Pill Refiners' Hopes and Dreams

[The system is upgrading. Please wait...]

Lan Xiang was stunned as he stared at the little bluish screen. Ever since he acquired the Spatial Distortion technique from Lu Xifa, the system has been like this.

"How did the upgrade trigger? Could it have been triggered by my first Gold level technique?"

He recalled right before the system shut down that he glimpsed at the page for Spatial Distortion. It was the highest level technique he had ever gotten.

Gold level. That alone gave him 2000 tech points, as opposed to the lower level purple's 500.

With the tech points given to him by this technique, Lan Xiang could upgrade any of his cheap techniques to Gold level right now. In fact, he wanted to do so with the How to Cultivate for Dummies technique, as it might help him get past his bottleneck.

However, he didn't expect the system to suddenly upgrade! He had no idea how long this would take either. With a sigh, he accepted it and closed the system. For now, all he could do was... wait.

"I should practice pill refinement in the meantime."

He pulled out the furnace from under his bed once more and conjured some water to pour inside.

"..."

The water swirled inside the furnace, while the outside's nudges started to get flowed through. The furnace emitted a thin smoke, distorting Lan Xiang's vision.

The steam was an indication that Lan Xiang advanced a level in his proficiency of pill refining. If the steam was thin, white, and had a subtle fragrance, then Lan Xiang would consider it to be a success.

However, the air coming out of the furnace couldn't even be called as steam. More appropriately, it was smog. The thick black smog smelled of burnt charcoal, unbefitting of the water inside.

"How did that pure clean water emit such a horrid smell...?" Lan Xiang was stuck on this point.

No matter what he did, the smog didn't get any less dark. Lan Xiang couldn't figure out what was wrong no matter what he did.

Xie Jian entered the room, her face immediately scrunching up as she inhaled the smog. "X, Xiang, what happened here?"

Lan Xiang stopped the pill refining technique. The smog dispersed quite quickly after that.

"Jian'er, do you know anything about pill refining?"

Everyone does. Xie Jian was about to say that, when she realized that Lan Xiang hadn't taken any electives related to cultivation due to his body's incompatibility.

She cleared her throat. "Yeah, why?"

Lan Xiang sighed. "It's like this. No matter what I do, the smoke that comes out of the furnace is all murky and black. I don't know what I'm doing wrong."

Huh? That's weird. As the Xie family was mostly well-known for their pills, she was given a top-tier education in regards to the topic, as well as knowledge about the Spiritual Pill Refinement technique.

"Since the technique is water element, there's basically no chance of producing black smog. That's one of the factors why our pill refinement technique reigns supreme. Lan Xiang's technique is basically a better version of Spiritual Pill Refinement, so why does it produce smog?" Xie Jian thought to herself.

"Hm, let me see how you do it."

Lan Xiang replaced the water and did the whole process again, this time with Xie Jian watching.

Normally, as the water heated up, it would produce a thin, white blanket of steam. What the fragrance was depended on the pill recipe used as well as the skill of the pill refiner.

Xie Jian saw the usual process of the water spinning around and around, gradually heating up.

Suddenly, a dark tint appeared out of nowhere, spreading across the formerly untainted water.

The smoke rose up, resulting in the burnt charcoal smell that left Lan Xiang confounded.

"Where is that dark tint coming from? It smells of a freshly cut-down tree, before becoming burnt wood."

Xie Jian recalled her lessons in class.

"The water element is the most superior element if we were to dabble in pill refinement. However, it does not mean that all other elements are unsuitable. There are also some more specific pill recipes that rely on other elements to successfully refine them. Take for example, the Wooden Body Pill. As the name suggests, the element suitable for this is not water, it is the wood element.

"Objectively speaking, if someone was to gain the ability to control two elements at a time, the best combination would be wood and water. However, that is nothing but a pipe dream, so pill refiners need to find a compromise..."

Xie Jian's eyes widened.

"Xiang, you... you're using the wood element!"

"The wood element??"

"Try it again. But this time, instead of dispersing the dark tint throughout the water, concentrate it all in one place, the place where a pill should form."

"Okay."

Lan Xiang repeated it again.

The dark tint appeared once more, but Lan Xiang managed to control it. He stopped it from mixing with the swirling water, and concentrated it into a spherical shape, hollow in the middle.

Soon enough, the steam came out once more, but this time, it didn't smell of burnt charcoal, it smelled of a forest recently soaked in rain.

Lan Xiang grinned. "As expected, my wife knows everything."

"Of course." Xie Jian was quite proud too. Although it wasn't her achievement, she theorized what she had to do in her mind, and it succeeded in one go.

"Wait, but that reminds me. Xiang can control the wood element too?" Xie Jian couldn't believe it. "That makes three elements..."

Before she could question him about it, she felt a peck on her cheek, multiple times at that.

"I love you, Jian'er!"

"Xiang?? What, what are you doing... On Saturday, we can do it then..."

Alas, her resolve was not that strong. Her defense fell against Lan Xiang's peerless attacks.

Somehow, he made use of his proficiency in stretching techniques!

A few hours later.

Xie Jian returned to her room, quite embarrassed.

Lan Xiang laid on the bed, satisfied.

All of a sudden, he heard a beep from the system.

[Technique Improvement System]

Congratulations! You have reached the milestone of twenty-five (25) techniques learned! You have unlocked a new function: Technique Synthesizer.

Techniques currently learned: 25

Tech points: 2125

Great job progressing!

"Hm? What is this?"