Nine Evolutions of the True Spirit
chapter-191

Lu Ping knew in his heart that if it weren’t for his teacher's intervention, he would not be rewarded so heavily by the Great Ancestors with a Mystical Inscription and pellet recipe.

So, Lu Ping was feeling grateful. He mulled for a second before taking out six more Golden Nuts and said, "I have a few Golden Nuts left, since I know now that they are of great use to cultivators, I certainly won’t fail to give some to my teacher."

Enlightened Master Liu looked at the Golden Nuts in surprise and smiled happily. "So clever—the Golden Nuts are indeed of great use to me. So, tell me, what do you want? I am not as wealthy as the Great Ancestor, but that's no reason to not reward you."

Lu Ping hurriedly waved his hands and said, "It is only natural for this disciple to honor my teacher, I did not do so to ask for favors."

Enlightened Master Liu laughed and said, "There is no teacher who will ask for their disciples' items. Fine, in that case, I will give you another Mystical Inscription. It is also water in element and can be used to enhance your nascent mystic treasure. You may use it on other mystic treasures if you wish."

Lu Ping looked at the two jade scrolls containing the Mystical Inscriptions and wondered, "Can mystic treasures be enhanced with different Mystical Inscriptions?"

Lu Ping knew that this was a good opportunity for questions, so he did not refrain himself and asked directly.

Sure enough, Enlightened Master Liu patiently explained, "To begin with, mystic treasures and mystic instruments are not in the same league. For mystic instruments, the same kind of Arcane Inscription is often used multiple times—the more used, the stronger they become. But it is the exact opposite for mystic treasures, which are best suited to have different Mystical Inscriptions. Mystic treasures with identical Mystical Inscriptions are far weaker."

Enlightened Master Liu paused for a moment before she continued, "There are two aspects that determine the strength of a mystic treasure. The first is naturally its quality. The better the quality, the more Mystical Inscriptions it can hold. The second is the type of Mystical Inscriptions used. A mystic treasure with the best quality can hold up to nine different Mystical Inscriptions. But in reality, most mystic treasures cannot reach that level."

Lu Ping thought of the pestle mystic treasure that had two identical Mystical Inscriptions; it seemed that it was not a good mystic treasure. Even then, its power was already amazing.

Lu Ping wondered how powerful a mystic treasure with nine different Mystical Inscriptions would be? It was probably beyond his imagination.

Apart from the numerous wealth he gathered in Heaven of Seven Stars, Lu Ping's biggest gain was actually a significant progress in his cultivation base.

So, he took the opportunity to ask for Enlightened Master Liu's guidance, who answered his doubts and questions in great detail, telling him everything that he should pay attention to in his cultivation.

After learning a lot from her teachings, Lu Ping left.

Upon returning to Huang Li Island, Lu Ping only focused on three things. The first was naturally his routine cultivation; the second was to prepare for the concoction of Golden Nut Pellets and Heart Condensation Pellets; and the third was to instruct Fang Tao to update him regularly on news from the monster race sea.

Although they were all half-step Core Forging Realm medicinal pellets, the Golden Nut Pellets and Heart Condensation Pellets were undoubtedly more difficult to concoct than the Beauty Everlasting Pellets.

The Beauty Everlasting Pellets only required five types of 1000-year spirit herbs and twenty types of 500-year spirit herbs. Furthermore, these spirit herbs were commonly found.

The Golden Nut Pellets required twelve types of 1000-year spirit herbs and twenty-four types of 500-year spirit herbs. Most of the spirit herbs were rarely seen, and if not for Lu Ping's harvests in the Heaven of Seven Stars, he couldn’t have gathered them so easily. Even so, he only had just enough for six cauldrons.

The Heart Condensation Pellets were the most difficult and challenging. Lu Ping almost gave up when he saw the list of spirit herbs required. Among the forty-nine spirit herbs listed, twenty-four were 1000-year spirit herbs.

The number and quality of spirit herbs used was one of the criteria in assessing the level of medicinal pellets. For Core Forging Realm medicinal pellets, the requirement was using at least twenty-seven 1000-year spirit herbs. In other words, the Heart Condensation Pellets were comparable to Core Forging Realm medicinal pellets.

Even with all the spirit herbs he harvested in the Heaven of Seven Stars, Lu Ping only managed to gather enough for three cauldrons of Heart Condensation Pellets. He now had a few spirit herbs left in his interspatial ring.

Lu Ping finally knew why the Liao Clan had to venture deeper into the Canyon of Sullied Gold to harvest spirit herbs every time the domain opened.

After scrambling through his collection and gathering all the necessary ingredients, it was finally time to concoct the medicinal pellets.

Naturally, Lu Ping started with the Golden Nut Pellets which were the easiest to make. Each cauldron required two Golden Nuts and two days to concoct.

Two days later, Lu Ping's first cauldron of spirit herbs only concocted one Golden Nut Pellet.

Lu Ping took a breath and cheered himself up. "Not bad, not bad. It's just my first try. I thought it would be a total loss and didn't expect to concoct one pellet."

Lu Ping carefully thought back on the process. In addition to his unfamiliarity and lacking mastery in alchemy, the biggest drawback was during the purification process.

In alchemy, the alchemists must always purify as much spirit liquid as possible. This would improve the quality of the medicinal pellets and also increase the rate of success.

Compared with the 500-year spirit herbs, the impurities in the 1000-year spirit herbs were naturally less, but that also meant that the impurities were much more difficult to eliminate.

Lu Ping thought about it and suddenly remembered the [Spirit Fire Refinement and Purification Technique] that he used to help upgrade Landslide to a top-grade mystic instrument.

He wondered if the technique could be used as a purification technique in alchemy. The only way to confirm this was to test it out, and so Lu Ping started to concoct the second cauldron of Golden Nut Pellets.

If the Great Ancestors found out that Lu Ping had used Golden Nut Pellets to experiment the feasibility of a blacksmith technique in alchemy, they would have slapped him to death.

The first attempt always ended in failure.

He used the Azure Spirit Fire with the [Spirit Fire Refinement and Purification Technique], but the fire setting was too hot and ended up vaporizing half of the spirit liquid. As a result, the second cauldron only produced one Golden Nut Pellet.

However, Lu Ping was delighted that the technique seemed to work. He would have to be more careful and fine-tune the fire setting, which would put a lot of strain on his divine sense.

Lu Ping was excited to discover this new method and he tirelessly worked on the third cauldron. He knew that once he fully mastered and adapted the purification technique, it would undoubtedly raise his alchemy to a new level.

In the third cauldron, only a quarter of the spirit liquid was evaporated, and Lu Ping concocted two Golden Nut Pellets.

In the fourth cauldron, Lu Ping finally mastered the purification technique, and no spirit liquid was lost—three Golden Nut Pellets were concocted.

As Lu Ping continued to refine his skill, his understanding in the purification technique and the Golden Nut Pellets also deepened.

With the fifth cauldron, Lu Ping finally raised the success rate to forty percent and concocted four Golden Nut Pellets.

After successfully processing the sixth cauldron, Lu Ping looked at the four Golden Nut Pellets inside and knew that he had reached the limits of his alchemy.

In the end, he concocted a total of fifteen Golden Nut Pellets out of the six cauldrons of spirit herbs.

Since some of the Golden Nuts had been obtained with Yin Zi-Chu's and Ji Zi-Xuan's help, Lu Ping planned to share them equally after the pair returned from Golden Jiao Island.

To date, there was still no news. However, Fang Tao had heard a lot about cultivators from other sects going out to hunt in the monster race sea.

Lu Ping carefully analyzed what he heard and found that nothing was mentioned about any of the North Ocean 18 Warriors like Liu Zi-Yuan, Qi Zi-Cai, Ai Bo-Tao, and Miao Wei-Dong. Clearly, the news was a smoke bomb released by the North Ocean Alliance to divert the monster race's attention.

Lu Ping's primary focus was now on his cultivation and alchemy, with special focus on the latter.

After successfully adapting the purification technique and applying it in his alchemy, Lu Ping’s alchemy had greatly enhanced.

Right now, he was hesitating whether to attempt concocting the Heart Condensation Pellets.

Heart Condensation Pellets were much more difficult to concoct than Golden Nut Pellets.

Although it was a type of half-step Core Forging Realm pellet, its value was much higher than ordinary Core Forging Realm pellets.

The reason being that Heart Condensation Pellets could increase one's cultivation layer in the Blood Condensation Realm regardless of their cultivation foundation and bottlenecks.

Furthermore, the 1000-year spirit herbs required were extremely precious and rare—each and every one of them could be used as a main ingredient for any Core Forging Realm medicinal pellet.

In terms of spirit stones, the twenty-four 1000-year spirit herbs were worth more than 150,000 spirit stones.

After some thought, Lu Ping finally decided to concoct them. He had a bad feeling about the situation in the North Ocean.

In the monster race, he saw the Golden Scale Palace recruiting monster soldiers and expanding its forces; in the human race, he saw the North Ocean Alliance dispatching batch after batch of cultivators to operate in the monster race sea.

Lu Ping sensed that the human race's calculations for the Golden Jiao Lord's birthday banquet would be the trigger for a war between the races.

Therefore, he felt an urgent need to improve his prowess. Furthermore, he was already in the Late Blood Condensation Realm and so the sect would certainly summon him to battle once the war starts. By then, Lu Ping would not have the time to cultivate and concoct medicinal pellets anymore.