The room in the Azure Rest was silent, save for the soft, rhythmic crackle of the high-heat charcoal Su Lantian had arranged beneath the bronze cauldron. The air had grown thick and heavy with the scent of metallic heat and the faint, sweet aroma of medicinal herbs laid out in precise order on a clean cloth. Su Lantian sat cross-legged, the flickering orange glow of the fire dancing across his fair skin, his short black hair casting sharp shadows against the obsidian-flecked walls.
He had spent the last hour in a state of mental rehearsal. In his mind, he could see the "patch" of data the Black Cube had installed, but he purposely kept the artifact dormant. He didn't want a "system-assisted" victory yet; he needed to build his own manual muscle memory. He needed to feel the heat and the resistance of the Qi.
"Infrastructure check complete," he whispered, his eyes narrowing as he reached for the first ingredient. "Initiating process."
The order was crucial. According to the manual, the Qi Gathering Pill required a careful sequence: first, the Spirit-Mist Grass to act as the base carrier, then the Earth-Dragon Root to provide a grounded stability, followed by the Cloud-Thread Vine for fluidity, and finally the Morning-Dew Water to catalyze the fusion.
Su fed a sliver of his meager Qi into the cauldron's vents, guiding the heat. When the bronze began to hum at a specific pitch—the "ideal temperature" he had calculated—he dropped the Spirit-Mist Grass into the belly of the vessel.
Alchemy, he realized, was a grueling process of subtraction and addition. The first phase was the most tedious: Extraction. He had to be extremely focused to isolate the essence of the herb, stripping away the dark, leafy impurities until only a globule of glowing green medicinal liquid remained. One by one, he added the materials. He watched the Earth-Dragon Root dissolve into a thick, brown slurry, and carefully filtered out the fibrous grit until a second droplet sat suspended in the air within the cauldron.
It was a delicate dance of variables. Each step required precise temperature control and spiritual energy management. Even a deviation of a few degrees could lead to a "pill failure"—where the medicinal properties evaporated—or worse, a "cauldron explosion" where the conflicting elemental energies reached a critical mass.
Su's sweat began to bead on his forehead. As a First Layer novice, his Qi was a shallow pool, and he was forced to ration every drop. He was halfway through the third ingredient when his focus wavered. He had been so worried about his Qi reserves that he neglected the fire.
Tss-pssh.
A harsh, acrid smell filled the room. The fourth herb—the delicate Cloud-Thread Vine—turned to black soot the moment it touched the bottom. The temperature had spiked by barely ten degrees, but it was enough to incinerate the fragile fibers.
" Failure," Su sighed, pulling back his Qi. He didn't look frustrated; he looked like a scientist recording a failed experiment. He took out his notebook and spent ten minutes analyzing the "thermal lag" of the bronze. He hadn't accounted for how the heavy base of the cauldron would retain and then suddenly release heat.
He recovered for a moment, then began the second round.
This time, he adjusted the vents with mechanical precision. He successfully extracted the liquids, correcting his previous mistake with the heat. The first step was complete.
The next phase was the Fusion. This was the most taxing part for his meager spiritual energy. He had to force the green "Wood" essence of the grass to merge with the brown "Earth" essence of the root. They resisted each other, bubbling and hissing like two opposing poles of a magnet. Su clamped down with his Qi, his veins standing out on his neck as he forced the liquids to harmonize.
After several tense minutes, the liquids merged into a swirling, amber-colored globule. He sighed in relief, the most difficult part seemingly behind him.
"Looks like I'm more talented at alchemy than I thought," Su mused, a small, arrogant grin spreading across his face. He felt a surge of pride; he had reached the final step, Pill Formation, on only his second try. He began to relax, his mind already drifting toward how much he could sell these for.
That split second of distraction was all it took.
His grip on the temperature slipped. The amber liquid, deprived of the stabilizing pressure of his Qi, suddenly overheated. A small puff of smoke billowed from the cauldron's lid. When Su opened it, all that remained was a pile of gray ash residue.
The grin vanished. Su closed his eyes and sat in total silence for a long time. He felt a flash of irritation—his "mundane" ego was getting bloated by a small taste of success. He was being sloppy. He was treating a lethal elemental reaction like a video game.
"Calm down," he told himself, his voice cold. "Collect the data, analyze the error, and execute again. You aren't a genius yet, Lantian. You're just a beginner with a fancy calculator."
For the next hour, he reprimanded himself, reviewed his mistakes, and focused on recovering his spiritual energy. He didn't allow himself to be angry; he allowed himself to be disciplined. By the time he opened his eyes, the sun was beginning to dip toward the horizon, casting the room in a bloody crimson light. He had two hours until sunset.
He began the third attempt.
This time, there was no pride. There was no "what-if." There was only the process. He added the ingredients with the cold efficiency of an automated assembly line. He monitored the temperature not by sight, but by the vibration of the Qi in his bones. When he reached the fusion stage, he didn't celebrate. He doubled his focus.
When he reached the pill formation, he held the pressure steady, ignoring the sweat stinging his eyes and the trembling in his fingers. He visualized the liquid condensing, spinning, and solidifying into perfect spheres.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
The sound of solid objects hitting the bottom of the bronze vessel was the sweetest music he had ever heard.
Su waited for the cauldron to cool naturally before opening the lid. Inside, resting on the bottom, were three round pills. Two were a dull, pale green—low quality—but the third was a vibrant, translucent emerald. A mid-quality Qi Gathering Pill.
He let out a long, shuddering breath. The tension left his body so suddenly he nearly toppled over. He carefully collected the pills and placed them into a jade bottle he had purchased earlier. He felt a sense of quiet accomplishment as he stored the bottle inside his storage ring.
"This is too damn stressful," Su thought, his eyes feeling heavy. "The energy-to-output ratio is abysmal. Refining three basic pills shouldn't leave me feeling like this."
He looked at the cauldron, then at his own trembling hands. The realization hit him: he was a high-powered processor trying to run on a dying battery.
"I'm not doing this again until I advance to the Second Layer," he decided, the decision final and logical.
He didn't even bother to clean the cauldron yet. He crawled onto his bed and sat cross-legged, closing his eyes to begin the long, slow process of recovery and cultivation.
Su Lantian sat in meditation for the next two hours. By the time he opened his eyes, he hadn't just recovered his strength; he had taken another clear step toward the Second Stage of his journey.
He leaned back against the headboard, lost in thought. According to the notes left by Elder Han, his "Five-Element" spiritual root was considered the weakest possible start for a cultivatior. It was often called a "leaky bucket" because it was so difficult to fill with energy. Yet, Su noticed something strange. His progress was nearly two to three times faster than the notes predicted. He was moving at a pace usually seen in much more talented students. Comparable to a three element mid grade spiritual root cultivatior.
He knew the reason. His unique "Five-Phase" method was already efficient, but after he used the Black Cube to process the instructions, the way he moved his energy improved by another 10%. The "update" the cube had provided during that one second of high-speed thinking had smoothed out the rough edges of his technique, removing the "lag" that usually slowed down someone with his foundation.
"Ten percent better already," Su whispered. "If I can keep refining the way I use my energy, the quality of my foundation won't matter as much as the logic I apply to it."
He looked at the Black Cube resting in his lower abdomen. He hadn't touched it since the incident with the Alchemy book. As powerful as the cube was, the price was too high; being left totally drained with a splitting headache was too risky. He was determined to wait until he reached the Second Stage, where his energy capacity would be larger and his mind more stable.
The only reason he had risked using it for the Alchemy book was the sheer amount of information he had to learn. He didn't want to spend months or years just memorizing names of plants and temperatures; he wanted to start. But now that he had the basics down, he could afford to be patient.
Based on his current progress, the wait wouldn't be long. He estimated it would take three days at most to reach the next level. Once he reached the Second Stage, he planned to use the Cube for two big tasks: improving his energy-gathering method again and analyzing why his first alchemy attempts had failed. He still remembered the sting of that burned herb, but he refused to push himself through that grueling process again tonight.
The sound of a soft knock announced that his dinner had arrived. After a quiet meal, Su watched the moon through the window. Despite his progress, he still felt the pull of his old habits from Earth. He wasn't ready to give up the comfort of sleep just to spend all night practicing. With his plans set and a bottle of fresh pills safely tucked away, Su Lantian allowed himself to drift off into a deep, well-earned sleep.