Chapter 1043: Qi Control Art; Domain (II)
Chapter 1043: Qi Control Art; Domain (II)
Several days later, Luo Chen's hand seals came to a halt, and a wisp of spirit energy slowly gathered from the space and coiled around his fingertip. He watched it intently, and satisfaction gradually appeared in his eyes. Then, he summoned the status panel before him. Under the alchemy arts section, a new line flickered with faint light: Qi Control Art: Beginner (1/100)
"It worked!" Luo Chen let out a long breath, and the weight in his heart finally eased.
From this point onward, he only needed to practice it every day and steadily raise his proficiency. By his estimate, the Qi Control Art would need to reach at least Perfection level before he could use it to refine the Law Scrutiny Pill. Of course, if he could reach the Grandmaster level, that would be even better. The Grandmaster level on the status panel was equivalent to the major mastery recognized by the outside world. For ordinary alchemists, that was often the limit they could pursue for an entire lifetime.
With that, he rose from his meditation and descended from the mountain. Before long, he returned to the stone house and pushed open the door to the medicine room.
The moment he stepped inside, a dense medicinal fragrance washed over him. Wooden shelves lined the room, each arranged by category and filled with ingredients that radiated powerful spirit energy. Some were covered by mana barriers, while others were stored inside jade boxes or golden cauldrons.
Of all five trials in the Alchemy Realm, this was the most straightforward trial Luo Chen had encountered. He did not need to search for medicinal ingredients; everything required had already been prepared for him. He guessed that the earlier trials had tested the alchemist's ability to identify and process ingredients, so the fifth trial simply omitted that step.
Even so, Luo Chen did not relax. He raised a hand, and the lid of a nearby cauldron lifted into the air. A fist-sized red fruit slowly rose from within. Looking at the fruit, Luo Chen's eyes brightened in fascination. This was a fifth-tier spirit fruit, the Jade Palace Vermilion Fruit!
Before entering the Land of Fallen Devils, Luo Chen had never even heard of it. He had only learned its name from the bamboo scrolls within the Alchemy Realm. The fruit grew at the end of the Jade Pool's Purple Star. Before it was harvested, it had no fixed form, despite possessing a visible appearance. Only when gathered with the corresponding alchemy art would it condense into a tangible form. Otherwise, it would disperse into nothing more than a mass of mist.
It could be consumed directly to strengthen the divine soul, but its medicinal properties became even more profound when it was used in alchemy. The Law Scrutiny Pill was the clearest example of the fruit's value, and it was also why Luo Chen could not take his eyes off it. Surprisingly, the Jade Palace Vermilion Fruit was the only primary ingredient required to refine the pill.
According to the bamboo scrolls, the fruit was usable at the fourth tier, but only truly valuable at the fifth. Every three thousand years marked another stage of maturity, and each stage raised its tier by one. It had three maturity stages in total, so at full maturity, it reached the seventh tier.
The Jade Palace Vermilion Fruit stored inside this golden cauldron had reached its first maturity stage and was therefore a fifth-tier spirit fruit. Before acquiring the formula, Luo Chen had naturally not known how to make proper use of it, and he thought of only consuming it directly to strengthen his divine soul. But when he saw the Law Scrutiny Pill formula, he realized its true medicinal value. Truthfully, the ability of a Monarch could be seen from this pill formula alone.
"If I eat it directly instead of refining it into a pill, can it strengthen my divine soul?"
For some reason, this thought rose in Luo Chen's mind. In the end, however, he dismissed it. Everything within the Alchemy Realm was like an illusion. The spirit herbs spread across its mountains and plains could not be taken away, nor could the collection of bamboo scrolls. Only pills refined with his own hands could be stored in his storage ring. He had no way of knowing whether consuming the Jade Palace Vermilion Fruit directly would actually result in any effect. More importantly, only a limited number of the fruits had been prepared, so he had to consider refining the Law Scrutiny Pill first. He could not put the cart before the horse.
"In any case, I should study it first!"
***
As Luo Chen divided his time between studying the alchemical formula, practicing alchemy arts, and familiarizing himself with the relevant ingredients, the days slipped by unnoticed. In the blink of an eye, another year had passed.
He stood atop the highest mountain of this region; his hands formed a series of seals, and currents of air rushed toward him from everywhere. When his hand seals shifted, the streams began to separate. Strands of spirit energy peeled away from one another according to their attributes, each taking on a different color as it flowed around him in orderly paths.
Seeing this, Luo Chen's eyes brightened in surprise. After a year of cultivation, he had attained the Grandmaster level in Qi Control Art. This was something he had never expected at the beginning, as reaching the Beginner level alone had taken him half a year, but after crossing that threshold, he had begun to see how the principles behind one art could be applied to the others.
He had first used the Infinite Blaze Prison to grasp the natural fire-attribute spirit energy. Once he had grasped that, he was able to use his Golden Core as the foundation to draw upon the spirit energy of all five elements. After all, even though his cultivation was strictly fire-attribute, his Golden Core was fundamentally attuned to all five elements.
Finally, he turned to the Azure Yang Great Handprint, the spell he had practiced to its very peak. Its origin lay not in a fire-element spell but in the Great Handprint of Primordial Qi, a spell that encompassed all five elements. With his understanding of the Azure Yang Great Handprint as a model, he was able to create similar spells for the other four elements as well. Once he could form all five, he used them together with the Qi Control Art to sense and draw in the corresponding natural spirit energy.
Through that process, Luo Chen's proficiency in the Qi Control Art reached the Perfection level. From there, he continued practicing without pause, accumulating insight little by little until he finally crossed into the Grandmaster level mark. At this level, he could even sense spirit energy beyond the five elements, including wind, lightning, ice, light, and darkness. He wasn't yet capable of controlling those energies as proficiently, but it was a great start.
He sat cross-legged on a rock on the mountain peak with his eyes closed, as though he had gained some insight.
Three days later, he suddenly opened his eyes. He tapped a finger against his chest, as if giving a signal. His Golden Core vibrated, and the Infinite Blaze Prison unfolded around him.
Then, he formed seals with his left hand, casting the Qi Control Art. From the surrounding space, a vast amount of fire-attribute spirit energy surged over and poured into the Infinite Blaze Prison. For a brief moment, he felt as though heaven and earth were within his grasp. But in the very next, the Infinite Blaze Prison collapsed and shattered.
"Uggggghh..."
Luo Chen let out a muffled groan as his face turned somewhat pale. In the end, forcing unrefined spirit energy into the Infinite Blaze Prison was still too much of a burden on him. Even so, he had felt it clearly. That was what it felt like to have a true Nascent Soul Domain!
His face was pale, but an undisguisable sharp gleam flickered in his eyes. I never thought practicing an alchemy art could help push my Pseudo-Domain further. Even if nothing else works out, it was worth coming to the Land of Fallen Devils just for this!
He knew well that if he continued reaching for the feeling he had just grasped, he had a great chance of forming a true Domain. In other words, he would possess a Nascent Soul Domain while still at the Golden Core Realm. Such an achievement would be enough to shake the entire cultivation world.
However, this was not the time to pursue it further; he had more immediate matters at hand.
Luo Chen summoned the status panel again, and the complete formula for the Law Scrutiny Pill surfaced in his mind. He had already pushed his preparations as far as they could go. There might still be room for improvement, but it would no longer be substantial. Moreover, he did not know when the Land of Fallen Devils would close, and the Seagon Matriarch was still bitterly chasing after him. Whether he succeeded or failed, he had to take this step now.
Complete Fifth-Tier Law Scrutiny Pill Formula detected. Achieve Beginner proficiency?
Luo Chen took a deep breath and quietly said, "Yes."
In the next moment, he watched the achievement points on the panel drain away rapidly.
250, 240... 180, 170...
Never before had they been consumed so quickly, and never before had Luo Chen watched the panel with such anxiety. His gaze remained fixed on the falling number. When it dropped to 160, his breathing nearly stopped. Then it fell to 150.
For an instant, as the number stopped, his heart seemed to stop with it. A breath later, it began beating again, and he let out a chuckle.
Logically speaking, he should have regretted it. As a fourth-tier alchemist, he only needed 100 achievement points to enter Beginner proficiency of a fifth-tier alchemical formula, which meant that even without spending the past year studying the formula, practicing the alchemy arts, and familiarizing himself with the ingredients, he could have done so from the beginning. All that preparation had seemingly been unnecessary.
Yet Luo Chen only smiled faintly. Things really could have gone the other way as well. "I've mastered the formula. That's fine enough."
He descended the mountain and returned to the stone house. Over the next three days, he sat quietly to settle his mind, then bathed, changed into a fresh, moon-white Daoist robe, and burned incense in preparation for the refinement ahead.
Three days later, he left the stone house carrying a large pile of medicinal ingredients. He chose a mountain summit where the spirit energy had reached the fourth tier, then opened his mouth and spat out the Primordial Unity Cauldron. The cauldron flew out and began to spin in the air before him. With that, everything was ready; whether he ultimately succeeded or failed in this great trial would depend on the refinement to come.
Luo Chen flicked his fingers. The Withering-Flourishing True Fire fell beneath the Primordial Unity Cauldron, and fiery light surged into the sky.