Chapter 63: The Wine Cellar and New Recipes for Useless Pills

It hadn't even been half a day before An was already back at the gate of his plot with a satisfied face.

He had managed to find several books that described a process similar to making alcohol, especially in books on artifacts and talismans. Even he himself was surprised that strong alcohol was used in these two fields, serving as the basis for several procedures.

Having found these books, he was able to read them on the spot. Since they contained no techniques and only superficial information, they were essentially free.

After reading everything several times and memorizing it, he hurried back home.

Opening the gate and entering his plot, he decided to start with alchemy first, and to make wine in the intervals between cultivation and other activities, treating it as a sort of hobby, a break from the monotony.

Walking to the shore, to his usual spot, he sat down and threw a glance at the rooster, who was standing by the water, holding the fishing rod with his wings, intently watching the float.

Laying out all the second-rank spirit plants before him, he began studying them, comparing the information from the plant book with the Qi flows of the plants themselves.

Having confirmed almost all the plants, their properties and names, An began running through many combinations for recipes, which would create the least conflicts and whose internal energy could elevate the pill to the second rank.

The remaining plants, which were unfamiliar to him and not listed in the book for some reason, he rolled up and set aside separately in his pouch.

'Even though I decided to postpone alchemy until after I reach the ninth layer... But something doesn't feel right... I'd better not delay and start experimenting now, even if it means losing more spirit plants on failed attempts.' Examining the plants, he finally made a decision.

Having chosen six plants, in the end, he set aside eight sets, dividing each set into four attempts.

Running through everything in his head, the entire process from start to finish, accounting for all the problems that could arise, he snapped his fingers, and a sphere of energy appeared before him.

First attempt.

Failure.

"I didn't expect such a reaction... The Qi is much more chaotic. Any wrong move, and the whole process is ruined..." Discarding the spoiled batch, An took a new set and activated his Qi Cauldron.

Fourth attempt.

Failure.

'What's constantly happening with the temperature? Why are random energy bursts occurring? What's wrong? Is it really all due to the insufficient density of my Qi?' He had finally encountered the problem of his low cultivation. Only a handful could concoct second-rank pills while at Qi Condensation. It was all about the density and quantity of energy within the plants themselves.

A cultivator who had reached Foundation Establishment could easily handle such amounts of energy, keeping everything under control without any problems.

When several such dense energies participated in the concoction process, a Qi Condensation cultivator simply lacked the strength and skill to control both the ingredients and the catalysts.

In all cases where Qi Condensation cultivators succeeded in refining second-rank pills, it was achieved through additional artifacts that helped them handle the load and pressure from the plants' Qi.

But An had it easier than others; after all, he did not need to use catalysts, which removed additional loads, and he could see and control the concoction, making it much easier for him, whereas an ordinary alchemist would have to refine according to precise timing and signs memorized in advance.

Sixth attempt.

Failure.

"Damn! How could I make such a stupid mistake... I should have held the Qi Cauldron longer and not opened it..." This time, he made a mistake during the final Calming technique, opening his Qi Cauldron too early and ruining the pill, turning it into a poisonous mass due to unstable temperature changes.

Lowering his head onto his hands, he began replaying the process in his head, over and over, already having experience, trying to eliminate all the errors.

After sitting like this for almost an hour, he reached for the plants.

Seventh attempt.

With a pale, slightly blue face, An held the Qi Cauldron, carefully reading the information from inside.

At a certain moment, he compressed and stretched the cauldron, and it immediately began to crack and fall apart.

Whoosh!

The entire barrier, which he had set up around himself with a two-meter radius, was enveloped in a terrible cold. The entire ground was blanketed in a layer of frost, and even An himself was covered in small icicles.

Before his eyes hovered a completely white pill, visually indistinguishable from a small snowball. Taking it in his hands, he felt both heat, because the pill had just been made, and cold, from the effect itself.

Looking around, An realized that his barrier couldn't contain the cold and frost inside itself.

He deactivated the barrier and let the cold and frost spread around him.

"Ha! 43% loss of effectiveness... On the first try! Hahaha!" Standing up and raising his hands in the air, he began to laugh.

'One attempt takes more than eight hours of refining... And my Qi reserves are barely enough for a single batch... If I hadn't rested when the opportunity arose, I wouldn't have been able to complete the concoction.' Having released all his accumulated stress, he calmed down and began to analyze the process and try to improve it.

'Hmm... This is quite feasible, but I'm afraid the loss will increase... No. I need something else...' Turning the pill in his hand, he ran through all possible ways to at least somehow ease his work without losing effectiveness.

Walking in circles around his spot, he suddenly stopped and smiled again, having found several methods that, in his opinion, would work.

"I think I'll call you Eternal Ice." Raising his hand and opening it, he began to examine the pill lying on his bluish palm, covered in a light crust of ice.

'At 43% loss, the cold effect it emits is already comparable to temperatures below zero...'

"Heh! You could be used as a cooler, if you increase the loss to about 50%, roughly." Thinking about a cooler, he suddenly remembered the wine.

With burning eyes, he moved a little farther from the shore and pressed his hand to the ground. Closing his eyes, he activated his Qi.

BOOM!

Having selected the right frequency, he made a perfect two-by-two-meter crater. Standing up and looking at the size of his creation, he smiled and nodded.

Looking around, he headed straight for the shack.

Entering the shack, where everything was already overgrown with weeds and cobwebs, he approached one of the walls and, using a Qi Blade, cut out that section of wall, with the window frame and wooden shutters.

Having torn out this piece of the wall, he quickly ran outside, away from the shack, looking at it suspiciously, expecting it to collapse and fall apart. But his expectations were not met.

Disappointed, he tore out the inner window frame and, after playing with the wooden shutters, checked their strength. Making sure everything was fine, he headed toward the crater he had just made.

Having laid the cut-out wall on top of the crater, An partially buried it, only leaving the window with the wooden shutters visible.

Taking his pouch, he began to carefully lay out the wine stolen from the monkeys' hollow.

Having arranged everything neatly, he took out his new Eternal Ice pill and carefully buried it right in the center of the crater. The moment it entered the ground, everything around began to freeze. The entire ground immediately froze, and all the bottles were covered in a layer of ice and frost.

‘As I thought, the alcohol content in this wine is clearly over fifty proof... It turns out I don’t need to degrade the pill’s effect.’ Tapping a few bottles, making sure the alcohol hadn't frozen, he closed the shutters and standing at his new wine cellar dusted off his hands and walked back to the shore, whistling a tune.

A week later.

"Hmm... Six days of thorough analysis, and the long-awaited eighth attempt at concoction yielded decent results... Perhaps I should always do this from now on: more analysis and working through all possible errors before starting a new batch..." Turning a flask with a white pill in his hands, An used his Qi to clean everything inside his barrier, leaving no traces of the pill residue.

'16% loss of effectiveness. Excellent...' He closed the flask and put it into his pouch.

'I just need to come up with two more pills, and I can get the Master status! And then no one will be able to force me to risk my life for their damn benefit… I'll finally be left alone… Maybe I'll even go live in the Beast Lands… who knows.' With determination in his eyes, which immediately shifted to daydreaming, he began to select a new pill recipe in his head from the second-rank plants he had available.

Two months later.

Sitting before a pill lying on the ground, An scratched his crew-cut hairstyle, trying to figure out what to do with his new pill.

'Um... This is definitely a second-rank pill... But its effect...' With a thoughtful expression, he touched the pill with his finger.

Immediately, his finger turned the color of earth. Rolling the pill onto the grass, his hand turned the color of foliage.

"A useless pill... But second rank is second rank!" Shrugging, An put the pill into a flask and into his pouch.

‘I think Useless Camouflage is a fitting name for you.’ Having given this new pill a name, he completely discarded it from his mind and began thinking about which pill to choose as his third for refining.

'What about taking the Endless Stream pill as a base? Just modify the aspect with the clouded mind, and it'll be a perfect pill!' He decided to partially copy the berserker pill.

The pill flooded the body with energy from the environment, the consumer's strength increased, and their susceptibility to anything decreased. But the biggest downside of this pill was the severe slowing of the thought process. Due to the strong overload on both the dantian and the physical body, too much mentality is spent on maintaining the integrity of these two, leaving little for the mind itself.

This pill was often called the Wall Breaker. And, as one might guess, it was not popular. Rather the opposite, few would risk using it, even in a hopeless situation.

Having laid out several sets of plants needed for the Endless Stream, he placed next to them his own sets, which he would try to replace or add during concoction.

'But first... cultivation.' Closing his eyes, he began a cultivation cycle.

….

Having locked himself behind the formation walls, An spent another full four months without stepping outside.

"Wait, are you sure he lives here?"

"Yes! I checked the archives, and it turns out, he not only has Practitioner status, but he was also supposed to have been officially declared an inner disciple... But after all this time, almost half a year! He never showed up at the Inner Platform..."

"...Hmm, here! This is the plot!"

"Sister Ma, are you sure this is a good idea?" The girl with braids in grey robes, with frightened eyes, turned to her sister standing nearby.

"Don't be afraid, Sister Ta. Our senior sister Lou assured me that he's nothing to be afraid of. Even though his cultivation is higher than ours, he's a former slave, and that kind of mentality is hard to shake! I'm sure he's more afraid of us than we are of him!" Sister Ma, with loose dark hair and short stature, also in grey robes, showed two thumbs up to her sister Ta.

"And how are you going to deliver the message to him?" Sister Ta, almost in a whisper, leaned closer.

"How? What's so complicated about that! I'll just say it as it is, that it's his honor! To become part of my brilliant sister Lou's group, and be their loyal alchemist! Just hearing that, he won't be able to refuse such an honor! Got it?" Puffing out her chest, chin raised, Sister Ma, with a confident smile, walked straight toward the formation.

BOOM!

The moment she approached the formation and was about to announce herself, an explosion came from inside, and the ground beneath her feet vibrated.

Only after the ground calmed down did Sister Ta run up to her and hug her arm.

Recovering from the shock, Sister Ma exhaled, knocked on the formation surrounding the plot, and opened her mouth to speak.

BOOM!

The ground shook again as a dull blast wave washed over them, immediately followed by a dense killing intent.

The moment they felt it, both fell to their knees with pale faces.

"Ah! Si-sister Ma! W-we need to leave!" Barely turning around, Sister Ta, without waiting for her sister's answer, crawled away from the formation.

Following her sister’s example, Sister Ma also scrambled away, having no desire to stay here.

….

"BWAWK! CLUCK! BAWK!"

Hovering in the air, Baldi, with red eyes, spun and twisted, trying to reach the gate.

Screaming and spitting with rage, the rooster tried to resist the dense Qi enveloping him and holding him in the air.

‘I think I can consider the pill a success... Only the effect is too strong. Even though the mind is clear, there's too much increase in irritability and rage.’ Looking at the gate, or rather through it, where two girls were crawling, An just exhaled and shifted his gaze back to the bird, bound in Qi.

"Lower your killing intent, feathered Hulk." Shaking his head, An walked back to the shore, leading the sphere with the rooster behind him.

"BAK-BAK! CLUCK!" With saliva flying from his mouth, Baldi resisted as best he could.

After an hour of frantic screaming and shouting, the effect finally faded.

"Bok-bok..."

Spread out on the ground, belly up, Baldi groaned from exhaustion.

'The effect lasted a full hour. Adjusting for mass differences, for a human, it should last about twenty minutes, provided they don't expend too much Qi from their dantian. And this is a pill with an 11% potency loss.' Looking at the flask with several Berserker pills, as he had named them, An was deciding whether to continue modifying this pill or not.

‘But what's the point? These pills, all three, I won't use myself, except for Eternal Ice. They're only needed for a successful status change... They're useless to me.’ Having made a decision, he put the flask into his pouch and took out several second-rank fruits, throwing them next to the already sleeping rooster.

'I'm getting closer and closer to the ninth layer of Qi Condensation... If I calculated correctly, I should be able to make the breakthrough within two months, maybe three... Oh, by the way! My plaque has been vibrating from time to time at inconvenient moments... I should probably check it.' Walking knee-deep in water along the shore, he took out his plaque and sent his Qi into it.

'Report to the Inner Hall of Hope Peak for official enrollment as an inner disciple... Hmm, there are several identical repetitions of the same message... Also a notification about the upcoming Four Nights Festival, being held this month at the Primordial Purity Sect... Not interested.'

'Hmm... Judging by what I heard from those two disciples under my formation, someone already knows about me, about my alchemist status, and that I'm supposed to become an inner disciple... That's problematic.' He understood that becoming an inner disciple would bring many more problems. He wouldn't simply be left alone.

Every group would want to acquire an alchemist, even though he still didn't understand exactly who they were. With such a low origin as his, essentially, these groups would be getting a free alchemist.

‘I can officially become an inner disciple once I break through to the ninth layer, and choosing a new place to live just lock myself behind a formation again and ignore everyone and everything around me... That could work. It should work.’ Coming out of the water and sitting on the shore, on a small mound Baldi had made for fishing, An dangled his legs back into the water.

‘Besides, once I obtain the Master status, it will bring more pros than cons, helping me establish clearer boundaries against such intrusions…’

‘Eh... If only the Four Nights Festival also covered inner disciples, then I could, while it's quiet and no one's around, move without any problems...’ Exhaling, he closed his eyes without lifting his legs from the water and began a cultivation cycle.