Martial Arts: My talent multiplier increased

Fang Yuan's brow twitched slightly.

It wasn't just slowed down a little. It was slowed down by at least 60%. The spread of the Blood Corrosion Poison was suppressed to near a standstill by her handful of medicinal powder.

Fang Yuan quickly analyzed the ingredients of her powder in his mind. With twice the comprehension and his own accumulation of pharmacological knowledge, he realized that the spiciness was a blend of angelica and chuanxiong. The bitterness came from berberine. There was also a very faint sweetness, almost masked by the other flavors.

Licorice? No. Licorice's sweetness is more rounded. This sweetness is sharp, with a hint of metallic quality.

Fang Yuan's mind went through all the medicinal herbs he had ever seen.

No matches found.

The formula for this medicine powder was not found in any of the pharmacopoeias he had ever read.

Fang Yuan re-examined the woman in front of him, who was covered in wounds, dressed in rags, and clutching her medicine box as if it were her lifeline.

Her antidote powder can suppress the spread of the blood-corroding poison by 60%.

None of the medicines currently in Baicaotang's inventory can achieve this effect.

but--

Fang Yuan used his spiritual senses to observe the location of the wound for three breaths.

The spread of the blood-corroding poison did not stop after it slowed down.

A 60% suppression rate is not enough. The blood-corroding poison is still slowly creeping towards the spinal cord. It's just that the time has increased from two hours to five hours.

Her medicinal powder had an extremely sophisticated formula. But the Blood Corrosion Poison was no ordinary poison.

Fang Yuan stood up.

"Your medicine can only buy time, it can't cure the root cause."

The woman's fingers gripped the bamboo tube tightly. Her knuckles were white.

She didn't speak. But her silence itself was an admission.

Fang Yuan turned around and walked back.

I took three steps.

"Two hours becomes five hours. You choose."

I took ten steps.

It was so quiet behind me that it felt like the only sound on the road was the wind.

Tie Meng followed Fang Yuan for fifteen steps. His ears were perked up.

On the sixteenth step, a very faint sound came from behind.

The sound of a porcelain bottle cap being unscrewed.

Fang Yuan didn't turn around.

The corners of his mouth curved less than half a millimeter from an angle that Tie Meng couldn't see.

Twenty steps.

The blood and qi signals behind her changed. Fang Yuan's divine sense locked onto that signal—after the high-purity blood and qi pill, which had been tempered four times the strength of her bones, entered her meridians, its medicinal power flowed like a hot current along the path of blood and qi circulation to the wound on her back.

Ten breaths.

The spread of the Blood Corrosion Poison was completely contained. The spreading blood vessels began to shrink under the influence of the Qi and Blood Pill's medicinal power—slowly, but definitely shrinking back.

Fang Yuan nodded inwardly.

If the purity of the Qi and Blood Pill is high enough, the "heat" of Qi and Blood can forcefully suppress the "coldness" of the Blood Corrosion Poison. The Qi and Blood Pill refined with four times the strength of one's root bone will have a purity that is more than 30% higher than the highest-grade pills on the market. This 30% difference is the difference between "buying time" and "suppressing it."

Footsteps sounded behind me.

Unsteady. Stumbling along, one step at a time. But the direction was clear—it was heading towards Fang Yuan.

Fang Yuan didn't stop walking.

Tie Meng turned his head and glanced at it, muttering something under his breath.

The footsteps followed for about thirty paces before finally catching up.

Out of the corner of Fang Yuan's eye, he saw a figure carrying a huge medicine box, panting heavily, with half of his face covered in hair.

She didn't say thank you.

He didn't say a word.

But her gaze remained fixed on Fang Yuan.

It wasn't a look of gratitude. Fang Yuan was certain. He'd seen far too many kinds of looks: grateful, awe-inspiring, calculating. This look didn't belong to any of them.

She was looking at his hands.

To be precise—she was looking at the trace of amber-colored powder remaining on Fang Yuan's right fingertip.

"The purity of your Qi and Blood Pill is at least 30% higher than the best on the market."

A woman's voice suddenly rang out. It wasn't completely hoarse, but her speech was much faster than before.

"No, it's more than 30%. I tasted it when I put it in my mouth just now—the dispersion of the medicinal properties was extremely low, which means that the temperature control precision during the refining process is at least twice that of the conventional method. Moreover, the core ingredient of the Qi and Blood Pill is Crimson Blood Grass, and the retention rate of the active ingredients of Crimson Blood Grass in your pill is nearly 40% higher than that of the best pharmacy I've ever seen."

She took a breath.

"Who made it?"

Fang Yuan's stride length remained unchanged.

"I."

The woman paused in her steps.

The bottom of the medicine box hit the ground with a dull thud.

She stood still. Fang Yuan and Tie Meng took five more steps forward.

"Did you make this?"

Fang Yuan didn't turn around. Nor did he stop.

She caught up again, this time even faster. The medicine box swayed on her back, the rope digging into an old wound on her shoulder, causing it to bleed. She ignored it.

"You refined this Qi and Blood Pill yourself? What school of thought is your temperature control method? Did you use cold soaking or hot steaming for the pre-processing of the Crimson Blood Grass? With such a high retention rate of active ingredients, what excipients did you use to stabilize the medicinal properties? Did you add Ice Silkworm Powder? No, Ice Silkworm Powder will make the medicinal properties too cold; the medicinal properties of this pill are purely Yang—"

Tie Meng turned his neck at an exaggerated angle.

He glanced at the woman who was chasing after him, bombarding him with questions, and then at Fang Yuan's unmoved back of the head.

"What...what is she saying?" Tie Meng asked in a low voice.

Fang Yuan's lips twitched slightly.

"She's asking me about the techniques for making medicine."

"...I recognized every single word she used, but when put together, it sounded like gibberish."

Fang Yuan didn't reply. His steps slowed slightly. Not because he stopped to wait for the woman, but because his heightened understanding was processing the information revealed in her long string of questions.

Her pharmacological knowledge is very comprehensive. It's not self-taught; it's something she's systematically learned.

Her understanding of *Gynostemma pentaphyllum* is profound—accurately judging the differences in the retention rate of active ingredients requires the accumulation of at least hundreds of comparative experiments.

She mentioned Ice Silkworm Powder. Ice Silkworm Powder is an extremely rare ingredient. Fang Yuan had only seen it once in the intelligence booklet, and that was in a notebook that recorded commonly used ingredients by high-level alchemists.

A young woman at the peak of the Body Refinement Realm, with practical combat ability practically zero. But her talent in pharmacology—

Fang Yuan gave himself an evaluation.

He was taller than everyone he had ever seen.

This includes Manager Qian of Baicaotang, even without the system's support.

Fang Yuan resumed his normal pace. He didn't turn around, but he spoke.

"Cold soaking method. No silkworm powder added. The excipient is an extract of wild ginseng rootlets."

There was silence behind me for three breaths.

Then the woman's voice rang out again. This time, the tone was a half-tone higher than before.

"Wild ginseng roots? Are you crazy? The medicinal properties of ginseng roots fluctuate wildly; the activity of roots from different origins can vary by more than three times. How do you control batch stability?"

Fang Yuan's lips curved into a smile.

interesting.

He glanced back. The woman's face was smeared with mud and blood, her hair was a tangled mess, and her clothes were torn to shreds. But her eyes—

It's unbelievably bright.

Unlike the wariness I felt earlier, this brightness was pure, unadulterated excitement—the kind of gleam that only a drug fanatic would have when they see a good medicine.

"What's your name?" Fang Yuan asked.

"Liu Ruyan." She didn't hesitate. "From Qingyao Valley."