Fragmented Memories

Some alchemists might even fly into a fit and curse at him for doing so. Even if someone was a reckless fool and frivolous spender, they would still do their best to refrain from an expenditure of such level and scale.

However, Min Hong wasn't worried a bit; after all, most alchemist his age or even rank would still be on the Mental Sense level, thus, this level of expenditure, though exhausting, was still very much manageable.

According to popular ancient records, alchemists were ranked in the following order: Novice, Apprentice, Adept, Master, Grandmaster, King, Emperor, Venerate, Saint, and God.

The Divine Resurrection Potion was a second-tier medicinal potion, and considering the fact that it was a potion and not a pill, it was comparable to a third-tier pill.

Generally, alchemists who had reached the Apprentice rank could only successfully use a second-tier alchemical method to concoct or refine a second-tier product.

Though Min Hong had no way to rank the alchemical abilities of the Shrine Protector due to his fragmented memories; based on the little he currently knew and could do, it would be no exaggeration to rank him at Peak Master Alchemist.

Since he now had multiple times the soul power of a relatively normal person [context excluded], his Soul Qi had likewise taken a qualitative and quantitative jump; therefore, he was more than qualified to squander his Soul Qi however he wished, as long as it was under a Tier 4 alchemical method.

Heating up the wok with the new level of flame, Min Hong felt the wok tremble as it gave out a panging noise that caked a layer of ash over its surface.

"Hehe, by increasing the power of the flame, it seems this wok of mine is about to benefit as well."

Seeing this, Min Hong quickly cracked off the caked ash on the surface of the wok, before cleaning it up and feeding it a pour of Qi Restoring Potion this time.

Half an hour later, the wok had already absorbed its fill and has now added a slight bronze tinge to its steel sheen.

Min Hong was shocked at the situation, he looked at the flame wisp dancing over his palm and looked back at the Qi Restoring Potion, then at the wok; he couldn't quite understand what was going on.

Nonetheless, Min Hong was not ready to expend more Soul Qi on something that might be broader and far more complicated than what his mind could comprehend, especially since he would naturally come to understand what had happened in time; thus, he simply focused on the task at hand.

He hastily threw in three more medicinal ingredients into the furnace; however, after a little amount of time, Min Hong was shocked to realize that the herb essence which was supposed to be more tedious and time consuming to extract had actually taken the same amount of time as the previous batch.

Upon further inspection, which he did experimenting on more herbs, he finally found out that the wok was- for some mysterious reasons- now more heat conducting, and yet milder on the herbs during the extraction process.

Though shocked to stupor, Min Hong added the phenomenon to the growing list at the back of his mind and thus focused on his extraction process.

Hurriedly taking out a straw, he placed one end into the Qi Restoring Potion and quickly sucked up a mouthful.

When the Qi Restoring Potion entered his stomach and began to seep into his system, all the cells in his body latched onto the medicinal potions like leeches as they began to greedily devour its efficacy.

The Qi Restoring Potion was naturally suffused with powerful Qi energy; however, if allowed to sit over a period of time, they would begin to absorb the atmospheric Qi in the subtlest of manners.

However, they amount they could absorb is dependent on the rarity of the herbs involved in their concoction and the volume concocted.

Furthermore, despite having such an overpowered trait, this potion is incapable of absorbing preabsorbed Qi; that is, Qi that has been initially or preabsorbed by another living entity.

Min Hong's cells, however, couldn't give two middle fingers about the properties of the potion.

They simply sucked it dry of its efficacy, that before it could even complete on cycle within his digestive system, the only thing left was impure water, which was a result of the cells ejecting the impurities within them into it.

When the efficacy energy arrived at Min Hong's brain, his initially soon-to-be-exhausted Spirit Sense got its shot of steroids as his Soul Qi expenditure took a significant nosedive.

Min Hong couldn't help but commend himself for having prepared the potion earlier; otherwise, without it, there was no way he would have been able to successfully concoct the Divine Resurrection Potion.

With the straw in his mouth, and a carefully measured consistent mouthful every now and then, Min Hong would keep his Spirit Sense in an optimally optimized mode, allowing him to maintain steady control over the extraction process.

Two days later, Min Hong finally began to feel exhausted, an indication that his Soul Qi was now running very close to 'Empty'.

Regardless of his feelings though, Min Hong still revealed a satisfied smile; after all, he was on the last leg of the hardest essence extraction process, which was almost complete.

The herb essence powders were already lying within his wok, and the only thing left was the evaporation of the final residual impurities; in fact, there was already a lingering medicinal aroma in the air.

Although Min Hong's impression of the second-tier essence extraction alchemical process was that it was somewhat easy, being the fact that it was his first time with alchemy, it would be a lie to claim that he hadn't been nervous for the last three days.

Swish!

Suddenly, the wok began to tremble as the sound of fine grains of sand bashing and gliding across the fine surface of a steel object filled the room. The energy within the wok also started to grow berserk.

Min Hong, however, didn't even panic in the slightest; on the contrary, he even started to smile. This was the indication that all of the herbs within the wok had finally had all their essences extracted and impurities removed.

It was the fact that they were all of herbs of different nature that the energy within the wok is going berserk; after all, they were bound to be something about one of them being incompatible with one specific property of the other.

This was the time when most alchemist needed to expend their Soul Qi the most, and Min Hong didn't slack off either.

Sucking in so much Qi Restoring Potion that his neck bloated, and the bottle cried empty, Min Hong gave his Spirit Sense a final shot of steroid overdose.

He already understood that his Soul Qi couldn't endure past this point, and he needed to amplify the power of his Spirit Sense even more whilst cutting down his Soul Qi consumption till he was done; thus, he could only take such reckless action.

All of Min Hong's Spirit Sense was completely unleashed without any form of reserve as the flame wisp surged out.

Right in the middle of that moment, and oblivious to Min Hong himself, the seal within his soul suddenly flickered slightly as an otherworldly aura exploded forth. This tyrannically overpowering and yet incorporeal aura descended upon the wok and sealed it shut.

Boom!

As if reacting to the smothering suppression, the multicolored powder released a powerful energy shockwave that slammed into the wok's interior, threatening to blast it into smithereens.

However, the aura from the seal within Min Hong's soul had already wrapped around the entire wok, and thus, muffled the explosion and bounced the powerful energy back at it at double intensity.

Upon being slapped by the amplified attack, the powders finally stopped moving and settled at the bottom of the wok as everything turned silent.

Though the wok was now tranquil, it was still ringing from the aftershocks of the battle that briefly occurred within it.

Min Hong on the other hand, was busy gasping for breath, as every pore on his skin began to perspire buckets. His whole world spun at random angles as a bout of sharp dizziness and vertigo assaulted him, threatening to deprive his consciousness of any form of light.

It was only after three hours, that the alchemist and wok duo finally recovered from their recoil.

Min Hong, who was now feeling much better couldn't help but excitedly open the wok.

His hands trembled as he saw a pile of fine-grained medicinal powder heap over themselves in stacks of multiples bright hues of red.

A dense medicinal aroma completely filled the whole room as the atmospheric temperature soared to another level.

"The Phoenix Rebirth Powder." Min Hong muttered to himself as he rose to his feet.

Though he was done purifying the herbs and extracting their essences; he wasn't done with his concocting process just yet; after all, what the Jade Primal Dragon Body needed was a potion, not powder.

Heading over to the wooden bath which Qing had prefilled with clear water, Min Hong once again snapped his fingers once again; this time however, though the flame wisp appeared, it was much less powerful.

Placing the flame into the water bath, the latter instantly began to boil as whatever impurities might have entered the water vaporized away.

Stripping himself naked, Min Hong poured the Phoenix Rebirth Powder into the bath, and instantly, the water became slurry-like, almost like a bath of boiling lava.

Seeing this, Min Hong suddenly felt a splitting migraine barrel through his head as he blacked out and fell into the bath of bubbling potion lava.

Whilst unconscious, Min Hong's mind got assaulted by a specific memory flashback that was being repeatedly looped, endlessly.

In that memory, he saw himself falling from an extremely impossible height, with the temperature of his surroundings soaring the lower he fell.

Then he suddenly felt a tremor in the atmosphere, and a very loud explosion that resulted in the emergence of a fiery bird that shot straight into the sky, heading straight toward him with the speed of a bullet train.

Boom!

A muffled explosion snapped Min Hong awake as the bath began to quake violently.

Zzzz! 

The water which though was hot but had stopped boiling suddenly began to boil once more as Min Hong began to spasm within the bath.

Br-argh!

He wanted to scream, but was already submerged and thus, his screams were drowned out.

Min Hong felt as if he was thrown butt naked into a pot of boiling oil; nope that was wrong, it felt like he was thrown into a pot of boiling acid.

The Phoenix Rebirth Potion delivered its qualities one hundred percent. All the hair on Min Hong's skin first fell off, then his flesh began to turn beet red as the potion cooked his flesh for an hour.

By the time the potion was done with his flesh, all his pores were already wide open, allowing the potion to gradually seep in unhindered, and 'oh, ever so slowly'.

The potion cooked everything in its path causing Min Hong to think he black out once again as another bout of specific looped memories assaulted his mind once again.

This time, Min Hong found himself staring frightfully at a massive demon that was about five times, his size. He heard the demon below a statement but couldn't make out what it was. However, what followed soon after was him receiving a whiplash that sent his consciousness screaming back to life.

Whilst he was still caught in between determining if what his body was experiencing was the true hell or the sensation he just got from his last vision, the potion suddenly entered all his veins simultaneously, and instantly, Min Hong came to the clearest conclusion he had ever arrived at in life.