Before long, Zhao Yunxiao found himself standing alone in a cauldron room, with a full set of pill ingredients laid out before him.
But unlike the previous times he was here, he did not immediately fire up the cauldron despite knowing just how long it took for the cauldron to heat up. Instead, he simply had Zhao Yunxiao Two standby beside the cauldron for when he wanted to start the heating process.
That was because there was something else he needed to do – something that would require an even longer preparation time.
Zhao Yunxiao sat cross-legged in front of the pill ingredients with his eyes closed in concentration. In his mind, the governing concepts of the Divine Tether started to appear.
He waved his hand lightly, and energy fluctuations rippled around his arm as the air around him seemed to have turned viscous and tangible.
A good start.
He continued to wave his hand around, using it as a sort of prong with which he probed his surroundings. As time passed, a greater amount of air stirred with each wave of his hand.
Slowly but steadily, he was starting to gain control over the area around him.
His spiritual sense gradually faded away, overtaken by a familiar feeling that allowed him to touch upon the obscure world laws.
Once again, the world laws appeared in the form of innumerable layers of webs that stacked over one another in an omnipresent manner – ever moving, ever changing. Wherever his hand went, the threads on these complex webs of world laws would move in response.
It took a while, but he eventually familiarised himself with this sensation. With that, Zhao Yunxiao finally stopped waving his hands around and started relying purely on his perception to sense his surroundings.
Within his mind, he started to identify familiar outlines hidden within the webs of world laws – outlines that resembled the shapes and forms of the different items in his surroundings.
The walls of the cauldron chamber.
The cauldron itself.
The pill ingredients laid out before him.
Zhao Yunxiao Two.
Even himself.
One by one, these outlines appeared in his mind, allowing him to see his surroundings from an entirely different perspective.
"Undo the seal, and you shall be rewarded with power beyond your wildest dreams."
Zhao Yunxiao subconsciously tuned out the repetitive chant that had been haunting him for weeks, a rather useful skill that he had managed to acquire recently.
Instead, he continued to focus his perception on observing his surrounding environment. Hours passed as he attuned himself to each and every little change that occurred within these complex webs.
At one point, Zhao Yunxiao Two had silently fired up the cauldron, beginning the heating process. And with the flames came a brand new factor that completely disrupted the environment – a factor that Zhao Yunxiao would have to deeply consider in the upcoming pill refinement process.
He slowly opened his eyes, and the preparation work began.
Before most pill ingredients could be thrown into the cauldron, they had to be processed in specific ways that varied greatly according to each ingredient, the environment they were in, and the pill that was to be refined.
In this case, Zhao Yunxiao was aiming to refine a cultivation pill for Essence Gathering realm cultivators – the Winterwarmth Pill.
This was not the first time that he was refining a Winterwarmth Pill, but he would not say that he had plenty of experience with it. After all, the pill ingredients were not cheap, especially to an outer disciple like himself.
On top of that, the Black Tortoise Sect gave out Winterwarmth Pills to disciples on a regular basis, and the Sect Market also had Winterwarmth Pills for sale. Not just that, but he also occasionally received pills from his seniors during his work at the Alchemy Chamber.
Therefore, unless he was confident of refining pills that were of a higher quality, there was really not much reason in doing so.
Even so, he had helped plenty of inner disciples in their refinement of the pill, most of the time completely taking over the ingredient preparation process. Therefore, this process was definitely not alien to him.
His hands moved swiftly, preparing each ingredient as required.
But unlike how he did it in the past, Zhao Yunxiao gave a light tap to each pill ingredient after they had been prepared. With that single tap, the small space around each prepared pill ingredient would tremble like the disturbed surface of a pond, then turn into a strange blurred state as it stabilised.
Enclosed in that small space of blur, the prepared pill ingredients seemed to be frozen in time, detached from the changes of the surroundings.
No, to be specific, it was not just the prepared pill ingredients.
In fact, everything within that small space of blur, even the air itself, was experiencing the same situation – as though they had been sealed in their current state.
Zhao Yunxiao's expression was solemn as he moved from one pill ingredient to another, sealing every single one of them upon the completion of their preparation process.
When he was finally done preparing all of the pill ingredients, he was already drenched in sweat from the huge exertion – both physically and in terms of essence energy.
But he was not about to stop here and let his earlier efforts go to waste.
He carefully observed the cauldron with narrowed eyes, gauging the temperature within.
Now!
The lid of the cauldron flicked open, and one ingredient after another started flying in. As the pill ingredients flew into the cauldron, the blurred space surrounding them would disperse, then reform to shroud over the cauldron itself instead.
As more and more pill ingredients entered the cauldron, the blurred space around the cauldron became more and more apparent.
And when the cauldron lid finally closed after the final pill ingredient entered, Zhao Yunxiao swiftly circled around the cauldron, tapping the air at numerous points.
Seal!
The blurred space around the cauldron turned almost opaque, as though the cauldron had now been encased within a shell that even the world laws themselves could not penetrate.
The entire cauldron had been sealed.
Zhao Yunxiao did not relax just because of that. Instead, he stood before the cauldron, watching it closely, not through his eyes, but through his perception of the complex webs of world laws.
The pill refinement process, or even alchemy in general, had always involved a delicate balance of fire control, essence extraction, and essence retention. Only by striking the perfect balance among all these aspects would an alchemist be able to effectively combine the essence of the main ingredients, turning them into the product of their desire.
However, Zhao Yunxiao was now attempting to retain the essence of ingredients not just through his alchemy techniques, but also through an added absolute seal that defied all world laws – the Divine Tether.
This way, all he had to do was to manage the fire control and essence extraction, and he should be able to come up with pills of a higher quality!
At the very least, that was how it should be in theory.
Whether it would actually turn out to be the case was something that he would soon find out for himself!
It was a long wait, but Zhao Yunxiao did not let it get to his head.
He continued to maintain the ideal temperature with full focus, all the while making sure that there were no gaps in the seal around the cauldron.
Finally, the wait came to an end.
Rumbling could be heard from within the cauldron as the mixture within was now refined into solid pills. From here, only one step remained – the decision on when exactly to open the cauldron.
Open it too early, and the pills might not have fully absorbed all the essence of the ingredients. Open it too late, and the essence of the pill ingredients might be burnt away by the intense heat within the cauldron.
Zhao Yunxiao did not hesitate.
He did not have to.
On top of the experience from having observed various inner disciples refining this pill, he also possessed something that they did not have – the ability to see through the complex web of world laws that directly showed him the world within the cauldron itself.
His hand reached out towards the cauldron lid, dispersing the opaque shell along the way as he lifted the cauldron lid and struck the side of the cauldron.
Sizzle-!
A thick cloud of white steam escaped the cauldron, within which numerous pills could be seen shooting up as well. With a single swipe of his hand, Zhao Yunxiao carefully collected the pills that had emerged.
Everything had been completed in a methodical manner, but his heart was anything but calm. In fact, he could hear the loud pounding of his heart as he gently poured out the pills in his hands onto a piece of cloth.
First was the number of pills. There were twenty pills, meaning that there was not a single failed product.
Next, and perhaps more importantly, was the quality of the pills.
Zhao Yunxiao's eyes widened in disbelief as he scanned through the twenty pills.
It was normal, perhaps even definite, for there to be differences even among pills refined in the same batch of refinement. However, he could not spot a single difference when it came to the shine of the twenty pills, which was the best indicator of the pill quality.
Huu-!
Zhao Yunxiao took a deep breath in a bid to calm his emotions.
All twenty Winterwarmth Pills... were of the rare quality!
Inferior, common, uncommon, rare, mythical.
When refining the Winterwarmth Pill, most inner disciples would gauge their success according to the number of uncommon quality pills that resulted. This could be seen from how Leng Huiqi[1] had been thrilled with getting just two uncommon quality Winterwarmth Pills in one batch of refinement.
But now, Zhao Yunxiao did not just manage to refine uncommon quality pills. He managed to produce something even above that – rare quality pills!
Not just that, but all twenty of them were of the rare quality!
This was an outcome that he had never seen anyone, including the inner disciples, achieve in the more than ten years that he had been working at the Alchemy Chamber!
An excited light flashed across his eyes.
As he had thought, the Divine Tether and alchemy were really a pair made in heaven!
He definitely had to try this out again. If he could replicate such a result in a consistent fashion... then he was going to be rich!
No, wait. That was not the point.
Sect points might be important, but cultivation was even more so. With the help of these rare quality Winterwarmth Pills, who knew just how much faster his cultivation would become?
If things turn out well, perhaps it would not take long before he broke through to the next boundary!
Well, there was no need to speculate.
Tonight, he would find out for sure just how effective these rare quality Winterwarmth Pills were!
That said, he could not afford to consume all twenty of these pills as well.
The pill ingredients for refining Winterwarmth Pills were not particularly cheap. If he wanted to keep doing this in a sustainable manner, he would have to sell a portion of these pills in exchange for pill ingredients.
But even if he wanted to do so, there were still certain complications that required careful consideration.
Zhao Yunxiao rubbed his chin in contemplation.
He could not possibly keep going to the Sect Market to sell rare quality pills, could he?
Once or twice could still be excused. But if he did that on a regular basis, the sect administrators would eventually come to suspect that something was amiss.
And that meant risking the exposure of the Untethered Sage's legacy – an outcome that could potentially lead to his death!
While this outcome was not a certainty, it was still a risk that he simply could not afford to take.
Oh, right!
He knew someone who could help with that!
With that, Zhao Yunxiao quickly cleaned up the cauldron room before leaving the Alchemy Chamber for his next destination.
***
Jun Chuan narrowed his eyes at Zhao Yunxiao who was seated across the table, carefully observing this friend of his whose poker face was nigh impossible to read.
"These are rare quality Winterwarmth Pills," Jun Chuan said, his gaze dropping for a moment to glance at the ten pills laid out on the table for the umpteenth time.
"That's right," Zhao Yunxiao nodded.
"You understand that my lead at the Sect Market is definitely going to ask about the source of these pills?" Jun Chuan continued.
"And I told you that I have come across a trusted supplier," Zhao Yunxiao chose to hide the fact that he had refined the pills himself.
"Who?" Jun Chuan was clearly suspicious.
"I said it's a trusted supplier. I will be betraying my supplier's trust if I were to reveal the identity," Zhao Yunxiao shrugged. "So, are you able to help or not? Otherwise, I will take this business elsewhere!"
"Oh, you are definitely not taking this business elsewhere!" Jun Chuan swept up the ten pills without hesitation. "But as agreed earlier, I am taking two percent of the proceeds. This would apply for future batches as well!"
"And in exchange, you are not to mention my name at any point, even to your lead," Zhao Yunxiao replied. "Deal?"
"Deal!"
Zhao Yunxiao smiled.
As expected of the Importer, Jun Chuan had connections to various trade platforms within the sect, including the Sect Market. That was to be expected as well, considering that he would need ways to offload the various items that he frequently brought back to the sect from his trips.
Now that the deal had been reached, Zhao Yunxiao would just have to sit and wait for the sect points to come in. He could only hope that the pills would be sold as soon as possible, so that he could quickly use the proceeds to purchase more ingredients in preparation for the next round of pill refinement!
[1] Inner disciple of the Black Tortoise Sect. A goddess sought after by many inner disciples, and leader of the Frost Lotus Dance Troupe. Taught Lu Zhiying the basics of dance.