Chapter 77
A month had passed since the promise with her uncle.
She received a message to come to the study.
“Already?”
Baek-Cheong retrieved the Five Elements Banner and dispersed the Formation she had laid out.
Even if she learned the Formation Glyph through the Jinmun Formation Diagram, deploying it as a Formation was different, so she had been practicing.
“That was faster than expected.”
She had guessed it would take at least a couple of months.
It was only natural since a Pill Refining Golem that had never existed before had to be created, but it had beaten her expectations.
She immediately straightened her Attire and headed to her uncle’s study.
“Uncle, did you call for me?”
“Yes, the Pill Refining Golem you so desired has been completed.”
“This fast…”
As Baek-Cheong entered the study, she could see Yuk-Muk sitting behind her uncle.
However, his appearance was completely different from what she had seen a month ago.
He originally had a quiet impression without much presence, but now, it looked as if his very vitality had been drained away, beyond just quiet.
His cheeks were hollow, dark shadows hung heavily under his eyes, and the way he was dozing off while leaning against the chair made him look like a man with one foot in the grave.
“He must have made it day and night without resting.”
If the effort required was enough to reduce a Golden Core Cultivator to such a state in just a month, it definitely hadn’t been an easy task.
“Senior Yuk-Muk.”
Baek-Cheong bowed deeply and politely to pay her respects.
It was because seeing the figure of the near-crippled person sprawled before her finally made the month of hard labor truly resonate in her small heart.
“…”
Only after a long while did Yuk-Muk lift his half-closed eyes.
And he slowly nodded his head once.
Her conscience was slightly pricked at the sight of him dropping his head again without a single word, but it didn’t last long.
After all, it was something she had asked her uncle for, and her uncle had simply worked him as he saw fit.
“I won’t say how much it cost.”
Meanwhile, Baek Mu-Yeong lightly tapped the Storage Platform placed on the table.
“However, it cost a considerable amount, so handle it carefully. Even if you break it by handling it carelessly, I won’t have it made again.”
Baek-Cheong nodded obediently and received the Storage Platform with both hands.
The warning had already brushed past her ears and flowed away.
Soon after, her uncle taught her how to use it.
“There is a slot near the heart of each golem for a spirit stone. Keep in mind that you must insert at least a Mid-Grade Spirit Stone for it to move. You can control them by connecting your Divine Sense to the Divine Sense stone near the forehead, and the details are included on a jade slip written by Cultivator Yuk-Muk.”
“Thank you, uncle!”
“Thanks, just make sure you keep the promise we have coming up soon.”
“I’ll definitely keep it!”
Her uncle spoke about the promise, but she was so distracted by the golems that she only answered out of habit.
Seeing her like that, her uncle gestured as if telling her to withdraw.
“I’ll take my leave now!”
Baek-Cheong left her greetings and exited the study.
The sight of Yuk-Muk’s back, collapsed and asleep on the chair behind her, briefly caught her eye, but her footsteps were already running toward her Pill Refining Room.
…
As soon as she arrived at the Pill Refining Room, she placed the Storage Platform on the table.
After opening the Storage Platform, there were five golems inside, and she took them out.
Each golem was about her size, and every single one had a different body color.
Blue, red, gold, white, black.
Wood, fire, Earth, metal, water.
They were five golems, each carved from an attribute wood.
“Five Elements Golem.”
She was satisfied as she examined the jade slip left by Cultivator Yuk-Muk.
They were 1st-Grade Top-Tier Golems, crafted at a level that even a Qi Condensation Cultivator could handle, just for her.
And near the heart of the golems, there was a space large enough for one spirit stone, and near their foreheads, a small jewel-like Divine Sense stone was embedded.
“As expected, grinding an engineer to the bone yields good results.”
Baek-Cheong smiled brightly and immediately took out five Mid-Grade Spirit Stones.
She pushed a Mid-Grade Spirit Stone into the space near the blue golem’s heart.
Click.
As the spirit stone settled in, the golem emitted light through the Divine Sense stone as if it were alive.
She inserted spirit stones into the remaining four in turn.
Then, she extended a strand of Divine Sense to the Divine Sense stones near each of their foreheads and connected them.
As the five Strands of Divine Sense touched the different golems, the Five Elements Golems trembled faintly before stiffly raising their bodies.
“Oh, they’re moving.”
However, since there were five of them, she had to use five Strands of Divine Sense simultaneously, and it was beyond her capacity to move each one as naturally and delicately as a human could.
If she focused on one, the other four became sluggish, and if she tried to handle all of them evenly, all five became clumsy.
But they didn’t need to move like humans.
Movements like picking up medicinal herbs, trimming them, and putting them in and taking them out of the Pill Furnace were sufficient.
‘Because what’s needed for Pill Refining is Qi Control rather than manual dexterity.’
Baek-Cheong familiarized herself with the golems' simple movements.
And she made them circulate energy to figure out their output as well.
“Alright, from now on, you guys are Cheong-Roe, Jeok-Roe, Geum-Roe, Baek-Roe, and Heuk-Roe.”
She spread a pile of medicinal herbs in front of the Five Elements Golems and tried to start Pill Refining.
Her idea was for Cheong-Roe to trim the herbs, while Jeok-Roe lit the fire in the Pill Furnace, Heuk-Roe adjusted the temperature, Geum-Roe stabilized the medicinal ingredients, and Baek-Roe filtered out the impurities.
“Ah! Not like that!!!”
However, handling the Five Elements Golems was not as easy as she had thought.
Cheong-Roe had no problems since she was just trimming herbs, but she failed when Jeok-Roe had to light the fire in the Pill Furnace while Heuk-Roe assisted in adjusting the Fire Control.
“This is trickier than a Multi-layered Technique.”
It felt like playing rock-paper-scissors with her left and right hands.
The problem was that there were five golems, so it was the same as playing rock-paper-scissors with five hands.
“I can’t give up.”
Although it was different from what she had imagined, Baek-Cheong persistently put effort into handling the Five Elements Golems.
As a result, she crushed the herbs she was trimming, burned the herbs pitch-black, or boiled the essence down so much that it evaporated, and so on.
It was even worse when she got distracted and failed to watch the Pill Furnace.
BOOM.
The Pill Furnace exploded, and black smoke completely filled the Pill Refining Room.
Jeok-Roe, who was standing in front of the Pill Furnace, was completely Covered in Ashes.
“You can’t break already!”
Startled, she pushed through the smoke and checked Jeok-Roe’s condition.
Fortunately, Jeok-Roe was only covered in soot and stood in place as if nothing had happened.
“As expected of a Golden Core-level engineer grind.”
She thought that if she ever got the chance, she should ask for more golems.
Of course, with her uncle’s spirit stones, not hers.
…
As the number of Pill Refining attempts through the golems gradually piled up, she became accustomed to handling them.
She was too frantic to have the leeway to enjoy forum surfing, but the Five Elements Golems steadily carried out their assigned roles.
“Did it work?!”
Like that, over several days of grinding through spirit stones and dozens of attempts, a soft light bloomed from inside the Pill Furnace.
The Inherent Vitality of Medicinal Herbs and the heaven and Earth energy intertwined on the surface of the pill without a single inch of loss, and a cloud-like pattern emerged.
It was the first Inscribed Spirit Gathering Pill crafted by golems.
“I did it…!”
As Baek-Cheong examined the Inscribed Spirit Gathering Pill made by the golems, her small heart swelled with emotion.
At the same time, an indescribable sense of pride welled up at having achieved what the Dao Friends of the Nameless Forum had deemed impossible.
‘I can’t hold back on this.’
Since it was a success anyway, there was no need to hide it from the Dao Friends of the Nameless Forum to avoid teasing.
It was time to proudly show off the result and savor the Dao Friends' reactions.
“This is definitely Picture Post material.”
Baek-Cheong immediately tossed an Inscribed Spirit Gathering Pill into her mouth.
While spiritual energy filled her Dantian, she connected to the Nameless Forum.
She lined up the Five Elements Golems and the newly completed Inscribed Spirit Gathering Pill side by side and wrote a Picture Post.
『※Dao Friend (913.14): Why can’t golems Refine pills?』
[My golems can even craft Inscribed Spirit Gathering Pills though?]
As soon as the Picture Post went up on the Nameless Forum, the view count skyrocketed.
[Dao Friend (88.4): ???]
└Dao Friend (88.4): Did you actually do it?
[Dao Friend (11.23): How did you actually do it? You’re just pretending you pulled it off, right?]
[Dao Friend (201.9): Didn’t we conclude that it was impossible last time?]
[Dao Friend (553.24): Dao Friend (913.14) is truly an extraordinary person!]
In an instant, the Dao Friends of the Nameless Forum began leaving replies.
The general atmosphere was one of disbelief.
[Dao Friend (17.89): Golems carved by the five elements' attributes… I didn’t think you’d actually do this.]
└Dao Friend (88.4): Five elements?
As the view count rose, sharp-eyed Dao Friends also began to appear.
[Dao Friend (99.102): For golems like these, considering just the wood of a specific attribute that went into one unit, it must have cost at least ten High-Grade Spirit Stones.]
└Dao Friend (99.102): Since there are five units, that’s fifty High-High-Grade Spirit Stones.
└Dao Friend (88.4): Fifty???
└Dao Friend (11.23): A Qi Condensation Cultivator has golems worth fifty High-High-Grade Spirit Stones?
[Dao Friend (55.19): No matter how I think about it, I cannot understand how a Qi Condensation Cultivator possesses such items.]
└Dao Friend (201.9): The very mindset of using such precious golems to craft Inscribed Spirit Gathering Pills seems different from ours.
└Dao Friend (88.4): Is it normal to sit around Crafting 1st-Grade Pills with golems worth fifty High-High-Grade Spirit Stones?
└Dao Friend (553.24): Both their wealth and skill are truly extraordinary.
As Baek-Cheong watched the Dao Friends' reactions, the corners of her mouth rose to her ears.
The thrill of watching the Dao Friends freak out and make a fuss was electrifying.
“Pfft-hehe.”
Soon, she couldn’t hold back her leaking laughter.
The moment of forum surfing was sweeter than the fruits of her cultivation.
“Anyway, fifty High-High-Grade Spirit Stones.”
The number estimated by Dao Friend (99.102) lingered in her mind.
She understood why her uncle hadn’t mentioned the cost.
‘His words to handle them carefully weren’t for nothing.’
Yuk-Muk’s haggard face briefly came to mind, but it was quickly forgotten as replies on the Nameless Forum popped up endlessly.
Since Golem Pill Refining was possible, the time spent on Pill Refining would drastically decrease, and the time spent on the Nameless Forum would increase by that saved amount.
‘I won’t be able to make Five Elements Pills or Moon-Tier Pills with these, but…’
It would be solved if she asked Yuk-Muk to make the 2nd Tier Five Elements Golems later.
Handling 2nd Tier Five Elements Golems would likely only be possible once she reached the very end of the Late Qi Condensation Stage, though.
“Future matters are for future me.”
For now, getting used to handling the Five Elements Golems was the top priority.
Only then could she relax and comfortably surf the forum while semi-automatically Refining pills.