Ch182 - Swallowed in One Go
Lin Xuanzhi and Yan Tianhen had been surrounded for a while. Eventually, Lin Liuchun was the one who had to pull a long face as he pulled Lin Xuanzhi and Yan Tianhen out of their encirclement before everything was considered to be over.
Everyone was reluctant to return to their own rooms, and after closing the doors to their rooms, they hurriedly spread the big news.
In Lin Liuchun's room.
After closing the door, Lin Liuchun grasped the round Foundation Stage pill and lay on the rocking chair. He let out a prolonged breath and scolded, "People who haven't seen the world; just one Foundation Stage pill turned them so fanatical, did they have to go that far?!"
"Of course." Lin Xuanzhi said.
Lin Liuchun's mouth twitched. "Kid, do you understand the principle of not talking back to your elders?"
Lin Xuanzhi cast a glance at him askance and lightly asked, "Fourth Elder, don't tell me you expect everyone to be as knowledgeable as you and not even change their expressions in the face of a crumbling Mt. Tai?"
Lin Liuchun, "..."
This kid could really talk.
Lin Liuchun, who had been awakened in the middle of the night and even got encircled by a crowd that buzzed all around him, finally relaxed the long face that he was pulling.
He looked at Yan Tianhen, who only looked up from Lin Xuanzhi's body after entering the room, and frowned, "You're only at your Refining Qi Stage's seventh layer now?"
Yan Tianhen had gotten a fright but he had already settled down by now.
He nodded. "Yeah, Refining Qi's seventh layer."
Lin Liuchun said, "Why do I seem to remember that you were only at your fifth layer before we left the Lin residence?"
Lin Xuanzhi's heart jumped.
Although Lin Liuchun always gave people the feeling that he spoke incoherently and had a bad memory, but in fact, he had really good observational skills and an excellent memory as well. Some details that went unnoticed by others would be keenly sensed by him and he would commit it to memory.
Yan Tianhen scratched his head, feeling a bit embarrassed, "Yeah, I was weaker then."
Lin Liuchun was speechless for a moment. "What I want to ask is how you advanced by two layers in such a short time."
"Oh, that's what you're talking about?" Yan Tianhen pondered for a bit, "That day, I slept for three days in a row and for some reason, I jumped to the seventh layer after waking up."
Lin Liuchun's eyebrow raised involuntarily, the words 'are you fucking kidding me' written all over his face.
Lin Xuanzhi wanted to laugh, but he thought that he should leave his own family's elder some face, so he coughed lightly and properly hid his urge to laugh, "Fourth Elder, Ah Hen is speaking the truth. He isn't lying in the slightest."
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Lin Liuchun didn't pursue the matter any further. Frankly speaking, he had seen many such strange occurrences like this. Heaven was unpredictable, so anything could happen, depending on whether there was a turning point or not.
Lin Liuchun looked at the Foundation Stage pill in his head and asked Yan Tianhen some questions regarding refining pills. After he found out that this was the first pill Yan Tianhen had refined in his life, his facial expression was a particularly spectacular sight.
"What I want to know is," Lin Liuchun said with a complicated tone, "What drove you to dare to refine a pill after failing for a thousand times?"
Logically speaking, even an alchemist with the worst talent would only fail for at most a hundred times or so. Even if they couldn't refine an amazing medicinal pill, they would still be able to refine the most basic of pills.
However, Yan Tianhen couldn't refine even one pill after a thousand attempts. If it were someone else, there was a 99% chance for them to have just given up.
"Because..." Yan Tianhen paused. Lin Liuchun's ears perked up, "We're broke!"
Lin Liuchun, "..."
What? What kind of answer was that?
"Explain that clearly to me." Lin Liuchun restrained himself and asked.
"Because my Dage's too much of a spendthrift, so I was worried that we may someday become so poor that we would have to end up begging on the streets, so I thought that I must refine pills properly, then sell the pills in exchange for money for my Dage to continue squandering our fortune away." Yan Tianhen said sincerely, "As I thought about that, I managed to refine the pill."
Lin Xuanzhi was so moved that he was on the verge of tears by Yan Tianhen's extreme simplicity.
Should he start reflecting upon himself on how much of a spendthrift he usually was such that Yan Tianhen even turned earning money to support him into his turning point for refining a medicinal pill?
"Ah Hen." Lin Xuanzhi said, "Gege wants to instruct you on one thing."
"Dage, please go ahead." Yan Tianhen's small face that was covered in patches of black and white faced Lin Xuanzhi.
Lin Xuanzhi said, with great emphasis, "If anyone were to ask you about your experience in the future, you must not tell them the truth."
Yan Tianhen, "...oh, oh."
Lin Liuchun felt resigned. He didn't know if he should laugh or cry right now. After living for so many years, he had seen alchemists who broke through in order to save their parents, and had also seen cultivators who suddenly got a burst of strength when they were on the verge of death, but...you fucking refined a Foundation Stage pill that could be sold on the market for more than 10,000 gold just because you wanted to earn money?
Lin Liuchun thought that this would be difficult for him to say to the outside world.
Thus, he absolutely agreed with Lin Xuanzhi and nodded. "Tell others that you suddenly got inspired by the Dao of Heaven."
Yan Tianhen nodded. "Okay."
Lin Liuchun yawned. He felt a little sleepy.
Lin Liuchun took out a medicinal bottle from his storage ring and placed the golden Foundation Stage pill in it, then casually threw it to Lin Xuanzhi. "We'll talk about whatever happens in the future when the time comes. This medicinal pill was refined by Tianhen, so whether it goes or stays is up to him to decide."
"Thank you, Fourth Elder." Lin Xuanzhi said.
Lin Liuchun waved his hand to chase them away.
It wasn't that he didn't want to ask Lin Xuanzhi to leave the medicinal pill for the Lin family, but he was very clear that for Yan Tianhen to refine this medicinal pill, the Lin family didn't give him any assistance at all other than providing him with some spiritual plants.
Simply put, he wasn't thick-skinned enough to ask for this medicinal pill.
What's more...with the way Lin Xuanzhi does things, would he really not give the Lin family pupils enough benefits in the future?
So just one Foundation Stage pill wasn't important at all, his attitude was what really mattered.
Since Lin Liuchun chased them away, Lin Xuanzhi naturally slipped away quickly with Yan Tianhen.
Both of them returned to Lin Xuanzhi's room. When they passed by the corridor, Yan Tianhen even glanced at the poor room that had been destroyed by the explosion. Yan Tianhen packed his belongings and some other miscellaneous items, then took them next door. Ah Bai and Hu Po, who had already turned into intelligent spirit beasts, had already squeezed their way into Lin Xuanzhi's room and found a warm cushion for themselves to continue sleeping on.
Yan Tianhen said bitterly, "Dage, the furnace was blown up, it hurts so bad."
"What's there to feel hurt about? It's just a pill furnace, it's not worth much." Lin Xuanzhi wiped Yan Tianhen's sooty face and didn't think he was dirty at all.
"What do you mean 'it's not worth much'? Dage, the way you think is really dangerous." Yan Tianhen started calculating with his fingers and said with a taut face, "Just the Flaming Cloud Stone cost 40,000 gold, and this sum doesn't even include the other auxiliary materials and the effort you spent on crafting it...ss, Dage, I'll pay for it."
Yan Tianhen was struck with grief and he felt so remorseful that he wanted to hammer his chest - why on earth did he have to refine that medicinal pill?!
Lin Xuanzhi felt like a huge failure; he actually let his younger brother, who was at a tender age where he was supposed to be carefree, worry so much that he even thought about refining pills to earn money in the middle of the night.
"Furnaces can be crafted again when they're gone. You being able to refine a medicinal pill is the biggest and most pleasant surprise."
Yan Tianhen pondered for a moment, then felt a little happy. He revealed his two rows of white-as-eye-whites teeth and smiled, "Yeah! In any case, I've found the knack to it, so I'll be able to earn it all back after refining a few more next time."
Lin Xuanzhi felt like this younger brother of his was really cute, so he rubbed his head, "It's right for Ah Hen to think that way. How does Ah Hen intend to deal with this medicinal pill?"
Yan Tianhen didn't even hesitate to think, "Dage can handle it however he likes!"
"I knew you would say that. If it were up to me to decide, it would be most reasonable for you to consume this Foundation Stage pill yourself."
Yan Tianhen uttered an "ah" and felt somewhat reluctant. "This is a really good pill that can be exchanged for a lot of money though."
Lin Xuanzhi said with great emphasis, "It's precisely because it is a good pill that you have to leave it for yourself."
Yan Tianhen refused. "We've already suffered losses because of the furnace. If we suffer another loss with this medicinal pill, my heart rejects it."
"You need to look long-term. One Foundation Stage pill isn't much; after consuming it, you can still refine another one." Lin Xuanzhi said disapprovingly.
"No, sell it." Yan Tianhen shook his head, his stance firm on this.
"You eat it." Lin Xuanzhi's stance was as firm as his.
"Sell it sell it sell it." Yan Tianhen shook Lin Xuanzhi's hand as he acted coquettish, "Earn money earn money earn-"
Lin Xuanzhi stuffed a medicinal pill into his mouth. Yan Tianhen's tongue knotted, and he swallowed the Foundation Stage pill that they were discussing.
Yan Tianhen, "..."
He really wanted to start bawling right now.
Lin Xuanzhi patted Yan Tianhen's shoulder comfortingly. "Reach your Foundation Stage tonight ba. With this kind of first-class top-grade Foundation Stage pill, you shouldn't need to spend too much time on it. 4 hours should be enough."
Yan Tianhen could feel something hot surging through his body that was gushing towards his limbs and bones from his Dantian Qi sea.
He couldn't bother to get angry with Lin Xuanzhi right now and went straight over to the soft cushion in the room to sit down, then started to meditate properly in order to absorb the spiritual Qi.
Lin Xuanzhi was satisfied with his decisive action. He sat back on his bed and stared at Yan Tianhen, who was meditating as he absorbed the spiritual Qi and medicinal force in the pill, with a profound gaze.
Advancing to the next level was a painful affair, but with this Foundation Stage pill that guaranteed a 100% success rate without any harmful side effects, it would be completely different. The higher the level of a Foundation Stage pill, the gentler its effects would be. It would be able to ensure the smooth advancement of Yan Tianhen from the seventh layer of his Refining Qi stage to his Foundation Stage.
"Why is Ah Hen able to refine a primary-level medicinal pill so easily?" Lin Xuanzhi asked in his sea of consciousness, puzzled, "That doesn't make sense. Very few alchemists can refine medicinal pills with levels higher than their own."
"Because your younger brother is a lucky child who bumped into all the right conditions." Soul Bead said slowly, "The alchemist fire in your younger brother's body is of the Yin fire attribute. The pill furnace you crafted for him was of the pure Yang fire type; with one Yin and one Yang, the blend of the two let the Foundation Stage pill maintain a perfect Yin Yang balance. You may not know this, but for medicinal pills like Foundation Stage pills that facilitates the smooth advancement of one's cultivation level, it is only through the maintenance of an absolute Yin Yang balance that a top-grade medicinal pill can be refined. A balanced medicinal pill is the most difficult to define."
After speaking up to this point, Soul Bead paused, then said as he felt incredulous, "Don't tell me your younger brother was trying to refine a Foundation Stage pill when he has just started refining pills."
Lin Xuanzhi wasn't clear at first. He was the one paying at the Lin family's shops after all, but the one selecting spiritual plants was Yan Tianhen. He didn't pay much attention to what the spiritual plants Yan Tianhen bought was supposed to be refined into.
However, after Soul Bead said all that, Lin Xuanzhi started thinking about carefully.
"It seems to be so." Lin Xuanzhi said hesitantly.
The prescription for Foundation Stage pills was one of the few that was made public. Moreover, the spiritual plants required were generally quite inexpensive, which was very much in line with what he thought Yan Tianhen would have bought.
"My goodness!" Soul Bead cried out, "Is everyone of the younger generation so arrogant nowadays?! He actually tried to refine a Foundation Stage pill right when he started? Why doesn't he just ascend straight away?!"
In that case, what were the people from the older generation like himself, who had lived for god knows how many years, supposed to do now?!
Lin Xuanzhi thought that what Yan Tianhen did really made it seem like he was on his way to ascension.
His family's Ah Hen was really amazing!
"Say, why doesn't he just ascend straight to heaven?!" Soul Bead probably suffered quite a blow. This elderly's fragile heart had been ravaged, so he repeated his question again seethingly.