"Bang!!"
The Shennong Cauldron emitted a resonant boom, immediately followed by billowing black smoke spilling out from the exhaust port.
"Cough cough..."
Mu Jinyu couldn't help but cough a few times, reaching up to wipe the sweat on his forehead, leaving several black streaks across his face.
"Another failure; I've wasted three batches of ingredients. This is really costing me a fortune!"
Mu Jinyu complained with a tone of quiet resentment.
Since he had started to engage in alchemy, he had blown up three batches already, wasting the materials for three batches of Rush Yuan Pills, which pained him greatly.
When had he ever faced such a grievance in his past alchemy endeavors?
He had always succeeded with the first batch of elixir.
A little failure would result in fewer pills or fewer Danwen, but after three batches and getting the hang of it, he would be able to reliably produce six pills per batch, each pill with six perfect Elixir Patterns!
But now, from the time he had worked out the ingredients for the Rush Yuan Pills to physically trying to make the elixir, three batches had passed, and each time, the furnace exploded, resulting in failure.
"Indeed, without a specific Pill Formula, trying to work out the correct one is somewhat difficult!"
Mu Jinyu didn't rush into another attempt at alchemy; instead, he started to reflect. Which step went wrong this time, causing all his previous efforts to go down the drain and wasting an entire batch of elixir materials?
After contemplating for nearly ten minutes, Mu Jinyu's eyes showed determination, and he came back to his senses, muttering to himself, "This time, it should not be wrong..."
With that, Mu Jinyu once again took out the materials necessary for a batch of Rush Yuan Pills, began to insert them into the Shennong Cauldron, and attempted to make Rush Yuan Pills again!
...
Outside Mu Jinyu's house.
Jian Ruyan and Wen Rou were not cultivating or practicing divine skills; instead, they sat chatting.
At that moment, Jian Ruyan faintly sensed the temperature within Mu Jinyu's house rising again and said, "What do you think, when will his furnace explode this time?"
"He will succeed," Wen Rou said with conviction.
Jian Ruyan gave her a glance and said, "He's blown up the furnace three times already, each time ending in failure, and you still have such confidence in him? I'm really speechless."
"Of course, should I be disappointed in him?" Wen Rou turned her head, looking at Jian Ruyan with an odd expression in her eyes.
Hearing Wen Rou's words, Jian Ruyan shook her head slightly and pursed her lips, "You've really been brainwashed by him; there's no helping you..."
Wen Rou didn't say anything more, her hands cradling her chin, her expression tender as she looked towards Mu Jinyu's room.
"Bang!"
Another resonant sound came from inside the house.
Clearly, Mu Jinyu had failed in alchemy again.
Jian Ruyan said, "See, don't blindly worship him."
"He will succeed next time," Wen Rou maintained, unfazed, "Next time for sure."
...
In the blink of an eye.
Mu Jinyu had already failed nine times.
This really made his heart ache.
The materials for those nine failed batches of elixir, if sold, would have fetched at least a thousand Medium Grade Spirit Stones, but now they were just wasted.
If it had been in Huaxia, without any sense of crisis to force him to grow faster, he might have just given up, not considering to ponder any further.
But now, situated within the Kunlun Ruins, in order to not miss out on this session of the Hidden Dragon Conference, he must keep growing. Naturally, he would not stop because of this loss of medicinal materials.
This amount of money, he could still afford to burn!
"Again, I refuse to believe this!"
Mu Jinyu's eyes were slightly red, as failing nine times in a row to discover the true alchemy techniques of the Rush Yuan Pill had provoked his inherent stubbornness and unwillingness to give in.
Once again, he threw the materials into the Shennong Cauldron; this time, Mu Jinyu had learned from his nine failures, and every step was in good order—refining the materials, merging their powers, enhancing their effects, compressing them into an elixir...
Each step was a success!
The previous failure occurred at the solidifying pill stage, but this time, Mu Jinyu learned from his mistakes and switched to another technique for this stage.
Finally, the medicinal liquid in the Shennong Cauldron began to solidify and the embryonic form of the elixirs appeared.
Mu Jinyu observed it all with his Divine Sense, his state of mind very calm and steady, no longer prone to the emotional excitement that could ruin everything at the last moment.
Because he knew that even if he successfully created the elixir this time, it did not necessarily mean that what he had figured out was indeed the Rush Yuan Pill.
Using the same medicinal materials but different refining methods would definitely lead to different outcomes.
Soon, the medicinal liquid finally solidified into three rounded pills that, in shape and color, looked exactly like the Rush Yuan Pills.
"It's done! Let's see how effective it is! Are these really Rush Yuan Pills?"
A slight joy appeared on Mu Jinyu's face. He then proceeded to open the pill furnace and take out the three "Rush Yuan Pills," each with two elixir patterns.
Since it was an exploratory phase, even if he barely managed to refine them successfully, the loss of potency during the process was inevitable. Having two elixir patterns was already a testament to Mu Jinyu's formidable technique.
Without any hesitation, Mu Jinyu swallowed them.
Although it was uncertain whether he had produced Rush Yuan Pills, or whether the elixirs might be toxic, Mu Jinyu was not worried.
With his Green Emperor's Wood Emperor Body, as long as he wasn't taking instantly lethal super poisons, ordinary ones could scarcely affect him. If they couldn't kill him immediately, they would soon be completely cleansed by his body.
After taking the Rush Yuan Pill, Mu Jinyu carefully felt its potency and discovered that the effect of the elixir he refined seemed similar to that of the Rush Yuan Pill, yet appeared to be slightly better.
It wasn't clear whether this was because the Rush Yuan Pills he had taken before had only one elixir pattern, while his own had two, or if there was some other reason.
"Whatever, as long as it's useful, that means I'm on the right path, I've succeeded!"
Now that the pills' effectiveness was confirmed, Mu Jinyu's mood brightened considerably, and he once again began refining, aiming to produce an even higher quality Rush Yuan Pill to check its effects.
Outside the room.
Jian Ruyan sensed the temperature coming from Mu Jinyu's room drop, but no explosion of a pill furnace, and couldn't help uttering in surprise,
"Eh, did he manage to succeed in alchemy so quickly? That can't be right, can it? He's managing this without a pill formula?!"
Jian Ruyan was dumbfounded.
Wen Rou glanced at her and said with a smile that bordered on taking it for granted, "What's so strange about that? It's perfectly normal. I'd find it strange if he succeeded after ruining ten furnaces; that wouldn't be like Little Mu's usual standard."
"Sigh..." Jian Ruyan didn't want to explain anything further to Wen Rou, who had nothing but blind worship for Mu Jinyu, thinking everything he did was a matter of course.
Since Wen Rou hadn't grown up in the Kunlun Ruins and had only come into contact with the elixirs provided by Mu Jinyu, she had no idea how incredible it was to deduce a pill formula from eating three pills, exploding nine furnaces, and figure it all out without accurate pill formula data.
"Is this guy even human?" Jian Ruyan muttered to herself with mixed feelings.
Mu Jinyu, unaware of Jian Ruyan and Wen Rou's thoughts outside, started another round of alchemy. This time, with the previous success giving him experience, his process was no longer rigid and tense, but rather smooth and effortless...
Suddenly, he had once again created a furnace full of elixirs!