Mortal: Junior Sister Song Yu

After reaching the eleventh level of Qi Refining, Li Xiao discovered an urgent problem—he was running out of spirit stones.

He sat cross-legged in the quiet room, with the remaining spirit stones of the month spread out in front of him: three dull, low-grade spirit stones, most of their spiritual energy already depleted, and only a faint fluctuation of spiritual power could be felt when held in his hand.

As a disciple of the Luoyun Sect, he receives ten low-grade spirit stones every month, which is enough for him at the tenth level of Qi Refining.

At that time, although he had nine drops of liquid mana in his dantian, the condensation of each drop was gradual, and the consumption of spiritual energy was still within a controllable range.

However, nowadays, the quality of magic power after extreme compression is astonishingly high, and the amount of spiritual energy required has also increased exponentially.

Ten spirit stones were only enough for him to cultivate for three days. For the remaining twenty-seven days, he could only rely on absorbing the thin spiritual energy that was scattered between heaven and earth, which was no more efficient than water dripping through stone.

"I have to find a way to earn spirit stones," Li Xiao muttered to himself, his brows furrowed.

He did the math: to maintain his current cultivation speed, he would need at least one hundred spirit stones per month.

To break through to the twelfth level of Qi Refining, one needs to prepare at least a thousand spirit stones to buy pills.

This number is astronomical for ordinary disciples.

Song Yu carried the food box into the quiet room and happened to hear him talking to himself.

The little girl is now eleven years old and has grown into a graceful young lady. She wears a spotless blue dress and has both the heroic spirit of Elder Zhao and the gentleness of Song Zhi in her eyes.

She placed the food box on the table and said softly, "Didn't you learn the fire control technique from the alchemy book left by our mother? You can learn alchemy. Several senior brothers and sisters I know with dual spiritual roots earn resources by alchemy and talisman making. Although cultivation with dual spiritual roots is fast, it also consumes a lot of resources. They all say that self-sufficiency is the only long-term solution."

Li Xiao was intrigued. He remembered that Zhao Wuji was not only an elder of the Law Enforcement Hall, but also a steward of Tianquan Peak. Tianquan Peak was famous for its alchemy, so Elder Zhao should have a lineage of alchemy.

More importantly, Elder Zhao is an upright man who never holds back in teaching his disciples. He is also my grandmaster. If he is willing to give me guidance, I can have a promising future in the path of alchemy.

That night, Li Xiao went to Zhao Wuji and Song Zhi's cave to seek their guidance.

The cave was elegantly furnished, with a painting titled "Solitary Angler on a Cold River" hanging on the wall. The river in the painting was actually flowing slowly, clearly indicating that it was a valuable magical artifact.

Upon hearing his request, Elder Zhao pondered for a long time, then lightly tapped his fingers on the table: "The path of alchemy is difficult, and it is best to have both fire and wood spiritual roots. The gentle vitality of the wood spiritual root can neutralize the violence of fire attribute magic power, playing a key role in the process of condensing the pill. However, you have a metal and fire spiritual root. Although you have the fire attribute, you lack the harmonizing effect of the wood attribute. Your success rate in condensing pills will be 30% lower than that of ordinary alchemists, and the risk of the furnace exploding is also much higher."

Seeing Li Xiao's dimmed eyes, Elder Zhao changed the subject: "However, the great path in the world leads to the same destination. The sharpness of your metal spiritual root actually gives you a unique advantage when refining the essence of medicinal herbs. Ordinary alchemists need to use wood-attribute magic to nurture the herbs, which takes a long time, while you can use metal-attribute magic to precisely remove impurities and retain the most essential part. If you really want to learn, I can teach you the basics of alchemy, but you must be prepared that this path will be more arduous than others."

Li Xiao was overjoyed and immediately knelt down, saying, "Thank you for your guidance, Master. This disciple is not afraid of hardship."

From then on, Li Xiao's schedule became even more packed.

Every morning, he practices swordsmanship for one hour, meditates and absorbs spiritual energy for two hours in the morning, guides Song Yu's cultivation for one hour in the afternoon, and studies array formations, notes, and other miscellaneous subjects for two hours in the evening.

He devoted the remaining four hours to the study of alchemy.

He started with the most basic step: identifying medicinal herbs.

Elder Zhao gave him a copy of the "Compendium of Spiritual Herbs," which recorded the characteristics, origins, and harvesting times of 3,600 kinds of spiritual herbs.

Every morning, besides practicing his swordsmanship, Li Xiao would go to the Hundred Herbs Garden to observe the growth of various medicinal herbs, with the permission of Granny Yao.

He discovered that by channeling his magical power into his eyes, he could see through the flow of spiritual energy within the medicinal herbs, discerning which leaf possessed the most spiritual energy and which section of the root had become impurity.

This discovery thrilled him and deepened his understanding of the Golden Spirit Root.

Mastering the timing and temperature is the second challenge.

The earth fire beneath the alchemy furnace is no ordinary fire, but rather the earth core fire drawn from the depths of the earth by the Luoyun Sect. Its temperature reaches three thousand degrees, and its firepower is violent and difficult to control.

Li Xiao practiced every day in the fire control room of Huoyun Peak, from the most basic "slow simmering" to "high-heat stir-frying". He failed hundreds of times and burned down three alchemy furnaces.

His right hand was scalded with countless blisters by the earth fire, which healed under the nourishment of Song Yu's spiritual energy. This process repeated itself until a thick callus formed.

The technique of condensing the elixir is the third test. Elder Zhao taught him the Falling Cloud Elixir Condensation Technique, which has eight forms, each of which requires specific output of magical power and control of divine sense.

Li Xiao practiced in the quiet room, making hand gestures until his fingers cramped. He eventually mastered the technique, completing the entire routine in three breaths, his finger movements so ethereal and dazzling that they left a lasting impression.

In his first year, he tried to refine the simplest fasting pills, but his success rate was a paltry 10%.

The fasting pill is just a low-grade elixir. The ingredients are cheap and the refining process is simple. It is a required course for beginners in alchemy.

However, Li Xiao had exploded his furnace twenty-seven times in the first three months, damaging a pill-refining furnace worth fifty spirit stones and owing Song Yu three hundred spirit stones.

Every time the furnace exploded, Song Yu would rush in immediately, using water-attribute spiritual energy to cool it down and clean up the debris, and would even tease him, "Senior Brother's furnace explosions have become the morning bell of the courtyard."

The following year, he gradually found his rhythm.

The advantages of metallic magic in the refining process became apparent. The Bigu Pill he refined had extremely low impurity content and its medicinal effect was 30% higher than that of ordinary pills.

The success rate increased to 30%, barely breaking even.

He took the pills he refined to the market to sell, and because of their superior quality, he gradually gained some fame and was known as the "Golden Knife Alchemist".

In the third year, when Li Xiao was twenty-four, he realized a principle: since he lacked wood-attribute magic power, why not first use metal-attribute magic power to refine the medicinal materials to the extreme, and then use fire-attribute magic power to unleash them into pills?

Traditional Taoist alchemy emphasizes the balance of wood and fire, but he insisted on taking the extreme path of the clash between metal and fire.

Although this method requires extremely high control over the heat, it will greatly improve the quality of the resulting pills and may even produce mutations.

He attempted to incorporate the Condensation Technique from the Splitting Gold Blade Technique into alchemy.

The art of the Splitting Gold Blade emphasizes "concentrating power in the blade and unleashing it with concentrated force."

He applied this concept to the moment of pill condensation—first using metal-attribute magic to cut the medicinal liquid into the most uniform particles, and then using fire-attribute magic to burst forth instantly, compressing all the particles at the same time.

A miracle happened.

That day, he opened the furnace to refine the Qi-Nourishing Pill. First, he used metallic magic to cut the medicinal materials into hair-thin, even fragments, each one precise to the millimeter. Then, he used fire-attribute magic to instantly burst forth and urge the pill to condense.

A series of groans came from the alchemy furnace. When the furnace was opened, the nine Qi-Nourishing Pills were all perfectly round like jade, with clear pill patterns. Three of them even reached the middle grade!

Ordinary alchemists might not be able to produce a single medium-grade Qi-Nourishing Pill even after several batches.

From then on, Li Xiao's pursuit of alchemy became unstoppable.

He specially refined the Golden Flame Pill for cultivators with both metal and fire attributes. This pill uses Golden Flame Grass as the main ingredient, combined with Fire Spirit Grass powder, which can temporarily increase the cultivation speed of dual metal and fire spiritual roots by 30%.

Due to its highly targeted nature, it is extremely popular among the Qi Refining disciples of the Fire Cloud Peak of the Falling Cloud Sect, and is sold out as soon as it is refined each month.

By refining pills, Li Xiao could earn a net profit of three hundred spirit stones every month. He invested all of these spirit stones in cultivation and purchased the most expensive pills, resulting in rapid progress in his cultivation.

He broke through the bottleneck between the eleventh and twelfth levels of Qi Refining naturally when he was twenty-four years old.

On that day, the ten drops of liquid magic power compressed to their limit within his body began to vibrate and attract each other.

He had a sudden inspiration and activated the power, causing the ten drops of magic to slowly merge and then separate, eventually forming eleven drops. These eleven drops of magic were solidified, with gold and red colors flowing on their surface, and flames seemed to burn inside, while metal seemed to clang.

It floats in the center of the dantian, heavy as mercury and sharp as a knife.

His divine sense also expanded to forty feet, enabling him to perform simple divine sense transmission.

Standing in the courtyard, he could clearly "see" Song Yu in her room forty feet away, where she was doing her hair and makeup, her black hair flowing like a waterfall, her eyebrows and eyes like a painting.

He dared not look any longer and quickly withdrew his divine sense, silently reciting "Do not look at what is improper".

Song Yu was amazed: "Senior brother, the quality of your magical power is even more refined than mine. Although my cultivation method also emphasizes the purity of magical power, it is not as solid as yours. If you can reach the Foundation Establishment stage, you will probably be invincible among those of the same level."

Li Xiao smiled but remained silent.

He knew that while this extreme cultivation method was powerful, it required astronomical amounts of resources.

An ordinary Qi Refining Level 12 cultivator can attempt to break through to Foundation Establishment with just a few drops of liquid mana, but he needs to increase his drops to thirteen and cultivate to the thirteenth level of Qi Refining to achieve perfect Foundation Establishment.

This means that he needs dozens of times more spirit stones than others.

But every loss has its gain.

The combat power boost brought by these magical powers is also astonishing.

He once sparred with an inner disciple at the thirteenth level of Qi Refining. That disciple cultivated an earth-attribute technique, possessing extremely strong defensive capabilities, and was brimming with confidence after summoning the Xuanhuang Shield. Li Xiao only unleashed one strike; the golden-red blade energy slashed at the shield, tearing it apart like paper. The blade's edge stopped half an inch in front of the opponent's throat.

The disciple broke out in a cold sweat and admitted, "Junior Brother's sword has already shown some of the spirit of the Foundation Establishment stage."

. . . . . . . . .

"Senior brother, the path of cultivation emphasizes a balance of tension and relaxation. If you always push yourself like this, you might be possessed by inner demons," Song Yu said worriedly.

As she spoke, she was using water-attribute magic to nourish his meridians; her fingertips were icy cold, but her tone was filled with worry.

Li Xiao knew she was right.

In the battle at Black Wind Ridge, he killed someone for the first time and experienced death for the first time.

The fear and excitement between life and death, the sensation of a blade slicing through one's throat, the temperature of spurting blood—all of these were incorporated into his swordsmanship.

Every strike is delivered with full force, leaving no room for retreat; it's either the enemy's death or my own.

This extreme sword intent amplified the power of his attacks, but it also became a breeding ground for inner demons.