Chapter 9
959 Words
The Pill-Refining Master
No sooner had Master Fang spoken than Ming Na and Xiang Nu, perched in the tree, felt a wave of uproar in their hearts. Even Master Fang had failed?
In that case, Young Master Fan's mother was truly beyond saving.
In this moment, they could almost envision the despair etching itself across Fan Xue Li's face.
Yet in the very next instant, Fan Xue Li waved his hand with calm indifference. "Senior, your aura is dominated by wood essence, and this incense shares that affinity—yet it is countered by my mother's own earthly breath, which is why the treatment faltered. Still, your Stellar Array was executed with exquisite precision; to steady her soul's aura like this is no small feat."
He could sense it: though the incense and stellar method had not cured her, they had brought peace to her other souls, filling him with profound gratitude.
At these words, Master Fang's expression twisted into one of profound strangeness!
"A no small feat?"
What audacity from this youth! As if he stood on equal footing with the man himself!
Irritation flickered in Master Fang's eyes. The boy was but an ordinary adolescent; ignorance of his stature was forgivable. But this critique, delivered with such brazen confidence—such arrogance!
He could not help but ask coldly, "And may I inquire, young master, do you possess a method of salvation?"
Hearing this, Xiang Nu nearly leaped down to seize Fan Xue Li by the ear and bellow at him: "Do you even know what a master alchemist is? How dare you presume to judge?"
Fan Xue Li offered no reply to Master Fang's skeptical gaze. Instead, he drew a steady breath, his eyes fixed intently on his mother before him. With a subtle motion of his hand, he gathered the herbs he had harvested earlier into his palm. Then, forming intricate seals, he began to meld them together, slow and deliberate.
In his previous life, with the Three Essences Cauldron at his command, a mere thought would have sufficed to fuse them utterly. In this incarnation, he relied on the heightened perception of a pill-refining grandmaster to refine them by hand.
Gradually, a peculiar fragrance wafted from the herbs before him—an aroma both elusive and profound.
In that instant, Master Fang's face registered a flicker of astonishment. These herbs encompassed yang, yin, and neutral essences; to fully comprehend and balance their properties demanded mastery absolute. To do so without a cauldron, using seals alone, required decades of alchemical practice. Yet this youth wielded it with the purity of a seasoned artisan!
The seal-refining technique alone bespoke the caliber of an intermediate alchemist.
Master Fang could not suppress a mild surprise. Evidently, this young man was no ordinary soul.
But that was the extent of it. The boy was likely a prodigy of fleeting youth, puffed up by early acclaim and a smattering of skills—arrogant beyond his depths, blind even to the Stellar Array moments ago.
A master alchemist was not to be impugned—this was an unspoken creed among their kind!
Moreover, the herbs in the youth's grasp were utterly commonplace. Without a supreme catalyst to harness soul-mending power, they were worthless.
Supreme herbs were elusive treasures; those attuned to the soul were rarer still, priceless beyond gold. Even as a master alchemist, he possessed none.
It was in this moment of inward head-shaking that he beheld Fan Xue Li drawing a certain herb from his bosom and placing it in his palm.
In that heartbeat, it struck him as faintly familiar. A suspicion dawned, but disbelief swiftly smothered it. Such a rarity was unheard of in the Great Xia Kingdom—how could it grace this boy's hands? He must have misseen.
But then his entire frame shuddered.
For as the herb ignited, the others roiled in response, as if in obeisance to it—radiance blooming in fervent homage!
"Bu Li Grass! It truly is Bu Li Grass!" At last, he faltered, composure cracking. That unassuming sprig was the legendary herb itself!
At the sound of Master Fang's voice, Xiang Nu quivered from head to toe, her face a canvas of shock and incredulity!
The fabled Bu Li Grass—forged in the Nine Serenities from azure-jade-gold, insect-tail elixir-water, tempered a century in yin-yang mists. An eternal rarity. She had stood before it and failed to recognize it, even scoffing in disdain!
Her cheeks burned with humiliation, as if slapped by an unseen hand. Shame coursed through her.
And she, a novice alchemist, no less!
Recalling how the youth had claimed the herb with casual poise, brimming with quiet certainty—he had known it for what it was, unshaken by fortune or slight.
"So his mastery eclipses mine. He wasn't boasting after all!" Only now did Xiang Nu grasp the truth.
In this moment, Ming Na's eyes sparkled with a captivating, radiant light. As she had suspected, this Young Master Fan was no mere enigma; small wonder his confidence ran so deep!
Witnessing Fan Xue Li's display, Master Fang's shock gave way to a stir of mentorship. The boy's discernment was keen, his judgment of essences unerring—and to procure Bu Li Grass? A talent worth cultivating.
Decades had passed since last he entertained an apprentice. Admirers queued like cattle at his gate, yet he had devoted himself solely to his craft. Were it not for the little fox's flight, he would never have ventured here.
Yet gazing upon Fan Xue Li's youthful visage, he shook his head faintly.
The boy was too green, for all his gifts. To wield such a divine herb with such rash abandon—refining without care—was sheer profligacy.
- Writer
