Chapter 27
It would take about four hours to concoct a portion of medicinal herbs. The induction cooker wouldn’t be broken, right?
Shuhang was a little worried.
Through the cover of the hot pot made of reinforced glass, he could see that ginseng slices were tumbling up and down in the hot water. He got a little excited—so he was refining a pill?
Yes, he was.
But how come it didn’t feel much different from cooking noodles…?
Was it because he was not fit for this?
Opening the stopwatch function of his cell phone, Song Shuhang was staring at the ginseng slices in the hot pot, keeping an eye on the time of the stopwatch.
Five minutes later…
He immediately opened the cover of the pot, and put in the second medicine herb—Chinese wolfberries.
The two herbs rolled in the boiling water and quietly rendered the water light yellow.
Temperature, time… both of them required experience.
However, Song Shuhang simply got no experience with these things.
Thus, all he could do was to keep a close watch on time, open the cover, and add a medicine herb every five minutes. As for temperature, just let the induction cooker do its job.
It still feels like cooking noodles.
What if I only get a bowl of ordinary traditional Chinese medicine soup in three hours?
Would this simplified formula of ‘body tempering liquid’ completely shatter his worldview that was built over the past eighteen years? Or would it crush his dreams of cultivation that he just produced these days?
As heat was accumulated in the hot pot, the temperature rose in the kitchen.
At this time, a chill came from the ice bead that Shuhang wore around his neck, letting him feel cool and refreshed. What was more, the ice bead could also keep him clear-minded. Unknowingly, he entered a trance.
He gently squeezed the ice bead on his chest.
This magical ice bead made him a little more confident in refining the body tempering liquid.
Don’t let me down, please… even if the pill refining fails, at least let me confirm the existence of ‘cultivation’.
Song Shuhang pinched the third ingredient, unable to remain calm. Song Shuhang couldn’t find any information about it, not even from the internet. It was called ‘Morning Dew Mysterious Grass’!
In terms of shape, it was a green bar-shaped plant, not quite different from any ordinary grass. However, after taking a close look, one could find some drops of water on the grass, just like morning dew on the blades of grass.
The digits on the stopwatch changed rapidly. Five minutes had quickly passed!
Song Shuhang lifted the pot’s cover, dropped the Morning Dew Mysterious Grass in his hand into the pot, and quickly put the pot cover back in place.
He got a bit excited. After all, it was a special herb, and maybe it could bring some special changes to the medicinal herbs in the pot.
Like the first two herbs, Morning Dew Mysterious Grass was tumbling in the boiling water.
Song Shuhang’s eyes were still fixed on Morning Dew Mysterious Grass. The chill from the ice bead on his chest made him concentrated as never before!
Gradually, the three herbs seemed to be magnified in his eyes!
In this moment, there were only these medicinal herbs in Song Shuhang’s world, without anything else.
Maybe it was because he was extremely concentrated, or because the ice bead on his chest worked, but Song Shuhang was gradually able to detect every subtle change to the three medicinal herbs in the boiling water.
Every time they tumbled, some light yellow contents were released from them, and blended into the medicine soup. Ginseng slices slightly swelled after releasing their essence into the boiled water.
It was a wonderful feeling!
‘Temperature seems not to be high enough?’ The thought suddenly occurred to Song Shuhang.
He felt that the herbs in the pot needed more heat, especially Morning Dew Mysterious Grass, which needed a higher temperature to stimulate it!
Thus, he pressed on the temperature control of the induction cooker, and turned up the temperature without any hesitation.
“Babble~!”
The water in the pot was boiling so much that even the cover was pushed up by the steam.
Bug-eyed with shock, Song Shuhang couldn’t believe it—after turning up the temperature, Morning Dew Mysterious Grass had really changed!
Morning Dew Mysterious Grass that was floating on the surface suddenly dissolved!
Song Shuhang didn’t know how much time and what temperature were needed to make an ordinary grass dissolve in water, but it was impossible to melt Morning Dew Mysterious Grass like this in just less than five minutes even if he had turned the induction cooker to the maximum temperature.
This was a special property of Morning Dew Mysterious Grass.
As the grass dissolved, a layer of green medicinal liquid appeared on the surface of the soup.
The green medicinal liquid wrapped ginseng slices and wolfberry fruit in the pot as if it had its own consciousness.
The two herbs also began to dissolve after being wrapped, and gradually blended into the green medicinal liquid.
Song Shuhang felt his heart freeze for a while.
What a magical change!
At the same time, he had a vague idea—perhaps one shouldn’t add water in the beginning; instead, ginseng slices and Chinese wolfberries should be heated in a special way. Then, the medicinal liquid could be produced as long as Morning Dew Mysterious Grass was added.
He didn’t know whether he had failed or not.
Fortunately, he had been ready for failure from the start. This time, his main tasks were to familiarize himself with the refining process and record the problems he encountered during that process.
Another five minutes had passed.
This time, Song Shuhang calmly took out the fourth medicinal herb and put it into the pot.
The fourth ingredient was also wrapped by the green liquid, and blended into the medicinal liquid bit by bit.
‘If heated with this temperature, it would take five minutes or so for the fourth medicine herb to completely blend into the medicinal liquid. Maybe that’s why Medicine Master said ‘about’ five minutes. After all, medicine herbs would differ in size, shape, and age, and different temperature or qualities of the different pill furnaces would also cause time to differ.‘ More enlightened, Song Shuhang’s eyes were still fixed on the medicinal herbs in the pot.
He felt he understood the pill formula of Medicine Master better.
On one hand, thanks to the ice bead he wore around his neck, he made this progress. This ice bead kept Song Shuhang at peace, concentrated and clear-minded.
On the other hand, it seemed that Song Shuhang had a flair for pill refining. It was an innate talent, and if he wanted to be an alchemist in the future, this talent would make him yield twice the results with half the effort.
As he understood the pill formula better and better, Song Shuhang began to give up on the ‘five minutes’ limit.
He began to decide when to add the next ingredient according to the blending degree of the pill liquid in the pot. Sometimes, he would add the next medicine herb after about four and a half minutes. Sometimes, he would do it after more than five minutes.
Somehow, forty-six minutes had passed…
Shuhang had tried controlling the temperature since he added the tenth medicine herb. According to the blending degree of the medicinal liquid, his fingers moved on the temperature control of the induction cooker to turn the temperature up or down.
No longer sticking to time, he was getting busy.
After the sixteenth medicinal herb was blended in, the blending capacity of Morning Dew Mysterious Grass in the pot seemed to reach its limit. Just then, according to the instructions of the pill formula, Song Shuhang added another special medicine herb, ‘Three Lives Fruit Core’.
Sure enough, just like Morning Dew Mysterious Grass, Three Lives Fruit Core was also used for ‘blending the medicine herbs’.
Since he added the first bowl of water, Shuhang hadn’t added any more water. The medicinal liquid in the pot did not dry up despite having been concocted for over one and a half hours, and it even increased slightly.
After adding the new medicine herb, Shuhang focused on the blending degree of the medicinal liquid, and waited; then, he kept adding medicine herbs. Extremely boring, the process allowed no carelessness.
This was the job of a pharmacist, an alchemist! It was a job requiring perfection. Even among cultivators, only those who could endure the loneliness well were suitable for this job. And, these would be one in a million.