After reviewing the list of what I knew and what I still needed to learn, Chan arranged for me to stay in one of the workshop suites that was located a third of the way up the Palace’s mountain.

This suite had a small cultivation chamber and bedroom, but most of its space was taken up by a combined alchemy workshop and sitting room. Functionally, this workshop was identical to the one that I had used back in Proud Eagle City, but its décor couldn’t have been more different.

The walls of each room were covered in layers of plants—from flowers to vines to mosses–making the room feel like a hidden sanctuary deep within a rainforest. These plants pulled all the energy and nutrients they needed directly from the mountain, so they didn’t require any maintenance, but I still found them extremely distracting. With such vivid and varied plant life around me, my eyes tended to drift around the room, making it difficult for me to enter the deep state of concentration needed in both alchemy and cultivation.

Sensing my concern, Chan hurried to explain, “This is the best workshop that I could arrange for you. You’ve shown the ability to concoct Rank 4 pills, which should have entitled you to a Lord-level workshop, but since you are new to the Palace and are only a Martial Master, the quartermaster determined that a Grandmaster-level workshop was sufficient. The environment here is only capable of raising one’s wood affinity to low seven-star, so it won’t be of much use to you, but once you have made sufficient contributions, you’ll be able to purchase time in a more suitable environment.”

Nodding, I decided to offer up some free information, both to Emperor Chan and to whoever else might be listening in. “I currently have a high three-star wood affinity. What will I need to do to earn time in a place that’s capable of improving it further?”

“That… If you wish to spend time in the two-star chamber, then you’ll need the permission of Sovereign Enkhtuya herself. But since nearly everyone in the mountain wants to spend time there, including the elders, earning her permission won’t be easy.”

“What do I need to do?”

“Make pills.” Chan placed two storage bags on the room’s small table. “The most basic alchemical pill is the Rank 1 Qi Gathering Pill. Since Attunement Pills are more effective for weapon cultivators, Qi Gathering Pills aren’t used much in this domain, but there are still those who need them, especially within the Palace.”

I nodded in acknowledgement.

“According to the scroll you gave me, you can currently concoct Perfect Three-Pattern Qi Gathering Pills. So, your first goal will be to master Perfect Nine-Pattern pills.” Chan’s expression turned serious. “This may not be possible. For me, concocting even a High-Quality Five-Pattern pill is difficult. I am a Martial Emperor, but creating highly-patterned pills isn’t something that a high cultivation base can help with. All that matters is one’s knowledge, experience, and affinities.”

Chan withdrew two herbs from one of the bags that he had placed on the table. “The basic Qi Gathering Pill has three ingredients: blue peony, astragalus root, and schisandra berries. To concoct a four- to six-patterned pill, two additional herbs are needed: codonopsis root and clematis blossoms. These two herbs can be included in any Qi Gathering Pill, even unpatterned ones, but they are expensive, and they will not increase a pill’s efficacy, so they are usually ignored. Their only purpose is to provide the additional structure that the medicinal energy needs to survive its transition to a four-patterned pill.”

Chan reached into the other bag and withdrew four additional herbs. “Concocting a seven- to nine-patterned pill requires even more structure, but the general idea is what you’re already used to. First, combine the herbs. Reshape the medicinal energy twice and transform it to create a three-patterned pill. Repeat this process, and you will have a six-patterned pill. Repeat it again, and you will have a nine-patterned pill.

“Of course, while this might sound

simple, with each pattern, you will face increased resistance, and progressing to the next stage will only become harder. Also, adding these six additional herbs makes everything more complicated. Even though you can concoct a three-patterned pill with the three basic herbs, you might struggle to concoct even a one-patterned pill when using all nine.”

I looked at the six herbs in Chan’s hands. I was familiar with all of them from their use in other recipes, but I had never even considered adding them to a Qi Gathering Pill. This made me think that I had missed something obvious, but even now, even knowing their purpose, I still didn’t see how these herbs could be useful. “Those herbs don’t… fit. Trying to shove them into a Qi Gathering Pill will only create problems.”

Chan nodded. Then, pulling the basic three ingredients out of a third storage bag that was still attached to his waist, he walked over to the room’s pill furnace and tossed them in, along with a codonopsis root and clematis blossom.

As he cleansed these herbs of impurities, he explained. “The additional ingredients are only there to provide key structures that the base ingredients lack.”

Not wanting to use his saber qi out of fear of tainting the herbs’ pure elemental energy, Chan activated the furnace’s formations to pull in fire qi from the surrounding environment and used it to burn away over 80% of the two new herbs. Then, he melded what remained to opposite ends of the structure that he had formed from the original three. “As you said, the majority of these herbs don’t fit. This is excess that needs to be discarded.”

Once all five herbs were in place, Chan reshaped the energy twice, transformed it once, and then reshaped it one final time, forming a four-patterned pill. After this, he condensed the energy into a pill and placed the pill into a jade bottle.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“To create pills with more than three patterns, you need to know what structures the medicinal energy lacks and what herbs you can use to create them. Qi Gathering Pills are common enough that a recipe for even nine-patterned pills is widely known, and with the number of experiments that have been done, this recipe is likely the best combination possible.

“With rarer and more powerful pills, however, recipes are a closely guarded secret. After all, while two alchemists might be able to concoct a High-Quality Four-Pattern Rank 4 Flowing Thoughts Pill, both their success rates and the cost of their ingredients could vary wildly based on the recipes they use.”

Thinking through Chan’s demonstration, I couldn’t help but voice a thought. “Rank 1 Qi Gathering Pills are relatively simple. They only require wood-based herbs, so affinities shouldn’t be much of a problem for most alchemists. Rank 4 Moon Spade Attunement Pills, however, use moon spade-, wood-, and metal-based herbs. And from what I saw, I’m guessing that one would need at least a four-star affinity with each of these elements to make a nine-patterned pill. How many alchemists would be capable of such a feat?”

Chan nodded. “Four-star at a minimum. This is why most high-level alchemists work in teams. It’s rare for a person to have a high moon spade, wood, and metal affinity, but it’s relatively easy to find one alchemist with a moon spade affinity, one alchemist with a wood affinity, and one alchemist with a metal affinity. Learning to perform alchemy as a team like this takes time, and you usually need higher affinities than when working alone, but since it lets you use Rank 4 herbs to concoct pills suitable for Peak Spirits, it’s worth the effort.”

Silently, I bobbed my head as I considered the implications.

“Anyway,” said Chan, breaking me from my thoughts. “Even if you’re not successful, studying how to concoct nine-patterned Rank 1 pills will lay a foundation that you can build upon at higher levels. So, until you reach Peak Master, this is likely the best use of your time.”

After a moment of hesitation, Chan reached into his storage bag and withdrew a tattered book. “This contains all the recipes I know for high-patterned pills. Most are secrets of my clan, so please, be careful with them.”

Accepting this book, I studied its cover carefully, then placed it into my storage bag. “Thank you.”

Since touching the book had already allowed me to copy it into my mental library, I considered handing it right back to the man, but if someone were spying on us, I didn’t want to give them any more information about my abilities than necessary.

After Chan left, I settled in for a long stint of experimentation.

What I had seen when Emperor Chan had concocted that four-patterned pill was interesting. Even after he had burned away all the ‘excess,’ the medicinal energy of those two new herbs was still wrong. Their structures had superficial similarities to a Qi Gathering Pill, but there were subtle differences that should have caused serious flaws in the final product.

However, as Chan had reshaped and transformed them, he was able to remove these flaws—mostly, at least.

This showed me the challenge I was facing. To concoct a nine-patterned pill, I needed to figure out the proper shape for the medicinal energy, I needed herbs that could roughly fit this shape, and then, I needed to trim and reform these herbs so that they fit the structure of a Qi Gathering Pill perfectly.

This would be challenging, but there was, potentially, another solution. I had been using a spirit fire to fill in gaps left behind by toxic energy. I might be able to use this same trick to form the necessary structures needed to concoct high-patterned pills.

I didn’t want anyone in the Palace to know about my fire seed, so this wasn’t a trick that I could use here, but it was an option worth pursuing in the future.

Of more immediate importance was the reverse of this idea. Instead of using spirit fires to replace additional herbs, I could use additional herbs to replace spirit fires. Instead of using a spirit fire to concoct Perfect pills, I might be able to fill in the gaps left behind by the removal of toxins with energy from donor herbs. Due to the reshaping and blending required to make everything fit perfectly, this would likely only work on high-patterned pills, but the idea seemed viable.

Still, while concocting a Perfect Nine-Pattern Rank 1 Qi Gathering Pill without the use of a spirit fire was a solid long-term goal, I needed to start with something simpler. My first step would be a six-patterned High-Purity version.

Imitating Chan’s example, I roughly cleansed a set of five herbs and melded them together like he had shown me. Then, I reshaped the energy to form the first pattern.

This process was far more taxing than usual, as I had to constantly use my wood affinity to massage the energies of the two new herbs to keep them from exploding, but this skill wasn’t entirely new to me. It was almost exactly the same as when I had repaired low-quality herbs back on the Nine Rivers Continent. In fact, it was much easier than that. Here, all the energy was in good condition—I just needed to shift it around a bit.

After a release of energy signaled that the first pattern was complete, the two new herbs bucked wildly, wanting to explode. With my three-star affinity locking them in place, however, this was impossible.

When I transformed the structure of the medicinal energy to bring it up to a three-patterned pill, the two new herbs acted up once again, but after that, the energies of all five herbs were perfectly integrated into a united whole. So, pulling it together to form a fourth pattern was a breeze.

When I tried to create the fifth pattern, however, I stumbled. The built-up energy from the four existing patterns created a repulsive force that rejected any attempt to improve the pill further.

This made it clear why Chan had stopped at four patterns—he wasn’t confident in his ability to create the fifth.

I could have tried to use my wood affinity to brute force the issue, but this seemed like the wrong approach. So, I focused closely on the pill and studied it in energy vision.

When I did, the underlying issue was immediately apparent: the medicinal energy’s ‘script’ was flawed. The pill’s structure was like a talisman that was covered in countless stray marks.

These flaws might have been introduced when I had created that fourth pattern, but this didn’t feel right. Instead, I suspected that they had existed from the very beginning. They just hadn’t been noticeable until the pill’s energy reached a tipping point.

After a couple of attempts at fixing this, I eventually had to admit that it was too late. The stray marks were already firmly embedded in the pill’s structure. So, since most of the pill’s energy had already dissipated, I vented the pill furnace and allowed the rest to do so as well. Then, I took out another set of ingredients and placed them into the furnace.

I had a lot of work ahead of me, and as Emperor Chan had said, concocting a Perfect Nine-Pattern Rank 1 Qi Gathering Pill was my first goal, not my last.