Ning Fa's eyes widened. He carefully examined the few spiritual grasses, easily recognizing them.
"Wood Bell Flower, Water Heart Grass, Cold Jade Leaf..."
"These are all... spiritual materials for refining Essence Replenishing Pills!?"
Ning Fa exclaimed in surprise. His predecessor had refined countless Essence Replenishing Pills, so he naturally had a deep memory of them and recognized them at a glance.
He frowned as he looked at the patterns on the mysterious scroll. Below five failed Essence Replenishing Pills were patterns of seven spiritual grasses connected by white lines.
A bold idea gradually formed in Ning Fa's mind, making his heart pound fiercely.
With this thought, he held his breath and gently touched the patterns of the seven spiritual grasses below.
The patterns of the spiritual grasses suddenly turned into a ball of white light, which then shot into Ning Fa's hand, enveloping the five failed pills.
Ning Fa quickly let go, leaving only the ball of white light floating in the air. Countless tiny runes could be faintly seen flashing within the white light.
Three breaths later, the ball of white light dissipated, and the five Essence Replenishing Pills in the air also vanished. In their place, several spiritual grasses of various shapes floated quietly in the air.
These were precisely the seven spiritual grasses needed to refine Essence Replenishing Pills, not one more, not one less.
Ning Fa swallowed hard, then pinched himself. He cried out in pain, but a look of ecstatic joy appeared on his face.
His guess was actually true! This mysterious scroll could indeed restore the failed Essence Replenishing Pills back into the spiritual materials used to refine them!
Even though Ning Fa was new here, after merging with his predecessor's memories, he knew about things that could restore failed pills to spiritual materials.
Even in this mysterious and unfathomable Cultivation World, such a thing was absolutely inconceivable and went against common sense for cultivators.
But now, it was happening right before Ning Fa's eyes, leaving him no choice but to believe.
The effect of this restoration was obvious: it allowed him to use these spiritual materials again to refine pills.
Furthermore, he could boldly speculate: after he refined these spiritual materials into failed Essence Replenishing Pills again, could he use this mysterious scroll to restore the failed pills back into these spiritual materials?
If that were the case, wouldn't it mean that one set of spiritual materials for Essence Replenishing Pills could be reused, allowing him to continue refining pills indefinitely?
It was known that becoming an alchemist was so difficult because although alchemy required talent, it was actually a matter of practice, requiring a large amount of spiritual materials for practice.
And the spiritual materials for alchemy were usually precious spiritual grasses that had been cultivated for a certain number of years, making them quite valuable. Therefore, it was difficult for ordinary cultivators to obtain sufficient spiritual materials to learn alchemy.
Even the Ning Family, a Foundation Establishment Family of considerable size, could only barely support the spiritual material supply for a few Pill Masters.
This further highlighted the heaven-defying effect of the mysterious scroll's ability to restore spiritual materials, effectively saving Ning Fa countless expenses in purchasing alchemy spiritual materials.
With this thought, Ning Fa's heart grew hot. With the help of this mysterious scroll, he saw hope of truly mastering the Essence Replenishing Pill.
If that happened, he would have a chance to become a family alchemist and win the bet with Ning Huarong!
Ning Fa suppressed his excitement and re-examined the mysterious scroll before him.
The scroll was now blank, with no mysterious white runes flashing. Only the mysterious patterns remained.
Ning Fa tried to touch the scroll, and it instantly turned into a ball of white light, re-entering Ning Fa's right arm and transforming into the long, white imprint.
When Ning Fa touched the white imprint again, it transformed back into the mysterious scroll.
Ning Fa let out a sigh of relief. It seemed that the mysterious scroll could indeed be used repeatedly.
However, he no longer had any spare failed pills in his hand and couldn't try again.
Although his predecessor had refined quite a few failed pills before, he had sold them all.
While failed pills were far less effective than successful ones and had some side effects, their price was also very low, making them popular among some low-level cultivators who were short on cash.
Although he couldn't test it again now, the spiritual materials were right there. As long as he could refine failed Essence Replenishing Pills again, it would be fine.
Ning Fa chuckled, his confidence greatly boosted.
Without delay, Ning Fa immediately began preparing to refine pills again.
He first tidied up the alchemy room, placing the small alchemy furnace back in its original position, then sat before the furnace and pondered for a moment.
He didn't rush to start. Instead, he closed his eyes and searched through his predecessor's alchemy memories, trying to fully understand them. After all, he had the memories but had never actually operated it.
Three hours later, Ning Fa was sure that he had the refining steps for the Essence Replenishing Pill memorized by heart.
Then, he took a deep breath, his hands shifted through hand seals, and his incantations continued. Although he was a bit clumsy at first, he quickly and correctly cast various colored hand seals into the air, striking the floating spiritual grasses.
These spiritual grasses, enveloped by the light from the hand seals, gradually began to deform, slowly turning into liquid-like substances.
Ning Fa's expression brightened. The first step of alchemy, extracting spiritual materials, seemed to be going smoothly.
Immediately, he cast another hand seal onto the dark stones beneath the alchemy furnace. These black stones instantly released blue flames, burning fiercely.
These were Black Nitre Stones, which could burn for a long time and could be used as a heat source when refining low-level pills.
This was because Qi Refining Cultivators were at too low a realm to generate Innate Spiritual Fire to refine pills.
Ning Fa's hands continued to form hand seals, sometimes directed at the floating spiritual materials, sometimes at the alchemy furnace.
During this process, his movements gradually became more skilled.
About half an hour later, the extraction of the spiritual materials was finally completed, and the alchemy furnace was preheated.
Ning Fa's eyes lit up. He took a deep breath, pointed at the floating liquid spiritual materials in the air, and a mass of green spiritual liquid flew directly into the alchemy furnace.
Ning Fa quickly sent a hand seal towards the alchemy furnace, not bothering to wipe the sweat from his face. He calculated the time, and at the tenth breath, he hurriedly put the second type of spiritual liquid into the alchemy furnace. Then, after waiting for sixty breaths, he added the third type of spiritual liquid.
In this manner, Ning Fa gradually put all the spiritual liquids into the alchemy furnace, his hand seals flowing continuously.
However, he felt a vague sense of unease because he felt that the time intervals for adding the last few spiritual materials seemed to be a bit too long.
Lost in these thoughts, he even made a mistake with the final hand seal. He heard a dull thud from the alchemy furnace, followed by a burnt smell.
Ning Fa's expression stiffened, knowing that this attempt at alchemy had likely failed.
He opened the alchemy furnace and waited for the heat to dissipate. Inside, he could see only a charred lump. It hadn't even managed to form a pill, falling far short of even being a failed pill.
Ning Fa sighed, but he wasn't overly disappointed. After all, this was his first time refining a pill. Despite having memories, it was still inevitable that mistakes would be made.