Chapter 175
Seeing the light shimmering in Yak-seon's eyes, Baek Cheong felt an inexplicable chill.
As soon as he heard the words “new pill formula,” she looked ready to drag Baek Cheong over and seat her in front of the furnace at once.
‘As expected, the moment pills come up, he turns into a different person.’
Still, Baek Cheong did not show it and obediently nodded.
Anyway, there was another reason she had decided to reveal the formula.
If she refined a Longevity Pill and gave it to her grandfather and Grandfather Yak-seon, she could keep the two of them by her side that much longer.
That had been the thought she’d been harboring throughout her closed-door cultivation.
‘Since I’m going to show it to him anyway, I should do it without looking obvious.’
After pretending to ponder it for a long time, she finally spoke.
“Actually, during my closed-door cultivation, I came up with a Longevity Pill formula.”
“A Longevity Pill.”
Yak-seon stroked his beard with interest.
“There are plenty of common formulas out there, but if you came up with this one yourself, that’s a different story. Let me see it.”
“Yes.”
Baek Cheong went to the alchemy room, found the medicinal ingredients, took them out, and laid them out in front of the furnace.
They were exactly as written in the formula she had picked up at the market.
All she had done was add a few spirit herbs that cost a bit more to the ordinary medicinal herbs you could find anywhere.
Yak-seon glanced over the laid-out ingredients and tilted his head.
‘You’re making a Longevity Pill with this?’
That was written plainly in his eyes.
When it came to a Longevity Pill, one usually poured in precious elixirs without hesitation.
But every ingredient she had taken out was utterly ordinary.
Pretending not to notice the doubtful look, she lit the furnace.
‘If I try it first, we’ll know.’
Truthfully, this was also her first time trying to refine a Longevity Pill formula.
She had recited the formula in her head dozens of times, but making it with her own hands was another matter.
If it were a pill she was familiar with, she could have refined it blindfolded, but the Longevity Pill was not like that.
She controlled the fire timing as she placed the ingredients one by one along the orbit of the Five Elements Taiji Alchemy Method.
Her hand, using water energy to temper the heat and wood energy to draw out the medicinal properties, moved more slowly than usual.
‘I should reduce the fire here a little...’
Imitating an unfamiliar formula, she found herself unexpectedly absorbed in alchemy.
It was rather enjoyable, picking apart the subtleties of a new formula one by one.
After being at it for a long while, a faint medicinal fragrance rose from the furnace.
When she opened the lid, a single pill carrying a pale glow was revealed.
‘Hmm, middle grade?’
Baek Cheong picked up the pill and pouted.
The impurities visible here and there made it clear at a glance that it was no better than middle grade.
Because it was an unfamiliar formula, her hand in refining the fire timing had not been smooth.
She had aimed for perfect grade, but had only managed middle grade, so she was displeased.
‘Since it’s my first time refining it, I guess there’s nothing to be done.’
As she clicked her tongue in disappointment, a groan-like exclamation escaped from beside her.
“Huh...”
At some point, Yak-seon had leaned in close to the furnace and was peering at it.
His eyes, fixed intently on the faintly glowing pill, were trembling slightly.
“Would you go over once more how you just refined that pill?”
Baek Cheong, still not understanding why, explained while groping through the order in which she had refined it.
As he listened, Yak-seon’s face gradually contorted strangely.
It was an expression mixed with admiration and disbelief.
It was a face far removed from what one would expect of a master alchemist who had spent his entire life in refinement.
‘What? Why is he making that face?’
She cautiously watched Yak-seon’s reaction.
After a long silence, Yak-seon exhaled deeply and spoke.
“Do you even know what you have just accomplished?”
“Well... it’s just a Longevity Pill.”
“Just a Longevity Pill, you say.”
Yak-seon gave a dry laugh and shook his head.
“Inventing a formula that never existed before is something even alchemists called grandmasters may only accomplish once or twice in their entire lives. And yet you made a pill of this quality just by changing the method of refining ordinary ingredients.”
Yak-seon’s voice carried a tremor.
“To be honest, I didn’t expect much at first. But once I actually watched you sitting before the furnace, my heart started pounding as an alchemist.”
Baek Cheong scratched the back of her head awkwardly.
To her, who had merely picked up the formula at the market, those words didn’t really sink in.
‘I just refined it according to the formula—why is he making such a big deal out of it?’
But Yak-seon’s excitement did not stop there.
This time, he held up the pill she had refined and examined it from every angle.
The hand that held the pill up to the light was excited like a child’s.
“There isn’t a single thing lacking as a Longevity Pill. And yet it differs from the usual ones, so it truly deserves to be called a new Longevity Pill unseen in the world.”
Yak-seon was unable to contain his emotion and went on.
“Besides, what great matter is middle grade? A Longevity Pill ranks among the upper tier even by grade. More than that, since the refining process is complicated, the difficulty of making one can truly be said to be a quasi-third-tier pill at the extreme of second tier.”
Then he turned to Baek Cheong with an expression full of pride.
“For you, who have only just reached the Qi Condensation stage, to have refined such a pill—merely bringing it to middle grade is already a truly splendid feat.”
The stream of praise made Baek Cheong feel awkward.
Yak-seon clicked his tongue as he handled the pill.
“The very fact that, among countless pills, you happened to think of the Longevity Pill formula first says a lot. You even considered refining it while calculating old Mu-ae’s remaining lifespan—how could your filial devotion be so deep?”
“Oh, it’s not that much.”
Baek Cheong waved her hands, but inwardly she was thinking something else.
Sweet talk cost neither money nor effort.
If she tossed in a bit of lip service, Yak-seon’s heart would surely be pleased.
She deliberately put on a regretful expression.
“Actually, I wanted to inscribe a pill sigil as well before refining it. If it were a pill-sigil Longevity Pill, it could extend lifespan by twenty years. That way I’d be properly showing filial devotion to Grandfather and Grandfather Yak-seon, wouldn’t I?”
After saying it, she was secretly pleased with herself.
It wasn’t a complete lie, but it was flattery that exaggerated her true feelings by quite a bit.
At this point, she thought Yak-seon would simply smile warmly and say she was admirable.
“...Heh heh.”
But Yak-seon’s gaze changed.
With a face even gentler than before, he looked at her deeply.
“That brat who used to run wild through the pill room has come back from closed-door cultivation and become so thoughtful.”
Baek Cheong felt a chill run through her whole body for some reason.
“Cheong-ah, why would there be any reason you could not fulfill that filial devotion?”
“Huh...?”
“You only need to learn the advanced section of the Five Elements Taiji Alchemy Method.”
Yak-seon nodded as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“With your talent, once you learn the advanced section, even inscribing pill sigils on a quasi-second-grade pill won’t be difficult. This works out perfectly; I was just thinking it was about time to teach you anyway.”
Baek Cheong’s mind went blank.
‘W-wait a second.’
One piece of flattery was rolling off in a completely unexpected direction.
Just thinking about Yak-seon’s advanced-section lessons made her head spin.
She hurriedly looked for a way out.
“Ah, I haven’t even changed my cultivation method yet. I think it would still be fine to choose a new technique on the second floor of Baekgyeong Pavilion and learn it before studying this... the advanced section still feels a little too early.”
It was a plausible excuse.
But Yak-seon firmly shook his head.
“Why the rush to worry about a cultivation method? Your spiritual power is no longer that of a cultivator who has just reached Qi Condensation.”
“I-Is that so...?”
“Thanks to achieving Heavenly Dao Qi Condensation, you possess spiritual power comparable to that of a late Qi Condensation cultivator despite being only at one star. You lack nothing for learning the advanced section.”
Only then did Baek Cheong realize what she had done.
By boasting that she wanted to inscribe pill sigils for the sake of filial devotion, she had effectively blocked her own escape route.
‘Oh no!’
There was no better example of getting caught in her own trap.
She was full of regret, but it was already too late.
Yak-seon had already rolled up his sleeves and taken his seat in front of the furnace.
‘I’ve crawled straight into a tiger’s den.’
Even if she wanted to run, there was nowhere to flee.
Baek Cheong was dragged to sit before the furnace with a soul-drained expression.
And so Yak-seon’s devoted—no, harsh—instruction began.
“The fire timing is wavering! Inscribing a pill sigil is all about seizing the instant when qi converges into a single point!”
“Y-yes...”
Under the thunderous shouting, she withered away bit by bit.
Inscribing a pill sigil was, as rumored, a backbreaking ordeal.
They said it was an act of stealing the heavens’ energy, and indeed it felt as though both body and mind were being worn down.
‘At this point, isn’t this less alchemy and more tribulation...?’
To her, at least, it was a fairly reasonable complaint.
For a brief moment, while she was lost in a strange thought, her hand slowed.
“Your stray thoughts are showing all the way to your fingertips! Where in the world is your mind?”
Yak-seon’s thunderous rebuke shook the pill room.
Startled, Baek Cheong hurriedly turned her mind back to the furnace.
***
Nearly half a month passed after that.
It was almost time for the feast celebrating her Qi Condensation breakthrough.
Baek Cheong endured Yak-seon’s harsh instruction and eventually succeeded in learning the advanced section of the Five Elements Taiji Alchemy Method.
Even though she was half out of her mind, she had gotten the knack of inscribing pill sigils down pat.
Under Yak-seon’s watchful eyes, Baek Cheong refined a new Longevity Pill.
This time, she overlaid a pill sigil onto the orbit of the Five Elements.
‘Still, what I learned didn’t go to waste.’
Even while inscribing the sigil, she furtively checked the sky.
Because inscribing a pill sigil meant stealing the energy of the Heavenly Dao, it would be disastrous if dark clouds were to gather.
If a heavenly tribulation were to strike, there would be no feast or anything of the sort.
But the sky outside the window was cruelly clear.
There wasn’t even a hint of a cloud, let alone dark ones.
‘Did taking a heavenly tribulation somehow raise my resistance?’
She didn’t know why, but for her it was simply a fortunate thing.
At last the furnace lid opened, and a radiant pill revealed itself.
It was a Longevity Pill densely engraved with silver pill sigils.
Yak-seon nodded in satisfaction as he looked over the pill.
“There wasn’t a single flaw in the process.”
Yak-seon placed the pill on his palm and savored it for a long while.
Before long, his eyes brightened as if he had thought of something.
“A pill of this caliber can’t go unnamed. How about calling it Haksu Dan, the Crane Longevity Pill?”
“Haksu Dan...”
Baek Cheong nodded without a word to show her agreement.
It was different from the grand name written in the formula, but that didn’t matter.
Yak-seon tucked the Haksu Dan into a jade bottle and handed it to Baek Cheong.
“That old Mu-ae will be grinning from ear to ear when he receives a Longevity Pill personally refined by his granddaughter.”
He meant that Baek Cheong should give it to her grandfather first.
But Baek Cheong shook her head.
Then she held out the first pill-sigil Haksu Dan she had ever refined to Yak-seon.
“Please take it first, Grandfather Yak-seon.”
“To me? Why not to Mu-ae...”
“Grandfather Yak-seon is no different from a grandfather to me.”
She gently placed the pill in Yak-seon’s hand.
There was indeed some sincerity in her words.
But there were other calculations mixed in as well.
Her grandfather was already in the middle of a long closed-door cultivation session.
There would be no harm in refining a new one and giving it to him later.
If you thought about it, she had only slightly changed the order in which she gave them out.
‘As for Grandfather’s, I can just refine it before his closed-door cultivation ends.’
Of course, Yak-seon had no way of knowing any of these inner thoughts.
For Yak-seon, the fact that the first pill Baek Cheong had refined was offered to him first
was enough on its own to fill his chest with emotion.
The hand holding the pill trembled slightly.
“You little brat... you’re going to make this old man cry.”
The corners of Yak-seon’s eyes grew moist.
It had been a life spent entirely on alchemy without a single child.
There was no reason to refuse a pill personally refined by a child who was even more like a granddaughter than any real granddaughter.
Yak-seon carefully tucked the Haksu Dan close to his chest.
“Yes, I’ll gratefully accept it.”
Only then did Baek Cheong smile.
‘As long as he’s happy, that’s enough.’
She’d done her filial duty, and she’d also filled Yak-seon’s heart with satisfaction.
Now all that remained was to get through the celebration banquet safely.