Xiao Xue's slender fingertips gently flicked away a speck of dust on her sleeve, her expression blank. "This Junior exhausted all her efforts, utilizing her resources and connections to help the Old Mister..."
"But your actions are making this Junior feel somewhat disheartened."
"Alas, Girl Xue, we did agree that once you helped me refine the poe pill, I would hand over the incomplete map to you..."
Hai Bodong frowned with his aged face. "But, but you have to let me verify the authenticity of this Medicinal Pill, right?"
"To say something unpleasant, if you casually took some other Medicinal Pill to pass off as the real thing, and I didn't check... Wouldn't I suffer a huge loss?"
Hai Bodong's old face was much thicker than Xiao Xue had imagined; his bitter expression made it seem like he was the biggest victim.
Looking at the pained Hai Bodong, Xiao Xue frowned deeply and said lightly: "Old Mister, I must remind you of one thing."
"The Pill Formula for this poe pill was given to me by you, and I refined the Medicinal Pill entirely according to what was written on it."
"But whether this Medicinal Pill actually has the effect of breaking the Seal, only the heavens know."
"So, if you consume the poe pill and the Seal still isn't broken due to your Pill Formula, won't that all be blamed on me?"
"Then all the hardship I went through—hiring bodyguards by leveraging personal connections, traveling thousands of miles to the desert to find the Sand Mandala for you, and expending great energy to refine the Medicinal Pill—will all be ignored?"
Xiao Xue crossed her fingers in front of her and sneered softly. "I did all this, and what I received was merely an incomplete map and a verbal favor from a Dou Huang expert."
"Tell me... did I lose out, or did I profit?"
"Setting aside everything else, is this favor enough for me to hire you to accompany me into the depths of the desert?"
"Uh..."
Hearing this, Hai Bodong's face showed a slight awkwardness. After a moment, he dryly laughed and explained.
"This old man knows my request is a bit excessive, but please rest assured, Girl Xue, this old man would never do something so ungrateful..."
"How about this: I won't say immediately breaking the Seal, but as long as the poe pill shows even a tiny bit of effect, I will not go back on my word..."
"Moreover, this poe pill was refined by you personally, Girl Xue. Don't you have confidence in it? Hehe..."
"Hoo..."
Xiao Xue took a deep breath, looked up at the dryly laughing Hai Bodong, and frowned deeply.
After a long while, she waved her hand somewhat displeasedly. "Fine, I'll agree to it. I'm reminding the Old Mister one last time; this is my final concession."
"Hehe, thank you for understanding this old man's difficulties, Girl Xue."
Upon hearing Xiao Xue agree, a joyful smile immediately appeared on Hai Bodong's face.
He carefully put the jade bottle into his storage ring, then said to Xiao Xue, "Please wait here for a moment, Girl Xue, so this old man can go to the basement to break the Seal."
"If the Seal is truly broken later, being in the basement will prevent the Aura from leaking out and avoid some unnecessary trouble."
Nodding, Xiao Xue couldn't even be bothered to speak more with him. With a cold face, she gestured toward Hai Bodong with her chin, signaling him to hurry up.
Seeing Xiao Xue's expression, Hai Bodong knew she was quite upset at the moment, so he could only let out a wry chuckle and quickly went down to take the medicine.
After Hai Bodong went down, Xiao Xue took out another poe pill from her storage ring and examined it carefully.
Venerable Yao had given her a total of two poe pills. The one given to Hai Bodong was rated as [Sixth-Grade Top-Tier] in the System.
The one in her hand was [Peak Sixth Grade].
The one given to Hai Bodong should have been the first one Venerable Yao refined.
For a Peak Eighth-grade Alchemist like Venerable Yao to refine a sixth-grade Medicinal Pill, there was inherently little possibility of failure.
When refining the second one, he naturally had experience and made it even more perfect.
"Tsk tsk, worthy of being Venerable Yao. Even with a slightly blurry Pill Formula, he could perfectly refine this sixth-grade Medicinal Pill," Xiao Xue couldn't help but sigh with emotion.
In the Medicine World, creating a Pill Formula was not as simple as just casually recording it with a pen.
When creating a Pill Formula, the Alchemist must use his Soul Power as ink, then use the pen as a guide to successfully create a qualified Pill Formula.
When using the Pill Formula, the Alchemist needed to use his Soul Power to invade the Pill Formula to obtain some essential data hidden within it.
For example, the required amount of medicine ingredients, the degree of gentle heat control, etc... These were all things that required extreme attention during pill refinement.
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