Tempered Immortal

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The reason no one could afford to treat immortal pills like candy was that, to begin with, those with the ability to become an alchemist were rare. Even the best of alchemists fail at least one in ten attempts, resulting in at least one trash pill. 

Which because of the trash pill’s high impurity tend to end up damaging the body rather than giving benefits, they were thrown away.

Along with that, the various herbs and materials used in creating pills were rare on their own. Taking into account the failure rates, the finished product was obviously very valuable.

It was all these factors in alchemy that gave many cultivators headaches. Especially small sects like the Whirlwind Cloud Valley, who didn’t have the resources to recruit a skilled alchemist.

As a result, their failure rate was very high, around fifty percent. The sect could still only afford to give two Purifying Essence Pills, which were the easiest pills to make and the most common, to the disciples every month.

Because pills were so hard to obtain, most people were limited to relying only on their own talents to cultivate; however, the difference between cultivating with pills and without was like the distance between heaven and earth. With the help of pills, spiritual roots didn’t matter.

Knowing this, Lin Xuan truly understood just how much of a great opportunity this was for him. The treasure hidden in his body could defy the heavens and turn trash into treasure!

Just using the Whirlwind Cloud Valley as an example, there were more than three hundred disciples, and with each person getting two Purifying Essence Pills every month, that totals to more than 600 pills. Then, if the failure rate of around 50% is taken into account, there were just as many trash pills as there were completed pills.

Although no one really cared about the trash pills, they weren’t just thrown away either. They were usually just put away somewhere with no security, so Lin Xuan decided to take advantage of this.

Every month there are about 600 trash pills generated, and if he could get his hands on them, then he could use the blue lights to remove the impurities, which would truly let him treat immortal pills as if they were candy. Even without spiritual roots, his cultivation speed would then become faster than that of the geniuses of his generation. Despite that his future was now looking very bright, Lin Xuan didn’t let his emotions take control over himself and maintained his cool-headed demeanor even in this situation.

As he began to plan, Lin Xuan decided the first thing to do would be to try to figure out exactly why and how the blue lights turned trash into treasure. Realizing that he needed to develop a firm understanding of the full capabilities of the blue lights, he must figure out the conditions required as well as how to control them.

Lin Xuan pulled the pill closer to his eyes, closely observing it. Color, fragrance, size… everything was correct. Other than the time when the elder made things difficult for Lin Xuan, Lin Xuan had been given Purifying Essence Pills before, so he wouldn’t make a mistake in identifying one.

Just to be safe, however, Lin Xuan pulled out a true Purifying Essence Pill from his storage bracelet, one that he got from Zhou Yan. He pulled the two together and took a closer look. Compared to an authentic pill, the only difference was that the pill transformed by the blue lights was slightly smaller than the authentic pill. On top of the pill, Lin Xuan also noticed that there was a thin layer of dust, that exuded an unpleasant smell….. impurities? Not going to let such details slide by, Lin Xuan quickly realized the origin of the dust. It seemed that the blue lights expelled the impurities from within the trash pill, leaving behind a pill, free from any impurities.

Such a thing had long been thought of as impossible because although removing the impurities sounds easy in theory, in practice it is extremely difficult. Over tens of thousands of years, many large sects and schools have spent a lot of time and resources trying to remove the impurities, but even in all that time, not even one was successful.

After failing countless times, the cultivating world finally gave up, and reluctantly began to discard the trash pills… After tens of thousands of years, the cultivating world finally decided that removing the impurities from immortal pills was impossible, and now, here was Lin Xuan, staring at the small pile of dust that was the impurities.

After a moment of contemplation, Lin Xuan began to understand that the blue lights, after going inside the trash pills, forced out the impurities, thus turning trash into treasure. Of course, this was just his guess, and as Lin Xuan has no other way to confirm this theory, he would just have to observe in the future.

After thinking all this, Lin Xuan poured out another trash pill from the jade bottle. Holding it in his hand, he once again sat down cross-legged, and after a short break to recover the blue lights, he began to circulate the lights.

As usual, the process was difficult, but this was nothing to Lin Xuan. This time, when the lights reached his wrist, he focused his consciousness on the lights to get a closer view so he wouldn’t miss a single detail.

Under the effect of his consciousness, the scene in front of Lin Xuan was magnified several times, showing the scene clearly in his mind. As the lights began to flow out from his hands, some of them began to enter the pill while the rest dissipated into the air. As the lights entered the pill, the black powder also began to get pushed out of the pill. At the same time, the color of the pill began to get lighter and lighter, eventually becoming white. Lin Xuan was taking note of all the details, paying close attention to all of the changes occurring on the pill and confirming his theory about the impurities getting pushed out.

At the same time, he was also noticing all the points of light that were not entering the pill, so Lin Xuan decided to try and gather together those wasted blue lights and force them into the pill, thus increasing the number of blue lights going inside the pill. The speed at which impurities were getting removed really did increase. 

However, three minutes later…

Bang! … 

With a loud sound and a flash of light, the pill in his palm exploded. Lin Xuan opened his hand, moved his hand closer, and saw the fragmented pill lying in his hand, spreading the smell of burning paste.

It seemed… that the second attempt failed.

“It must be that the blue lights could indeed separate the impurities, leaving behind just the pure essence, truly turning trash into treasure.” Lin Xuan said to himself as he sat calmly going over everything that had just happened. Despite the failure, Lin Xuan is not worried, since his harvest was not small at all.

Thinking over what had just happened, Lin Xuan thought that the reason the process failed the second time was most likely to be the speed. The pill was unable to contain that many blue lights entering it at that speed. After hypothesizing that, Lin Xuan decided to try and confirm this theory, but before trying, he had to take some rest and let the blue lights recover.

Translated by: James1kd2

Edited by: Summit