Perhaps it was the motivating words Qin Ran had casually spoken, or perhaps it was the nourishing effect of the Guardian Mountain Formation, or maybe it was just because Long Qiqi had gained new enlightennt herself, but in any case, on this day there was cause for celebration - Long Qiqi had finally successfully sensed her qi!
Although it had taken over three months...
That morning, Qin Ran was sitting in a chair in the dining room reading a book and eating sugared beans, when Long Qiqi ca bouncing in, beaming from ear to ear, seemingly unable to stop smiling.
As she was rummaging around in the fridge, Qin Ran noticed her barely concealed delight and, having guessed what might have happened, asked:
"You've sensed your qi?"
Long Qiqi could hardly contain her smile and nodded.
"Congratulations!" Qin Ran was also happy for the rather dim-witted young snake demon, watching her a little longer and saying, "Go ahead and laugh if you want! Holding it in could be bad for you..."
Long Qiqi shot him a white-eyed glance over her shoulder, but still did not laugh out loud. Instead, she just humd a disjointed little tune to herself as she went to fry so eggs.
There were currently five people living on Dan Peak. Long Qiqi was the last to set out on the path of cultivation, so the major news of her successful qi perception...
did not cause much of a stir, with even Qin Ran being the only one aware of it - everyone else was far too busy.
Li Shiyin was focused on honing her skills and tempering her Qi Vortex, aiming to advance to the interdiate Foundation Establishnt stage.
anwhile, Chasing the Wind had been serving as Li Shiyin's sparring partner these past few days. In order to help Li Shiyin cultivate the one sword technique she was trying to master, poor Chasing the Wind had sustained quite a few injuries over the past couple of days.
Tutan Youyou was still in the fox hole reading books. Except for when the Guardian Mountain Formation was activated last ti, causing enough disturbance for her to pop her head out and take a look, she had not been seen on Dan Peak at any other ti. It was unclear whether or not she had finished reading Principles of Formations, or if she had started laying formations yet.
However, Long Qiqi's delight only lasted a single day before evaporating - Qin Ran had decided it was ti for her to start learning alchemy. Now that she could sense qi and control magic power within her body, she should be able to control earthly fire and begin studying pill refinent.
From this perspective, it would seem Qin Ran still retained so humanity.
"Given your circumstances, I've decided to start by teaching you how to refine Body Tempering Pills," said Qin Ran within the Earth Fla Chamber, placing down piles of dicinal ingredients before Long Qiqi and saying:
"You've sensed your qi for a day now, so you must understand to so degree how qi flows within your body. Don't you feel at tis there are blockages when circulating your qi? Don't you feel your ridians getting obstructed at tis, preventing the passage of qi? This is due to your terrible aptitude - there are impurities inside your ridians blocking the way for qi, preventing smooth circulation. This will seriously impact your cultivation..."
"Body Tempering Pill helps temper the physique and has very good effects in improving these types of situations."
Long Qiqi looked back at Qin Ran in disbelief and asked:
"I refine it myself?"
Co on Qin Ran, you know my situation fully well, yet you still want to refine it myself? Aren't you in too much of a hurry? It's already started affecting my cultivation!
"You know your own body best," Qin Ran explained. "Based on the specifics of your personal condition, you can adjust the dicinal proportions of the pill formula - only then will the resulting pill dicine be best suited for you. I've taught you all the dicinal theory, whether or not you can accomplish it depends on your own efforts.
"For now, let teach you the pill formula for Body Tempering Pill."
Long Qiqi looked at Qin Ran for a bit, opened and closed her little mouth, swallowing back so choice words she wanted to say.
She knew fully well Qin Ran was playing favorites! Did Li Shiyin prepare her own dicinal baths? Were the pills Li Shiyin took for Foundation Establishnt and Qi Condensation refined by herself? Were all the injury healing pills Li Shiyin used self-refined?!
Humph! If I want to use pills, I'll have to refine them myself!
"The Body Tempering Pill mainly uses the tempering flower as its core ingredient along with heart water to extract its essence, then other supplentary ingredients are added to stimulate the effects of the heart water..." said Qin Ran, handing over a hand-copied pill formula to Long Qiqi and explaining in detail the key points about the Body Tempering Pill:
"Because heart water is an integral ingredient, water-based refining is optimal. But you cultivate a fire-based cultivation technique, so the most important thing for you is stimulating the heart water - figuring out how to fuse it with the fire-tempered tempering flower..."
When it ca to Long Qiqi, Qin Ran did not need to liven things up like he did with Li Shiyin to keep her attention. Long Qiqi had enough basics to understand things, he just needed to lay out the hard facts and key points in a dry, matter-of-fact way... spitting out everything all at once.
From Qin Ran's perspective, Long Qiqi was not his disciple to begin with, so what he was doing for her already went above and beyond.
From Long Qiqi's viewpoint... she had no choice but to understand, because given her inferior aptitude and re snake demon identity, alchemist was likely her best shot at advancing upwards.
She must understand this, it was the opportunity fate had delivered to her.
...Hello challenger from the prival forest.
After covering all the key points, Qin Ran left the dicinal ingredients behind and promptly took his leave, not even showing Long Qiqi an example refinent.
Long Qiqi stood inside the Earth Fla Chamber, watching as Qin Ran departed. It took her quite a while to return to her senses.
She took a deep breath, picked up the formula and notes, and began ticulously studying while also carefully examining each and every dicinal ingredient.
Only when she could fully recite the Body Tempering Pill formula from mory did she fetch the pill refinent records and prepare to start refining.
Yet it was at this ti she noticed one issue - she was just a seven or eight year old little girl, while the pill furnace in the center of the Earth Fla Chamber was over two heads taller than she was.
Clutching tempering flowers in one hand and heart water in the other, she gazed up at the top of the furnace, montarily at a loss over how to start pill refinent... Just how exactly could she ignite this furnace being so tiny?
After standing froze in place for quite so ti, she finally sighed. She put down the dicinal ingredients, turned around into giant serpent form, and used her body to bind and open up the furnace opening.
After getting the furnace open, she changed back into human form, grabbed a chair to stand on and enable her tiny self to throw ingredients into the furnace one by one. Then she pressed the pill refinent record up against the furnace edge to keep notes, changed back into snake form to get the lid back on, then turned human again to direct her magic power and manipulate the earthly flas and officially comnce pill production.
After all the fussing back and forth, she finally began refining pills, but... she had only just successfully sensed her qi yesterday, the qi within her was still extrely weak. It was in no way sufficient to control earthly flas.
That earthly fire was extrely unruly, refusing to obey her control.
She consecutively botched several batches of pills...
Fortunately she had the foresight not to use the core tempering flowers and heart water, instead just practicing with so common dicinal ingredients.
When yet another batch of pills ended up scorched to a crisp, she peered out the window to discover the sky outside had darkened at so point without her noticing.
She erged from the Earth Fla Chamber and ca to the research building exterior. Out in the pitch black sky, she vaguely made out a very slender waning crescent moon.
She slowly squatted down there in front of the research building, hugging her tiny self while gazing up at the sky.
The vast sky represented her future - a vast black expanse; while that slender waning crescent represented her hope, barely visible.
She felt the darkness bearing down on her in its entirety, leaving her feeling helpless and wanting to cry.
So she wept.
Cultivation was so bitter, so difficult.
After a nice cathartic cry, she tilted her head and happened to notice there were still lights on over in the direction of the wooden houses. Beams of starlight also trickled down around the building where Li Shiyin cultivated, while bright lamplight shone out from Qin Ran's study.
...Turns out she was not the only one struggling so hard. Those so-called top talents and geniuses were still persevering as well.
"I am Long Qiqi, I will beco a dragon!" She wiped the tear trails off her face and headed back once more to the Earth Fla Chamber.
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