But then… another month passed.
Bai Xiaochun’s eyes glittered as he looked at the medicinal pills in front of him. After some detailed examination, he began to laugh loudly. During that month of work, he had made four major efforts to try to come up with a new method for cleansing impurities, and now, he had finally found his new direction.
“Using lightning to purge the pills with outside force is one method. But another method is to purge the spirit medicine from the inside!
“Bai Xiaochun, you really are a genius. Hahaha! I know exactly what to do. By using the principles of mutual augmentation and suppression, I can create a burning power even as I concoct the pills, something that will expunge the impurities. After the impurities are forced out, the final medicinal pill will no longer be toxic!” Getting more excited, he took a deep breath and got to work.
After organizing all of the medicinal plant and then beginning to feed them into the pill furnace, he started adding even more plants that weren’t part of the pill formula, keeping careful records about everything he did.
Four days later, he once again slipped into a state of bedeviled focus. Circling continuously around the pill furnace, he made occasional adjustments to the Earthflame, sometimes adding in other spirit medicines, following his instincts to either dilute or strengthen the mixture.
As night fell, Bai Xiaochun’s excitement grew as popping sounds began to ring out from the pill furnace. Soon, the furnace began to shake, and then a noxious black smoke billowed out. Bai Xiaochun quickly waved his sleeve to blow the smoke outside of the immortal’s cave, where it floated up into the air. Some of it ended up being absorbed by the clouds above Violet Cauldron Peak, and some was carried by the wind in the direction of Green Crest Peak.
After the immortal’s cave was cleared of smoke, Bai Xiaochun hurried over to the pill furnace and peered inside. It contained a single medicinal pill which he picked up and examined. It was clearly a toxic pill; however, whereas the previous version had been one hundred percent impure, this one was only about ninety-eight or ninety-nine percent impure.
He was quite pleased, and was now sure that he was on the right track. All he had to do was keep working toward a method to find the perfect combination of elements.
“Hahaha! This concocting method is much more low-profile. No lightning. No thunder. I’m not affecting anyone else at all!” He was very happy. After all, he really didn’t want to arouse the anger of the other disciples because of his concocting work.
Feeling very satisfied, he sat down cross-legged to meditate for a while. After finishing his daily work with the Dragon Mammoth Sea-Forming Scripture, the Undying Live Forever Technique, and the Waterswamp Kingdom, he headed over to the pill furnace to begin concocting again.
He devoted himself completely to his work. Every day, he would concoct four or five batches, and each time, black smoke would billow out, which he would subsequently blow out of the immortal’s cave, where it rose up into the sky.
Ten days later, he was delighted to discover that while out of every ten batches, four were toxic pills, the levels of impurity were steadily dropping. Lately, they had dipped to about ninety-seven percent. It was clearly a reduction from the previous level of one hundred percent.
That wasn’t the only progress he had made either. The pills that came out successfully also had fewer impurities. If he continued on down this path, he would be able to consistently produce mid-grade tier-3 spirit medicine.
Eyes burning with passion, he completely tuned out the outside world and went crazy with concocting medicine. It was almost like being in secluded meditation. He kept careful records, and constantly made adjustments as required. Soon, he increased his productivity to the point where he was producing seven or eight batches per day. Black smoke was rising up into the sky almost constantly. Half a month later, he was delighted to find that the impurity levels in the toxic pills had dropped to ninety-five percent.
By the time Bai Xiaochun had been on Violet Cauldron Peak for two months, many disciples on Fragrant Cloud Peak were beginning to breathe sighs of relief. They weren’t sure where exactly Bai Xiaochun had gone off to, but they could sense that peace had been restored.
Other than Big Fatty Zhang, no one else on Violet Cauldron Peak knew that Bai Xiaochun had come there to concoct medicine. However, word had been spreading about all the things that had occurred on Fragrant Cloud Peak because of him. As Big Fatty Zhang heard more of the stories, he began to tremble.
He could never have imagined that Bai Xiaochun could cause such a huge stir on Fragrant Cloud Peak. Although he was a bit nervous, Bai Xiaochun had been very quiet, and hadn’t drawn any attention at all. Gradually, Big Fatty Zhang began to relax again.
Time passed. By this point, Bai Xiaochun had been at his concocting work for three months straight. Black smoke poured continuously out of the immortal’s cave, to the point where it was finally starting to attract some attention from nearby Violet Cauldron Peak disciples. However, none of them gave it much thought.
Big Fatty Zhang was calmer than ever. However, he had noticed something annoying lately, which was that it had started raining on Violet Cauldron Peak. It was a very strange rain, considering that it only fell on Violet Cauldron Peak, and nowhere else.
Furthermore, the rain was dirty; if it fell on you, it would leave dark streaks behind. Gradually, other disciples on Violet Cauldron Peak started to notice, and people began wondering what exactly was going on. As for Bai Xiaochun, he was madly focused on pill concocting…. By this point, he was up to about fifteen batches per day.
He almost never took breaks, and was starting to look a bit sallow and thin. As for the toxic pills, their impurity levels continued to drop. They were now at about ninety-two to ninety-three percent.
“Only a few more months, and I’ll be able to get the toxicity levels below ninety percent. Then they’ll count as low-grade spirit medicines!” With a whoop of excitement, Bai Xiaochun immersed himself even further in concocting. Meanwhile, the sound of an uproar was building outside.
Big Fatty Zhang was walking along on one of the paths that wound through Violet Cauldron Peak when suddenly, the rain began to fall even harder than before. At the same time, an acrid odor began to fill the air. Then, Big Fatty Zhang’s eyes went wide as he realized that the rain splashing down onto him actually hurt. Furthermore, his clothing… was beginning to melt.
Big Fatty Zhang gaped in shock, then let out a cry of alarm when he realized that it would only be moments before his clothes were completely melted. He immediately dashed back in the direction of his residence.
Along the way, more cries of alarm rang out. As he ran along, Big Fatty Zhang saw other Violet Cauldron Peak disciples speeding along, their clothing in ruins. The more the rainwater soaked them, the more the fabric melted. There were even a few unlucky disciples who were already completely naked.
“Heavens! What’s… what’s happening!?!?”
“My clothes!!”
“What kind of rain is this? It stinks, and even hurts! It’s actually melting my clothes!!”
“Dammit! Even magical shields can’t stop it!” Violet Cauldron Peak was in a complete uproar. Anyone who didn’t get out of the rain immediately would quickly find their clothing melting off of their bodies.
Violet Cauldron Peak was devolving into chaos. Even some of the long-time Inner Sect disciples were going crazy. In all of their lives, they had never experienced anything like this. The screams of the female disciples were especially piercing.