When Qin Yi returned to the courtyard, he immediately saw the argumentative fellow staring at him with a fixed gaze, looking like he was waiting for Qin Yi to say something. Qin Yi kindly patted his shoulder and silently walked into the house.
Everyone knew he was argumentative; how could he fall into the trap?
Eagle Li definitely didn’t expect that Qin Yi had more experience dealing with argumentative people than fighting. He understood that as long as he didn’t speak, even the best debater wouldn’t find a chance to argue. Plus, the guy didn’t dare to provoke a guest, so that was that.
So, if he wanted to live comfortably here, it was actually quite simple.
Qin Yi took out a wolf-tooth club and a pill furnace from his ring, preparing to refine pills without saying a word.
Liu Su made a clicking sound with her tongue. “I thought you’d brag a bit about being pursued by a beauty.”
“What’s there to brag about?”
“Don’t you feel a bit pleased?”
Qin Yi paused his actions of dividing the herbs and sighed, “Saying I’m not a bit pleased would be lying. But come on, bragging about rejecting a girl feels pretty scummy… It’s not something to be happy about.”
Liu Su was taken aback, all her sarcastic remarks swallowed back. She slowly said, “I’ve been observing her. She’s definitely human and hasn’t cultivated. But I still think she has secrets… If it weren’t for not wanting to stir up trouble, I’d suggest you agree to her and see what she’s up to.”
“Scummy stick.”
“Hmph.” Liu Su remained firm. “Maybe it’s because my soul power isn’t enough to see through her clever disguise. So hurry up and refine the pills; I need strength!”
“Why do I feel like your eagerness to improve your strength is just to satisfy your curiosity about what’s going on in your heart?”
“…” Liu Su didn’t admit it and stubbornly replied, “It’s because since entering the rift, I’ve encountered things with different systems and higher levels, causing many of my judgments to go wrong. It feels very uncomfortable.”
“For example?”
“For example, that bone token. No matter how you look at it, it doesn’t seem to have any magic power, right? It’s so fragile it could break with a squeeze, yet it’s valued so highly by Cheng Huang. It’s really strange.”
“Hmm… that’s true.” Although the actual use of the bone token didn’t matter much to Qin Yi, he still took Liu Su’s argument into account. Having the experience to see through everything but still making mistakes could indeed be frustrating.
However, Qin Yi thought this wasn’t just a matter of soul power… After being away from the light for so long, it wasn’t surprising to encounter new things he hadn’t seen before… Of course, with high soul power, he could probably see through these low-level things even without prior exposure.
He didn’t say much and began preparing the herbs.
The demon blood black lotus had high soul-nourishing value, and the delay in refining pills was due to a lack of other herbs. Now with the addition of soul-entwining grass and golden soul flower, along with some other auxiliary materials, he could refine a sixth-grade divine hidden pill.
For Qin Yi at this moment, sixth-grade was really pushing it. He couldn’t afford to be distracted even a little.
Refining pills didn’t actually require much magic power. The study of external pills and internal pills were two different things, based on the principle that those with low magic power could take shortcuts by refining pills to quickly improve their cultivation. If the magic power requirement was too high, it would be a contradiction. So, as long as you had a certain basic level of magic power, that was enough. The real challenges were one, the rarity of the pill formula, two, the absolute precision needed in preparing the herbs, and three, the fire.
The first two points weren’t a problem with Liu Su around; Qin Yi was just a herb preparer. The real challenge for him was the fire.
Fire meant not only the right timing but also the right strength. Low-level pills could be refined with normal fire, but the higher the grade, the more special the fire needed. Otherwise, the herbs might not even dissolve, let alone achieve any special effects.
If he hadn’t gotten the witch’s sacrificial fire, Qin Yi wouldn’t even dare to attempt refining such high-grade pills; the success rate would be nearly zero. Even with the sacrificial fire to assist, the success rate was still quite low due to insufficient temperature and his control and endurance of magic power.
But Liu Su was eager, so he couldn’t care less; he had to refine even if he wasted a few furnaces.
Actually, this raised another new issue: the furnace. A poor-quality furnace couldn’t withstand high temperatures, and the required precision in heating would be problematic. It was no longer at the level where he could just use a clay pot like back at Xianji Mountain. Luckily, the furnace he received from the witch was still usable, but if he wanted to take it a step further, he would need to change it.
The deeper he got into this, the more he understood why the predecessors fought for treasures. Even if you didn’t go the resource route, at the very least, you needed the right tools. It wasn’t something you could just hide away in the mountains and solve everything. As for those who could refine pills with a pressure cooker, that was just a kindness from the will of the world; Qin Yi was so envious he could cry.
However, Qin Yi, who was born into comfort, didn’t think about the fact that while sixth-grade pill formulas could be casually practiced, the precision in preparing the herbs was something that could lead people to ruin, making them go bankrupt or even risking their lives just to refine a pill.
…
Cheng Huang withdrew her avatar, leaving the meditation room with a playful expression.
She wanted to see how her newly accepted disciple was doing.
When she arrived at Ye Ling’s “East Palace,” she immediately saw Ye Ling wrapped in a small blanket, lying on the ground practicing.
“…” The demon cultivation method indeed emphasizes acting according to one’s nature, not like humans sitting cross-legged, but Ye Ling’s peculiar posture still left Cheng Huang with a lot of thoughts she didn’t know how to express.
Practicing while wrapped in a blanket? Those who knew would say she was cultivating, but those who didn’t would think she was sleeping, and sleeping on the ground at that.
How could her brother stand such a messy child?
Ye Ling opened her eyes, looked dazedly at the long dress on the ground, and followed it up, her view blocked, not even seeing her face.
Ye Ling shrank a little, sniffed, and said, “Master.”
Actually, she thought it would be better for Li Qingjun to come and be her master…
Cheng Huang lifted her up, looked her over, and nodded in satisfaction. “I thought you were too playful and too attached to your brother, but it turns out you can focus on your cultivation all day. Didn’t you go to find your brother?”
“Because brother is definitely busy preparing herbs and refining pills today, I can’t disturb him.”
Cheng Huang was taken aback, recalling the pile of herbs Qin Yi had bought, and said with curiosity, “You really understand him.”
“Of course!” Ye Ling puffed out her small chest, then drooped again.
“Hmm…” Cheng Huang blinked and suddenly asked, “Do you want to marry your brother?”
“Of course not!” Ye Ling jumped up immediately. “Brother has a girlfriend!”
Cheng Huang maintained her smile. “Who is she? Is she prettier than you?”
“She’s a human princess, pretty but just okay… and a bit silly…”
Cheng Huang almost laughed out loud. You’ve called others silly before? That’s quite rare.
“But brother really likes her. When he came to the rift this time, he knew the hope was slim, he knew he couldn’t beat the witch, and he didn’t like the demon city… yet he still went into danger just for her.”
“Oh, so he’s looking for the solution to that curse and the treasure for longevity all for her?”
Ye Ling didn’t answer that but said seriously, “Master, do you have any means to extend life?”
Cheng Huang tilted her head. “Did you come to me as a disciple just for this?”
Ye Ling scratched her head awkwardly. “I didn’t think of that when I became your disciple; I just thought of it now.”
“Ha…” Cheng Huang said leisurely, “I do have the ability to extend life, but it’s not something at my level that can be achieved. For those who really understand, nurturing a Cheng Huang to the ancestral saint realm would require more resources than seeking a breakthrough themselves. Only foolish men and women would believe such rumors and keep trying to get ideas from me.”
Being called foolish, Ye Ling lowered her head, but inside she sighed.
No matter how she thought about it, she felt her brother’s goal was becoming more and more uncertain.
Ye Ling sensed that her brother’s smile had noticeably decreased after entering the demon city, and his mood was getting worse. Besides the uncomfortable atmosphere of the demon city, the feeling of being passive and increasingly desperate without a clear goal was the main reason.
Ye Ling thought if it were her, she would have hidden away long ago. After all, no one would come down into the rift to settle scores with her. But Qin Yi never considered such things; that reckless princess must be very important to him, right?
“That princess is important to him, right?” Cheng Huang was also asking this: “I’m very curious about how far this foolish male, who doesn’t even care about me, would go for that princess.”
Ye Ling completely didn’t understand and instinctively felt that her brother seemed to be getting into trouble…
(End of Chapter)