Chapter 4759 — An Arc of Lightning Pierces the Sky
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 3
"All right, I'll fire up the cauldron and refine the pill right now." Wei Zhao promptly had Ning Xuefei find him a dedicated pill-refining chamber, and once he had laid out all the necessary materials he made ready to begin. Seeing this, Huo Yudie hurried off to fetch her own Thunder Mystic Vine. Though Wei Zhao actually had more of it than she did, this pill was being refined on her account, and she felt that, in all fairness, the vine ought to come from her.
Since Huo Yudie insisted, Wei Zhao did not press the matter. He had already come to regard her as one of his own, and for one of his own, whatever fine things came his way in the future would be shared with her. Whose Thunder Mystic Vine they used this time hardly mattered.
To refine a Thunder Mystic Pill, beyond the core ingredient of Thunder Mystic Vine, one also needed a whole array of supplementary materials of every description. Wei Zhao's store of supplies, though already taking decent shape, was not quite complete. As luck would have it, among the heap of rare treasures he had extorted from Scarface earlier, the two missing materials were both to be found, and so everything was in readiness.
As Wei Zhao sorted the materials and adjusted his condition, Huo Yudie and the others watched from a distance, scarcely daring to breathe too loudly for fear of disturbing him.
Nothing is more detrimental during pill refinement than outside interference; ideally, Wei Zhao would have shut himself away alone to work. But this time was special—Han Jingyi needed to be on hand to monitor things—so he simply let Huo Yudie and the rest come in to watch the excitement. They were all his people, after all, and each of them knew how to conduct herself.
After checking off the Thunder Mystic Vine and the various supplementary materials one by one and placing them all into the Divine Farmer's Cauldron, Wei Zhao drew a deep breath and set the refining process in motion.
Listening to Han Jingyi's voice issuing from the tablet, Huo Yudie could not help but widen her eyes. Beside her, however, Ning Xuefei and Shangguan Lan'er both wore expressions of perfect indifference; they had witnessed Wei Zhao refining pills long ago. Just as Wei Zhao had said, they were already used to it.
Everything proceeded normally, and the tablet quickly calculated the refinement curve. Wei Zhao examined it closely and at once discovered that this curve was utterly different from those of his previous attempts.
His earlier attempts, though not Thunder Mystic Pills, had all been seventh-grade pills as well. At first glance their refinement curves looked wildly dissimilar, yet they shared one thing in common: the early and middle stages were intricate and tortuous, but once they reached the later stage, every single one of them turned into a classic, most pleasing arc—without exception.
This time was different. The curve was not only turbulent through the early and middle stages, but in the later stage it grew obscure and unfathomable, winding and convoluted to the extreme. Set beside those classic arcs of previous attempts, it was downright hideous to behold.
Wei Zhao instinctively turned to glance at Han Jingyi. Seeing her give him a nod, his heart settled at once, and a faint understanding began to dawn on him.
The reason those earlier refinement curves had been so beautiful was that they had been derived purely from data projection—a perfect curve existing only in the ideal, one that could never exist in reality. To follow such a castle-in-the-air ideal curve single-mindedly, it would have been a wonder if the refinement had not gone wrong.