Chapter 111: A Kiss as a Reward! Dugu Bo: My Precious Cabbage Has Been Snatched!
With that promise secured, Lin Yuan felt completely at ease.
"Good! It's a deal!"
Without further delay, he flipped his wrist. From his soul tool, a palm-sized, crimson furnace appeared in his hand.
The small furnace was exquisitely crafted, engraved with nine lifelike fire dragons coiling around its surface.
The moment it appeared, the surrounding air instantly grew scorching hot.
The nine fire dragons seemed almost alive, slowly swimming across the body of the furnace, radiating a heart-palpitating aura.
The Nine Dragon Flaming Furnace!
"Hiss!"
Dugu Bo sucked in a sharp breath, his eyes widening.
"This… what grade of furnace is this?!"
"What a treasure!"
Lin Yuan smiled faintly and enlarged the furnace, placing it steadily on the ground.
"This is the Nine Dragon Flaming Furnace. When used for pill refinement, it doubles the results with half the effort."
Dugu Bo stared at the furnace, then at Lin Yuan's youthful face, unable to suppress his doubts.
"But, kid… you're only eight years old, right? Your talent may be monstrous, but pill refinement…"
"Do you really know how?"
Lin Yuan did not explain. He merely smiled calmly.
"Senior, the pills I refine are fundamentally different from the simple medicinal pellets in the soul master world."
"Just watch."
Over the next few days,
Lin Yuan devoted himself entirely to pill refinement.
He first went into the medicinal garden and carefully selected several specific immortal herbs.
Infernal Delicate Apricot.
Octagonal Mysterious Ice Grass.
Along with several neutral auxiliary herbs to balance their properties.
He did not plan to follow Tang San's crude method from the original story—simply having Dugu Bo swallow the herbs whole.
Though that method could detoxify, it wasted too much medicinal efficacy and was excruciatingly painful.
When consumed together, Infernal Delicate Apricot and Octagonal Mysterious Ice Grass could grant a soul master immunity to all poisons.
In the original work, the antidote pill Tang San gave Dugu Bo even contained his own blood, as his blood carried detoxifying properties.
But there was currently only one Infernal Delicate Apricot and one Octagonal Mysterious Ice Grass.
If Dugu Bo consumed them directly, Dugu Yan would no longer have the chance.
Moreover, their constitutions differed from Tang San's.
If they swallowed the herbs directly, the medicinal properties might clash violently with the Jade Phosphor Serpent Emperor poison in their bodies before properly merging, possibly producing the opposite effect.
What Lin Yuan intended to refine instead was a pill recorded in the system-rewarded Complete Compendium of Alchemy:
The Yin-Yang Profound Poison Pill.
This pill would not only perfectly neutralize the Jade Phosphor Serpent Emperor poison within Dugu Bo but also convert the decades of accumulated toxins into pure soul power!
Three days later,
With a crisp dragon's roar from the Nine Dragon Flaming Furnace, the furnace lid shot into the sky!
Two pills, glowing with intertwined red and blue radiance, rose slowly from within. Their medicinal fragrance was so rich it seemed to solidify in the air.
"It's done!"
With a wave of his hand, Lin Yuan collected the two pills into a jade bottle and handed it to the grandfather and granddaughter, who had long been waiting anxiously.
"This is the antidote."
"After swallowing it, immediately circulate your soul power and guide the medicinal effects."
Dugu Bo's hands trembled as he took the bottle, staring at the miraculous pill within, his eyes brimming with excitement.
"Good! Good!"
"This old man will try it now!"
He swallowed the pill in one gulp and sat cross-legged.
Dugu Yan followed immediately afterward.
Half an hour later,
"Boom!"
A terrifying emerald-green pillar of light burst from Dugu Bo's body, shooting straight into the sky!
Immediately afterward, his once sickly green hair, stained by years of poison backlash, began visibly turning black from the roots outward.
Not only that, the wrinkles on his face eased, and he seemed to grow ten years younger!
His aura surged like a rocket, reaching the peak of Rank 93 before gradually stabilizing!
"Hahahaha! Hahaha!"
Dugu Bo threw his head back in wild laughter, his voice shaking the entire valley.
"It's gone! Truly gone!"
"The poison in this old man's body no longer has any backlash, and my cultivation has even improved significantly!"
"Rank 93!"
Beside him, Dugu Yan also opened her eyes.
Though her transformation was less dramatic than her grandfather's, the originally cold and sinister aura around her poison had become pure and refined.
Not only was the hidden danger of backlash completely eradicated, but her soul power had also leapt four ranks in succession, directly breaking through to Rank 35!
"Grandpa! I'm cured too!"
Dugu Yan threw herself into Dugu Bo's arms, tears of joy streaming down her face.
The old man held his granddaughter tightly, tears streaming down his own face.
After a long while, he calmed himself and turned toward Lin Yuan, who stood nearby with a faint smile.
"Lin Yuan… this time, I truly must thank you."
Lin Yuan shook his head.
"No need. I'll be taking a few immortal herbs from here anyway."
"I'll also select one suitable for each of you—something that can enhance your cultivation aptitude and raise your upper limits."
The grandfather and granddaughter, who had just regained their composure, froze again.
"Enhance aptitude?"
"Raise our upper limits?"
Dugu Bo's eyes widened in disbelief.
At his age, his potential was nearly exhausted. To improve his aptitude now would be akin to defying fate itself!
Lin Yuan nodded confidently.
"Of course."
"But there are two ways to consume immortal herbs."
"The first is direct absorption."
"It's simple and crude, but the medicinal efficacy suffers heavy loss."
"And the second?" Dugu Yan asked eagerly.
"The second is to let me handle it."
"Using the immortal herb as the primary ingredient, supplemented with other materials, I'll refine it into a supreme-grade pill."
"That way, not only can we lock in one hundred percent of the medicinal potency and ensure gentle absorption…"
"Through precise medicinal synergy, the effects can even be doubled."
"So…"
"Which will you choose?"
Even a fool would choose the second option.
Dugu Yan's emerald eyes shimmered as she looked at the eloquent young man before her. Her heartbeat quickened.
Where else could one find such an exceptional youth?
"Hehe~"
Dugu Yan suddenly stepped forward, her dark-green outfit accentuating her breathtaking curves.
She wrapped herself around Lin Yuan's arm, her body almost pressed against him.
"Then we'll trouble you, Brother Lin Yuan."
As she spoke, whether Lin Yuan didn't have time to dodge or simply chose not to,
Dugu Yan suddenly rose onto her toes.
Her rosy lips lightly brushed against his cheek like a dragonfly skimming water.
Muah~
The crisp sound echoed clearly through the quiet valley.
"Consider that an advance reward from your big sister."
After kissing him, she didn't flee in embarrassment.
Instead, she blinked her emerald eyes charmingly, looking like a cat that had successfully stolen cream.
Lin Yuan touched the lingering warmth and softness on his cheek.
"Ahem…"
Meanwhile, standing nearby, Dugu Bo's face twitched violently.
His old face darkened instantly. He cleared his throat and turned to stare off into the distance.
"Ahem… the wind today… is quite noisy."
Inside, however, he sighed deeply.
It's over.
Completely over.
The cabbage he had painstakingly raised for over a decade was about to be devoured by Lin Yuan.
—
End of Chapter