Immortal Reincarnation Tribulation

Chapter 54 Exclusive Elixir

Du Fan returned to the Spirit Garden near dusk, feeling utterly exhausted. For the past seven days, he had been in a state of constant tension, and had even suffered a serious injury that had threatened his life. Now, back in the Spirit Garden, he didn't even glance at the medicinal herbs in the herb garden before returning to his thatched hut, going to bed and falling into a deep sleep.

The next morning, Du Fan was awakened by an extremely loud voice before he was fully awake.

He was quite depressed, but he forced himself to get up and go outside.

"Junior Brother Du, I must congratulate you! You've truly survived a great calamity and are destined for good fortune, haha..." Wan Baoshan strode over carrying three leather bags and laughed heartily from a distance.

"So it's Senior Brother Wan. You flatter me. This journey was fraught with danger. It was pure luck that I returned alive." Du Fan greeted the newcomer with a smile.

"Junior brother, why be modest? To receive such a generous reward from the sect, you must have made a great contribution. To be honest, seeing these rewards, I am quite envious." Wan Baoshan glanced at the several leather bags in his hand, a look of covetousness in his eyes, and said with a touch of emotion.

"Could these be the sect's rewards?" Du Fan was greatly surprised, not expecting the sect to handle the matter so quickly.

"Junior brother is indeed a clever person. This reward was personally supervised by Elder Iron Ape. All procedures were simplified. In fact, it was completed last night. Considering that it was already late, we waited until this morning to deliver it to you."

Wan Baoshan admired Du Fan even more, and felt a sense of envy, but also a touch of helplessness. If it weren't for the elder personally urging him to do this, given his personality, he would definitely have directly cut off a portion of it.

"Oh? Such a thing! This is truly unexpected." Du Fan was genuinely stunned this time. He never imagined that such a small matter as distributing rewards would require an elder to personally handle it.

"Hehe, these things all belong to Junior Brother. Take a look at them yourself." Wan Baoshan chuckled and handed the three leather bags in his hand to Du Fan.

Du Fan didn't stand on ceremony and immediately opened each bag to check them. Besides a thousand low-grade spirit stones and more than ten kinds of pill formulas, another bag contained a pile of cultivation manuals that he had obtained from Gui Yuan. He felt relieved, as he had been quite worried that the sect would confiscate these manuals.

"No problem, thank you for your help, Senior Brother Wan." Du Fan couldn't hide his joy and immediately clasped his hands in thanks.

"Junior brother has suddenly received such a generous reward, so I suppose he won't care too much about these two spirit stones." Wan Baoshan smiled slightly and with a flick of his hand, two more low-grade spirit stones appeared in his hand.

"This is..." Du Fan was taken aback upon hearing this.

"As your elder brother, I would like to congratulate you again, junior brother. I heard that you have become an outer disciple, so you will naturally enjoy all the benefits of an outer disciple. This is the monthly salary of an outer disciple. Of course, as long as you are still doing the work of an inner disciple, the servant's allowance will still be paid without fail."

In addition, outer disciples naturally have some other privileges, which you can find out by asking around later, so I won't go into details here." Wan Baoshan's eyes flashed as he gave a brief explanation.

"I see, thank you for reminding me, Senior Brother." Du Fan suddenly realized, and after accepting the two spirit stones, he cupped his hands in thanks to Wanbaoshan.

"Not at all, Junior Brother, you don't need to be so polite. This is all just my duty." Wan Baoshan smiled and said this politely, then gave Du Fan a meaningful look, but showed no intention of leaving.

After experiencing various things, Du Fan was no longer the novice he used to be. After a little thought, an idea struck him.

"Senior Brother Wan, I have been taken care of by you since I entered the sect, and I feel really bad about it. This eight-year-old Starflower is still worth some money. I hope you won't mind and will accept it." Du Fan took out a spirit flower from his storage bag and handed it to Wan Baoshan. This Starflower was worth several dozen spirit stones. The other party was a connoisseur and would surely be satisfied.

"Junior brother, you're too kind. By the way, the outer disciples are currently holding a grand competition. I'm not very talented, but I'm a key figure in this competition, so I can't stay here too long. I'll have to come and visit you another time."

Upon seeing the spiritual flower, Wan Baoshan's eyes lit up. He acted swiftly, snatching it from Du Fan's hand in an instant. His smile widened, and after exchanging a few polite words, he departed.

"I wish Senior Brother Wan all the best!" Du Fan breathed a sigh of relief as he watched the other party leave. If he had really given the other party dozens of spirit stones, Du Fan would have felt the pinch in his current state. However, he wouldn't care about giving him spirit herbs and flowers of equal value. These things were just a matter of time for him.

"I've changed..." Recalling his actions and the series of changes in his thoughts, Du Fan smiled bitterly to himself, then carried the three leather bags into the thatched hut.

The sect took away the positioning magic disc and other magical tools for the Five Elements Beasts, but they generously gave them weapons made of refined iron and storage bags, which made Du Fan and Wang San very happy.

At this point, he no longer needed to deliberately hide his wealth. He put the newly acquired thousand spirit stones directly into his storage bag, and then took out the hundreds of spirit stones he had previously hidden and put them into his storage bag as well. Only then did he sit cross-legged on the wooden bed.

He checked Gui Yuan's techniques again and, finding no problems, a smile appeared on his face. However, after pondering for a moment, he did not immediately try to comprehend and cultivate them. Instead, he flicked his wrist and put them away.

Finally, he turned his gaze to the dozen or so pill formulas, all of which were engraved on bamboo slips, making them extremely convenient to read.

Du Fan's eyes instantly lit up with excitement as he quickly glanced through all the pill formulas on the bamboo slip.

"These are almost all the pills that can be used in the Qi Refining stage. Not only are there pills that can improve cultivation, but there are also some with special effects. This trip has really been worthwhile." Du Fan was overjoyed when he saw them.

"The Mind-Concentrating Pill and the Qi-Refining Pill are the two pills I can take now."

Du Fan ultimately focused his attention on two of the pill formulas. The Qi Refining Pill was naturally the lowest-level pill for improving cultivation, while the Mind Concentration Pill was an auxiliary pill that, after consumption, could make one's spirit full and one's thoughts focused, and had miraculous effects on daily cultivation or breaking through bottlenecks. It was suitable for all levels of cultivation.

Du Fan had previously extracted some basic juice essences. When he compared them with the pill formula, he couldn't help but smile. The materials needed for these two pills had all been obtained unintentionally by him. Now all he needed to do was to prepare them according to the proportions.

"For the Concentration Pill, the ingredients are Concentration Grass, Bone-Piercing Ginseng, and Cypress Seeds, in a ratio of 5:3:2; For the Qi Refining Pill, the ingredients are Tianshan Snow Lotus, Yuan Gui, Deer Ginseng, and Aconite, in a ratio of 4:3:2:1." Du Fan immediately perked up, took out several empty small bottles and several jars of sealed liquid essence, and began to mix them.

An hour later, Du Fan's face turned somewhat grim. He had failed five times already, and it turned out that the matter of allocation was not as simple as he had previously thought.

When any two juice essences come into contact, a chemical reaction usually occurs, either dissolving and disappearing in the form of white smoke, or they become incompatible. There was even an explosion once. If he hadn't reacted quickly, he would have been in a rather embarrassing situation, if not in life-threatening danger.

Du Fan temporarily stopped his experiment, sometimes lost in thought, sometimes studying the prescription.

"I've heard that alchemy often results in furnace explosions. This is related to the chemical reactions between various materials. Not all herbs are mutually reinforcing, so they need to be neutralized by the materials at the bottom of the furnace. Even the order in which each herb is added matters. In any case, the principle is to allow mutually antagonistic materials to mutually generate and tolerate each other." Du Fan gradually came to a conclusion, and his eyes brightened.

"Just as water and fire are incompatible and need earth to harmonize them," Du Fan said with conviction, his eyes shining brighter and his expression excited.

Without further hesitation, he entered the herb garden, picked several herbs needed for alchemy, studied them, first determined their properties and approximate strengths and weaknesses, and then took some neutralizing agents to experiment with.

A day later, Du Fan's hair was disheveled, his face was covered in black and white streaks, and he looked extremely unkempt, like a beggar.

"No, it's still not quite there, but what exactly is it missing?" Du Fan asked blankly.

"Oh right, ripening powder! How could I forget about it! That's where its true value lies, because it not only enhances the effect of fertilizers, but also acts as a catalyst!"

Catalysts are used when extracting the essence of juices because it is necessary to change the structure of the plants so that the most essential parts can be extracted.

"So, during the process of several kinds of juice essences blending together, even with neutralizing agents, they cannot achieve perfect blending. Therefore, at this time, as long as a catalyst is used to slightly change the structural composition of each juice essence, then perfect blending can be achieved!" After pondering for a while, Du Fan suddenly became radiant, his eyes shining with excitement.

Half a day later.

"It's done! Haha..." Du Fan looked at the two bottles of liquid in his hand and laughed loudly. His voice was hoarse, somewhat mournful and crazy, which, combined with his current appearance, added a sense of pathos.

"I created the Mind-Concentrating Oil and Qi-Refining Oil! From now on, I will no longer need elixirs on my path of cultivation!" After the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, Du Fan's madness subsided slightly, and his eyes gradually returned to calm, with a hint of confidence hidden within that calmness.

He was unaware that his actions would, a thousand years later, influence the entire cultivation world of the Nine Provinces Continent.

After calming himself down, Du Fan decided to try the medicine himself. After all, all his previous assumptions were theoretical, and without personal experience, everything was still unknown.

He sat cross-legged on the bed, took out the last remaining Qi Refining Pill, and put it into his mouth without hesitation. He wanted to experience the effects of the Qi Refining Pill before taking the Qi Refining Essential Oil, so as to make a comparison.

A moment later, the pill in his abdomen dissolved, releasing a tremendous magical power that then circulated throughout his body, impacting all his meridians. Although this magical power was still immense for him, it no longer caused the tearing pain he had felt when he was trying to break through to the Quasi-Qi Refinement stage.

After a long while, the effects of the medicine gradually disappeared from his body. Du Fan slowly opened his eyes and sensed the changes within his body. His cultivation level had advanced slightly towards the first level of the Qi Refining stage, but not by much.

"The effects of the Qi Refining Pill are still very strong for me now. Is it dangerous to take Qi Refining Oil at this time...? Well, I have to try the Qi Refining Oil since it was so much trouble to make. Otherwise, who knows when I'll advance to the next level."

Du Fan hesitated for a moment, but then a decisive look appeared in his eyes. He picked up the small bottle filled with Qi-refining essential oil, opened the cap, and drank a drop.

The drop of Qi-refining oil, once inside his mouth, seemed to come alive, instantly entering his stomach and intestines. Without any guidance from his divine sense, it began to slowly rotate on its own, causing a strange look to flash across Du Fan's face.

A few breaths later, after a violent contraction, the drop of essential oil suddenly burst forth with a tremendous medicinal power several times stronger than that of the Qi Refining Pill, instantly filling the entire stomach and rapidly sinking into the Dantian.

Before long, the potent medicinal power transformed into an extremely violent magical force. The intense magical energy surged and crashed through his body, filling every part of his body and coursing through his meridians and pores, as if it were looking for an outlet to burst forth.

"Ah..." A bloodcurdling scream escaped Du Fan's lips. His face turned deathly pale, veins bulged on his forehead, his face contorted, and his whole body convulsed in excruciating pain. Before he could let out a second scream, his eyes rolled back and he fainted.