BOOM.
The sound was a dull, muffled concussion, more of a heavy thump that vibrated through the floor than a sharp crack. It was followed instantly by a dense cloud of acrid, black smoke that billowed out from the center of the room, smelling of burnt herbs and ozone.
Wei Lian sat perfectly still on the floor, his entire front torso, face, and hair caked in a fresh layer of fine black soot. A small, still-hot shard of cast iron clattered harmlessly off his shoulder and fell to the floor, joining the debris from six previous attempts.
Seven days had passed since he had purchased the alchemy books. His room at the Weary Traveler Inn no longer resembled a sanctuary but a disaster site. The air was thick with the lingering scent of failed concoctions. A neat pile of jagged metal fragments—the remains of seven different beginner pill cauldrons—sat in one corner. In another, there was a heap of blackened, rock-like dregs, the solidified corpses of what should have been Qi Accumulation Pills.
He had memorized all seven books within the first day. His recall was perfect; he could recite every ingredient ratio, every flame control technique, every step of the purification process verbatim. His control over his spiritual energy, refined by his new foundation, was exquisite. He could manifest a cultivator's flame and maintain its temperature to within a fraction of a degree. He could infuse Qi with the precision of a master surgeon.
And yet, he kept failing.
The issue wasn't knowledge, nor was it control over the individual components of the process. The problem, he had deduced after the fourth cauldron detonated, was the synthesis.
Alchemy was not a simple, linear equation where A + B equaled C. It was a dynamic, chaotic system. The herbs didn't just combine; they fought, reacted, and transformed in unpredictable ways. The heat wasn't just a catalyst; it was a living force that had to be coaxed and guided in response to the tiniest fluctuations within the cauldron. The Qi infusion wasn't a steady injection; it was a conversation, a constant adjustment to the swirling, volatile soup of energies.
His immense comprehension allowed him to understand each principle perfectly in isolation. But weaving them all together in a delicate, real-time dance was a different skill entirely. It was a craft that required not just intellect, but an intuitive feel—a sense that could only be built through repetition and failure. It was the one thing his System couldn't just grant him.
Calmly, Wei Lian stood up, a clean circle on the floor marking where he had sat. He meticulously swept the fragments of the seventh cauldron into the corner with the others. Theory was now insufficient. The path forward required brute-force experience. The tournament was still three weeks away. He would simply have to budget for more cauldrons.
The accumulation of failure had reached an industrial scale. Wei Lian's room, and indeed the entire floor of the Weary Traveler Inn, was no longer a place of lodging but a production zone governed by relentless, explosive iteration. Carts loaded with fresh herbs and beginner-grade cauldrons arrived daily, while carts heaped with jagged, blackened metal fragments and toxic slag departed.
The innkeeper had ceased all attempts at personal interaction. He had become the warden of a private hell, made rich by the ruin of his own establishment. The astronomical sums of gold Wei Lian paid for the damages, the constant stream of deliveries, and the perpetual lease on the entire top floor were more than enough to rebuild the inn ten times over. Yet the man's hands trembled as he reviewed his gilded ledgers, the constant, floor-shaking thump of exploding cauldrons having become the new rhythm of his life. The air for a block in every direction carried the metallic, acrid stench of alchemical disaster.
Wei Lian operated with inhuman efficiency, running ten cauldrons in parallel. He didn't sleep. He didn't rest. He merely initiated processes, observed, recorded the moment of catastrophic failure, and began again. For two weeks, the suite had echoed with a percussive, ongoing symphony of detonations.
Then came the sixteen-thousandth attempt.
There was no sudden insight, no moment of enlightenment. This attempt felt no different from the thousands that had preceded it. Wei Lian's spiritual sense was a brutal cage, clamping down on the volatile energies, forcing them against each other. He wasn't nurturing a reaction; he was suppressing a riot. The mixture groaned and spat, bucking against his control. On the brink of detonation, he forced a final, crushing infusion of Qi, not guiding the energies but dominating them into a congealed, resentful stalemate.
Silence. The absence of an explosion was more jarring than its presence.
One of the ten cauldrons on the line remained intact. He waited for the cast iron to cool, his expression neutral. Lifting the lid, he saw not the usual incandescent slag, but a single, ugly lump at the bottom.
He retrieved it. The object was a dull grey pellet, gritty to the touch and flecked with impurities. It gave off a putrid, chemical odor. It was, by the loosest definition, a pill.
His spiritual sense dissected it without mercy. The pill contained the raw energy of a Qi Accumulation Pill, but that was just the bait on the hook.
Purity: 50%.
The other fifty percent was a toxic slurry of alchemical waste and unprocessed dregs. To consume it would be an act of calculated self-destruction, trading a fleeting increase in Qi for permanent meridian damage and a ruined foundation. It was a poison masquerading as a shortcut, suitable only for a desperate fool on the verge of death or a servant who knew no better. For any true cultivator, it was less than worthless. It was trash.
Wei Lian felt nothing. The number 15,999 meant nothing. He had simply run the experiment until a variable changed. A tangible object had been produced. The problem of catastrophic containment failure was theoretically solved. The next, more complex problem—the unacceptable level of impurity—was now the sole focus.
He placed the toxic, malformed pill on a clean corner of a table, a single, pathetic data point isolated from the mountains of scrap. It was the baseline of failure from which true progress could now be measured.
Two weeks remained until the tournament. He turned back to the nine other cauldrons and began preparing for attempt number sixteen thousand and one.
The next ten days were a blur of relentless, high-volume production. The innkeeper had long since abandoned his role as a host and had become, by necessity, a logistics manager. The top floor of the Weary Traveler Inn was now officially off-limits to all other guests, repurposed into the "Wei Lian Alchemical Research Annex." A dedicated team, paid handsomely for their silence and efficiency, managed the constant flow of materials: fresh cauldrons in, shattered metal out. The mountain of scrap was no longer a feature of the room; it was a continuous export.
Wei Lian's process had evolved beyond recognition. He had stopped trying to simply suppress the chaotic reactions. Instead, he began to orchestrate them. His spiritual sense, now acutely attuned to the subtle language of alchemy, didn't just cage the energies—it guided them.
He learned to introduce the Sun-Kissed Herb at a precise resonant frequency of heat, causing it to release its essence perfectly while burning away a specific volatile byproduct. He used micro-vortices of spiritual energy to spin heavier dregs from the Grounding Root to the cauldron's walls, where they stuck like slag. His Qi infusion was no longer a blunt instrument but a series of programmed pulses, each designed to catalyze one reaction while inhibiting another. It was no longer a fight; it was a filtration process occurring at the molecular level.
The detonations ceased. Out of every ten-cauldron batch, one might fail, collapsing into a viscous, inert sludge. The other nine reached completion. The quality of the output began to climb with terrifying speed. 58%. 67%. 75%. 84%.
On the tenth day, he opened a cauldron and found a pill unlike any that had come before.
He retrieved it. Gone was the gritty, foul-smelling pellet. This was a smooth, pearl-like sphere with a gentle, opalescent sheen. It radiated a faint, clean herbal fragrance and hummed with a stable, contained spiritual energy. It felt warm and vibrant in his palm.
His spiritual sense enveloped it, performing the now-instantaneous analysis.
Purity: 93%.
The remaining 7% were harmless, inert residues, trivial for any cultivator's body to expel. This was not trash. This was not a fool's bargain. This was a premium product. A pill of this quality would be sought after by disciples of all but the most elite sects, guaranteed to provide pure spiritual energy with no detrimental side effects.
Wei Lian felt the cold satisfaction of a problem solved. He had defined the variables, brute-forced the data through thousands of failed iterations, and optimized the process to meet and exceed his goal. According to every text he had memorized, the creation of a pill exceeding 90% purity was the universally recognized benchmark—the line that separated apprentices from true craftsmen. He had just crossed it. By every objective measure, he was now a First Level Alchemist.
He placed the 93% pure pill on the table next to the ugly, 50% pure prototype from ten days ago. The contrast was stark: one was the symbol of failure, the other a symbol of successful optimization.
Only four days remained until the tournament. The manufacturing process was now viable. The next phase could begin.
On the day the preliminary alchemy rounds were scheduled to begin, Wei Lian left the inn for the first time in over a month. He ignored the profound look of relief on the innkeeper's face and walked directly to the city's Alchemy Association headquarters.
The building was a stark contrast to his trashed workshop—a grand, sterile edifice of white marble and polished wood. The air smelled of controlled ambition, a clean, complex potpourri of thousands of exotic herbs stored under perfect conditions. He walked to the main reception desk.
"I am here to test for First Level Alchemist certification," he stated flatly to the harried-looking clerk.
I am here for the professional certification," Wei Lian repeated, his voice unchanged.
The clerk sighed, annoyed at the time being wasted. He gestured to a severe-looking man in ornate grey robes. "Elder Guan handles proficiency examinations. He is on his third assessment of the morning, all failures. Inform him he has another candidate."
Wei Lian was led into a small, immaculately clean testing chamber. An old man with a sour expression sat behind a desk, looking over a failed test result—a pile of blackened dust on a tray. A young disciple was weeping quietly in the corner.
"Another one?" Elder Guan grumbled without looking up. "The standard is a Spirit Tempering Pill. You have two sets of ingredients and three hours. Minimum purity of ninety percent is required for a passing grade. Do you understand?"
"I do," Wei Lian said.
"Then begin. Your time starts now." Elder Guan made a note on a clipboard and finally looked up, his eyes widening slightly at the speed with which Wei Lian was already working.
There was no hesitation. Wei Lian didn't reverently inspect the herbs or cautiously warm the cauldron. His hands moved in a blur of hyper-efficiency. He laid out the ingredients, his spiritual sense washing over them in a single, comprehensive scan that identified their properties and minute flaws.
The cauldron was heated to a precise temperature in seconds. Instead of adding the herbs one by one as the recipe dictated, he introduced three simultaneously, his spiritual energy forming a series of fine, permeable membranes inside the cauldron to keep their essences separate until the optimal moment for fusion.
Elder Guan, who had been about to return to his notes, sat bolt upright. He had never seen such a technique. It was impossibly complex and risked a chain reaction that would detonate the entire mixture. Yet, under Wei Lian's control, the volatile energies swirled in a balanced, controlled harmony.
The old alchemist's expression shifted from boredom to intense focus. He watched as Wei Lian's Qi pulsed in a complex rhythm, drawing out impurities and incinerating them with targeted flares of heat before they could contaminate the mixture. The process was aggressive, unorthodox, and breathtakingly precise.
A mere twenty-seven minutes into the three-hour examination, Wei Lian cut the flame. He let the cauldron cool for a moment before lifting the lid. A soft, pearlescent glow emanated from within. He reached in and plucked out a perfectly spherical pill, its surface smooth as glass and radiating a clean, potent energy.
He walked to the desk and placed the pill on the analysis tray.
Elder Guan stared from the pill to Wei Lian, his mouth slightly agape. "Twenty-seven minutes..." he murmured. He carefully placed the Association's analysis crystal next to the pill. It glowed with a brilliant, steady light, and a number materialized in the air above it.
Purity: 98%.
A gasp escaped the old man's lips. This was not the work of someone scraping by to earn a First Level certification. This was the work of a master, demonstrating a level of control that bordered on artistry. To achieve such purity, with such speed, on a first attempt... it was unheard of.
"Who... who was your master?" Elder Guan asked, his voice filled with a new, profound respect.
"My studies were self-directed," Wei Lian replied.
The statement hung in the air, more shocking to the Elder than the result itself. Without another word, the old alchemist took a fresh certification form, swiftly filled it out, and stamped it with his official seal. He then retrieved a small, silver pin shaped like a cauldron with a single star and handed it over, along with the official document.
"Congratulations," Elder Guan said, his tone formal. "You are hereby recognized as a First Level Alchemist of the Azure Sky Alchemy Association."
Wei Lian took the pin and the document, gave a short, perfunctory nod, and turned to leave. He had what he came for.