“Fellow Daoist Ruan.”
He calmly stepped back, yielding the spot in front of the cauldron.
“This Venerable Self sees that your desire to learn is sincere. You ignite the Spiritual Flame, and I will guide you from the side.”
Ruan Se was stunned again.
Igniting the flame was the most basic step in alchemy, something even an apprentice could do, but since Senior said so, there must be a reason.
She couldn’t figure out what special significance there was, but she didn’t dare ask.
Taking it as a test of her basic skills, she quickly collected herself and walked briskly to the Ignition Platform.
Spiritual Power flowed slowly from her palm.
The Firestone inlaid beneath the Ignition Platform sensed the Spiritual Power and hummed as it lit up, and a stream of orange-red Spiritual Flame shot out from the center.
Lai Li’an watched the Spiritual Flame ignite, nodded slightly, and hummed in approval.
Ruan Se retreated to the corner and once again restrained her aura.
‘Senior nodded just now. Was that his approval?’
‘But I haven’t done anything yet, just lit a fire that even an apprentice could do. What exactly does Senior want me to see in this ignition?’
She wanted to ask but didn’t dare.
She suppressed her doubts and refocused on the cauldron.
The Spiritual Flame burned quietly beneath the cauldron, its orange-red glow reflecting on the walls, enveloping the entire alchemy room in a warm halo.
From the cauldron came the faint crackling of medicinal herbs being roasted by the high temperature.
Lai Li’an stood before the cauldron, his back to Ruan Se, and closed his eyes.
On the surface, he looked like an Alchemy Grandmaster precisely controlling the medicinal power in the cauldron with his divine sense.
But in reality, Lai Li’an was screaming inwardly: ‘System, move already! I can’t keep up the act!’
The Eternal Alchemy Divine Scripture had quietly activated the moment he closed his eyes.
The Spiritual Qi inside his body probed into the cauldron in a way he himself couldn’t understand, wrapping each medicinal herb in an extremely thin membrane of Spiritual Qi.
These membranes isolated the different herbs while allowing them to be refined individually under the same high temperature.
When all this happened, in Ruan Se’s eyes, there was no change at all.
She only saw that Senior had closed his eyes, standing motionless, while the Spiritual Flame continued to burn.
Suddenly, the Spiritual Flame shot up dramatically.
The fire spread from the bottom of the cauldron along its walls, like an awakened fire serpent, wrapping the entire cauldron in its blazing core.
The temperature in the entire alchemy room surged within a single breath.
Ruan Se shot up straight.
‘This is Great Fire Temperature Raising!’
Her heart raced.
She unconsciously stepped half a step forward, her eyes full of anticipation.
‘Senior is about to start the real alchemy!’
‘This Great Fire Temperature Raising must be to quickly stimulate the herbs’ medicinal properties. Surely he’ll adjust the heat next and start refining the liquid.’
But as time ticked by second by second, she began to grow uneasy.
As an Alchemist knew, the most taboo thing in alchemy was to burn at full blast all the way through.
Some herbs needed slow simmering with gentle fire, others needed rapid assault with fierce fire.
The rhythm of fire control was the essence of the Alchemy Path.
But Senior, from start to finish, hadn’t adjusted the heat at all.
He just kept it at full blast.
And all the herbs were mixed together.
Different herbs had completely different refinement speeds at the same temperature.
Some of the herbs inside might have already turned to ashes.
She couldn’t help recalling Lai Li’an’s theory of “Using Medicine to Control Medicine.”
It had sounded profound at the time, but now, watching this raging Spiritual Flame, she couldn’t help wondering: ‘Senior isn’t just making this up, is he?’
The Spiritual Flame had been burning at full intensity for a full quarter of an hour, yet there was no sign of it weakening, no trace of any adjustment.
In a normal alchemy process, the Great Fire Temperature Raising lasted at most a short while.
Once the medicinal power dissolved and the liquid merged, it would immediately switch to a gentle slow simmer.
But now the Spiritual Flame was still burning.
It was burning so fiercely that the entire cauldron began to emit a faint hum.
‘Can the herbs withstand this?’
She secretly felt sorry for those herbs.
Although this batch wasn’t rare treasures, they were still top-grade materials in perfect condition.
To see them burned away like this—it would be a lie to say she didn’t feel pained.
What troubled her even more was: if this batch failed, where would she find a second set of materials?
She shook her head silently.
‘I suppose so. If the disciple doesn’t even know the most basic alchemy knowledge, how impressive can the master be?’
That earlier scene of killing a Late Core Formation cultivator with one palm strike was certainly shocking, but that wasn’t alchemy.
A Mid Golden Core cultivator claiming he could refine an Eighth-Grade Pill—and she actually believed him.
She leaned against the medicine cabinet, lowering her eyelashes, and began silently calculating if there was any other way to save Su Wan’er.
Just as she was feeling disheartened, a supernatural phenomenon suddenly appeared!
Above the cauldron, a faint green mist appeared out of nowhere.
The green mist swirled unpredictably above the cauldron, spinning faster and faster, its color deepening from pale green to emerald green, and then to a rich, dark green.
A wisp of an elusive pill fragrance wafted out from the cauldron, like the scent of grass after the first spring rain.
That was the fragrance of Everlasting Flower.
The Everlasting Flower hadn’t been destroyed at all—its medicinal power had been firmly sealed within, pushed to the extreme under this limit-breaking high temperature, and had begun to merge with other medicinal powers.
Ruan Se’s eyes widened.
‘Impossible!’
‘The fire has been burning for so long, and not only are the herbs not damaged, they’re actually starting to merge?’
Her gaze was fixed on the increasingly bright dark green mist above the cauldron.
Suddenly, a thought exploded in her mind, making her whole body tremble.
‘Senior has been alchemizing in an unprecedented way!’
‘Wrapping each herb with Spiritual Power, letting them refine individually at their own pace in the same cauldron, without interfering with each other, finally completing the fusion of medicinal properties on their own under the tempering of the fierce flame!’
‘This is not just several times more complex than ordinary methods—controlling over a dozen herbs in the flame simultaneously with divine sense, and also precisely calculating the dissolution speed of each herb. This level of precise control, she hadn’t even theorized it, let alone put it into practice.’
‘The reason for using the fierce fire was not to show off, but to save time.’
‘Su Wan’er won’t survive the night. Senior can’t afford to follow the entire alchemy process step by step. He’s racing against the King of Hell, using his supreme alchemy to gamble on a path to survival.’
‘He doesn’t say it, but from the moment he stepped into this alchemy room, he’s been fighting desperately.’
Thinking of this, Ruan Se felt an indescribable emotion rise in her heart.
‘If only her own Master could treat her like this.’
“Not good!”
Ruan Se suddenly snapped out of her thoughts.
Light pierced through the cauldron, emerging from every array pattern, illuminating the entire alchemy room.
‘This degree of radiance, this concentration of Spiritual Qi—it will definitely attract a Cauldron Tribulation!’
‘And the commotion of a Cauldron Tribulation will definitely expose their location. If it attracts the Enforcement Hall cultivators, that would be bad. Senior actually didn’t set up a Concealment Array in advance.’
She glanced at Lai Li’an.
He was still unmoving with his eyes closed, as if all his focus was immersed in the cauldron.
Ruan Se opened her mouth, wanting to call out to him again, but forcibly swallowed the words.
‘Senior is fully focused on controlling the flame. I can’t distract him.’
She took a deep breath, turned around, and rushed out of the alchemy room.
There was no time to hesitate.