Driven by this new obsession, Bai Xiaochun lay in the courtyard. Although his body still felt sore and weak, he could faintly see that his skin had visibly toughened. This sight filled him with greater anticipation about becoming an apothecary.
He remained lying in the courtyard for over half an hour until the soreness finally faded. Immediately, Bai Xiaochun sat up cross-legged, his eyes flashing. From his storage pouch, he took out the bottle of pills and incense stick he'd received after becoming an outer sect disciple.
After examining them carefully and looking around to ensure no one was watching, he returned to the wooden house and promptly brought out his Turtle Patterned Cauldron.
"These pills are usable now. If I refine them once through spirit infusion, they should help me break through from the third level of Qi Condensation to the fourth. It's a pity two-colored firewood is so expensive. Although the sect's furnace room has some, I'm no longer a servant there, so it's not convenient to use it," Bai Xiaochun murmured, his interest in alchemy growing stronger.
After thinking it over briefly, he didn't hesitate any longer. He took out some one-colored firewood and lit it.
"Just one refinement will do!" he said to himself.
Soon, one line on the Turtle Patterned Cauldron glowed brightly. Bai Xiaochun opened the pill bottle, finding three longan-sized pills inside. He refined each one individually.
With flashes of silver light, three spirit-infused pills now sat in his hand. Afterward, he also refined the green incense stick. Looking at the four spirit-enhanced items before him, Bai Xiaochun sat down cross-legged again. Placing the incense in front of him, he tossed all three pills into his mouth and assumed the posture of the fourth stance of the Purple Qi from the East Incantation, beginning to cultivate.
Soon, his internal spiritual energy began to surge. This time, he could hold out much longer, and the flow of Qi grew increasingly active as it surged through him, growing stronger.
"A hundred more breaths, and I'll reach the fourth level of Qi Condensation!" Bai Xiaochun gritted his teeth, enduring the painful cultivation posture. His body bent like a ball, cracking sounds coming from his joints while sweat dripped continuously.
But just then, his spiritual energy began to dry up. His eyes narrowed. Suddenly, he exhaled a breath of Qi directly onto the incense stick.
As soon as his Qi touched it, the incense ignited by itself, releasing thin green smoke like snakes that slithered toward Bai Xiaochun, entering his body through his orifices and pores. Inside, the smoke turned into spiritual energy, causing his internal Qi river to swell instantly.
Boom! A wave of energy exploded from Bai Xiaochun, surging through the wooden house and out into the courtyard, like a gust of wind had erupted. Bai Xiaochun's eyes lit up with joy as he laughed.
"Qi Condensation, level four!"
He felt his spiritual energy now carried a deep vitality, flowing through his body with incredible lightness. Looking down, he saw black impurities clinging to his body—more waste being expelled.
He floated out of the house and cleaned up in the courtyard. Feeling refreshed, he formed a hand seal, and a wooden sword shot from his storage pouch, transforming into a streak of light.
Controlling the sword to fly around the courtyard, Bai Xiaochun looked more satisfied. His wooden sword was already decent, and combined with his new cultivation level, it now exuded a certain killing aura.
"Refining is amazing. If only I had three-colored firewood... But pills are incredible, too!" Bai Xiaochun was growing ever more fascinated with alchemy. Pills or incense—both were essential tools for cultivation.
"I must become a great apothecary—refine an immortality pill... refine it not ten, but a hundred times!"
Full of ambition, Bai Xiaochun slapped his storage pouch and pulled out a jade slip.
It was the one Hou Yunfei gave him when he first visited the Myriad Medicines Pavilion, containing illustrations and descriptions of 10,000 types of herbs—knowledge required for any Spirit Child of Fragrant Cloud Mountain.
But even mastering those 10,000 herbs wasn't enough. Bai Xiaochun remembered Hou Yunfei mentioning that only after mastering them could one exchange for the second volume.
He took a deep breath and began to circulate his spiritual energy. In his mind, images of various herbs began to appear. The more he looked, the more fascinated he became. Some were the exact herbs needed to make the Longevity Pill he'd recently obtained.
After skimming the entire slip, Bai Xiaochun concluded that memorizing all 10,000 herbs wouldn't be too hard. But who was he? His goal was to become a grand apothecary capable of refining an immortality pill.
That latent ruthlessness in his character awakened once more.
He wouldn't just memorize each herb; he'd study them to the extreme. Not until he fully understood every single detail would he move on to the next one.
Just like how he'd trained like mad under Xu Baocai's pressure months ago, he again tapped into this hidden potential. Every herb, he visualized clearly in his mind. Even without real samples, he imagined dissecting them, exploring their internal structures.
Not even satisfied with that, he examined every root, fruit, fiber, and even the microscopic hairs and pores on the leaves—magnifying each plant in his mind, extracting every detail.
Time flew by.
A month passed. Every day, Bai Xiaochun cultivated the fourth stage of Purple Qi from the East. His cultivation had finally started to loosen again. At the same time, he never stopped practicing the Undying Longevity Technique. Every day, despite the pain, he ran through the courtyard while silently memorizing herbal information from the jade slip.
By now, he could mentally compare different herbs—something the slip itself didn't teach. He had started independently analyzing and discovering patterns.
Each time he ran through the yard, he paused in the top-right corner—where a small spirit field lay. In it, he'd planted ten seeds of a herb called Lingdong Bamboo.
Half a month ago, he'd found an easy sect task at the outer sect's mission stone. Bai Xiaochun didn't dare ignore the rules: outer sect disciples had to complete at least one task every six months.
The task awarded decent contribution points and more depending on the final herb quality. Though it took time—three months minimum—it was safe. The Lingdong Bamboo could grow faster using spiritual energy, but Bai Xiaochun had little time to tend to it, so he tossed it into his spiritual field and left it.
"Growing too slowly," he muttered, frowning.
From the jade slip, he'd learned that Lingdong Bamboo required high spiritual energy to grow. If the land wasn't rich enough, the only alternative was using the cultivator's spiritual energy directly.
"Maybe the spiritual energy in this soil has faded too much…" he mumbled, crouching and picking up a handful of dirt.
"How can I increase the field's spiritual energy?" As he thought, his eyes suddenly lit up. With a flick of his hand, the Turtle Patterned Cauldron appeared.
"This cauldron can refine anything. So… can it refine spiritual soil?"
Excited, Bai Xiaochun carefully removed the seeds, then scooped up some soil and put it into the cauldron. He threw in some one-colored firewood and began refining.
With a flash of silver light, the dirt showed faint spirit patterns—spirit-infused once. Although the glow was dimmer than pills, the dirt now radiated stronger spiritual energy.
Delighted, Bai Xiaochun repeated the process, batch after batch. After nearly an hour and using most of his firewood, the entire surface layer of his spiritual field had been refined once. Though the deep layers remained unchanged, the field was now rich with spiritual energy, and a light herbal fragrance filled the air.
Quickly, he replanted the Lingdong Bamboo seeds and stared at them without blinking.
Soon, green sprouts broke through the soil and shot up with incredible speed, reaching over three feet tall in the blink of an eye.
Had any herb cultivators seen this, they would've gasped. Even nourishing the plant with spiritual energy wouldn't make it grow this fast.
Because—across the entire cultivation world—no one would ever waste spirit refinement on soil just to grow ten herbs.
Not even renowned masters would dare such extravagance. It was absurdly wasteful.
But seeing the herbs grow, Bai Xiaochun was satisfied. He returned to his courtyard, continuing to run laps and study the jade slip meticulously.
As the sun set, the Lingdong Bamboo had already reached nearly three feet tall—and still seemed to be growing.
That night, Bai Xiaochun finally put down the jade slip. He had now memorized all ten thousand herbs, each studied with shocking thoroughness. He even noticed contradictions in some entries.
"Tomorrow morning, I'll exchange for Volume Two of the herbal records. I wonder how the Myriad Medicines Pavilion tests us for eligibility… will it be reciting them from memory?"
Lifting his chin, Bai Xiaochun was ready to boast a bit but hesitated. He coughed awkwardly and picked up the jade slip again, reviewing it once more—just in case.