After refining the Medical Garden they moved on to Ning’s Peak Low Grade Common rank Tiger Fin Twin long swords.
Under the refining it finally became a High Grade Common rank weapon and it gained an even stronger aura and it also affected Tora a bit since every time they refine he would fly around it and be struck by the energies.
Finally it was time for the Silver Iron Pill Cauldron and they simply refined it without adding materials. Silver Iron alloy is a high grade alloy that makes Mortal Rank items so there is no need to replace it and simply refine impurities out of it and the refining pushed it from High Grade all the way to Ungraded Mortal Rank because the material was very high quality for the rank and their meticulous refining had lead to a huge jump in quality.
After they finally finished they stopped for the night. They were all tired so the two sat in different locations and began to meditate to regenerate their energy and as early morning light began to shine down.
Rinrin walked into the bathroom and changed into more public clothing and fixed her hair into a bun which seemed better for walking outside. It was a bun but she still had part of her long silky hair let loose.
While she dressed in the bathroom Ning changed outside far quicker than her and when she exited he was ready and had put away all the necessary items including the extra low quality cauldron they tested the refining on the last night. Leaving a treasure they refined to someone else wouldn’t be wise.
The two left the hall and flew quickly on Tora to meet Ning’s mother and explained their intent and how the Garden had grown and she nodded. “So you need someone to help you in this little endeavor. Alright, as long as you can find the medical hills I can transfer it into your garden.” She smiled and her grin grew wider as she looked between the two of them.
“So how was couple cultivation.” She asked, “Tell me Ning, have you embraced her with you…”
“MOTHER IN LAW PLEASE!” Rinrin shouted as her face was as bright as a ripe tomato.
Bo Rei giggled, “Alright alright, just a little motherly teasing. Come on, let's go find some.” She said.
Unlike before where they were on Tora for speed, now they were on Rinrin’s Great Harpy for stability. Rinrin slowly flew to the back mountains and was sensing the air before she pointed in between a large mountain where there was a very small hill that didn’t even surpass 20 meters before it straightened up.
“There, that hill, I remember seeing a map where this was mapped out because there was a small spirit vein making it a budding medical mountain probably.” She said. The harpy descended and landed at the foot of the hill.
Bo Rei looked around and closed her eyes and after a nod she turned to them, “This is it, this is a premature spirit mountain. It still hasn’t reached any rank and is still in the process of ‘being born’ as a mountain. There is no telling if it is a spirit mountain or a medical mountain nor which grade. It was marked but probably ignored because it would still take some 40 years from now for it to finally ‘sprout’.” She said.
“So can mother, tell what it is?” Rinrin asked gently.
“No, but if it undergoes some refinings, maybe after you have a Demon Core formed or Ning has a Xiantian beast the energy you will have will be able to finally refine this into budding. Until then we can’t say.” She said.
“Let’s get it.” Rinrin said with a vicious glint in her eye.
“Hey, dull headed idiot, didn’t you hear mother say that they have an eye on this. They probably have runic formations around here to guard it.” Ning said.
“They don’t, the moment we landed I scanned the land, if there was something they would have a protector and formations within at least 3 kilometers of this to warn them someone had entered this area heading towards the hill.” Bo Rei said.
“They probably don’t care because of the size of the spirit vein.” Rinrin said.
“How can the size be gauged?” Ning asked.
“It’s usually by thickness. Since they didn’t do anything to this, most likely it's only around common rank while the inner sect works with only mortal rank and above. The most they will do is protect it for disciples to hunt for herbs or to supply the low grade herbs that are needed to train the alchemists.” Bo Rei said.
She quickly turned around and walked on until she was at the very base of the hill and she bent over and touched the ground. It took about a minute before slowly the hill began to glow. Strange runes began to appear over the entire hill and even around for nearly 150 meters.
“Oh my, those old bag’s sure lost a treasure this time!” Bo Rei said in shock and laughed, “Ning take out the garden.” She said.
He did so and with a wave she pulled it over and held it over her left hand. She began to change something and slowly the garden began to glow as were all the runes and everything began to gather at the hill and everything began to flatten as if a plain was forming but in front of Bo Rei, slowly a blue root began to come out of the ground. It was as thick as an adult’s arm and almost a meter long with several dozen branches. With a thought she and the root vanished into the garden and for a long moment there was no sound before she appeared once more.
“You little.” Bo Rei laughed.
“What happened just now?” Rinrin asked.
“I pulled out the Spirit vein while keeping its growth in tact. It will take 40 to 60 years to blossom into a High Grade Mortal Rank Spirit Mountain. If you refine the garden diligently for the next 2 years it will speed the growth of the spirit Vein by 20 years but if you get a Xiantian or equivalent beast then it will take around a month of daily refining to reach the results. At your current rank, refining would make it blossom into Low Grade Common Rank in 6 months but I wasn’t so bad and I connected the spirit roots in the garden so the medical mountain will help speed it up. Just to warn you but the speed of refining will not be fast anymore because not only is the garden mortal rank now but it will also need a lot of energy to refine the mountains.” She said.
“That is fine, a powerful treasure isn’t a good thing in the hands of disciples. Just this mountain would make the elders green with envy since we now have a High Grade Spirit Mountain for ourselves.” She said.
“Alright, let's keep looking, let's look for already formed medical mountains this time.” Bo Rei said.
Another happy thing to see was that the garden had expanded to 120 acres with the addition of the new spirit root but Bo Rei said that it was still ungraded. Ungraded Earth rank usually had between 500 to 600 acres when first made but after it is cultivated and a few mountains added the still Ungraded Earth rank garden would measure almost 1000 acres of space.
For a mortal rank one to have 120 acres after having two mountains isn’t a surprise. There was space for one more mountain without crowding the space thanks to the new open space before they would need to go back to refining and make more space.
They eventually found one which was also an Ungraded hill and this was was a proper Medical Mountain with several flowers on top that was transplanted to the existing mountain for better production before the spirit root was withdrawn.
Both Ning and Rinrin were utterly shocked when they saw the root. It wasn’t even bigger than their pinky.
“This is why Ungraded Mountains are ignored, they aren’t a main vein and instead they are a branch from a large underground one but these are perfect for medical gardens because they are easy to refine. They accept the refining aura and grow really well and in a garden as long as there is a bigger spirit vein they can connect forming a natural ley line system allowing the roots to draw in more energy and grow bigger.” Bo Rei said and vanished into the garden and appeared soon after and returned the garden.
“Good, the garden should be at ‘full capacity’ at this moment. There really isn’t space anymore but as you refine it the mountains will force the garden to open more. Remember just because there may be more than 500 acres doesn’t mean the garden is Earth Rank. There are many things involved and one of them is elemental balance. Until you obtain a balance of the five basic elements it probably will not pass into earth rank and may reach around 600 or 700 acres. This is a very good size for you children so do not worry anymore about the garden. Let us return to the villa and move some servants for herb managing and put up patrol guards.” She said.
“Won’t they steal our herbs?” Rinrin scowled.
“For herbal gardens like this they will know their place. Also I will never let someone inside if they don’t do a heavenly oath on their life. They would only take it if they learn pill refining or alchemy.” She said.
They nod agreeing to the terms and returned to the villa and from the servants they gathered several who accepted the oath of secrecy and were sent into the garden to manage and help them cultivate the herbs.
Of course they went in and lead them to build the house just outside the range of the spirit mountain area which would eventually make a spirit mountain.
Once that was set the two returned to the pill refining hall and just as they were going to enter their room they heard a shout.
“Hey where were you both?!” A shout came.
Ning and Rinrin looked back and saw the Deacon from the previous day.
“We went out to collect herbs.” Ning said coldly. He really did not enjoy the tone the Deacon had raised.
Suddenly he saw a glint flash in his eyes. “Herbs huh? What would apprentice who don’t know anything do with herbs? We provide the necessary Common Rank herbs for the pills you don’t need to hunt for herbs since that is a waste of time. Show he the herbs you found.” he said with greed flashing in his eyes.
“That is none of your business.” Rinrin said coldly.
Suddenly a heavy pressure, “You two are apprentice and disciples while I am a deacon! You should first greet me due to courtesy of seniority. Also…” he grinned and lowered the volume, “I possess a bigger fist so what do I care about little newbie disciples such as you two? ‘Princess’ Rinrin, you have none of your power here, this is the Pill Refining Hall, even your Zhao clan would not dare infuriate us because it would cut the supply of pills to your family.” He sneered.
“Trash, will always be trash.” Ning said coldly and suddenly he flashed and appeared very close to the Deacon while both of his Tiger Fin Twin blades were crossed around the deacon’s neck like a pair of scissors.
The deacon had never expected this boy to be so ruthless and pull his sword so easily towards a senior deacon of the sect and pill refinement hall.
“I shall give you this one chance, turn your dog tail around and do not appear near us again.” Ning said.
“You really think you can get away with this? Just because you surprised me?” the Deacon sneered. “A newborn calf really does not fear the tiger.” He laughed.
Suddenly the swords closed in and the pinch of the two blades touching his neck caused his blood to run cold.
“One… warning.” Ning said before removing the swords and taking a step backwards before closing the door and for privacy he activated the formation which blocked the view from the outside.
The deacon was pale and quickly touched the two sides of his neck feeling the blood and sneering as he quickly took a pill to heal the wounds and found an empty room to clean off the blood on his robes, “That brat, let’s see how he likes it when I present your head to those guys that want to cave in your head.” He muttered.
For the next two days no one came out or entered but the door remained closed but when the two came out they went direct to school returning and looking themselves for the night and leaving in the morning.
The day’s they didn’t have class was spent in here or if it got to tedious they went to some Common Rank Medical Mountains and gathered herbs and replanted into their garden to increase the variety they possessed.
**
Like this two months passed safely but on the day of the start of their third month in the inner sect someone appeared at the door and banged. Of course there was a taboo against disturbing cultivators when they are busy but these people clearly came to make trouble but they didn’t know the array of the room had long since been active. The doors were firmly locked and sound entering and leaving was blocked.
The reason was that both Ning and Rinrin had long since begun refining low ranking pills to practice using the low quality herbs they had gathered from the hall and some from their garden.
The lowest quality pill, Blood forming pill, was very easy to make. After spending more than two months training fire control to the point of materializing some simple items in detail they had quite good control of their fires. Ning in particular could use both his flames at the same time and he made a style of pill refining where he uses one flame to concentrate on the bottom while the second would focus on the sides causing less waste of energy.
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Even without being unique flames they had some aspects of the beasts to whom they are attached to the seeds of. The one on Tyrant is much more stable and steady making good for working the bottom while the one on Tora was very good for the outer area because it was wilder and was stronger due to absorbing less air but burning hotter.
Of course, to anyone outside, even a master, they would only see one flame because the two are seemingly mixed under the cauldron but once they become unique flames it would be easy to see.
Of all the items that these two possess, anything regarded as a ‘treasure’ was refined because refining caused the Qi and Demon Essence of the Dao Beasts to slowly thicken and form a stronger foundation. They even refined the small spatial pouches to Mortal rank increasing the space inside to almost 5 square meters inside. Spatial pouch can be Qi based or magic based but they are usually low quality with only around 1 or 2 square meters inside. The material it is made with is cheap so there is not much room for refining it and 5 square meters is the limit.
The low grade cauldron that Rinrin had found was also refined greatly. Using Black Gold and Black Iron they made it into a Black Alloy. This was a very high grade alloy and it was hard to even make it in the cauldron to upgrade the Low Grade cauldron.
When the metal was finally integrated, after using 2 kilos of Black Iron for 1 kilo of Black Gold, the entire cauldron, or most of it, had been changed to Black Alloy. Every Major fault was repaired and fixed, minor faults were taken care of and only a few spaces had a small fault that formed due to less material in that area but after refining Ning was able to slowly move more alloy over there to help cover it up. This cauldron has a very high potential though, Black Gold and Iron are used for high grade mortal rank weapons so for a pill cauldron which would absorb medical energy it could at least get to Earth rank. It was far better than the Silver Iron Cauldron Ning had but this cauldron still had much room for improvement. Also both cauldron are Ungraded Mortal rank.
Their efficiency in holding the medical energy of lower grade pills is quite high. Like this they slowly refined pill after pill going up all the way to 7th level Ungraded pills with ease. After reaching Low grade they found difficulty for several herbs since they weren’t cheap and somewhat hard to use.
Finally after a try each they sighed, “We trained about two weeks with pill refining, I think this is enough to get the attention of an elder maybe.” Ning said.
“That deacon said common disciples take 4 years to start refining… I think we took 3 months.” Rinrin said.
“Two months.” Ning said.
The attitude of these two had somewhat mellowed out. Staying in the same room and cultivating together daily, refining their treasures together, eating and sleeping in the same room, sitting next to each other at school, training together, it eventually calmed down their previous tension but they still called each other names but no longer so brutally to irritate but more as nicknames.
“Hmm… hey Ning, there are people at the door.” Rinrin said.
Ning noticed as well and walked over and looked through the currently one sided glass and saw there were people banging but the sound was muffled. “Seems to be grunts of some people. They sent… a big guy and around five or six underlings.” Ning said.
“We need to see the elders since we already learned all the beginner books and need properly pointers now.” Rinrin frowned. “What are their strengths?” She asked walking over and looking out while carefully spreading her Spiritual Sense which has greatly developed. Through training with the flame it has become quite powerful so she could sneakily spread it through the door over these people.
“3 Lower Success Houtian… 2 of them are 7th level Liquid mana… the big guy is Peak Houtian with a strong foundation. Probably one of the better clans.” She said.
“So we don’t have much of a problem if they came to cause trouble. Tora and Kala are both Peak Houtian as well.” He said with confidence.
“Well lets at least store these things before we leave or else this stupid ogres will ruin our hard work.” She said and began to bottle the pills and started to store their things in an extremely casual manner.
Finally they finished and after the concocting pills each one took turns taking a bath while the other recovered their strength after using so much Qi. This casual pace had long since developed and in truth, it is something that most calm pairs would develop quite early on with their main wife.
Finally the two decided to leave and as soon as the door opened a big meaty hand fit through the opening and began to push the door open but a small hand from Ning holding it turned him from a weak looking 12 year old into a steel tower.
“Do you need something?” Ning asked coldly.
“You little shit! Open the door so I, your grandfather, can show you a good time?!” He roared.
“I don’t know you, what do you want?” Ning asked.
“Hey idiot, you know right, people promoted into the Inner sect through a breakthrough always have a 2 month protection to let them grow strong enough to match those of the lowest ring at the very least. Oh we even forgot to got get a High Grade Mortal Rank martial arts for you.” She said suddenly realized.
With class, Bo Rei’s training, and training with Pill refining they had forgotten some benefits.
Ning blinked and put his hand into his pocket and pulled out a small token. “Right, an inner sect High Grade Mortal Rank martial arts. We do need to get that or else I will definitely be hitting my head against the wall for being stupid.” Ning said. “Did you get one before I arrived?” He asked.
“It is my Body refining art.” She said.
“OI! STOP IGNORING ME!” The idiot in front of them roared. The age of this person looked in his twenties but it was clear he was already near the later years of his apprenticeship. He wasn’t a Deacon for sure so he was still younger than 40.
“So noisy, what do you meat heads want with this princess!?” She shouted.
“Heh!” The man grinned. His eyes were filled with a bit of lust. “This little brat doesn’t deserve ‘my’ woman.” He said with a lecherous smile.
Instantly the face of the girl turned extremely serious before her body flashed and appeared in front of the crack before her foot passed right through the opening into the idiot’s face causing him to pull the door slamming his hand and Ning pressed the door to not let him escape.
“RAHHH!! LET GO YOU DAMN SHIT!” He roared.
“Boss! Don’t shout or else it will attract the elders!” One of the lackey said.
“You fucking trash! Help me open this!” He roared.
“Hmph.” Rinrin snorted before circulating her ape’s Demon Essence and holding the door alongside Ning. It should be known that Ning and Tyrant have long since reached the initial stages of the 5th level of ‘Titan Bull Titan Body’ his body can already take any attack under the strength of High Success Qi refining and his body strength is that stage. By using Qi of Peak Houtian he simply adds on top of that powerful body foundation making himself a steel tower in front of an ant’s bite.
Similarly, Rinrin obtained the ‘Earth Jade Body Refining’ technique through his mother but they had forgotten about him when it came to it. Of course they would never get the Steel Horn Rock Rhino’s complimentary body refining martial arts for a girl. If one said she was training the ‘Rock Rhino Mountain Body Refining’ art, it would shame them more then bring pride.
With both of them casually holding the door, when the other Qi practitioner began to push against the door, it felt like they were trying to push a mountain.
“I think this is enough.” Rinrin said and the two took a step back and let the door fly open and those 3 pushing to door stumbled in only to receive a punch to the face. As for the big ape he fell down while his hand was red.
As the Little devil princess, she would not take an insult standing, of course the degree of it changes similar to how she simply bickered with Ning because he would only bicker with her but these dumb apes had malicious intent towards her. She would never let such trash have it easy. She took a step forward and her small delicate foot stomped down on the injured hand.
“RAHHH! YOU LITTLE BITCH!” The fat man roared as his injured hands were pinned under her small feet but it felt like a mountain was pressing down. “When I get out I will fuck you until you can only think of serving me! Then I will wish you were dead!” He roared as he pulled.
Since long ago the nearby rooms had people watching with irritated faces so when they saw Rinrin beating on these noisy fellows they were quite interested.
“So you have such intentions for this princess. Trash of the common flock who cannot even enter the Xiantian, let me give you a gift for your ‘sincere’ intentions.” She said and in a flash her other leg swung out and connected with the shoulder.
CRACK! SNAP!
Like a sledgehammer her little foot slammed into his shoulder and the bones broke and muscles tore. The fat man paled and fainted from the pain.
She sneered and stepped off of him.
“What is all the noise!?” A cold voice said suddenly appearing.
This cold voice came from an old man whose hair was white and his face was clean and smooth but wrinkled.
Rinrin walked out and cupped her hands, “Junior apprentice greets esteemed Elder Zhao.” She said.
“Rinrin? What is happening here?” He asked.
“Me and my… my husband were training the art of pill refining and were about to look for a senior disciple brother or senior Deacon for instructions as we have reached an impasse into our ignorance in regards to several herbs whose medical effects keep conflicting.” She said respectfully.
This was one of the Zhao clan’s pill refining elders. How could she not know him. This old man’s status was in no way inferior to her own fathers.
“So what of this?” He asked.
“We are unsure. We simply opened the door to find them attempting to break into our room.” She said.
The eye’s of the elder instantly went cold he turned to the door opposite to Rinrin’s room and gestured for the residents to come out and who appeared were young disciples who greeted him.
“What did you see?” He asked.
“Disciple responding to elder, this one saw these disciples remain here for the last 3 hours attempting to break down the door but due to the array closing the door due to apprentice sister and brother being in pill refinement the room was sealed.” He said.
He glared coldly at the people, “Who sent you?” He asked them.
They were trembling but did not speak even as they were put under the pressure of the elder. A sinister grin, “Good good. It seems you believe my Pill Refining Hall is a weak joke where you can walk around as you please. The simple fact that you reached this far means you have inside help. It seems I will have to clean house one of these days.” he said viciously. “Little Rinrin, you said you were already at an impasse with pill refining? You are already making pills?” He asked.
“Yes, we both spent two months training fire control and only the past week began to make pills and can succeed up to level 7 Ungraded pills but further than that it is hard to control the Herbal Essences and congeal.” She said.
“Oh!” He said with bright eyes. “You have been here two months and already produce pills. As expected of our families little genius and her companion.” He nodded. He turned to the six people and snapped his finger. Suddenly several masked men appeared, “Apprehend them, find out what you can. Also that fat pig cripple his cultivation. The words at the end I had heard, for such trash to covet our Zhao clan’s women with such intent he must be punished.” The elder said.
“Yes elder!” They said with muffled voices and quickly appeared in front of each person and with a quick and clean strike they knocked them out and dragged them away like a sack of rice.
“All you others, return to your room. Little Rinrin, come, this elder wishes to see what you can do.” He said with wave. He directly entered their room and saw how tidy it was and figured they were about to leave which made sense. He quite liked the fact that they had a neat room as compared to a few pill refiners who did not care about appearances. Of course it was another thing if they were making a very high level pill where there was no time for neatness.
The two took out the level 7 pills and those up to level 12 and the elder took them one by one and removed a pill and looked through each of them. He could clearly see the progress from lower quality to higher quality. Strong smell for low quality while fragrant smell with a lot of it sealed inside the pill for the high quality. The ones after level 7 dropped in quality progressively until there was only a 10% success rate of pills. Success rate means the number of pills one can properly produce in one batch.
He was nodded before walking to the bookshelf and making sure to see the names of all the books and nodded approvingly. “Good good good!” he nodded and turned with a smile, “Two genius pill refiners, I will say this, the reason the grade 8 and above pills are failures is because of your lack of proper methods. These books help for beginners but not beyond which is why only through trial and error will you be able to succeed. The methods to refining change after the 8th grade.” He smiled. “For you to reach this stage after two months, no, after one week to reach this stage means your fire control is quite good and your comprehension is peerless. Come show me how good it is.” He said excited to find an amazing seedling within his own family clan.
Anyone can toil to learn pill refining but talent is important. To find a pair of talents that can make pills after two months of study and flame training and 1 week of actual training, it is unsurpassed talent, he would shame himself if he did not take them in and properly groom them.
Ning and Rinrin nodded before walking over, what was curious was that when the elder looked at the refining area the furnace had long since been tossed into the pile of trash cauldron. He was curious about this and was about to ask when they each pulled out their own cauldrons which radiated the aura of an Ungraded Mortal rank treasure.
“Mortal rank cauldron!” He exclaimed. The two smiled wryly as they knew it would eventually get out. “How did you obtain such things!?” He asked.
“We improved them elder.” Ning said respectfully, “We purchased a few profound metals and mixed them to make strong alloy and using our Spiritual Sense we would slowly improve on top of the faults in the cauldron and changing the material removing the trash and impurities that existed before.” Ning explained.
Hearing Ning’s words the elder calmed down, of course anyone knew of this process, he himself had done the same to a High Grade Common rank cauldron he had purchased when he was in his youth and slowly improved it and refined pills watching its grade improve as he used it to refine pills. But what he was curious about is how only a week of pill making resulted in a Mortal rank cauldon.
Still he knew to keep quiet, which person doesn’t have some secrets and he can tell these two have something up their sleeves.
With a nod he accepted the reason and told them to continue.
***
In another part of the Pill Refining Hall the deacon was sneering after hearing what happened to the third rate trash he had bought to cause trouble for them. The ape wanted Rinrin but was someone who had advanced through the contest but trash was trash and he was nearing the end of his age and would probably become an outer sect elder because he couldn’t break through the Xiantian realm.
The deacon slowly walked outside being careful of his surroundings and slowly walked towards the residents of an influential genius Rider. In his hand was a bottle with several pills he had brought to him and walked in and was lead to the cultivating room where he walked in and found the man on a bed with several women who were his concubines. This man was someone who never accepted a main wife because he did not care for such thing and nobody was worthy.
“Oh, Deacon Xi what brings you here?” He asked while playing with the naked women.
“I came to say that the trash were completely useless. It seems two months inside the room they had gained significant strength.” He said.
The man snorted, “Right, trash with strength is still trash. Rinrin is to be my bitch even if I have to cripple her and drag her. She had been the cause of me losing my right eye, in public. The humiliation I faced, I will make her face.” He said as raged flowed out. The eye patch on his right eye seemed to throb a bit and he fiercely gripped the breasts of the woman he was holding before he calmed down. “I already knew that trash would fail but it gave me time to acquire a few things.” He said and snapped his finger.
Servants walked in carrying several baskets with low grade herbs.
“Common grade ingredients… level 8 and above?” He said.
“I don’t need you to say that, these aren’t common level 8 herbs. I added an untraceable drug into the veins of the herb. It’s impossible for even an alchemy master to notice until they are refining and when they notice it will be too late because this drug will react with the medical compounds and explode. It isn’t enough to kill though but enough to keep them in bed for a few months. The books in those apprentice rooms only teach up to the 7th level so once they begin training the upper level sneak these herbs into their pile and let them injure themselves and no one the wiser.” He said and grinned, “and when they injure themselves I will come and take her while completely destroying that trash. I will heal her wounds at the price of being my concubine since the poison will enter her lungs and is very painful.” He laughed.
The deacon shivered as he thought of this man’s maliciousness but did not let it show. “As expected, someone like you truly is a great man to procure such impressive things. It shall be a little while though until they begin but I shall attempt to plant these in the room they will refine pills.” The deacon said and left the pill bottle with a servant before storing these tainted herbs and bid him well and left as quick as possible.