Chapter 4945 — Alchemy Failure
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 3
"Since that is settled, I shall go refine the pill first; we can all head over together when the banquet comes." Wei Zhao said a word to the company, then rose and departed with the chest of precious spirit herbs Zhuang Yifan had brought, leaving the others to go on drinking tea and chatting.
The two academies shaking hands and making peace was a matter of great consequence touching every side. Liu Ziqi and Li Ren would have to hash out a draft between them first. As for Huo Yudie, Wang Xinyan, and Huang Xiaotao, the three women had long since slipped away for a private whisper; there is always endless talk among women, especially when they share a common subject in Wei Zhao.
Arriving at the alchemy chamber specially fitted out aboard the treasure ship, Wei Zhao took but a moment to settle his mind before impatiently making the attempt. This was his first time refining a Xuan-rank pill, and he could not help feeling somewhat uneasy and tense.
Yet once he brought out the Shennong Cauldron, installed the alchemy-artifact peripheral that Han Jingyi had sent him, and had everything in readiness, Wei Zhao's state of mind abruptly went still. A heart as placid as an old well is the minimum requirement for alchemy; if the mind is unsettled, one may as well not even fire the furnace—the odds of success would be zero in any case.
This alchemy session was unlike those before. Previously Wei Zhao had only to follow the prompts on the tablet and keep feeding in true qi of the requisite intensity, but this time there was an extra step: he had to control the attributes of his true qi. The Earth-Solid Pill required only metal-, wood-, and earth-attribute true qi; if Wei Zhao carelessly carried all eight attributes at once, then even if he succeeded by luck, what came out would not be a proper Earth-Solid Pill.
The step itself was not difficult. For true Xuan-rank alchemists, the challenge lay in flawlessly simulating the other attributes of true qi; Wei Zhao had no such trouble at all. He needed only to hold three attributes in check, and everything else proceeded as before, by foolproof rote operation.
Everything seemed to go smoothly. Wei Zhao felt not the slightest hint of the difficulty proper to refining a Xuan-rank pill; from first to last he was effortlessly at ease. But when at the end he opened the Shennong Cauldron to look, there was nothing inside but a heap of dregs.
Failure! The result was not unexpected; Wei Zhao had been mentally prepared for it, which was why he had used only a single portion of materials this time. The trouble was that, by his own alchemical experience, he had no idea where the failure had occurred.
Fortunately, there was the alchemy-artifact peripheral. After this first failure, the computer began automatically correcting the alchemical curve just past. The new curve looked at first glance no different from the old, but a closer look revealed fine adjustments in many details.
At these adjustments made by the computer, Wei Zhao wore an expression of profound awe at things he did not understand. He was not, after all, a Xuan-rank alchemist who had climbed the ladder properly step by step; he could not begin to see why these adjustments were made, much less what effect they would have.
Still, Wei Zhao did not need to understand them fully. He had only to follow the computer's prompts and feed in true qi; so long as that went without deviation, everything else was the Shennong Cauldron's business, and he could not interfere at all.
In theory, the Shennong Cauldron fitted with its peripheral was a universal alchemical artifact, for even if it failed the first time, it could keep optimizing by adjusting the alchemical curve—the second time failing, then the third, then the fourth, right up until success at last...