Chapter 54: 1-star Earth rank alchemist

"Was this a joke?!" Xiao Xuefeng was enraged. Before her, Chief Elder Bian did not know how to react as she had come barging in in his study with Chief Elder Baishen.

"Please, Miss Xiao..."

"Your impartial judges did everything they could to absolve Luduo Bu of all charges. What kind of impartiality is this?!"

"They even tried to accuse Chen Guo of violating the rules! Do you think I don't know what happened in my own pavilion?!"

"Please, please. Our judges have to balance both sides of the story to find out the truth. And Cao Yun's answers were really playing with words."

"You're going to accuse the man who saved the life of my disciple's sister?!"

"I did not say anything of the sort. It's just that it wasn't too convincing. The elders determined that there really was a fair sparring and that Mei Ying had lost and did not call for help, neither did she give up. But they also considered that Luduo Bu did go too far."

Chief Elder Baishen went back to the charges. "He made sure that she couldn't give up."

"Alas, the evidence was not too strong on that point either."

"I saw her throat crushed with my own eyes! Isn't my word strong enough?!"

"Sister Baishen, I just meant that we can't prove he did it on purpose to stop her from giving up."

Xiao Xuefeng was ready to explode but as a master alchemist, she quickly regained her calm. "What punishment will he receive?"

"He's going to receive a harsh punishment, 6 weeks in the Devil's Jail's first level."

"6 weeks?!"

"First level?!"

The Devil's Jail was the name of the prison under the disciplinary pavilion. It was organized in many levels. Each one suppressed the prisoners more and more. The first level had no suppression at all, so it was a just a regular prison.

"He will also lose 150 points. For beating up a servant without lasting injuries, the rules establish a punishment that can go from nothing to 8 weeks of isolation and a maximum loss of 250 points. This punishment is pretty severe already, even though the judges concluded that this fight was an actual sparring session without any foul play."

The two women did not even know how to react to this.

"Chief Elder Bian, you're disgusting! I'll leave, otherwise I might do something you will regret." Chief Elder Baishen was the first to leave.

"So this is the justice of the Wubei Sect? I heard a lot about the honor of your sect. Well, I saw it and I'm not impressed."

Chief Elder Bian stayed alone in his study. He was fuming with rage after these insults but he could do nothing. His job was to uphold the law of the sect, no matter what it was. He had tried to nail Luduo Bu but the elders did not find the evidence conclusive. And he had to stay true to their decision. In fact, he started to shift his focus on Cao Yun.

He had not lied but clearly he was interpreting the events the way he saw fit.

-

Later this night, Luduo Bu was taken to the Devil's Jail's first level.

The bastard was smiling while remembering the face of the little servant distorted by fear, and more so the face of Cao Yun enraged. He wanted to make Cao Yun pay. In his mind, all his problems were caused by this boy.

While in his cell, the same man who had come to his room was in front of him and Luduo Bu's smile became even larger.

-

On the other hand, Mei Ying was crying in her bed. Usually, she was playing with Cao Yun at this hour, so he got worried and went to see Mei Hua.

"The verdict has been decided. He'll only be imprisoned for 6 weeks... Master Xiao tried everything. She even went to the Sect Leader but even he can't change a decision of the disciplinary pavilion. Otherwise, the rules would mean nothing, from what he said."

"Luduo Bu! If I had known, I would have taken his life back then."

"No, Brother Chen, you would be sent to the Devil's Jail. Don't ruin your future for this bastard!"

Cao Yun went toward Mei Ying and tried to pat her back. She recoiled in fear and looked back. When she saw the worried face of her older brother, she jumped around his neck and cried even more.

"Ying'er, I swear that this beast won't harm you ever again."

They stayed like this several hours. It was so long that Huang Cixi got worried and went to find Cao Yun. When she entered the room, she saw the crying little girl in the boy's embrace with Mei Hua sitting next to them, caressing her sister's hair. What she saw was her brother Huang Lixin consoling her when she was little.

She backed away and went back to Cao Yun's room. She wanted to hate the boy with all her heart, but the more she was with him, the more she realized he was not evil at all. However, he had killed her brother, she was sure of it. It could only be him!

-

The next day, Cao Yun decided to sacrifice his training to stay with Mei Ying and tried to make her happy. She was so different from Cao Huiying, but he still felt as though he was with his real little sister. And seeing her like this was torture for him.

Finally, she got better thanks to him and Mei Hua. They even went back to training with mock spears.

-

Then the time had come for Cao Yun to go refine his first pill without assistance. He went back to the alchemy pavilion and asked for Instructor Meng Jia.

Once again, the first thing he did in the training room was lowering the blinds, lying down in a chair and putting his feet on the table with only one eye half open.

"Before you try to refine anything, prove to me that you've passed the test I gave you." Cao Yun quickly took out a Terrified Fox Root and prepared it before Meng Jia. When it was washed, the instructor sniffed a little. "4%, very good! You had to achieve 5%, and it's even closer to 3% than 5%. You learn fast. Go on."

Cao Yun demonstrated all the techniques he had already used on this ingredient and Meng Jia found them all to be satisfactory. Some were perfectly mastered and others were very good.

"Fine. Then let me explain the system of ranks within the alchemists. In fact, it's pretty simple, the rank of an alchemist tells you which pills he can refine, so we use the same ranks as the pills themselves. For example a 5-star Earth rank alchemist is able to refine 5-star Earth rank pills with success no matter how difficult it is. The catch is that success doesn't tell you the purity of the pill.

And how do we determine the rank? The only qualification is the pills you can refine. But an alchemist can always refine some easier pill one rank, sometimes even two ranks above his own. The fact that he succeeds once does not mean he'll be able to do it again. So to guarantee that an alchemist of a certain rank can always succeed in the refinement of a pill of the same rank, there are certain rules.

The most obvious, during the qualification process for an alchemy grade, the alchemist cannot rely on anyone's help.

The second one is that the pill he makes must necessarily be Pure, which means at least 95% of medicinal essence must be kept from the ingredients. If you can make even the simplest of pill from a grade with Pure quality, you should be able to refine all the pills of the same rank. The most difficult ones will probably have a low quality of course.

For each grade, the alchemist can choose any pill he wants to pass the qualification, but there is a list of recommended pills.

To officially become a 1-star Earth rank alchemist, I will be your examiner. The pill you're going to forge is the Low-Level Qi Gathering Pill. This is the most famous pill in the cultivation world. As it dissolves in the body, this pill will release a large quantity of Qi that a cultivator can easily absorb in his Lower Dantian, vessels or meridians. This kind of pill is as efficient as a small spirit stone, but its cost is way inferior in general. And while you need several days or weeks to absorb from a spirit stone, the pill dissolves in a matter of hours.

The downside is the same there is with every pill, the toxins in it can become a problem if it's consumed too often. You must give enough time at your body so that it eliminates the toxins before taking another one. That's obviously a problem you don't have with spirit stones.

The recipe was in the 'Four Seasons Cycle Classic', so you should know it perfectly, right?"

"Yes, I do. But I'm not confident in being able to make a Pure Low-Level Qi Gathering Pill. The only pill I ever made was the Frozen Heart Pill and it was only a success with 67% of the medicinal essence."

"What are you talking about?! You should know that you're comparing the hardest pill to forge in the 5-star Earth rank with one of the easiest ones period. But if you're scared of failure, you can go back to peeling roots..."

"No, I'm sorry if I sounded scared. It's just that I never did any refinement on my own and it's already for a qualification to an alchemist grade."

"Well, if you fail, nothing happens and if you succeed you're an alchemist. There's no problem at all."

Cao Yun circulated his Zhi and Yi guided by his Shen and got into the right mindset. In fact, it was yesterday's business that was still going on in his head. He completely suppressed it and went into the cupboards.

The Low-Level Qi Gathering Pill was very well-known and studied, so even a novice like Cao Yun had read its recipe: blood from a 1-core demonic beast, Rotten Skull Pine Bark, Frozen Dragonfruit Seed, Whale Eel Spine Powder, ...

He started by checking the furnace and the cauldron that were set up on the table. When he was convinced that everything was alright, he began to prepare the ingredients. For each ingredient, he first remembered everything he had read to make sure that he did not commit any mistake. He really took his time and almost one hour passed by. A master would have been done in around ten minutes.

Cao Yun had decided to use enough ingredients to make ten pills so he could optimize his chances.

After the preparation, he activated the fire and watched it for a minute or two, just to be sure there was no problem with the furnace or the cauldron.

The only thing left to do was to follow the recipe. He threw a red powder into the fire and filled up the cauldron with the blood from a Purple Rotten Keelback Snake. Just after, he closed the lid and got ready for the next step.

One by one, he introduced the ingredients at certain timings. Sometimes he changed the flame before introducing it, sometimes after. Sometimes he even introduced two ingredients at once, changed the flame, then looked at the cauldron until the mixture changed and altered the flame again.

Following the recipe point by point, Cao Yun was done in thirteen minutes or so. He then completely extinguished the flame. As he was both excited and anxious, his hand took the lid off the cauldron. A sweet aroma filled the room. In the cauldron there was no more blood, it had all been absorbed into ten little red pellets.

While Cao Yun was observing its first work without any assistance, the pellets flew into the air and landed into Meng Jia's right hand. They were forming a rotating circle over his palm.

"92%, 94%, 91%, 95%, 97%, 93%, 94%, 97%, 98% and even 99%."

They were all Perfect. Half of them were Pure. And one had even achieved the 99% mark.

"Oh? Wait." For the first time ever, Meng Jia partially opened his other eye. For once, he almost didn't look like he was talking in his sleep. "The last one is a bit better than 99%, this is a True Essence pill. Almost no medicinal essence has been lost. And you were worried about your performance..."

The pills all flew back toward Cao Yun and landed in a small wooden box he had prepared in advance. Just when he was admiring the pills, a small emblem landed beside it. "From now on, you're officially a 1-star Earth alchemist. This small emblem is proof. I'll still have to do some paperwork... Hmm... Fine, I'll do it..."

"Thank you, Instructor Meng."

Cao Yun admired his work one last time and then closed the small box putting it in his uniform. After that, he examined the emblem. It was just a small disc with the character for 'Earth' and one diagonal golden stripe over it.

He proudly put it on his chest. The emblem of the Wubei Sect with the Heavenly Swallow Faction's symbol was at least four times bigger. That was the reason why Cao Yun had never really paid attention to it but all the people in the alchemy pavilion had one. He even remembered that Mei Hua had one as well, but on hers, there were five golden stripes.

Thinking about this, Feng Yingyue should be a 5-star Earth alchemist. After all, she had been able to forge a 87% Frozen Heart Pill, the most difficult 5-star Earth rank pill. He hadn't asked her her rank, but Cao Yun would do so in his next letter.

Finally, thinking about his discussion with Feng Yingyue through letters, a question came to mind. He had not yet received an answer because of the distance between the Wubei Sect and the Golden Flowery Fragrance Institute. But Meng Jia could answer him.

"Instructor Meng, I have a question. Do you know of any pill that has a similar effect on the mind as the Frozen Heart Pill but is strong in Fire element?"

The Frozen Heart Pill he had consumed had already completely dissipated in him, and it was not suitable for training his Shen, the Fire Spirit.

"Of course there is. The cheapest one would be the Praying Demon Pill. It's an intermediate 1-star Human rank pill. But if you want it, you'll have to buy it since you can't forge any Human rank pill unless you can control your Qi outside of your body." Meng Jia seemed as though he was going back to sleep. "Wait... I think I heard the receptionists mention that there was such a pill in the market, you could go there." His head finally fell and he was sleeping.

Cao Yun was now used to his strange behavior so he paid it no mind and left the room.

-

He went back to the reception desk and saw Guo Lüye, the woman who almost threw him out. The first thing she saw when he walked out of the room was his alchemy badge.

"Brother Chen, you've passed a qualification test?"

"Yes, Instructor Meng made me refine a Low-Level Qi Gathering Pill."

"Congratulations!" When Cao Yun looked at her chest, he saw that her emblem had two golden stripes.

"Senior Guo, I was wondering about a specific pill, the Praying Demon Pill. Do you perhaps know if I can find one in the sect?"