With Sylvia’s guidance, Drake’s party arrived at their destination.

In front of them stood the slightly larger wooden gates of a village ruins. They looked at each other before opening the gates and walking in.

The immediate temperature change surprised them as always, but they were glad to no longer be in the freezing cold. Although their martial arts cultivation made them more resistant to the elements, they still didn’t enjoy fighting an endless number of demons while being chilled to the bone.

Everyone wanted to rest immediately, but first, they decided to check the area. Even if demons couldn’t get in, other cultivators could be waiting in ambush, and they didn’t want any more surprises.

Thinking so, they split up and searched different parts of the village. None of them found anything, so they heaved a sigh of relief, returned to the centre, and sat down.

“Finally, we can relax,” Blaze exhaled loudly and laid back against a building. Drake sat opposite him, against another building. Sylvia and Helen sat next to each other, to their left, while Cyrus sat to their right.

“Did you guys get teleported together?” Drake asked Sylvia and Helen. They nodded.

“Luckily, yeah,” Helen replied.

Without Sylvia’s help, she would have struggled a lot to make it this far, assuming she didn’t die.

“Cool, did you get any inheritance?” asked Blaze.

“Yes,” Helen replied again. “We cleared one ruin and got an inheritance. It was mostly gold and mana stones which we split, plus…”

“This,” said Sylvia, taking out a dagger. Drake and Blaze sensed that it was a rank two artifact. Although Sylvia mainly fought in the long range, in case any enemies got close, the dagger would help her to defend herself better, so it made sense for her to take it instead of Helen.

“What about you?” Sylvia asked curiously.

Drake thought for a moment and recollected his experience. Starting from meeting the two martial artists who subsequently ended up dying, to solving the puzzle and taking the inheritance. Drake only got a rank one artifact, but he wasn’t upset. There were still many ruins to clear, and he was sure he’d get plenty of artifacts soon.

Blaze also described his experience, eventually talking about Theo ambushing them and killing the lone cultivator they worked with, and how Drake came at the last moment to help them corner Theo, but he ultimately ended up escaping.

Perhaps out of consideration for Drake’s feelings, Blaze didn’t mention the part where Drake had missed the perfect opportunity to kill Theo.

After a few minutes of catching up, they discussed their thoughts on the inheritance. They all believed that the black structure should contain the main inheritance and that the ruins placed along the way should just contain pieces of the inheritance for people to collect on the way. Hence, they all wanted to reach the black structure as soon as possible so other cultivators wouldn’t take the inheritance first.

Drake had an idea.

“Sylvia, why don’t you use your pixies to map out the plains as much as you can? It will help us find our way around more easily.”

“Good idea,” said Sylvia.

“Great, then while you do that, the rest of us will search for the inheritance in this village,” Drake said, standing up. Blaze, Helen, and Cyrus stood up with him whilst Sylvia nodded and closed her eyes.

Despite being a ruin, the group spotted one small building which was perfectly intact, near one of the edges of the village. The four of them shared a glance before entering the building.

They were welcomed by a large, but mostly empty room. There were four pillars in a rectangular formation supporting the roof, with a mini set of stairs located in between each one, leading down to a square, stone platform. At the centre of the platform was an alchemy cauldron and behind it, at the edge of the platform was the statue of an owl.

Excited, they ran up to the owl. As they stepped onto the platform, the owl’s eyes started shining and a feminine voice spoke out.

Cultivation is a long path. Few methods are as helpful to cultivation as alchemy, yet barely any practice this art. Prove your skill and you will obtain this inheritance.

‘That was surprisingly straight to the point,’ Drake thought.

Everyone looked at him. He was the only one with any experience of alchemy in their party. So, only he would have any chance of passing this test.

Drake chuckled and stepped forward. “I accept your challenge.”

The owl’s eyes began glowing. A black vortex appeared before the statue and the same voice spoke out.

Good… Your first test is to refine the fire lotus pill, the jade dew pill, and the bodhi enlightenment pill.

As it mentioned the name of each pill, a scroll came out of the vortex. Once it finished listing the pills, the vortex spat out a bunch of materials and herbs and disappeared, and three scrolls fell on the floor.

Drake took the scrolls and read through them, relieved to realise they were only rank one pills. However, they were each far more complex than any rank one pill he knew. Furthermore, he didn’t even recognise most of the materials listed in the recipe.

‘I guess, that is to be expected from a pill recipe from hundreds of years ago,’ he thought to himself. Many of these herbs were very rare, if not extinct now.

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This meant that he wasn’t familiar with processing these materials. He would have to rely on his experience to help him.

Drake sighed and looked at the others.

“Can you make them?” Blaze asked.

“Yes, I think so,” Drake replied. “But, it might take me some time to get through this. Plus, I’m not sure what the other tests are. So, you guys can go back and relax if you like. There’s not much you can do here,” he suggested.

The three looked at each other and agreed. They left the room, leaving Drake behind to face the owl’s tests on his own.

Drake first read the fire lotus pill recipe in detail. This pill could grant martial artists a temporary boost to their physical abilities, by making them quickly burn through their stamina. In doing so, they could greatly increase their speed and strength, but, after the effects wore off a few minutes later, they wouldn’t be able to fight for a while.

It was a pill that could be useful in certain circumstances and wasn’t too difficult to refine. After memorising the refinement process, Drake then looked at the cauldron in front of him. His mind went blank for a moment before his eyes widened in surprise.

This cauldron was a rank three artifact!

The basic, rank one cauldron only had a wind rune to help alchemists summon small winds to control the ingredients inside. But this rank three cauldron was different. Not only could it allow the alchemist to summon winds with a much more precise speed and direction, but it also had fire and ice runes to aid in controlling temperature.

Normally, you’d have to use an external heat source to control the temperature. But, with this cauldron, the alchemist could directly pour their mana into the runes to control the heat much more easily and precisely. Especially for higher-ranked pills where precision mattered a lot, this cauldron would be a lifesaver.

Drake was elated!

He spent a few moments familiarising himself with using the cauldron before becoming satisfied.

‘I wonder if I can still take this cauldron if I fail the tests,’ he wondered, but then shook his head and decided to focus on the task at hand.

Drake took out the materials for the fire lotus pill and began processing them. Ten minutes later, he transferred them to the cauldron and started refining the pill.

Fifteen minutes passed.

A mini aura was released from the cauldron as Drake stopped pouring in his mana. Although he was confident of his success, he was still slightly nervous opening the lid.

A bright red pill radiating a small, fiery aura floated out of the pot and into his hands.

Drake smiled. ‘Guess I didn’t have to worry so much.’

Not wanting to waste time, Drake repeated the process and, forty-five minutes later, finished refining the jade dew pill and the bodhi enlightenment pill.

The jade dew pill was another type of healing and recovery pill, while the bodhi enlightenment pill was similar to the zenith pill, in that it would help cultivators achieve a state of focus and concentration easily and help them maintain it.

With the three pills hovering above his hand, the owl’s eyes started shining again and the same voice spoke out as another black vortex appeared before the owl statue.

Well done. You have passed the first test. Now, you must pass the second test. Refine the bone cleansing pill and the mental fortification pill.

As before, two new scrolls floated out of the vortex, along with various materials, and it closed.

Drake placed the pills he refined into jade containers and stored them in his pouch. Then, he took the two scrolls and skim read them, before sighing heavily. ‘As expected, these are rank two pills…’

Drake was not yet a rank two alchemist, so he wasn’t confident in his ability to refine rank two pills. Although he had refined several rank two pills before, his success rate was not high and, looking at the materials he was given, he only had enough for five tries for each pill.

‘If this is the second test, will there be a third and a fourth? Will it ask me to refine rank three and four pills!?’

For a moment, Drake felt gloomy about his future. Even if he passed this one, refining a rank three pill was pretty much out of the question for him, let alone a rank four one.

Sigh… ‘Guess I have no choice anyway,’ he thought and steadied his resolve.

‘The only thing I can do… is my best.’

Thinking so, Drake took out the recipe for the bone cleansing pill and studied it carefully. As the name suggested, it was a pill that could help cleanse the impurities in the bones. This would help improve a martial artist's cultivation by a small amount, but only for tempered body and steel body martial artists.

However, it was still incredible. Pills that could directly improve one’s cultivation were very rare in any realm. Drake wanted to learn and refine lots of this pill to help him with his cultivation even after leaving this inheritance, but that was for later.

Drake focused and learnt even the smallest details of this pill to ensure he wouldn’t fail. After becoming satisfied, he sighed again and took out the first batch of materials. It took him twenty minutes to process them all, before beginning the refinement process.

After another half an hour, a mini explosion resounded from the cauldron and Drake began coughing.

‘I… failed…’ he muttered to himself.

However, something unexpected happened. The owl’s eyes began glowing and two beams of light left the owl and entered Drake’s forehead.

Immediately, a large amount of information flowed through his head. It was an unbelievably thorough analysis of his refinement and a breakdown of every single mistake he made. Everything from his basic refinement technique, to the way he processed and handled the materials.

It was incredible!

Within a few moments, all the information was transferred to his mind. Drake closed his eyes and took some time to process everything. When he opened them again, an intelligent sparkle could be detected in his gaze, as if he had a revelation.

“I… see now…” he mumbled. Many things he didn't understand before and made mistakes in were clarified now.

Drake became extremely excited and had to force himself to calm down.

“Let’s… do this!”

Two hours later.

Drake smiled as two new pills were hovering above his palm.

Despite the owl helping him analyse and learn from his mistakes, he still took several more attempts to refine both of them. However, he felt like he had made tremendous progress in his understanding of alchemy.

With a little more practice, he felt that he could become a rank two alchemist!

Drake rejoiced at this unexpected turn of events and was lost in his thoughts when the owl’s eyes shined and the voice suddenly spoke out again.

Congratulations on passing the second test. For your final test, you must refine the death defying pill!

Another scroll and a bunch of materials were spat out by the vortex before disappearing. Drake stored away the two pills he refined and nervously took the scroll. As he read through the pill recipe, he became more and more gloomy.

As expected, this was a rank three pill!

Not to mention, it was very advanced, even for a rank three pill.

Drake felt hopeless.

Even if he tried a hundred times, he wasn’t confident he could make it. Moreover, looking at the materials he was given, he only had enough for twenty tries.

‘This is impossible…’ Drake shook his head. ‘Since when did I become such a loser?’ he scolded himself.

It might be hard, but with the owl helping him learn from his mistakes and allowing him to make incredible progress after each failure, if he tried hard enough, he just might be able to refine it.

No, he had to refine it. Failure was not an option.

Moreover, this was a great opportunity to help him practice his alchemical skills. If he could refine this rank three death defying pill, he would have a much better chance of refining the three-leaf healing pill in the future.

Drake took a deep breath and calmed down. He read through the recipe thoroughly once more.

This was another miraculous pill that could help cultivators at the peak of the steel body realm, break through their bottleneck, and cultivate the undying body! If he did manage to refine it, he could use it for when he attempted the breakthrough.

It took Drake quite a while to just understand the ins and outs of the recipe.

Then, he took out the first batch of materials and began the refinement process.