Awakened: The Spirit King!

The hardest part of refining pills was extracting medicinal essence from the ingredients. Purifying alchemy material was hard, and no one could deny it, but in terms of the level of difficulty, not a single soul could compare it to the second step of alchemy.

Xie Yang, to the amazement of Xie Ye, had breezed his way through the second step.

He made not a single mistake, and although he was sweating and exhausted, what he had done could only be considered a miracle at his cultivation level.

After extinguishing the fire in and out of the cauldron and while using his spiritual energy to keep the medicinal essences of five different ingredients suspended in the cauldron, Xie Yang beckoned Xie Ye to come closer before saying, "Brother, we are at the last step of refining these pills. I believe you already know what you need to do, but before we proceed, I still want to clarify some things."

"Go on."

Xie Ye was all set and ready to hear what his young master wanted to tell him.

Xie Yang paused for a moment, chose the most suitable sentences that even beginner alchemist could understand, and shot them out of his mouth like a gun firing bullets, "If the spiritual energy pressure you apply on the medicinal essences to mend them into one and solidify them is too intense, they will solidify, but the finished product will have cracks on it. The heart of the pill, which is the combined version of different medicinal essences, will leave out of those cracks, making it useless and ineffective. Eating it will have no beneficial effect and might only have an adverse effect. However, if the force we apply on it is too weak, the pill won't form, and the medicinal essences will scatter and smash on the inner walls of the cauldron, causing it to explode. As we are in the range of the explosion, it won't end well for us. Cough! The good news is that I know just the right amount of pressure we need to apply on them to mend them into one and solidify them into a pill. But I will need your full cooperation and trust. You must follow me word to word, okay?"

"Don't worry. You will have my full cooperation."

While Xie Ye said it without a change in his expression, Xie Yang could tell he meant it.

He had to be honest.

He was super lucky to have a spirit grandmaster, a fourth realm cultivator, willing to listen to his command.

If it was some other spirit grandmaster, Xie Yang was sure they would have squashed him to death if he dared to command them.

Yet, his stepbrother was nodding to each of his commands without uttering a single word of complaint.

"Let's do this."

Xie Yang looked at him in the eye, and Xie Ye gave him a confident nod.

"I will go first."

All the spiritual energy left in Xie Yang's elixir field came out of his palm and raced into the cauldron through all its opening, wrapped around the medicinal essences which Xie Ye was already suppressing using his spiritual energy, and pulled them close to each other.

After doing that, Xie Yang told his good brother to press 600 units of spiritual energy on the medicinal essence. With a deep look, Xie Ye respectively nodded. He inserted four blues waves, each carrying 150 units of spiritual energy into it methodically. The four waves pressed on the medicinal essences at the center of the cauldron from different directions. Just a while after his spiritual energy started acting on them, the medicinal essences belonging to two different ingredients slowly fused into a red candy with streaks of blue in it that looked more like lightning.

Xie Yang was counting the time in his mind.

The moment three minutes passed, he told Xie Ye to double the pressure of spiritual energy he was applying on the medicinal essences.

When he did that, in only about a couple of minutes, the remaining medicinal essences fused with the red candy with blue lines.

The moment that happened, a clear, crisp voice sounded like a mixture between the cry of a bird, the sound of a person's heartbeat, and the roar of the sky came out of the cauldron.

Such a loud noise in the middle of the night would've woken up everyone in the Xie Manor if Xie Ye hadn't set up a noise-canceling formation before entering the room.

Xie Yang wanted to keep this matter a secret, so Xie Ye had set up a few formations around their room, and they made it impossible for people outside to overhear their conversation or sneak a look at what was happening inside.

"We did it?!" Xie Ye asked after hearing the voice.

Xie Yang raised his head. His eyes were bright, and his smile was even more brilliant than them.

"We succeeded!" He exclaimed in happiness.

Once Xie Yang confirmed the existence of the pill, Xie Ye guided it out of the dragon's mouth, which was at the apex of the cauldron. It came out, bringing with it a mist that carried the fragrance of heaven and earth. The entire room started smelling different. The scent was strong, and the pill had neither a crack nor many impurities in it.

Four clouds were revolving around it, showing how pure it was and that it was far above a high-grade pill.

A pill with no clouds meant that it was a failure.

A pill with one cloud meant that it was a low-quality pill.

Two clouds swirling around a pill meant that it was a medium-quality pill.

Three clouds would only appear around a high-quality pill.

As for four clouds, only a pill with more than 80% purity and less than 20% impurities could have it!

"Young master, am I seeing things?" Xie Ye saw the four clouds revolving around the pill like how planets revolve around Sun, then rubbed his eyes and looked at it again.

Nothing changed!

The best one in the empire's market only had three clouds, and that was what people consider high-class. Only in top-notch auctions, a pill with four clouds would appear occasionally, and only the grand alchemist of the royal family, his disciples, and the best alchemy masters of the empire's pillars could create it.

Yet, a pill of supreme quality and its creator was in his sight!

Of course, he was thunderstruck and amazed!