Xiang Yu sat in a ditative posture, his expression troubled as he struggled to circulate the violent energy flowing through his ridians. Beads of sweat ford on his forehead. Though clearly encountering difficulty, he still persisted with determination, refusing to give up despite the obvious strain.
The minutes stretched into hours as he maintained his focus, guiding the rebellious energy through his qi pathways.
Finally, after what seed like an eternity of internal struggle, Xiang Yu's tense muscles began to relax. His furrowed brow smoothed gradually, and his clenched jaw loosened. With a deep exhale, he released a significant amount of remnant qi that spread throughout the room in a colorful mist that dissipated shortly after.
As he opened his eyes, their usual sharpness dulled by fatigue, Xiang Yu frowned slightly. This wasn't working as he had hoped. Although he could accelerate his cultivation with the help of spirit food, he felt certain there must be a more efficient approach. Just now, he had prepared a fourth-grade spirit al with ticulous care, yet after consuming it, he had only managed to absorb a re ten percent of its total dicinal properties.
It was the sa frustrating pattern as before—when he had eaten fifth-grade food, he had only absorbed twenty percent of the benefits. Most of the precious energy was simply going to waste. The fundantal problem was clear: his dium-grade spiritual root simply couldn't handle such concentrated power.
"If this continues," he thought, "if I ever manage to create first-grade spirit food, wouldn't I be completely incapable of absorbing its benefits?" The thought was quite disheartening.
He had to find a way to overco this limitation. The most obvious solution would be to upgrade his spiritual root, but Xiang Yu didn't know of any reliable thod to accomplish such a feat. Previously, he had theorized that consistently consuming high-level food might stimulate his spiritual root enough to trigger a slight advancent. Once even the smallest advancent occurred, his system could handle the rest and help him improve exponentially.
But now it seed that not only was this approach failing to trigger any advancent, but he also suspected that his spiritual root might actually suffer damage if repeatedly overwheld by energy it couldn't properly process. The delicate channels might beco permanently blocked or distorted, setting back his cultivation permanently.
Xiang Yu stared at the floor, deep in contemplation. After several minutes of intense thought, his eyes suddenly brightened with inspiration. With swift movents, he reached toward his spatial ring.
From the spatial storage, he retrieved three items: a round pill that emitted a faint golden glow, and two paper talismans covered in intricate calligraphy.
"The path forward might lie in secondary professions," he mused, studying the pill carefully. "Mostly pill refining." He had kept the foundation-building pill because he had no use for it, at least not at the mont. But now, he saw a different purpose for the item.
He recalled how he had acquired the cooking profession. After cooking for a few days, the profession had suddenly appeared in his system, complete with levels and capabilities. Could the sa principle apply to other professions? The possibility was tantalizing.
Xiang Yu decided to test his theory. He would study the pill's composition carefully and attempt to replicate it, learning the fundantals of pill refining in the process. Additionally, he found so blank papers and carefully cut them to match the shape of the talismans he possessed. He wouldn't limit himself to pill refining alone—talisman drawing might prove equally valuable.
Before embarking on this new path, however, Xiang Yu rembered another pressing matter. His Fire Palm technique had just broken through to the minor success realm the day before and still had zero experience points available to double. In order not to waste his system's function, he realized he needed to advance this technique first.
He began practicing the palm technique. This ti, he practiced just the fire palm technique, deliberately ignoring his other techniques, not wishing to waste precious ti on skills that already had experience points to double.
He decided that from then on, he would only practice techniques when they had no experience points, otherwise, he'd just leave it to the system unless he really wanted a technique to reach mastery quickly. That approach would save ti for learning professions and other valuable skills. With his current strength, techniques and scriptures might not increase his strength by much, he could only rely on secondary professions to boost his cultivation speed.
After just a few minutes of focused practice, Xiang Yu managed to gain two points of experience for his Fire Palm technique. The soft red glow on his palms dimd slightly until it went off completely.
With that out of the way, he turned his attention back to the pill and talismans.
…
Xiang Yu started with the pill, turning it carefully in his palm as he considered his approach. He possessed no formal knowledge about pill refining—only fragntary bits of information gathered from overheard conversations and stories. Such hearsay could hardly be considered reliable guidance for sothing as complex as alchemy, but it was all he had to work with.
He began by inspecting the pill with ticulous attention. Closing his eyes, he deactivated the qi sense that normally blanketed the entire pavilion, instead concentrating all his sensory ability on this single small object. The pill seed to magnify in his perception as he focused, allowing him to examine its structure with much detail.
For anyone else, such a thorough inspection would have been nearly impossible, but Xiang Yu's uniquely powerful qi sense, when concentrated on such a tiny target, allowed him to perceive details that would remain hidden to most cultivators. As his awareness penetrated the pill's structure, he could discern how different properties interacted and fused with one another. The energy pathways twisted and flowed in complex patterns, creating a harmonious whole that was far greater than the sum of its parts.
Though he couldn't identify which specific herbs had been used—his knowledge of dicinal ingredients was still too limited—he gradually developed a rough understanding of the formation process itself. The way the energies had been bound together, the layering of effects, the stabilization of volatile elents—these aspects began to make sense to him even without knowing the specific ingredients.
With this preliminary understanding, Xiang Yu gathered so herbs he knew possessed dicinal properties. He didn't attempt to recreate the foundation-building pill—such ambition would be foolish at this stage. Instead, he decided to create his own original concoction using random herbs with dicinal qualities. His goal wasn't to create a functional pill but rather to practice the formation process he had observed. He reasoned that with enough attempts, he might accumulate sufficient experience for the profession to manifest in his system, just as cooking had done previously.
He summoned his spirit fire. With careful concentration, he used the fire to heat the herbs while simultaneously manipulating his qi to shape them into a pill form. The delicate balance required intense focus—too much heat would scorch the ingredients, while too little would fail to activate their properties.
As he worked, he attempted to refine the dicinal properties of the herbs, encouraging them to blend into the pill structure rather than remaining separate entities. Without an alchemy furnace, he was forced to perform this delicate process by hand, leaving the process vulnerable to atmospheric contamination and energy leakage. Professional alchemists would have considered his thod crude and inefficient, but Xiang Yu, lacking any formal training, pushed forward with determination, unaware of these shortcomings.
Hours passed as he made attempt after attempt. Each failure taught him sothing new—how quickly certain herbs burned, how others resisted blending, how his qi needed to flow to maintain the proper structure. Though he achieved no successful pills, his understanding gradually deepened.
Eventually, Xiang Yu noticed the light changing around him. Glancing toward the window, he saw the sun hanging low on the horizon, its golden rays stretching across the sky. The day had slipped away while he was absorbed in his practice. Looking down at the floor around him, he observed the scattered remnants of nurous failed attempts—scorched herbs, malford lumps, and powdery residues that had once been promising ingredients.
Despite the evident lack of progress, Xiang Yu felt no discouragent. This was rely the first day of what he knew would be a long journey. As for the depleted herb supply, he wasn't concerned. These were rely low-level dicinal plants that grew abundantly throughout the forest. He could easily gather more.
And if they proved insufficient, a mischievous smile crossed his face as he considered another solution. He could always "borrow" so from the master's personal supply. Surely the master wouldn't be too reluctant to part with a few herbs. After all, Xiang Yu reasoned with amusent, if he ate the at, wouldn't the master drink the soup?
…
Author's Corner:
I don't know if that's the correct translation of the quote but who cares.
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