Immortal and Martial Dual Cultivation

by Fiery Moon

  Twenty saffron, fifty star anise, twenty spearmints, twenty Tiger Paw Grass...

  Xiao Chen carefully counted them one by one. This girl was quite capable. She brought back the exact amount that he requested. Xiao Chen smiled to himself as he picked up a stalk of Tiger Paw Grass to examine it carefully.

  The topmost part of the foot long grass had four purplish green leaves. As he looked at this stalk of Tiger Paw Grass, that was no more than ten years old, he felt quite puzzled. Xiao Chen thought, What is this Spiritual Awareness? How do I make a Mental Connection with an herb?

  He held the herb gently in his hands and closed his eyes as he sank his consciousness downwards. His consciousness followed his Essence as it slowly moved towards his right hand. His Essence left his body and wrapped around the herb gently. However, his consciousness was stuck in his body, hindered by the skin and flesh of his palm. It was unable to break out of his body.

  Even after he attempted a few times, his consciousness was still unable to make any kind of connection with the Tiger Paw Grass. Consciousness and Spiritual Awareness were quite different. Just as Xiao Chen was going give up, his consciousness, which was hovering around his palm, suddenly managed to catch a hold of a strange green energy net.

  There were many small threads of energy that flowed into his body via the Essence from the green energy net. It rapidly connected together with his consciousness, and a green space immediately appeared in Xiao Chen’s consciousness.

  Within this green space, there was a complicated network of threads. It looked like a complex maze. Streams of this green energy extended everywhere within the equally green space. The energy then firmly connected with Xiao Chen’s consciousness. In that instant, Xiao Chen felt as though he could feel the Tiger Paw Grass’ breath and pulse. It was a very mysterious feeling.

  Xiao Chen felt incomparably joyfully; this must be that Spiritual Awareness! Within that firm connection, he felt as if the herb was part of him. Under such a state, he could bring his understanding and control of the herb to a deeper level. During a refinement, he would be able to accomplish twice the effect with half the effort. It was no wonder that Spiritual Awareness was a requirement to becoming a good alchemist.

  As he withdrew his consciousness, a stream of green energy traveled from the meridians in his hand to his sea of consciousness. After the green energy circulated a few times, it formed a green sphere and merged with Xiao Chen’s consciousness.

  He was puzzled by this green sphere in his sea of consciousness. However, he decided not to bother with this sphere. With his rudimentary understanding of the alchemy of this world, he probably would not understand anything.

  He tossed aside his bewilderment as he opened his eyes and looked at the Tiger Paw Grass once again. He now had a deeper understanding of the herb; its root also had many medicinal properties. It was not like what the book said, which stated that only the leaves were useful. With this deeper understanding, he was even more confident in his ability to refine pills later.

  Taking out the Azure Dragon medicine cauldron, Xiao Chen condensed the Purple Thunder True Fire and began his first attempt at refinement. He aimed to refine a Fasting Pill.

  In the Compendium of Cultivation, the Fasting Pill was among the pills of the lowest grade in the Immortal World. Only the few cultivators who had not reached a realm where they no longer required food to sustain them would take this pill, so it was very suitable for his usage.

  Xiao Chen placed the Tiger Paw Grass into the Purple Thunder True Fire and carefully started to refine it. He controlled the Purple Thunder True Fire’s strength attentively. Xiao Chen did not dare to be even slightly careless.

  The four green leaves quickly melted to become four clear drops of green liquid. This green liquid continuously boiled in the cauldron. Xiao Chen took out a porcelain bottle that he had prepared earlier. With a flick of his finger, he poured the liquid into the bottle.

  Next up, Xiao Chen focused his gaze on the unmelted root. Before he awakened his Spiritual Awareness, he would have treated this root as garbage and thrown it out. Now that he knew of its medicinal properties, he clearly would not throw it out.

  The roots were tougher than the leaves, thus he raised the temperature of his flames. Xiao Chen slowly increased the strength of the Purple Thunder True Fire. Controlling this flame seemed easy, but it was very tiring. Furthermore, it tested his abilities to control his flame to its extremes.

  If the flame was too small, it could not extract the medicinal liquid. If it was too big, the medicinal liquid would be burned. Only at that perfect size could he successfully extract the medicinal liquid. It was a good thing that the Compendium of Cultivation had described this very clearly. As long as he was careful, it should not be too hard to achieve.

  After he extracted five drops of green liquid from the roots, the table was filled up with some waste products. Xiao Chen quickly took out another five stalks of Tiger Paw Grass to refine. However, he was not as fortunate this time. Even when he knew how much to increase the size of the flames by, he still damaged two stalks of the Tiger Paw Grass.

  It was a good thing that Xiao Chen anticipated this situation and had Bao`er purchase two times the materials that he needed. All in all, he managed to extract fifty drops of medicinal liquid from the Tiger Paw Grass before he stopped.

  Chapter 25: Distracted in the Eleventh Hour

  Extracting a sufficient amount of Tiger Paw Grass medicinal liquid was just a small part of the initial step. Next up was to extract the medicinal liquid from three other medicinal herbs.

  After taking a small break, Xiao Chen retrieved a saffron and held it in his hands. He tried to use his Spiritual Awareness to establish a mental connection with it.

  He focused his attention, and the green sphere in his sea of consciousness took on the shape of a brook-like, long, and jade-green line. It traveled through the meridians in his arms and exited his body. The green line, which was invisible to the naked eye, made a connection to the brightly-colored saffron.

  Instantly, a bright red space appeared within Xiao Chen’s consciousness, as though it was right in front of his eyes. This time, Xiao Chen gained a deeper understanding of this medicinal herb’s inner space.

  Those flowing red threads should be the medicinal properties of the saffron. The area that had the densest amount of threads was the place with the most medicinal properties. Thus, he could afford to be careless when it came to the other areas.

  After a while, Xiao Chen opened his eyes and rescinded this strange state. After experiencing this mental connection, he now had a rough understanding of the sphere in his sea of consciousness.

  The green sphere could be a Spiritual Core, consolidated after he awakened his Spiritual Awareness. However, he knew not what level of aptitude this Spiritual Core, which was as small as a green pea, was considered to be at.

  Gathering his thoughts, Xiao Chen circulated the Purple Thunder Divine Incantation once again, condensing the Purple Thunder True Fire. He began to extract the medicinal liquid in the saffron, distilling a total of fifty drops of red medicinal liquid. Following that, he obtained the medicinal liquid of the star anise and spearmint, both of them yielding fifty drops of medicinal liquid each.

  Looking at the four porcelain bottles on the table, Xiao Chen took a breather and wiped the sweat off his forehead. The first step in refining the Fasting Pill was finally complete. That alone had already exhausted half of all the Essence in his body.

  The second step was to form the pill. It required the supplementation of an enormous amount of Essence. If he came up deficient in Essence while in the midst of this step, everything would be for naught. Xiao Chen could only temporarily give up on proceeding with the second step, and circulated his cultivation technique to slowly restore the exhausted Essence.

  Essence! Essence!

  At this moment, Xiao Chen desired nothing more than a larger capacity for Essence. If he had a sufficient reserve
of Essence, then this would not be an issue in the first place. He was only attempting to refine the most basic medicinal pill. If he tried refining a pill of a higher grade, he would not last through the first step.

  After half an hour, Xiao Chen stopped cultivating. The Essence in his body was fully restored, which was now sufficient for him to carry on with the second step of cultivation.

  Picking up the Azure Dragon medicine cauldron, Xiao Chen condensed the Purple Thunder True Fire and thrust it into the opening for the fire on the device. The purple fire burned ferociously in the cauldron. First, he poured the Tiger Paw Grass medicinal liquid in.

  Under the purification of the Purple Thunder True Fire, the viscous liquid continued to churn, giving off a ‘Zi Zi’ sound. The medicine cauldron began to give off a faint fragrance. Xiao Chen mentally kept track of the time and poured the second medicinal liquid in after a minute.

  After four minutes, all the medicinal liquids in the four porcelain bottles were emptied into the medicine cauldron. Xiao Chen placed the cauldron lid on and continued to supply Essence to the Purple Thunder True Fire within.

  An invisible thread connected to the Purple Thunder True Fire in the medicine cauldron made the Essence in his body flow out in a steady stream, which kept the purple flames alive

  This was the disadvantage of not having Spiritual Sense. If Xiao Chen could cultivate his Purple Thunder Divine Incantation to the 2nd layer and attain Spiritual Sense, he could directly use it to control the strength of the Purple Thunder True Fire. He would not have to wastefully spend his Essence, as he did at present.

  Within the Azure Dragon medicine cauldron, the four medicinal liquids of different colors continuously swirled before slowly fusing together, turning into a viscous liquid that was continuously spinning. At this moment, the smell of medicine became denser in the room.

  Xiao Chen, who was without Spiritual Sense, was unable to see the situation inside the medicine caldron. He could only judge based on the fragrance that came out from the medicine cauldron that the four types of medicinal liquid had already fused together.

  At this moment, he could no longer use a fierce flame to purify it. He had to follow the direction of the spinning ball of medicinal liquid, controlling the Purple Thunder True Fire to wrap around it from a distance. The Purple Thunder True Fire also had to slowly rotate in sync with it, and the temperature had to be adjusted.

  Sweat continuously trickled down from Xiao Chen’s forehead, as this was a delicate step that exhausted more Essence than simply brute-forcing a fierce flame to purify the medicinal liquid. Each time the flames made a complete revolution, Xiao Chen felt the reserve of Essence in his body wither significantly. If he ran into a situation where he ran out of Essence, then everything he had done so far would be for naught.

  The medicinal fragrance within the house took on another change. Xiao Chen could finally breathe easy. There was about a tenth of his Essence left in his body. The situation that he was most worried about, running out of Essence, fortunately did not occur. This bit of Essence was enough to complete the final step in refining this pill.

  Under the purification of the warm flames, the medicinal liquid in the cauldron had already condensed into a rough sphere-shaped pill embryo. A faint fragrance wafted out from the cauldron. As long as the final step of solidifying it was completed, then this Fasting Pill was complete.

  Xiao Chen opened up the cauldron lip, in which an even thicker fragrance wafted out and assaulted his nose. Looking at the rough pill embryo in the medicine cauldron, Xiao Chen felt extremely content. For him to make it all the way to this step without committing any major mistakes during his first refinement was very gratifying.

  If he could perfectly complete the final step, it would be ideal. Xiao Chen’s eyes seemed to burn with excitement, but his heart remained extremely calm. This final step was the most important. There was no room for mistakes.

  Xiao Chen guided the Purple Thunder True Fire to slowly rise into the air, and the rough pill embryo similarly followed the purple fire, rising up as well. He stretched out his right hand and the pill embryo, surrounded by purple fire, slowly descended onto his palm.

  It was time to solidify it and shape it!

  With his attention fully honed in on it, Xiao Chen’s eyebrows were tightly knit into a frown. This would only happen in a situation where someone was concentrating extremely hard.

  “Hu Chi!”

  The pill embryo spun rapidly within the flames, and Xiao Chen did not dare to breathe. The sweat glistened on his forehead as it incessantly poured down his face, trickling downwards. The uneven pill embryo started to smooth out, turning into a perfect sphere, and even a faint glow began to surround the pill.

  Only once this step was completed could the Fasting Pill be considered a true pill. Xiao Chen pushed down ferociously with his hand, sending the pill back into the cauldron. After closing the lid, he began the final heating.

  At this moment, Xiao Chen still did not dare to relent in his focus. Until the pill came out of the cauldron, he had not succeeded. However, there was no longer much risk. Before this Fasting Pill was considered complete, it simply needed another half a day to simmer.

  “Second Young Master, supper is already ready. Do you want to eat yet?”

  “Bang!”

  The sudden sound of Bao`er’s voice right at that moment caused Xiao Chen to lose focus. In the instant he lost focus, he did not control the flames in the medicine cauldron properly. Thus, the almost completed medicinal pill was shattered into many pieces.

  From the other dragon head of the Azure Dragon medicine cauldron, a stream of debris from the medicinal pill began to flow out...

  “Damn! What are you doing here at this moment!” Xiao Chen shouted angrily in the direction of the door at Bao`er.

  All his efforts were squandered, just like that. It was not easy for the refining process to proceed all the way to this final moment. Xiao Chen’s mood became extremely sour. His sweat-filled face, coupled with his livid expression, made him look very terrifying.

  When Bao`er, who was outside, saw Xiao Chen angrily shouting at her, and then noticed the situation on the table, she knew she was in trouble. Her tiny face turned extremely pale from fright, and the tray of supper trembled in her hands as she held onto it.

  Tears began to trickle down from her eyes as she replied like a little mouse scared witless, “Second Young Master, I… I did not do that on purpose.”

  Xiao Chen, who had exhausted all of his Essence and had entered an extremely weak state of mind, merely waved his hands impatiently, “Go out, there is nothing for you to do here.”

  …

  After a while, Xiao Chen recovered some of his strength. He then felt regret. What’s wrong with me... it was just a failure at refining a pill? Why did he lose his temper at a little girl? Had he really begun to fancy himself as a Young Master?

  With this little bit of strength and status, he was already losing his temper in such a manner. In that case, how was he different from the Zhang Clan and their prodigal sons? It was just a failed attempt at the refinement of a medicinal pill. If he failed the first time, he could just attempt it again. He had no need to vent his anger on a little girl.

  The more Xiao Chen thought about it, the more he felt he was in the wrong. He got up and headed towards Bao`er’s room. The light in her room was not out yet. Xiao Chen, as he stood in front of the door, could hear the gentle sobbing coming from inside.

  “Creak!”

  He gently pushed the door open. Maybe it was because she came back in a hurry, but the door to her room was not locked and was opened with just a gentle push.

  When Bao`er, who was sitting at the bedside, saw Xiao Chen push open the door and enter she hurriedly wiped away the tears in her eyes and shivered as she inquired carefully, “Second Young Master… Why are you here? Just now... I really did not do it on purpose...”

  Oh, Xiao Chen, Xiao Chen. Su
ch an innocent young lady, and you scared her to such a degree. You really are horrible, Xiao Chen scolded himself in his heart.

  He was not able to speak the words of apology he thought up on the way here. After he saw the supper that was placed on the table, a bowl of squid porridge, he replied, “I am here for supper, as well as to check up on you.”

  When Xiao Chen finished saying that, he picked up the squid porridge on the table and began to eat with gusto. It tasted pretty good. Normally, the kitchens would not provide supper, so this must have been made by Bao`er personally.

  “It is very tasty... did you make it yourself?”

  “Eh, I can cook pretty well. I learned from my mother when I was young,” Bao`er said in a soft voice.

  Looking at Xiao Chen, who seemed happier after eating the porridge, Bao`er asked tentatively, “Second Young Master, are you still angry at me?”

  “Yes!”

  Xiao Chen slammed down the bowl on the table. His face seemed extremely stern. Bao`er’s heart started to thump very hard in response.

  “Just kidding with you. I am angry that you made too little squid porridge today. I’m punishing you by making you make more tomorrow,” Xiao Chen suddenly softened his expression into a smile.

  Bao`er’s tear-stained face immediately lit up with a smile as she said in disbelief, “Really?”

  Xiao Chen got up and walked over to Bao`er, wiping away the tears on her face. He replied in a sincere tone, “Really, the squid porridge tastes very good. I should not have lost my temper with you earlier. Don’t think too much of it and have a good sleep.”

  Chapter 26: Successful Refining

  Within a secret chamber in the Xiao Clan, there were two men dressed in embroidered clothes. They were looking at a corpse that was lying on the ground. If Xiao Chen was here, he would definitely be shocked. The corpse lying on the ground was the Zhang Clan First Elder who had died in the Thunder Emperor’s cave.