm-Breaking Pills imbued with pill aura, there would be no side effects whatsoever!"

Pausing for a moment, Zhou Shuo sighed with a longing expression in his eyes, "Ah, pill aura! In all my years of refining pills, I have only managed to produce pills with pill aura on a few occasions by sheer coincidence. To think that you, little fellow, actually..."

At this point, as if recalling something, Zhou Shuo eagerly grabbed Wan Yi and dragged him over to the side of the pill cauldron.

He casually retrieved some spiritual herbs used for refining first-grade Qi-Returning Pills, shoved them into Wan Yi's hands, and said, "Refine a batch of these and let me see!"

To be continued...