The air inside the bronze cauldron house was already vibrating, a low hum of heat that rattled the teeth. Hanyuan's hand hadn't even touched the heavy metal handle before the doors were snatched open by a surge of Qi.
He was pulled inside as if by a magnetic force, the bronze doors slamming shut behind him with a resonant clang.
"Stop dawdling, brat! Time is more precious than blood in this room!" Elder Huo barked.
The short, wild haired alchemist was full of energy. He was sorting ingredients with terrifying speed: silver marrow fungi, stardust grass, and a jar of obsidian liquid that smelled like a thunderstorm. Unlike his previous scattered frenzy, Huo's movements now had the surgical precision of someone who had recently touched a new level of enlightenment.
"Today, we aren't refining simple recovery dregs," Huo said, his iron gray eyes gleaming. "We are attempting the Star Breaker Pill."
Hanyuan's breath hitched. Even the name sounded like a challenge to the heavens. "The Star Breaker Pill? What does it do, Elder?"
Huo looked up, his grin splitting his soot stained face. "It does the impossible, boy. It hammers the soul. It can refine a cultivator's innate aptitude, potentially increasing their talent by one or even two stars."
Hanyuan's obsidian eyes widened. In the Martial Heaven World, talent was widely considered a fixed destiny,a brand burned into one's soul at birth. "Talent... can be increased? Is that even legal in the eyes of the Heavens?"
"The Heavens are a wall meant to be climbed, not a roof meant to stop us!" Huo roared, kicking the central furnace's bellows. "But tell me, brat... do you know what lies above the ten star threshold? Or do you think ten stars is the final peak of the mountain?"
Hanyuan paused, thinking of the arrogance of the 7 star Geniuses and the untouchable aura of Mu Rongbing. "I assumed ten stars was the absolute limit of potential."
Huo let out a bark of dry laughter. "Ten stars is the limit for mortals. Above that, the talent dissolves and reforms into a Spirit Root. If a star is a drop of water, a Spirit Root is the river. With one, your cultivation doesn't just crawl; it soars like a dragon in the high winds. That brat Mu Rongbing... she doesn't have stars. She was born with the Thousand Snow Spirit Root. That is why she is already a Mortal Core Inner Disciple while you're still counting coppers in the mud."
The news hit Hanyuan like a physical blow. The "Thousand Snow Spirit Root." No wonder her ice was so cold it felt like death. No wonder the Elders looked at her as if she were a goddess descended to earth.
"Elder..." Hanyuan's voice was raspy as he sat before the North Vent, his heart pounding. "If someone isn't born with a Spirit Root, can they... can they obtain one?"
Huo stopped sorting the stardust grass, looking at Hanyuan with a look of strange, begrudging respect. "Aye, they can. That is the secret of the greats. If you push your talent to the absolute limit of ten stars, and then you have the luck,and more importantly, the Will,the stars will melt together and condense into a new Root. It's a baptism by fire. Some get bad roots, some get divine ones. But even the worst Spirit Root is a hundred times superior to a ten star potential."
Hanyuan's knuckles turned white on his lap. The math in his head was grim: with a 6 star talent like now, it would take him ten to fifteen years of bitter cultivation to reach the Mortal Core stage. By then, Xueling, Yanfeng, and Mu Rongbing would be legendary figures in the Southern Continent, looking back at him like a ghost from the past.
Ten years? I don't have ten years.
"Ready yourself, brat!" Huo shouted, breaking Hanyuan's reverie. "The Star Breaker Pill requires absolute zero at the base to prevent the stardust from combusting. I need you to push your Qi past its limit. We're going to steal some luck from the Heavens today!"
Hanyuan slammed his palms against the bronze runes.
"Start the fire, Elder," Hanyuan growled, his frost Qi erupting from his palms in a blinding white fog. "Let's see if we can make some progress today."
The bronze doors remained sealed shut as the cauldron house became a furnace of sheer desperation and brilliance.
"Listen well, brat!" Elder Huo's voice was horse, strained by the colossal mental effort of the task. "The Star Breaker is a Tier 4 pill,a grade meant for Soul Transformation experts. I've spent my life mastering the lower tiers, but today, we push into the heavens. Most of our first batches will likely end in slag and smoke. Failure is the price of wisdom!"
He didn't wait for a response. His hands moved in a blurring rhythm, hurling the precious ingredients into the roaring maw of the central furnace. Stardust grass, silver marrow, dragon blood ash... each landed with a distinct hiss.
Clang! The lid snapped shut.
"Now! Balance the Heat! Channel the cold!"
Hanyuan slammed his palms against the runes. He felt the initial shock of the Fire, but he didn't recoil. Ten minutes passed, and his Dantian hit the bottom, his Qi was being consumed like a drop of water on a hot iron.
Clack. A small jade bottle skittered across the floor toward him.
"Take one! An Energy Restoring Pill! Don't let the fire flicker, or it'll take us both!" Huo barked.
Hanyuan snatched a pill and swallowed it. It exploded in his stomach,not as a gentle warmth, but as a violent, unrefined surge of Qi that threatened to tear his meridians. He grit his teeth, forcing the energy down his arms and back into the cooling vents.
For three days, the world ceased to exist outside the bronze walls. They lived in a cycle of refining and analysing the failures.
Ten batches a day. Ten failures. Black soot covered every inch of the lab; the smell of charred herbs grew suffocating. By the evening of the third day, Hanyuan was on his fifth Energy Restoring Pill of the day. His meridians were screaming in protest, the high pressure energy causing them to bulge and throb. Every breath tasted of iron.
"This is it..." Elder Huo whispered, his voice hushed and terrifyingly calm. His hands were a blur of Hand signs so intricate they seemed to leave trails of fire in the air. "The final stabilization. Now! Give it all!"
Hanyuan didn't think. He reached for the very last Drop of his Qi, pouring it into the frost runes.
BOOM!
The heavy lid didn't pop,it was launched off by a burst of pure, shimmering starlight. The room was suddenly bathed in a soft, ethereal glow. Three pills emerged, floating lazily in the center of the lab. Unlike previous failures, these were as smooth as pearls, each one containing a swirling galaxy of indigo and silver.
Elder Huo snatched them out of the air. He trembled as he brought them to his eyes. "High grade... two High grades and one Middle grade. I did it. I've reached the 4th Tier!" He let out a ragged, triumphant laugh, his knees buckling.
He looked toward his corner, seeing the state of the laboratory. He had burned through his ransom in materials, pills, and coal. He was broke,effectively bankrupt until these pills were sold or traded.
He looked over at Hanyuan. The boy was sprawled on the scorched stone floor, his clothes half burnt, his face unrecognizable beneath a mask of soot and dried blood. His chest heaved in shallow gasps.
"You're a stubborn one, brat," Elder Huo muttered, his voice unusually soft. He looked at the pills. Ordinarily, the reward for a mission like this was mere points. But Elder Huo knew that Hanyuan's cooling Qi was the reason the stardust didn't ignite.
"I have no points left to give you," Huo said, walking over to the boy. "And I have debts to pay to the treasury. But I don't owe anyone a debt of life. Take it."
He flicked his wrist. One of the High-grade Star Breaker Pills rolled across the floor and landed in Hanyuan's palm.
"The Sect might kill me for giving a Tier 4 pill to a novice, but let them try. I'll sell the other two to pay for the lab's repairs."
Hanyuan looked at the silver blue pearl in his hand. It was cold,beautifully, impossibly cold. He tried to speak, to offer thanks, but the darkness in the corner of his vision rushed inward.
The Star Breaker Pill remained clutched in his blackened hand as the heat of the room finally claimed his consciousness. He fainted into a deep, dreamless state.