After several hours of rest, I positioned myself before the furnace again and withdrew different ores from my storage ring. Time to craft a cauldron for alchemy.
The materials differed from weapon crafting. Thermal Copper for heat distribution. Condensation Jade for medicine containment. Moonsilver for gentle energy conduction that wouldn't damage delicate herbs.
I melted and refined them carefully, shaping the alloy into a wide bowl with a rounded bottom and three short legs. The walls curved inward slightly at the rim to trap vapors.
The inscriptions demanded precision. Medicine preservation lines spiraled around the interior to prevent medicinal gas from leaking out of the cauldron. Flame inscription that manages temperature control covered the base in overlapping circles, each one managing a different heat zone. A sensory inscription wrapped the rim, identical to the one on my furnace.
The cauldron cooled slowly, its surface taking on a pale green sheen from the Condensation Jade content.
I tested it with a pulse of vital energy. The inscriptions responded immediately, heat zones activating in sequence.
Perfect, a Low Quality Spiritual Cauldron.
I took out several herbs and grasses from my storage ring. The bundle materialized on the stone floor, each plant carefully extracted to avoid damage.
Alchemy required very fine portion control and a deep understanding of the materials you were using. It wasn't enough to just know what herbs you needed. A single herb had many parts: stem, petals, roots, leaves, seeds. But more than that, herbs had maturity and age to consider.
Take Crimson Rootgrass, for example. At three months old, its roots contained mild stimulants that increased blood flow, useful for minor healing salves. At six months, those same roots developed a bitter alkaloid that could induce mild hallucinations if not properly prepared. By one year, the roots turned toxic, capable of shutting down a cultivator's meridians for hours. But at exactly fourteen months, assuming the plant grew in soil rich with spiritual energy, the toxin transformed into something entirely different. A catalyst that could force spiritual energy to compress and circulate at accelerated rates, perfect for breaking through bottlenecks.
The difference between medicine and poison often came down to weeks, sometimes days.
A good recipe would always include details like herb parts, ages, and exact quantities by mass. Fortunately, part of my inherited memories from Jihasti included a very large understanding of herbs that he had learned over his long life. Thousands of plants, their properties at various stages, how they interacted when combined. The knowledge sat in my mind like a reference library, waiting to be accessed.
I unwrapped the first ingredient. Fourteen-month Crimson Rootgrass, harvested from a peak spiritual energy zone. The roots glowed faintly red when I held them up to the light, confirmation of proper maturity. I needed exactly eight grams of the root material, no stem or leaves.
My spiritual sense extended into the plant as I carefully severed the roots from the rest of the structure. A small knife made from Razorstone, one I'd crafted earlier, let me make precise cuts. I placed the roots on a spirit stone scale, watching the measurement fluctuate before settling at eight point two grams. Too much. I shaved off a hair-thin slice and checked again. Eight point zero grams.
The second ingredient came from a jar of dried Skybloom petals. These needed to be exactly seven months old, harvested at dawn when dew still clung to them. The petals would provide the binding agent that held the pill together and helped distribute the other ingredients evenly throughout the body. Twelve grams of petals, measured three times to be certain.
Third came Earthvein Moss, scraped from rocks that sat at least fifty feet underground. This moss absorbed minerals from stone, creating a complex matrix of trace elements that would stabilize the violent energy reactions the other ingredients caused. Six grams, and it had to be the moss itself, not the rock it grew on.
I arranged the three ingredients in a triangle around the cauldron opening, then activated the flame inscription. A single tongue of fire appeared inside, dancing at exactly the temperature specified in the recipe. Too hot and the Crimson Rootgrass would carbonize. Too cool and the Skybloom petals wouldn't release their binding properties.
The Earthvein Moss went in first, heating until it turned from dark green to pale gray. The color change indicated the mineral matrix had activated. I added the Skybloom petals next, watching them curl and blacken as their essence vaporized into the air inside the cauldron.
Then came the critical moment. The Crimson Rootgrass had to enter at exactly the right time, when the vapor from the petals reached peak saturation but before it started to condense.
I dropped the roots in.
The cauldron flared bright orange. Too hot.
I tried to dial back the heat, pouring my vital energy into cooling the cauldron, but the temperature kept climbing. The Crimson Rootgrass blackened instantly, releasing acrid smoke that made my eyes water. The carefully balanced vapor from the Skybloom petals ignited, and the entire mixture inside the cauldron turned to ash in seconds.
Damn it.
I shut down the flame and waited for the cauldron to cool, frustration building in my chest. The recipe had been clear. Maintain temperature at exactly four hundred degrees. I'd watched the gauge, kept my vital energy flowing steady into the flame inscription. But something had gone wrong. Either my control wavered at the wrong moment, or I'd misjudged how much energy the materials needed to stay stable.
Probably both.
The cauldron took twenty minutes to cool enough that I could safely open it. Black residue coated the interior, the ruined ingredients fused into a brittle crust that crumbled when I scraped it out. A complete waste. Those herbs weren't common, and I'd just destroyed a set that could've produced three pills if I'd done everything right.
I sat back and reviewed what happened. The temperature spiked right after I added the Crimson Rootgrass. That meant the roots themselves had contributed heat, probably from the spiritual energy still trapped in their cellular structure. The recipe hadn't mentioned that detail, but it made sense. Fresh ingredients carried residual energy, especially ones harvested from high spiritual density zones.
So I needed to compensate. Reduce the base temperature slightly to account for the energy the roots would add.
I cleaned the cauldron thoroughly, making sure no ash remained, then reestablished my vital energy connections with the inscriptions. This time I adjusted the flame inscription to maintain three hundred seventy degrees instead of four hundred. The thirty-degree buffer should be enough to prevent another spike.
New ingredients came out of my storage ring. Another set of Crimson Rootgrass roots, more Skybloom petals, fresh Earthvein Moss. I measured everything twice, confirming the weights matched exactly what the recipe specified.
The Earthvein Moss went into the cauldron first, heating until it shifted from dark green to pale gray. I watched the temperature gauge carefully, making sure it held steady at three seventy. The moss took longer to activate at the lower temperature, but eventually the color change completed.
Skybloom petals next. They curled and blackened, releasing their vapor into the confined space. I monitored the saturation level using the cauldron's sensor array, feeling the vapor's density increase until it reached the optimal point.
The Crimson Rootgrass dropped in.
Temperature jumped to three ninety five, well within safe limits. The roots began to break down, releasing their compressed spiritual energy in a controlled burn. The energy mixed with the Skybloom vapor and the activated minerals from the moss, creating a swirling reaction that glowed faintly through the cauldron walls.
I maintained the heat for exactly three minutes, then lowered it and used my vital energy to enclose the vapor until it compressed, pulling together into a single mass that solidified as it cooled. I split the mass into three separate spheres, each one perfectly round and glowing with a soft red light.
I opened the cauldron and examined them. Each pill measured about half an inch in diameter, smooth and warm to the touch. They smelled faintly of earth and flowers, with an underlying sharpness from the Crimson Rootgrass.
Success.
Three Foundation Breaking Pills sat in my palm, their surfaces gleaming like polished rubies. The name told you everything you needed to know about what they did and why most cultivators avoided them like poison.
These pills forced your cultivation upward, dragging you from wherever you started straight to Body Tempering fourth layer. For someone stuck at the first or second layer, unable to progress naturally, it seemed like a miracle. Pop one pill and suddenly your muscles had the density and power that should've taken weeks or a month to develop.
But the cost made it worthless to anyone with real potential.
The pill worked by flooding your body with concentrated medicines that forcefully inject spiritual energy, far more than your tissues could properly absorb. The excess medicine got trapped in your cells, crystallizing into microscopic impurities that embedded themselves throughout your entire physical structure. These impurities blocked proper energy circulation, made it harder to absorb fresh spiritual energy, and created weak points that would haunt you for the rest of your cultivation journey.
Breaking your foundation, exactly like the name said.
Only desperate people used these. Terminal patients hoping to extend their lives by a few years. Elderly cultivators who wanted one last taste of power before they died. People who lacked spirit roots who couldn't cultivate normally anyway. For them, the impurities didn't matter because they had no future to ruin.
But for someone with actual talent, taking a Foundation Breaking Pill guaranteed you'd never reach the higher realms. The impurities would compound with every breakthrough, making each subsequent realm exponentially harder until eventually you hit a wall you couldn't overcome.
I set the three pills aside in a small crystal container. They'd be useful for research, maybe for understanding how spiritual energy integration worked at a fundamental level. But I'd never consume one myself, and I wouldn't offer them to anyone who still had potential.
The Foundation Building Pill, on the other hand, worked completely differently.
This pill didn't force cultivation. It prepared the body to cultivate more efficiently. Someone with low spiritual aptitude, someone whose body struggled to absorb energy from the environment, could take this pill and suddenly find their absorption rate doubled or tripled. An older person whose cells had lost their elasticity could regain some of that youthful flexibility that made cultivation easier.
It built your foundation instead of breaking it.
The ingredients came out of my storage ring in a neat arrangement. Silverleaf, harvested at exactly three months of age when the leaves turned from green to pale silver. Dawnroot, dug up at sunrise when spiritual energy concentrations peaked. Cloudmoss, gathered from mountain peaks above the cloud line where it absorbed atmospheric energy.
I measured each ingredient carefully. Twenty grams of Silverleaf, fifteen grams of Dawnroot, ten grams of Cloudmoss. The proportions mattered less than with the Foundation Breaking Pill since this recipe was more forgiving, but precision still helped.
The cauldron made this trivial compared to the pot and stove method I'd used before. Back then, I'd had to manually control the heat using mundane flames, constantly adjusting to maintain the right temperature while stirring the mixture by hand. The process took over an hour and produced pills of questionable quality.
Now I just activated the flame inscription, set the temperature to two hundred degrees, and let the arrays handle everything.
Silverleaf went in first, releasing a sweet fragrance as it heated. The leaves turned translucent, their essence vaporizing into a silvery mist that filled the cauldron interior. Dawnroot followed, adding an earthy undertone to the smell. The root broke down quickly at this temperature, dissolving into liquid that mixed with the Silverleaf vapor.
Cloudmoss completed the mixture. It absorbed the vapor and liquid, acting as a stabilizing agent that bound everything together. The mass condensed naturally, forming six perfect spheres that cooled from white hot to warm crimson within minutes.
I pulled out the next set of ingredients, these ones meant for a different purpose entirely. The Foundation Building Pills helped with absorption, but what about cultivators who'd already opened their meridians and just needed raw energy to fill them?
That's where Meridian Surge Pills came in.
These pills served a single, straightforward function: flood your meridian network with vital energy. Someone at Meridian Opening Realm who'd spent hours fighting or training, depleting their reserves completely, could swallow one of these and be back to full capacity within minutes. It beat sitting in meditation for half a day while your meridians slowly refilled from ambient energy.
But the pills came with limitations that kept them from being overpowered.
First, they only worked if you actually had meridians. Someone still stuck in Body Tempering Realm couldn't use them at all since their energy pathways hadn't formed yet. Second, once you reached Dimensional Sea Realm and your core transformed into that internal ocean, the pills became useless. The amount of energy they provided was a drop in the bucket compared to what your sea could hold.
Most importantly, the vital energy from the pills was inferior quality compared to energy you cultivated yourself. The pill's energy worked fine for basic tasks or when you were in a pinch, but any technique you used with it came out weaker. Your sword strike lost its edge. Your defensive barrier had gaps. Your movement technique felt sluggish.
The energy was borrowed, not earned, and it showed.
Still, for recovery purposes or emergency situations, Meridian Surge Pills filled a valuable niche. Better to have weak energy available than no energy at all.
I measured out the ingredients. Thundergrass, harvested during a lightning storm when its leaves crackled with residual electricity. Spiritspring Water, collected from natural formations where spiritual energy pooled and concentrated. Binding Clay, dug from riverbeds where it absorbed trace minerals that helped stabilize energy patterns.
The recipe called for equal parts of all three, thirty grams each. I weighed everything carefully, then activated the cauldron at a moderate temperature of three hundred degrees.
Thundergrass went in first, releasing sparks as it heated. The electrical properties of the plant made it perfect for rapid energy transmission through meridian networks. Spiritspring Water followed, creating steam that mixed with the Thundergrass vapor. The Binding Clay completed the mixture, absorbing both components and forming a thick paste that gradually solidified into pill form.
The cauldron produced eight pills this time, each one a pale blue color with white streaks running through it like lightning bolts frozen in crystal. They hummed faintly with contained energy, ready to discharge into whoever consumed them.
I spent the rest of the day in a production cycle, crafting batch after batch of all three pill types. By the time exhaustion forced me to stop, I had dozens of each stored in labeled crystal containers, organized by potency and quality. The sun had set outside my Core Palace, the dual moons rising to cast silver light across the terraced gardens.
My meridians ached from the constant vital energy expenditure, but satisfaction outweighed the discomfort. I'd gone from failed attempts to mass production in a single day.