Chapter 161 - 157: Alchemy Dao Insights
Li Yuan took the old iron Pill Furnace out of his storage pouch and placed it on the table.
The grayish-black furnace body gleamed with a dull luster in the morning light. It stood on three legs, its mouth round and open. Several scuff marks and black soot stains were clearly visible on its walls, and a thick layer of medicinal residue coated the inside.
Li Yuan reached out and placed his hand on the furnace wall.
The panel popped up.
[Detectable Equippable Item: Alchemy Dao Insight (Complete)]
[Equipment Trait Preview: Alchemy Insight (Green)]
[Effect: Increases Divine Soul strength and perception by up to 30%. The magnitude of this effect is determined by the proficiency level of your Tier One Alchemy. The higher the proficiency, the greater the boost.]
[Permanence Conditions (Choose one): 1. Increase your Alchemy skill by two minor realms; 2. Reach Tier Two (Beginner) in Alchemy or higher.]
[Current equipment slots are full (5/5). Do you wish to replace a currently equipped item?]
’A green trait. Its effect is to increase Divine Soul strength and perception, up to a maximum of thirty percent.’
But Li Yuan’s gaze didn’t linger on the effect.
’Alchemy Dao Insight.’
’Not a Pill Furnace.’
The name displayed on the panel wasn’t "Old Iron Pill Furnace" or "Small Bronze Pill Furnace." It was "Alchemy Dao Insight."
Li Yuan pulled his hand back from the furnace wall, looking at the old furnace on the table.
Three legs, a round, open mouth, worn Spirit Patterns, a thick coating of medicinal residue—no matter how he looked at it, it was just an ordinary old Pill Furnace.
But the name displayed on the system panel was Alchemy Dao Insight.
Li Yuan turned the furnace over, examining it carefully from every angle, and soon discovered the problem.
The three legs were not uniform in thickness, and the craftsmanship was crude. The left leg and the back one were welded directly to the bottom of the furnace, the welding marks clearly visible.
The right leg was different; there was a paper-thin gap between its base and the bottom of the furnace.
The gap was only as wide as a strand of hair and was filled with grime and rust, making it completely unnoticeable without close inspection.
Li Yuan inserted his fingertip into the gap and scraped away the grime.
Embedded within the gap was an extremely thin iron sheet with raised patterns on its surface.
It was text, engraved so small and packed so densely that it was impossible to read clearly without leaning in close.
Li Yuan brought the furnace close to his eyes, using the light from the window to try and decipher the text.
He could make out a few characters, but they were disjointed. It was as if a passage had been broken apart, with only a few words from the middle engraved here.
’More text.’
Li Yuan straightened up and re-examined the Pill Furnace.
’It’s not just the legs.’
He turned the furnace so its mouth faced upward and carefully inspected the rim. The edge was a rolled lip of iron, and the fold created an extremely narrow seam.
Li Yuan used his fingernail to pry the seam open a fraction, discovering more engraved text inside.
There were at least five or six different places on the Pill Furnace where text was hidden.
But each inscription was incomplete. The characters were fragmented; some were just half a sentence, others only a few words. It was as if a complete text had been torn into pieces and hidden in the furnace’s various secret corners.
’You’d have to piece them all together to read the complete text.’
Li Yuan didn’t try to piece it together.
He placed the Pill Furnace on the table and, with a thought, unequipped the Iron Wall Pill and equipped the Pill Furnace.
[Successfully Equipped]
[Acquired Trait: Alchemy Insight (Green)]
The Pill Furnace dissolved into a streak of grayish-black light and merged into his body.
The next moment, a flood of unfamiliar information surged up from the depths of his mind.
It wasn’t Spiritual Power, nor was it the pathways for circulating Magic. It was text.
Vast amounts of text surfaced in his consciousness, like the insights a Pill Refiner had accumulated over long years.
Insights on heat control, on the timing for adding medicinal ingredients, on the flow of Spiritual Power as the Pill Liquid congealed. It was all fragmented yet orderly, like the pages of a dismantled journal that had been rebound together.
The fragmented texts hidden in various parts of the furnace had been integrated by the system into a complete set of insights and poured into his mind all at once upon equipping the item.
’So I didn’t equip the Pill Furnace itself.’
’It was the text engraved on it. The Pill Furnace was just a vessel; the real equipped item was the insight pieced together from those fragments.’
’No wonder the panel displayed the name "Alchemy Dao Insight," just like with the Cultivation Technique book I equipped before.’
’Of course, it’s still unclear if being able to equip something is completely unrelated to its vessel.’
Li Yuan glanced at the empty spot on the desk. The Pill Furnace was gone.
’So what would happen if an item is inherently equippable but also has equippable text inscribed on it?’
Li Yuan didn’t dwell on it for too long. He walked out of the courtyard. ’Pure speculation won’t give me an answer. I’ll find out if I ever run into a situation like that.’
’I have to set off for Qinghe Marketplace in a few days. I should use this last bit of time to take another look around the local market.’
He followed the dirt road toward the city gate and entered Yunyang Marketplace.
The main street was as bustling as it had been the last few days.
Li Yuan strolled down the main street, his gaze habitually sweeping over the stalls on both sides.
As he reached the middle of the main street, he saw three or four people gathered around a Loose Cultivator’s stall selling miscellaneous goods. A variety of items were laid out on the stall: a few Magic scrolls, two old Magical Artifacts, several bottles of unlabeled pills, and a pile of ore fragments.
Li Yuan hadn’t intended to stop, but out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a few words written on the cover of a thin booklet in a corner of the stall.
’Micro-Control Spiritual Skill.’
Li Yuan’s pace slowed.
He walked over and read the description placed next to the booklet.
It was a support-type Magic. Its core principle involved splitting the Spiritual Power at one’s fingertips into multiple, independent, fine streams, each with its own controlled density and direction. The skill was beneficial for Talisman Making, Alchemy, and Artifact Refining.
’This has a lot of overlap with the Spiritual Power control used in Talisman Making.’
Ever since his Talisman Making Skill had reached the Minor Achievement stage, he had been practicing the technique of manipulating Spiritual Power with each of his ten fingers daily. However, it had always been based on scattered experience, lacking a systematic approach. This Magic seemed to organize those very techniques into a complete framework.
’Besides, I just equipped the Alchemy Dao Insight. I’m about to start learning Alchemy, so the need for precise Spiritual Power control will only increase.’
"How much for this?"
The stall owner, who was haggling with a nearby Loose Cultivator, turned his head at the sound of Li Yuan’s voice.
"The Micro-Control Spiritual Skill? Eighteen Spirit Stones."
"Fifteen."
The stall owner glanced at him and shook his head. "Seventeen is the lowest I’ll go. Support-type Magic is hard to come by as it is. The price is more than fair."
"Done."
Li Yuan counted out seventeen Spirit Stones, placed them on the stall’s cloth, and slipped the booklet into his storage pouch.
He continued on his way.
As he neared a corner in the southern section of the main street, he saw a wooden sign hanging in the doorway of a small roadside shop. It read: "Pills & Ingredients." The shop wasn’t large. A wooden board nailed to the wall listed the names and prices of various pills in dense script.
Li Yuan had only intended to give it a passing glance, but his eyes stopped on the wooden board.
Complete Qi Replenishing Pill Recipe: Twenty Spirit Stones.
The Qi Replenishing Pill was a rather basic Tier One Low Grade pill.
’If I’m going to start learning Alchemy, it’s best to start with the simplest recipe. Besides, the ingredients for the Qi Replenishing Pill are all basic Spirit Grasses, so they’re low-cost. It won’t be a huge loss if I mess up a few batches.’
’Pill recipes are hard to find in the first place, and very few are in circulation.’
Li Yuan walked into the shop.
A chubby Shopkeeper was dozing behind the counter.
"The Qi Replenishing Pill recipe for twenty stones?"
The Shopkeeper opened his eyes, grunted in affirmation, and pulled a booklet with a beast-hide cover from under the counter, handing it over.
Li Yuan took it and flipped through a couple of pages. The formula, ingredient ratios, and refining steps were all clearly written.
"Can you go any lower?"
"Eighteen. And not a stone less."
In the end, they settled on eighteen Spirit Stones.
Li Yuan put the booklet into his storage pouch, left the shop, and retraced his steps out of the city, returning to his residence on the outskirts.