Chapter 1459 — Notes on Alchemy: Thus a Profound Tier First Grade Pill Is Commonly Called a Super-Grade Pill, Meaning It Has Already Passed Beyond the Grade of Ordinary Pills
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
Of course, beyond all that, this notebook of an alchemist's reflections did indeed collect a number of pill formulas at Profound Tier first grade and above — but in Zhang Lifeng's eyes, those formulas were either nonsense or simply beyond anyone's reach.
Some of the ingredients could never form a pill, no matter what; even if the furnace did not blow apart, they could never be condensed into one. Zhang Lifeng tried a few times, and after being blasted black in the face, he had no choice but to give up.
Cultivators cultivate true qi or the body — the gathering of true qi, the strengthening of the physique — while alchemists cultivate pill fire: the control and elevation of pill fire. And pill fire, so called, is of many kinds; at base it is divided into five: metal, wood, earth, water, and fire. The fire kind is the most fundamental of fundamentals, and most alchemists choose it, for by fire one can condense the greatest variety of pills. Only certain special pills require other kinds of pill fire.
Of course, one may also choose to dual cultivate. But a person's energy is limited, and the dual cultivation of pill fire is not at all the same as the dual cultivation of the inner and outer paths. Inner and outer cultivation complement and complete each other; the dual cultivation of pill fire means starting over from the very beginning!
Even if you have raised fire-kind pill fire all the way to the Yellow Tier seventh grade, if you then wish to cultivate water-kind pill fire, you must begin again from the first. So unless one is an alchemist of great accomplishment, few will attempt dual cultivation; it is simply asking for hardship, something to do only when one has nothing better to occupy him.
To cultivate and raise pill fire is to train its temperature, the size of its flame, and its purity — a path utterly different from the cultivation of the inner and outer arts!
The basic precondition for becoming an alchemist is that one must first be a cultivator — and an inner-cultivation practitioner at that! That is to say, to become a Yellow Tier alchemist, one must possess the strength of a Yellow Tier inner cultivator; and likewise, to become a Profound Tier alchemist, one must possess the strength of a Profound Tier inner cultivator! Yet these are only theoretical figures. By Zhang Lifeng's account, even a Heaven Tier inner expert may not necessarily become a Profound Tier first grade alchemist; to cultivate pill fire, one must have a vast reserve of true qi to sustain it!
Wei Zhao had not expected that becoming an alchemist would prove so complicated a business. No wonder a single Yellow Tier third grade Qi Gathering Pill could raise such a storm, to say nothing of pills of higher grade!
Still, Wei Zhao had nothing pressing on his hands at present. Beyond the window all was a vast white blur; he might as well cultivate his pill arts here in the inn.
In the Alchemist's Notes, Zhang Lifeng had recorded in detail the heart method formulas for cultivating the five kinds of pill fire: metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. Each set of formulas was in fact quite short. An alchemist's cultivation method was a simple thing, nothing complicated — merely a formula for converting the true qi within an inner cultivator's body into the corresponding pill fire. Hence a Yellow Tier cultivator could at best become a Yellow Tier alchemist, for he was constrained by the grade of his own true qi.
In truth, however, because a Yellow Tier cultivator's true qi is limited, and because the inner heart method he practices does not perfectly accord with the method for cultivating pill fire, a degree of error and loss is bound to arise. To become a Yellow Tier seventh grade alchemist while possessing only Yellow Tier inner strength is basically impossible; generally, to reach the first or second grade is already good, and even the third is unlikely.