Chapter 50: Drawing a Circle with the Left Hand, a Square with the Right

When it came to martial arts, Ye Yuan might still be modest.

But alchemy? Ye Yuan really didn't know how to be modest.

It could be said that in his previous life, Ye Yuan had spent his entire life dealing with alchemy, and he was extremely familiar with medicinal herbs and pills.

That familiarity was ingrained in his soul; even if he had changed bodies, that soul-deep familiarity could drive his entire body to make the most appropriate moves.

Ye Yuan had originally wanted to keep a low profile, but as soon as he touched those herbs, he involuntarily completed the actions of compounding and refining the pill base.

Others might tremble with fear over the dosage of herbs, not daring to make the slightest mistake, but Ye Yuan could grab the herbs casually, and the dosage would be perfectly accurate.

That was an ability honed through billions of operations, something no one could imitate.

Feng Ruoqing stared blankly at Ye Yuan, not knowing what to say.

Refining a first-grade pill... could it be this simple?

"You... make yourself at home, I... I'm going to the meditation room to enter a trance!" With that, Feng Ruoqing turned and entered the meditation room again.

This time, she remained in a trance for two hours, much longer than originally planned.

Feng Ruoqing was a bit flustered; she couldn't enter a trance for a long time, and only after an hour did she barely manage to set aside distracting thoughts and enter a state of clarity.

Coming out of the meditation room, Feng Ruoqing resumed her aloof attitude, approached the Red Lotus Cauldron, and ordered indifferently, "Bring the pill base, light the furnace, and start refining!"

Ye Yuan hadn't wasted these two hours either; he had been sitting in meditation and practicing.

Compared to his previous life, Ye Yuan was now much more diligent.

Having once achieved the rank of Pill Emperor, Ye Yuan knew that there were no shortcuts in cultivation; no matter how good one's talent, only diligence upon diligence would suffice.

Hearing Feng Ruoqing's orders, Ye Yuan took two jade vessels containing the pill base and handed them to her, then prepared to light the furnace himself.

Feng Ruoqing looked at Ye Yuan with some surprise; she had originally planned to instruct him on what to do, but Ye Yuan skillfully performed the tasks of an assistant as if he were very familiar with them.

The alchemy room of the Danwu Academy was built on a vein of earth fire, channeling the earth fire for alchemy.

This method of alchemy was only suitable for low-grade pills; high-grade pills required a heavenly fire source. However, Ye Yuan was not unfamiliar with this method.

Opening the fire valve, a fierce flame burst out from underground, and the temperature in the alchemy room rose sharply.

Although earth fire was inferior to heavenly fire sources, it was extraordinary among mundane fires, more than enough for refining first-grade pills.

Ye Yuan quickly formed hand seals, then gently brushed the flame, and the flame immediately became as docile as a well-behaved child.

Then, Ye Yuan separated his hands and lightly shouted, "Set!"

The earth fire automatically split into two halves, evenly heating both sides of the Red Lotus Cauldron.

Feng Ruoqing watched this scene, and a flicker of astonishment passed through her eyes again.

She had never heard of such a method of controlling fire!

Earth fire was extremely violent; the academy had to add layers of formations to harness it.

Even so, this fire was not something an ordinary Qi Refining fourth-layer cultivator could easily control.

But before Ye Yuan, the earth fire was like a pet raised at home; if he told it to lie down, it wouldn't dare to stand.

However, now that the alchemy process had begun, Feng Ruoqing had no time to be surprised and quickly composed herself.

Feng Ruoqing formed a hand seal with one hand and pointed at the Red Lotus Cauldron; the lid flew off automatically.

With her other hand, she beckoned, and the two pill bases flew into the cauldron through the air.

"Yin-Yang Split Flow Technique! Activate!"

Feng Ruoqing lightly shouted, and her jade-like hands moved like phantoms.

Now there was nothing for Ye Yuan to do; he leisurely watched Feng Ruoqing continuously change hand seals to refine the pill base, nodding slightly.

This woman had some skill after all; it seemed she had put considerable effort into the Yin-Yang Split Flow Technique.

But she hadn't fully mastered the technique; she was struggling a bit now, and it looked like this batch of pills would be ruined.

The Yin-Yang Split Flow Technique was not easy to master. During the refining process, the alchemist needed to multitask, using one hand to perform yang hand seals and the other to perform yin hand seals simultaneously, without any mistakes.

Any oversight in the middle would turn this batch of pills into waste.

This placed extremely high demands on the alchemist's mental strength, soul power, and familiarity with the hand seals.

Feng Ruoqing did well at the start, but by the middle stage of refining, she was clearly struggling, with fine beads of sweat appearing on her forehead, looking quite strained.

With a "puff," a puff of black smoke rose.

Waste pill...

Feng Ruoqing stamped her foot in frustration and shouted at Ye Yuan, "Again!"

Ye Yuan glanced at Feng Ruoqing but said nothing, directly going to prepare the herbs.

This time, Feng Ruoqing finally saw how Ye Yuan prepared the herbs, and she was left speechless.

Ye Yuan grabbed a handful of this herb and a handful of that herb, then threw them all into the jade vessel and crushed them, looking extremely irresponsible.

But Feng Ruoqing couldn't bring herself to scold him, because she knew that the pill base Ye Yuan refined was far superior to what she could make, both in quality and precision.

How did this guy do it? Was his hand a measuring tool? How did he know exactly how much of each herb was needed?

Ye Yuan's herb preparation was far too casual...

Seeing Feng Ruoqing's expression, Ye Yuan coughed dryly and said with an embarrassed smile, "Well... it's a family tradition. You know my father is a great alchemist; I was forced to learn since childhood, hehe... hehe."

Feng Ruoqing shot Ye Yuan a fierce glare. As if she believed that!

But she also knew that Ye Yuan wouldn't tell her the truth, so asking was pointless.

Half an hour later, Ye Yuan had prepared the pill base again.

Feng Ruoqing swallowed a second-grade Qi Restoration Pill, meditated for a while, and her yuan power was mostly restored.

Ye Yuan was secretly amazed at this scene. What background did Feng Ruoqing have?

A second-grade Qi Restoration Pill was nothing in Ye Yuan's eyes, but in the State of Qin, it was not a common commodity; it was quite expensive.

Feng Ruoqing casually took one and swallowed it without even blinking.

And the Red Lotus Cauldron was definitely a top-grade cauldron in the State of Qin, something ordinary people couldn't obtain.

It seemed that Teacher Feng had a very powerful backer!

The second attempt at the Yin-Yang Split Flow Technique naturally ended in failure.

Then came the third, fourth time, none successful.

Basically, in the later stages of refining, the pill base would turn into a puff of black smoke and become waste.

Feng Ruoqing grew increasingly frustrated, and she actually knew that she could only last until the later stages because of Ye Yuan's pill base and fire control; otherwise, she wouldn't even have made it that far!

How the hell was she supposed to master this damned Yin-Yang Split Flow Technique?

"Again!" Although she had second-grade Qi Restoration Pills to restore yuan power, such intense alchemy in a single day had already worn Feng Ruoqing out.

Ye Yuan glanced at Feng Ruoqing again, feeling a bit conflicted inside.

"What are you looking at? Go prepare the herbs!" Feng Ruoqing said irritably.

Instead of preparing herbs, Ye Yuan sighed, walked to the table, and picked up a piece of paper and two brushes.

Feng Ruoqing was curious about what Ye Yuan was doing with the paper and brushes, so she followed him.

She saw Ye Yuan holding a brush in each hand, and with both hands moving simultaneously, he drew two shapes on the paper: a circle with his left hand and a square with his right.

"Stop practicing. You'll never succeed like this. Master this first."

With that, Ye Yuan handed the two brushes to Feng Ruoqing.