Chapter 18
Over ten days flew by like an arrow.
Baek-Cheong found herself in a situation where she was dragged every morning as soon as she opened her eyes to the Pill Room.
The grueling Pill Refining Class continued without giving her a moment to rest.
“I can”t give up my forum life like this!'
Baek-Cheong made desperate efforts to reclaim her lost forum life.
It was an attempt at multitasking - conducting Pill Refining while simultaneously connecting her Divine Sense to the Nameless Forum.
Pill Refining was a task that required a high degree of concentration to manage the fire’s temperature and mix the essences of medicinal herbs.
It was close to an eccentric Feat that an ordinary Cultivator wouldn’t even dare to attempt.
In the beginning, she often failed to control the fire and turned the herbs into ashes.
After several painful trials and errors, Baek-Cheong finally mastered the Knack of doing both tasks at once.
She divided her Divine Sense, using one part to control the heat of the pill furnace and the other to scroll through the Nameless Forum in the air.
Instead, the quality of the pills dropped noticeably.
Her skill, which used to produce top-tier products, fell to a level where she could barely make mid-grade pills.
Even in the Nameless Forum, she couldn’t actively write posts and was reduced to quietly lurking.
“I was too greedy.”
Yak-seon did not harbor any particular doubts about the drop in Pill Quality.
This was because the assignments he had given Baek-Cheong were in the first place difficult prescriptions that Qi Condensation Cultivators would hardly dare to approach.
Even a young child producing mid-grade pills was an achievement worthy of being called a Peerless Prodigy.
“To melt the Five Elements naturally into Pill Refining is truly a heaven-sent comprehension. Surely, this child will be able to reach the path of pill inscriptions…”
Yak-seon looked at Baek-Cheong in front of the pill furnace with a pleased gaze.
There was plenty of hidden intention behind giving her Top-grade Medicinal Pills every day under the pretext of teaching her Pill Refining.
“The signs of imbalance among the Five Elements have also improved a lot.”
It was to firmly stabilize the Cycle of Five Elements Mutual Generation that had been spinning precariously inside Baek-Cheong’s Dantian.
As the Top-grade Medicinal Pills tailored to the attributes of the Five Elements entered, the fluctuating energy settled down like solid bedrock.
It was akin to generously sprinkling hearty fertilizer on a sapling with excellent potential.
He judged that this was enough to save face with his old friend, Baek Mu-Ae.
Yak-seon woke from his thoughts, cleared his throat, and opened his mouth.
“Cheong-A, it seems you have built a solid foundation by now.”
Baek-Cheong stopped her hands that had been focused on the pill furnace and raised her head.
“Yes? Already?”
“Yes. A crucial Pill Refining task has come up that I must pour my heart and soul into Refining for a while. So, do not come to the Pill Room and take a good rest.”
Baek-Cheong made a bewildered expression at the sudden notice of a break.
Inwardly, she cheered and shouted hurrah.
There was no reason to refuse a break that felt like sweet rain.
“It’s a shame, but if that is grandfather Yak-seon’s will, I will follow your order. I will take a good rest so that there are no setbacks in my Training!”
Baek-Cheong bowed deeply and slipped out of the Pill Room like an arrow.
Returning to her Abode, Baek-Cheong firmly locked the latch on the closed door.
Throwing her exhausted body onto the soft bed, she immediately connected her Divine Sense to the Nameless Forum.
A smile naturally spread across her lips at the thought of writing posts freely and drawing attention.
However, Baek-Cheong’s expression stiffened coldly as she skimmed through the Chat Board.
For a while now, the Forum Board has been completely plastered with serious discussions about the Alchemy Art.
“Dao Friend (55.19): A study on the loss rate of essence when applying the Principle of Water Overcoming Fire to Bigu Pills.”
“Dao Friend (11.23): When is the appropriate moment to expel impurities using Metal overcoming Wood?”
Countless Dao Friends were discussing the mixing ratios of herbs and the mutual restraint of energies, forming a heated atmosphere reminiscent of an academic conference.
It was the result of the Five Elements Pill Refining Method that Baek-Cheong had lightly tossed out that became a massive spark that ignited the academic zeal of Alchemists.
“Ugh, try-hards. The whole point of foruming is the taste of reading shitposts.”
Baek-Cheong withdrew her Divine Sense from the Nameless Forum in disgust.
Since the discussion posts were boring, boredom washed over her in an instant.
Outside, the sun was still high in the sky, making it too early to ask for sleep.
Rolling around on the bed, Baek-Cheong suddenly turned her consciousness to her Dantian.
'There’s no sign of my Dantian filling up.'
Lately, she had been so consumed by Pill Refining that she lacked the time to properly Contemplate the state of her body.
She closed her eyes and looked deep into her Dantian along her energy meridians.
Having reached the 3rd Stage Qi Condensation, her Dantian had grown twice as large as before.
She could see that the roots of the Five Elements Spirit Root situated in her Dantian had also absorbed the medicinal efficacy of the Top-grade Medicinal Pills and achieved quite a plump growth.
Thanks to the growth of her spirit root, the speed of her breathing to absorb the spiritual energy in the atmosphere had become extremely fast.
However, compared to the enlarged size of her Dantian, it was at a ridiculously insufficient level.
Without swallowing a decent Top-grade Medicinal Pill whole, filling the massive Dantian through natural breathing alone was close to impossible.
Baek-Cheong took out a Top-grade Spirit Gathering Pill from her Storage Platform and swallowed it.
Powerful medicinal efficacy poured down, but it was inadequate to fill a Dantian that was like a vast ocean.
“It filled up by only a mere fraction.”
To fill her Dantian at this rate, she would need a hundred Top-grade Spirit Gathering Pills.
If she consumed more than one a day in succession, pill toxins would accumulate in her meridians, posing a high risk of suffering a Qi Deviation that would be hard to recover from.
There was another, more serious problem.
Baek-Cheong sharpened her mind and pushed up the speck-like spiritual energy gathered in her Dantian to touch the wall leading to the next realm.
The sensation she felt the moment the spiritual energy touched the wall was despairing.
A wall of the Dantian, so distant and daunting that she couldn’t even gauge how thick it was, stood firmly in her way.
The barriers of the 2nd and 3rd Stage Qi Condensation she had experienced previously were also terribly difficult to break through, enough to be called major boundaries.
But the wall she faced now was so solid and massive that it made the previous barriers look like a joke.
She doubted whether she could tear down this massive Barrier even if she poured in Top-grade Realm-Breaking Pills, which were preciously traded in the market.
“Haa.”
Baek-Cheong let out a deep sigh and withdrew the energy she had extended.
Since it wasn’t the time to break through to the 4th stage right away anyway, she decided to try and ignore this complicated and headache-inducing reality.
“I have no choice but to just browse the forum…”
Unable to endure the boredom, Baek-Cheong connected to the Nameless Forum again.
Seeing the Chat Board where serious Pill Refining Discussions were still ongoing, she pouted her lips in dissatisfaction.
“Everyone is too serious. Should I flip it upside down once?”
Triggered by her mischievousness, Baek-Cheong opened the Writing Window.
She began to haphazardly mix the shallow Pill Refining Knowledge she had picked up from Yak-seon with all sorts of plausible-sounding knowledge from the Xianxia Novels she had read in her past life.
Combining pedantic phrases, she scribbled down a post pretending it was a profound contemplation.
“Dao Friend (913.14): Pill Refining is the process of containing the Yin-Yang and Five Elements of all creation in the universe within the pill furnace.”
[Controlling heat with Water overcoming Fire is just the basics. True Pill Refining is forming an artificial microcosm inside the pill furnace. Rotate the herb’s life force in a Taiji Orbit, and push the remaining dregs into the Realm of Chaos to separate them. By doing so, you will achieve the Resonance of Heavenly Dao, and pill inscriptions will engrave themselves. If you disagree, you’re all wrong.]
It was a collection of improbable nonsense.
Baek-Cheong held back a smile, expecting a barrage of criticism to pour in as soon as she posted it.
“Uh…?”
However, the situation flowed completely differently from her expectations.
As soon as the written post was registered, unlike usual, extremely favorable and serious replies began to pour in explosively.
[Dao Friend (11.23): Resonance of Heavenly Dao… It is forming a microcosm inside the pill furnace. Indeed, it is an enlightenment that blows wide open my blocked blood vessels!]
[Dao Friend (55.19): Rotating in a Taiji Orbit for Preserving Vitality? It is an entirely new perspective on the method of fusing energies. The depth of Dao Friend (913.14) cannot be fathomed.]
[Dao Friend (201.9): Pushing impurities into the Realm of Chaos must mean Deploying a Formless Formation Inside the Pill Furnace! I shall attempt it immediately!]
Countless Cultivators revered Baek-Cheong’s shitpost like verses from a holy scripture, seriously discussing it and attaching their own interpretations as annotations.
The Cultivators enthusiastically found hidden truths on their own within the bogus sentences and assigned meaning to them.
Baek-Cheong blinked her eyes in bewilderment.
“Huh? This isn’t right. Why aren’t they cursing at me?”
A moment later, a new post appeared on the Chat Board.
“Dao Friend (451.0): Following the teachings of Great Senior 913.14, I attempted the Taiji Rotation Method and finally completed an Inscribed Foundation Establishment Pill engraved with pill inscriptions! I offer three bows toward the Great Senior’s post!”
Checking the post, Baek-Cheong opened her mouth so wide her jaw nearly dropped.
She was so dumbfounded that words wouldn’t even come out properly.
“Why does this work?”
Lying on the bed, Baek-Cheong stared blankly at the Nameless Forum with her soul completely drained.
She was facing the absurd reality where a shitpost mixed with Shallow Knowledge was advancing the Alchemy Art of the entire Cultivation World.