"Found one," Li Yan murmured.
He shifted direction instantly.
After a short walk, he arrived before a tall, slender tree, its branches drooping gracefully under the weight of countless thin, silvery leaves. Each leaf shimmered like a strand of thread under sunlight, reflecting a faint metallic sheen as it swayed gently in the breeze.
The entire tree seemed to glow faintly, its aura calm and refined.
Li Yan stopped before it, his eyes scanning the branches. This was not the first time he had seen this tree, but this time he didn't focus on it because he didn't need it before.
"Senior Bai Ru was right…" he said quietly. "Tier-1 ingredients really are everywhere."
He pulled out his ingredient list and glanced at it.
Silver Thread Leaf—required in six different recipes.
Total needed: one hundred and twenty leaves.
Without hesitation, Li Yan leapt upward, landing lightly on one of the sturdy branches. His movements were controlled and efficient as he began harvesting the leaves. Each one was plucked carefully to avoid damaging its essence.
Within minutes, he had gathered more than required.
"Better to have extras," he muttered, storing them away.
Dropping back to the ground, Li Yan did not linger. His Spiritual Sense expanded once more as he moved deeper into the terrain.
Soon, another presence of an ingredient entered his awareness.
A patch of grass, faintly pulsing with a blue glow.
When he arrived, he found clusters of thin, blade-like grass growing close to the earth. Faint azure veins ran through each blade, glowing softly like flowing energy beneath translucent skin.
Li Yan crouched slightly, observing it. "Azure Vein Grass."
Without delay, he began collecting.
From there, his search continued.
A thick, root-like plant partially buried beneath the soil soon appeared within his perception. Its surface was rough and earthen, yet faint pulses of energy moved through it like a heartbeat.
"Earthroot Stem," Li Yan said under his breath.
He knelt and extracted it carefully, ensuring its structure remained intact.
Hour after hour, Li Yan moved through the hunting ground with unwavering focus. His Spiritual Sense guided him from one ingredient to another, each discovery precise, each action efficient.
Whenever a magical beast crossed his path—
He did not hesitate.
A single strike. Clean. Controlled.
By the time the sun dipped below the horizon, he had already slain several beasts and collected four additional cores.
As darkness settled over the valley, Li Yan found a suitable clearing and stopped.
With practiced ease, he gathered dry wood and lit a campfire. The flames flickered to life, casting warm light against the surrounding trees. The faint crackling of burning wood broke the silence of the night.
Li Yan sat beside it and retrieved his food.
The meal was simple, but sufficient. He ate quietly, his thoughts already returning to his progress.
After finishing, he pulled out his list and reviewed it carefully.
A brief moment passed. "Seventy percent…" he murmured.
Most of the ingredients had already been collected. Only a few rare types remained—those that grew in the deeper areas.
And—
"Seventy-eight beast cores left."
Li Yan rolled up the scroll.
Not difficult.
Just time-consuming.
After a short rest, he retrieved the Spiritual Beast egg. Its faint glow pulsed softly as he channeled his Qi into it. The familiar resonance spread through his body, subtle yet undeniable.
When he finished, he stored it away and stood. His gaze shifted toward the surrounding forest.
Without hesitation, he moved. A nearby tree fell with a sharp crack under his strike. Within moments, a large pile of wood had been gathered.
Then—
Flames rose. A large fire ignited, far brighter than the campfire before. The light pierced the darkness. The heat spread outward.
A signal. A lure.
Li Yan stepped back, his expression calm. "Let's begin."
The night answered. From deep within the forest, distant roars echoed. Shadows moved.
And soon—
They came.
For the next two days, Li Yan repeated the same relentless cycle. Hunt. Collect. Refine his Killing Aura. Sharpen his awareness.
By the end of it—
Every ingredient had been gathered. Every required beast core secured. With nothing left to obtain, Li Yan finally turned back toward the sect.
After returning, he sold the beast bodies without delay. His movements were efficient, his expression unchanged. Once finished, he headed straight to his room.
A warm bath washed away the blood and exhaustion.
Then, as always—
He fed Qi to the Spiritual Beast egg.
Only after that did Li Yan lie down. Within moments, sleep claimed him.
____
The next morning, Li Yan stepped out of his room, refreshed and composed. He made his way toward the Sect's food stall area, where the early bustle had already begun to settle into a steady rhythm.
After a simple meal, he spent 500 shadow points on Tier-3 meat, storing it for later use.
He had no intention of relying on Qi Replenishment Pills for regular use.
During alchemy, consistent recovery was more important than convenience. This meat would provide a more stable source of replenishment, maintaining his Qi replenishment in a more neutral way than the pills, which can have side effects if used too often.
With nothing more to do, Li Yan returned to his residence and entered the alchemy room.
The chamber was empty and quiet, its stillness undisturbed. At its center stood the pill furnace, dormant and cold. Li Yan approached without pause and sat cross-legged before it, his posture naturally settling into calm focus.
With a flick of his hand, two types of ingredients appeared in the air before him—Soft Mist Flower and Clear Dew Leaf—for the Swift Movement Pill. Twenty of each. A faint herbal fragrance spread through the room, subtle yet refreshing.
Li Yan began organizing them.
Each set was arranged with deliberate care, placed into twenty identical portions forming a perfect circle around the furnace. Every movement was precise, measured—without excess.
These were delicate ingredients. Their refinement demanded exact timing and controlled heat. A single misstep would reduce everything to waste.
For most, that alone would be enough to induce hesitation.
Li Yan simply raised his hand.
Fire Qi gathered at his fingertips, swirling once before igniting into a controlled orange flame. With a smooth motion, he directed it into the furnace.
The engraved patterns along its surface pulsed faintly in response, as if awakening. Heat spread through its body, rising under Li Yan's careful supervision.
His Spiritual Sense expanded, enveloping the furnace completely.
Watching. Measuring. Adjusting.
The temperature rose in a steady climb until it reached the precise threshold he sought—neither too fierce to burn, nor too weak to refine.
Only then did Li Yan move.
One set of ingredients lifted into the air, circling the furnace like satellites caught in silent orbit. The lid slid open with a soft metallic whisper.
The Soft Mist Flower descended.
Clang.
The lid closed.
Inside, the flower began to dissolve under the controlled heat, its structure breaking apart into luminous strands of liquid jade. Li Yan guided the transformation patiently, his Qi flowing with quiet precision, stripping away impurities while preserving its core vitality.
The process unfolded exactly as intended.
Every movement of Qi was deliberate.
Every adjustment is exact.
"Not bad," he murmured, his gaze steady as the purified essence gathered at the center of the furnace.
Without delay, the Clear Dew Leaf followed.
The second ingredient, essence extraction, required even finer control. The flame shifted subtly, responding to each minute adjustment as Li Yan balanced heat and timing with practiced ease. There was no hesitation in his movements, no wasted effort—only continuous, deliberate control.
Soon, both essences were refined and suspended within the furnace, stable yet distinct.
Li Yan lowered the temperature.
Fusion.
The most delicate step.
The two essences trembled as they drew closer, their energies clashing subtly. Even in their purified state, they resisted one another, unstable and unwilling to merge. Forcing them would only lead to collapse.
Li Yan's expression remained calm, though his focus deepened. "Stay calm." His voice was low, steady.
His breathing slowed as his Spiritual Sense pulsed outward in controlled waves, enveloping the unstable mixture. Rather than suppressing the conflict, he guided it—soothing the turbulence, easing the resistance, like taming something wild.
Gradually, the resistance weakened. The violent fluctuations settled.
The two streams of essence began to intertwine, their opposition softening into harmony.
Time passed.
Then—
With a subtle adjustment, Li Yan raised the flame slightly.
Inside the furnace, the fused essence condensed. It twisted inward, compressing, forming the outline of a sphere. The nascent pill was fragile, its structure incomplete, but stable enough to take shape.
Li Yan guided it carefully, refining its surface, solidifying its core. Every fraction of movement mattered. Every breath was measured.
The process stretched on, demanding both precision and endurance, draining both focus and Qi.
But Li Yan remained unmoved and focused.
Finally—
Refinement. The last step.
The most unforgiving.
He lowered the flame to a steady, controlled heat and began channeling his Qi with surgical precision to envelop the pill, filtering out the final traces of impurity. Layer by layer, its structure stabilized, becoming purer, denser.
The room fell into silence.
Only the faint hum of circulating Qi remained.
Then—
Pop.
A soft sound broke the stillness.
Li Yan opened the furnace lid.
A faint golden glow spilled outward. From within, a single pill rose into the air—perfectly round, its surface smooth, marked by delicate ripple-like patterns and a huge number of small black dots, which means that this pill is far from perfect.
A medicinal aroma spread through the room. It hovered before him.
Stable. Refined. Complete.
Li Yan extended his hand, and the pill descended gently into his palm.
Warm. Dense. Pure.
A faint smile touched his lips.
"I did it." His voice was quiet, composed.
There was no arrogance in it—only the calm certainty of one who understood exactly what he had achieved.
For a moment, Li Yan simply stared at the pill resting in his palm.
It was small. Unassuming.
Yet to him, it carried a quiet weight—the unmistakable thrill of success. His heartbeat remained steady, but beneath that calm, a subtle excitement stirred.
To succeed on the first attempt…
He recalled the alchemy texts he had studied. They had all emphasized the same point: first-time success was rare. Most novices failed repeatedly, tens of times, producing nothing but wasted ash before achieving even a flawed result.
Only those with exceptional perception and precise flame control could cross that threshold after a few tries.
Li Yan exhaled softly. "Succeeding on the first try…"
A faint curve touched his lips. "Seems I'm not just built for cultivation, combat, and business."
With a flick of his wrist, a pristine pill bottle appeared—followed by a refined Tier-4 High-Level Pill Tester.
The artifact gleamed under the ambient light. Its circular silver base, roughly the width of a palm, was etched with intricate microscopic runes. From its center rose a slender crystalline tube filled with faint blue mist that shifted and curled like something alive.
Responsive. Sensitive. Accurate.
Li Yan placed the pill inside.
The response was immediate.
The runes along the base lit up, and a low hum filled the room as the mist within the tube stirred. Above it, faint golden numbers began to form, rising in steady increments.
01%… 03%… 10%… 17%… 25%… 32%.
Li Yan watched in silence until the numbers stabilized.
"Thirty-two percent." His tone was calm, measured, but his gaze sharpened slightly. "I didn't fail… but I didn't succeed properly either."
The pill vanished into the bottle.
Without pause, his gaze shifted back to the neatly arranged ingredients. He reached for the next set, his movements smooth, his focus sharpening.
This time, Li Yan introduced a new variable.
A stopwatch.
The furnace ignited once more, orange flames rising under his command. Fire Qi flowed through his fingertips, cleaner and more responsive than before. The flame moved with quiet obedience, its behavior reflecting the refinement of his control.
Everything changed.
The heat levels were adjusted more precisely. The timing between stages tightened.
His Spiritual Sense became more focused, more efficient.
Even the angle at which the ingredients entered the furnace was refined.
Each motion carried intent.
Each adjustment built upon the last.