Chapter 158: Difficult Success
Once the preparations were done, Mo Wuji ignited the green firestone. A green flame instantly engulfed the entire bottom of the furnace. Mo Wuji’s spiritual will fell on the pale green flame and the frightening temperature gave him a trembling sensation.
Mo Wuji started to focus as he carefully inserted the blue-ish Purple Jade Toad Lotus. The temperature of the pill furnace immediately melted the Purple Jade Toad Lotus into its medicinal essences. Afterwhich, Mo Wuji’s pill techniques were immediately in place to start purifying the essences.
Even from the start, Mo Wuji knew he had a chance of success. The green firestone was great not only because of its high temperature but more because of the purity of its flame and its stability. This made it much easier for him to purify the medicinal essences. The first time Mo Wuji tried to purify the Purple Jade Toad Lotus, he lost control of his pill techniques. Because of that, he was unable to control the the spiritual energy of the essences resulting in multiple impurities and hence, the collapse of the purification. This time, he managed to keep in under control despite using a lot of energy.
After an incense worth of time, Mo Wuji swallowed an Earthly Soul Protecting Pill before he continued to purify the Purple Jade Toad Lotus. After one hour, even with the aid of the Earthly Soul Protecting Pill, Mo Wuji still felt completely exhausted but he finally completed his purification of the Purple Jade Toad Lotus.
He used the extraction technique to retrieve the medicinal essences of the Purple Jade Toad Lotus from the pill furnace.
Mo Wuji could no longer care about pill poisoning as he desperately swallowed a handful of different healing pills at once so that he could recover both his spiritual will and elemental energy in the shortest possible time. He then immediately sent the one tenth of a Fire Jade which he cut earlier into the pill furnace.
It was not that he did not wish to rest longer, but once the green firestone had been ignited, it was almost impossible to put the flame out. Mo Wuji simply could not bear to waste the firestone worth 150,000 Earth grade spirit stones just like that.
Fortunately, the green firestone had a high enough intensity to last for a long duration.
Mo Wuji constantly took short breaks in between his concoction to replenish his energy and just like that, the flame finally died down after more than six hours.
For Mo Wuji to continuously overexert his spiritual will and elemental energy, he had reached his limit even though it was not till the extent of complete exhaustion. In slightly over six hours, Mo Wuji managed to purify and extract three out of the ten cut pieces of Fire Jade and three Purple Jade Toad Lotus.
This resulted in him using up almost all of his healing pills, and causing damage to his elemental energy. His whole face turned pale and he was feeling not too different from when he first started to cultivate the Seven Style Lightning Sky.
As much as Mo Wuji really wanted to continue purifying the other herbs, his body was simply too worn out. The moment he transferred the extracted medicinal essences into a bottle, he immediately fell asleep on the floor.
Ever since he had his spiritual will, Mo Wuji had never consumed so much of his spiritual will before. It was the first time he over consumed his elemental energy too. This time round, he was even sacrificing his health just to purify two Tier 7 spiritual herbs.
As he opened his eyes after sleeping for one day and one night, his body still felt feeble.
Mo Wuji resisted the temptation to rest longer as he got up to start purifying the Lingzhi, Sky Ginseng, Pine Pulse and the other Tier 4 spiritual herbs.
For a Tier 4 Pill Refiner like himself, purifying a Tier 4 spiritual herb was considered resting.
After just two hours, Mo Wuji completed the purification and extraction of all the Tier 4 spiritual herbs before pouring the medicinal essences into a jade vase.
As he was cleaning the pill furnace, Mo Wuji noticed a small crack on his pill furnace. The pill furnace was a gift from Zhen Shaoke and it could be considered to be a low grade spiritual item. He did not expect himself to damage it just by purifying the herbs.
Mo Wuji did not mind the fact that the pill furnace was damaged. After keeping the damaged pill furnace, he cleaned up once again before taking out his drug refining equipments. Nothing was more important than successfully concocting the drug. It would be decided at this stage if this would be a success or a failure. If he failed, it was likely that he would never be able to achieve much in this life. His channel opening solution had helped him advance to where he was today, but there was also a limit to how much it could help him.
As compared to concocting pills, Mo Wuji was more familiar with concocting drugs. As he finished purifying over 10 normal herbs, he started to add in the spiritual herb essences.
Even though Mo Wuji could do these steps with his eyes closed, he opened his eyes as wide as he could to make sure that he would not miss a step.
After a full four hours, the solution was successfully concocted as they flowed into a small bottle that Mo Wuji pre-prepared earlier. The size of each bottle was probably slightly smaller than an adult’s pinky.
This time round, Mo Wuji successfully concocted 12 bottles of channel opening solution.
As soon as the 12 bottles were out, Mo Wuji was feeling so exhilarated as he immediately grabbed one bottle to pour into his mouth.
A familiar hotness which Mo Wuji had not felt for a long time almost burnt his throat. However, Mo Wuji did not feel much from such a piercing pain, instead, there was almost tears of happiness coming out from his eyes.
It was yet another success as his judgement was proved right again. As his cultivation level increased, there would be an increasing number of opened meridians in his body and he would naturally expect more from the channel opening solution.
His channel opening solution this time round was so much better than the previous two times. One could even say that this channel opening solution was the qualitative change for Mo Wuji.
The line of fire directly raged opened a new meridian in his body.
Mo Wuji clenched his fist because he desperately needed a few lightning bolts to open this meridian fully.
...
This was the seventh day since Mo Wuji entered the Heaven Seeking Palace and it was a while since he left his house too. Within seven days, he finished all the ingredients that he had initially and managed to concoct a total of 36 bottles of the channel opening solution.
"Pill Master Mo, are you okay..." The moment Mo Wuji left his courtyard, an average built simple and honest looking teen was standing outside. This young man was looking at Mo Wuji astonishingly as he was evidently worried about him
Even though Mo Wuji cleaned up the place, his hair and beard were still not tidied up.
"Are you brother Chao?" Mo Wuji hesitated for a while before finally recognising the young man in front of his eyes. It was indeed the brother who was stuck with him on the eighth step back then, Chao Buheng.
Mo Wuji knew that Chao Buheng stayed in District D too but he had no idea where exactly was his residence located at.
Seeing Mo Wuji recognising him, Chao Buheng grinned as he said, "That’s right, I am indeed Chao Buheng. I’ve noticed that brother Mo had not left your house for a few days and looked really exhausted therefore, I was wondering if anything happened and decided to pay a visit."
Mo Wuji felt a little touched as he believed that Chao Buheng would be the only person in the entire Heaven Seeking Palace to remember that Mo Wuji had not left his house for a few days. Chao Buheng’s cultivation level was about the same as Mo Wuji but he was a very honest man who constantly undermined himself in front of others. Even towards Mo Wuji who was at the same step as he was, he addressed Mo Wuji as a senior.
"Senior Mo, there will be an elder imparting the Dao techniques at the Technique Hall. If you’re interested, why don’t we head over together?" Chao Buheng asked cautiously.
Mo Wuji could tell from the way Chao Buheng asked that this was probably not the first time he came looking for him.
"Junior Chao, thank you for your invitation. I wish to visit the Immortal Training Tower first and maybe I will head over to the class afterwards," Mo Wuji’s main priority after concocting 36 bottles of brand new channel opening pills would be to open more meridians instead of listening to some lesson.
Chao Buheng hurried to say, "Alright, I shall not disturb Senior Mo then."
Finishing his words, Chao Buheng turned and left as if Mo Wuji would become angry if he was to stay any longer.
Mo Wuji felt sympathetic for Chao Buheng. For a person who was honest, timid and always feeling inferior to others, it would be difficult to achieve anything much in a place like the Heaven Seeking Palace.
Very quickly, Mo Wuji started to self-deprecate for worrying about Chao Buheng as Chao Buheng was probably worried about him too.
...
Heaven Seeking Palace Immortal Training Tower.
Mo Wuji stood in front of the Immortal Training Tower feeling slightly emotional. Half a year ago when he was at the Fringe City’s Immortal Training Tower opening meridians, he was wondering when he will ever be able to visit a real Immortal Training Tower like the one in the Heaven Seeking Palace.
He certainly did not expect himself to be standing in front of the Heaven Seeking Palace’s Immortal Training Tower in less than a year.
Compared to the Fringe City’s replica Immortal Training Tower, the Heaven Seeking Palace’s Immortal Training Tower was the true training tower.
The square located in front of the Immortal Training Tower was spectacular. The many cultivators here each gave out a stronger aura than the previous ones who came before them. Mo Wuji suspected that he was the one with the lowest cultivation level here.
There was a steady stream of cultivators entering to cultivate. Mo Wuji arrived at the receptionist of the Immortal Training Tower, "May I ask how many spirit stones would two hours in the Lighting Tempering Room cost?"
"Do you wish to use the sect’s contribution points or spirit stones to pay?" The receptionist was a cute female cultivator with a very sweet and pleasant voice.
Mo Wuji only recently entered the sect and even after he entered, he had been fully focused on concocting his channel opening solutions. Where would he have found time to earn contribution points? Now that the receptionist asked, he hurried to answer, "I want to pay using my spirit stones."
The female cultivator gave a slight smile, "Then which Lightning Tempering Room do you wish to use? There are the low grade, intermediate grade, high grade and the supreme grade Lightning Tempering Room."
Mo Wuji believed that the one he visited at the Fringe City should be a low grade Lightning Tempering Room. Now that both his spiritual will and strength increased tremendously, coupled with the fact that he could even purify a Tier 7 spiritual herb, going to an intermediate grade Lightning Tempering Room should not be a problem for him.
"I want the intermediate Lightning Tempering Room," Mo Wuji said confidently as he chose the intermediate grade Lightning Tempering Room.
The female cultivator revealed an adorable smile, "Intermediate grade Lightning Tempering Room would cost 200 Earth grade spirit stones per two hours..."
Mo Wuji could not believe what he heard as he asked suspiciously, "So expensive?"
Without questioning, Mo Wuji guessed that the second Lightning Tempering Room in the Fringe City should be an intermediate grade Lightning Tempering Room. However, the cost there was not even a fraction of the cost here.
The female cultivator kept her smile and said patiently, "You could choose to use the sect’s contribution points to book the room. You would only need 20 contribution points to spend two hours in the intermediate grade Lightning Tempering Room. In fact, there was very little people who use spirit stones to rent the room as the majority used their contribution points instead."
Earn the contribution points now? Mo Wuji naturally did not want to delay himself from opening more meridians so he took out 2000 Earth grade spirit stones before saying, "I will first book the room for 20 hours..."
The female cultivator looked suspiciously at Mo Wuji, "Casually booking the room for 20 hours despite knowing that it is not worth it if you pay by spirit stones. You must be a wealthy owner."
"May I ask if there are any empty intermediate grade Ice Tempering Room?" Just as the female cultivator said this, a soothing voice sounded beside Mo Wuji.