It was only shortly after attempting to refine his first pill that the entire thing blew up in his face.

“Woah!” Xing Yi shouted as he skittered away from the cauldron and inside the house to take cover.

With his back against the wall, he didn’t even see it happen when a loud boom resounded throughout the valley. When he peeked through the window, he saw a thick black fog rising up into the air. Black marks stained the paved tiles and the remaining heat left from the burnt liquid quickly dissipated. Black liquid stuck to the side of the cauldron, a slow ooze leaking out of it.

Xing Yi, despite almost being killed, could only slump forward in defeat.

“I really have to clean all of this every time I fail?” Xing Yi complained as he stared on at the mess he had created.

With a long sigh, he grabbed a mop, bucket, and spare cloth to clean it all up. As for the black marks, he could already see the future. For if any cultivator of the sect dared visit him, they would find a black circle around a lone cauldron in the side courtyard. That would raise many questions, but he could always play dumb.

Earlier, when he had been pondering how he should go about his pill refining, he was worried that if a senior were to have questions, they would go and sifting through his mind. If such a thing were to happen, he would be practically braindead from that point on.

Mortal minds like his were vulnerable and couldn’t bear the strain of a powerful cultivator searching through their mind for information. They couldn’t just do that either.

Cultivators could also fuse souls into puppets, brainwash people, control others from a distance, plant ideas into their minds for them to eventually discover and act out upon, and or cause them to self-detonate, killing the person instantly.

Cultivators capable of controlling the soul were very few and despite many of their capabilities, their most feared ability was their soul-fire. It was a type of torture that was several hundred-fold more painful than being burned alive. Even the most courageous and fearless cultivators would immediately bend to this type of torture and would be at the other person’s mercy. It was what anyone would come to think of first when they heard the person knew soul manipulation techniques.

So, before Xing Yi began his next attempt, he began worrying about whether or not the spiritual ingredients were going to return back to normal from this. Not all the liquid was inside the cauldron. The majority of it had been mopped up by him and he didn’t know if the cauldron could transmute parts of a completed ingredient. But fortunately, about an hour later the illusory lid had reappeared over the cauldron.

Immediately, his next question was whether or not it recreated as a whole or just that part. And it was to his surprise an hour later that he discovered all his ingredients fully intact.

“That’s pretty cool. But where does it come from?” Xing Yi wondered as he looked underneath and around the cauldron.

Shrugging his shoulders, he walked inside the house and sat in front of his desk. It was a low table that was only knee-height. On it, in neat piles, were a few books and a fresh leather book. It was a thick, large one, filled with a few hundred pages.

Dabbing his pen into the inkstone, he began on the first page.

Attempt #1:

First attempt was pitiful. It blew up in my face as soon as I powered my inner qi into the cauldron. It was sudden and I couldn’t control it. From this, I acknowledge that I lack control, experience, and skill. I must overcome this roadblock through repeated efforts. Discipline is what I need.

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Rich with the readings of many age-old cultivators and their writings, he wrote in his pill refinement diary with neat calligraphy and frank words. With a focused mind, he began once more.

He hauled water up from the river and poured it into the cauldron, added firewood back underneath the cauldron lit it aflame, and added in his ingredients all at once. Again, unlike heavenly pill refinement, he could not be slow. He had to be quick and quickly coalesce the pill in the shortest time possible.

The aggressive and rabid energy of earthly pill refinement gave a lot of room for error, and he could not waste time slowly adding in the ingredients as the more time he spent refining, the higher the chance it could all blow up in his face.

So, sitting down in front of it in a seated lotus-position, white robes covering his ankles, he placed his hands upon the black cauldron. Unlike heavenly cultivators, he couldn’t refine pills from a distance and instead had to be in contact with the cauldron throughout the whole process.

Taking any of his fingers off the cauldron could botch the whole refinement and it was very important that he stayed alert to make sure that didn’t happen. Taking in a few deep breathes, he felt for the energy of the cauldron, patiently waiting for the right moment to begin.

During this brief waiting period, he protected himself from the blistering heat by creating a layer of inner qi over his palms. It was a technique that he learned from the unnamed pill refining art he received Elder Yang. Despite having all of its contents, the information inside the jade slip didn’t contain its title.

Strange, he reminisced.

For now though, he thought of it as the Earthly Pill Refining Art.

Then, as the energy bubbling inside the cauldron reached a certain point, Xing Yi reached inside and attempted to take control of the energy. However, just as his inner qi made contact with the qi inside the cauldron, an instantaneous chain reaction occurred, causing an explosion to instantly occur.

Sadly, the same thing had happened, and he didn’t have any time to be sad about it because he had to run.

Again, he cleaned up the whole thing and went back inside to journal about his second attempt. Much of it was similar to his last entry and he could only tell himself to focus and stay disciplined.

Journalling was a tool of inner reflection. To face the inner demons, overcome weakness and mental clarity. Xing Yi had read very well from many master cultivators that it was unacceptable to go without mental reflection. To do so would be moronic.

Other than other cultivators, inner demons were the greatest threats to one’s cultivation. As one’s cultivation progressed, any undefeated inner demons would slowly materialise and turn into actual demons within the mind temple.

Cultivators, to destroy these neglected demons, would have to enter a dream-like realm and face against them in combat. It wasn’t real combat but more a clash of wills to see who was more valid and stronger. The paradox of right or wrong could be skewed in any side and if the other couldn’t argue back, they would lose sight of what they were fighting for and would succumb to the other side.

They were serious threats and not to be taken lightly and, in the literature, Xing Yi had read of the many toils of these great cultivators who had not only struggled with enemies and rivals in real life, but within their mind temple that haunted them whenever they meditated and could only be defeated in a life-or-death battle.

He could not let these struggles with pill refining haunt him. Even with his pitiful cultivation, a small seed could be sowed within his mind without knowing and he would be forced to deal with it when his cultivation had further progressed.

And when he made another attempt, same thing happened.

Then again.

And again.

And when he woke up the next day, he ended up doing the same thing.

After each attempt, he had about an hour before the ingredients rematerialized and he could attempt refining again. He spent the first twenty minutes cleaning and the other forty doing to rounds of twenty meditation cycles according to his cultivation technique. Cultivating with his talent wasn’t going to do much in terms of him progressing but it would keep his mind focused and his meridians fresh.

And before going to bed, he would do an extra quick round and leave the alchemical waste of that to rematerialize overnight.

He made about fifteen attempts every day, which if other pill refiners were to know, would cause much envy and that supposed waste of its usage on someone like Xing Yi.

And in time, the toils of time left Xing Yi failing again and again with a big explosion right in his face. As time passed, the time it took for the explosion to occur became longer and longer. It went from instantly to a few short seconds.

And to the knowledge of nobody, a legendary pill refining grandmaster was being born.