Episode 23: Refining the Sacred Pill
Visiting the market turned out to be more entertaining than expected.
Jang So-cheon wandered through the stalls with his bodyguard, known as Jeokha, taking in the culture and goods of the Red Fox Tribe.
During his exploration, he discovered that the Red Fox Tribe used both spirit herbs and beast cores when refining pills.
As luck would have it, the owner of the herb shop he entered also knew how to refine pills.
So Jang So-cheon asked,
"Why do you use beast cores in pill refining?"
"Because they're easy to obtain and highly potent," the shopkeeper replied.
"Still, beast cores have inconsistent components and lots of impurities. Wouldn't that make it extremely difficult to produce quality pills? Am I wrong?"
"You're absolutely right. That's why the quality of elixir pills varies so much, and the ones with high purity are outrageously expensive. Even so, they're in such demand that they're always sold out."
"Then why are spirit herbs so cheap?"
"Because even with good herbs, you can't make quality elixir pills. So the price stays low. They're cheap, but who would buy more than a few roots?"
"In that case, give me the oldest ones you have."
Jang So-cheon pulled out some spirit stones from his Heaven and Earth Pouch and bought a large quantity of living spirit herbs.
He planned to plant them in the Mysterious Heavenly Blessed Land.
Among them were herbs needed to make Yellow Essence Pills and Qi Spirit Pills.
After buying the herbs, Jang So-cheon browsed a few more shops with his bodyguard.
He was reminded just how poor he was, and ended up buying a few elixir pills from a shop at the market entrance that were said to help with realm advancement.
Back at his quarters, he examined them closely and found, to his surprise, that their medicinal effects were quite strong.
However, they smelled fishy and the quality varied wildly from pill to pill.
Jang So-cheon planted the herbs he’d bought in the Mysterious Heavenly Blessed Land, then took out his pill furnace for the first time in a while and began refining.
His goal: Qi Spirit Pills.
He’d made them so many times before that the process posed no challenge.
In fact, the failure rate had dropped dramatically, thanks to his improved cultivation realm and the precision of his Divine Sight.
He could now do something he couldn’t before—adjust the reaction completion timing.
In modern terms, he could control the molecular weight distribution and residual monomer content, allowing him to end the reaction at just the right moment.
He placed the finished Qi Spirit Pills into his Mystic Flask, but to his dismay, the flask refused to accept them.
‘What’s going on?’
The Qi Spirit Pills he’d just made were no less potent than Yellow Essence Pills.
Maybe the purity was a bit lower, but…
‘Could purity be the issue?’
Unable to pinpoint the cause, Jang So-cheon reviewed every material used in his refining process.
After doing everything he could to eliminate impurities, he managed to produce slightly better Qi Spirit Pills.
Yet the Mystic Flask still rejected them.
Left with no choice, Jang So-cheon kept refining, striving to make even better Qi Spirit Pills…
Until one day, he snapped out of his trance to find he’d made over a hundred high-quality pills.
Only then did he realize his pill refining skills had hit a plateau.
It was time for a breakthrough.
After much deliberation, Jang So-cheon recalled something Master Eun had once said:
‘All mysteries in the world begin with divine power. It can even enhance the medicinal effects of elixir pills…’
Jang So-cheon shot to his feet, lost in thought.
He had no idea when or how to infuse divine power to maximize a pill’s effects.
But as a nanotechnology engineer, this was no real obstacle.
He just needed a reaction plan.
He’d done this countless times while developing products in his previous world—set up a plan and verify it.
Jang So-cheon broke down the pill refining process into ten steps, meticulously planning how and when to infuse divine power at each stage, starting from the preparation of ingredients.
After ten rounds of refining, he found that infusing divine power during ingredient preparation and again while solidifying the liquid at the end produced the best results.
So he tried it:
He infused divine power while preparing the ingredients, and again as the liquid solidified.
The result?
He discovered that infusing divine power twice maximized the pill’s medicinal effect.
But Jang So-cheon couldn’t simply rejoice.
While using divine power during refining did maximize the effect…
It also consumed an alarming amount of his divine power.
He was shocked to see the faint halo behind his Primordial Spirit’s head had dimmed.
All the divine power he’d painstakingly accumulated over months—sacrificing even the law power needed for realm advancement—was now less than half.
Alarmed, Jang So-cheon decided to use divine power sparingly during refining from then on.
He would only attempt divine power infusion after replenishing his reserves through Qi Circulation Meditation.
Then one day, curiosity got the better of him.
He selected the purest Qi Spirit Pill he’d made with divine power and tried placing it in the Mystic Flask.
And—
Whoosh.
As if by magic, the pill was sucked into the flask.
In that moment, Jang So-cheon felt as if a decade’s worth of frustration had been washed away.
A month later.
Jang So-cheon called for Soso and handed her a bottle containing ten Qi Spirit Pills.
Of all the people he’d met in the Red Fox Tribe, he’d seen Soso the most.
At first, she’d been wary and awkward, but now she treated him with ease.
"Lady! Thank you so much for helping me gather rare herbs all this time. Please accept this as a token of my appreciation."
"A token?"
"Yes. These are elixirs that help with realm advancement. Take one before you meditate."
"Hehe! I really shouldn’t accept something like this… but since it’s from you, I’ll make an exception."
Soso accepted the bottle, a bit embarrassed to receive such a valuable gift.
After all, Jang So-cheon was Eun Dan-bi’s honored guest.
It felt awkward to receive a gift from a guest, but refusing outright would have been rude—especially since he called it a token of appreciation.
Besides, she wasn’t exactly short on elixirs, so she accepted it lightly, not knowing what storms it would bring later…
"I made these with great care, so please don’t share them—take them yourself."
"Don’t worry, I’ll keep them for myself. By the way, is there anywhere you want to go these days?"
"Not particularly."
"Then why don’t we visit the Auction House together? The Red Fox Tribe is so wealthy that sometimes real treasures pop up."
"Haha! Sounds good. Let me know when you have time."
"I’ll be in touch soon."
With that, Soso disappeared from Jang So-cheon’s room and didn’t show her face for days.
One day, two days…
A full fifteen days passed before she reappeared, this time with Eun Dan-bi.
"Haha! The princess herself is here today. What brings you by so early?"
At his words, Eun Dan-bi placed a bottle on the table—the very one he’d given Soso two weeks ago.
"Master Jang! Do you remember this bottle?"
"Of course. It’s the one I gave Lady Soso."
"Soso took the pills inside and advanced two whole stages in her cultivation."
"Oh! Is that so? Lady Soso, congratulations on your advancement."
"Th-thank you, sir! But… what exactly was in those pills? Are they the legendary Sacred Pills?"
"Haha! If I had Sacred Pills, I’d have taken them myself instead of giving them away. I think the pills just happened to fill a gap in your cultivation. You were lucky."
"What do you mean, ‘filled a gap’?"
This time, Eun Dan-bi asked.
Jang So-cheon turned to Soso.
"Lady Soso, do you have any of the pills you used to take? Could you show me one?"
"Of course."
Soso glanced at Eun Dan-bi, then pulled a bottle from her robes and handed a pill to Jang So-cheon.
He sniffed it and caught a faint fishy smell.
There were plenty of impurities…
The medicinal effect might be strong, but if she kept taking these, her body would build up a tolerance and the effects would diminish over time.
Eventually, they might stop working altogether…
"The pills you used to take are potent, but your body has already absorbed most of their effects. Taking more wouldn’t do much. But the pill I gave you was something new, so it worked wonders."
"It worked wonders? Then what’s the difference between that and a Sacred Pill? Could you make a bottle for me, too?"
"For you, Princess?"
"I can provide all the ingredients you need, and I’ll pay handsomely for the finished pills…"
"It’ll take some time—would that be alright?"
"I don’t mind waiting."
"In that case, I’ll give it a try. Lady Soso, could I ask you to gather the ingredients?"
"Of course."
The pill Jang So-cheon had in mind was the Enhanced Spirit Energy Pill, which his master had created to help Spirit Refining Stage cultivators advance.
He’d watched his master refine it so many times that he was confident he could do it himself.
But whether it would work for Eun Dan-bi, he couldn’t be sure.
And the divine power consumption worried him…
So he resolved to attempt the refinement only a few times.
*
Realizing how effective the Qi Spirit Pills were, Jang So-cheon continued refining them regularly.
He took them himself, and sold the surplus at the market to buy more herbs and spirit herbs.
In his spare time, he practiced the Dragon Flying Peak Martial Art, and his understanding of the first eighteen forms reached a level where he could use them in real combat.
But something still felt lacking…
He couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
The pills he made with divine power were undeniably effective.
After taking them consistently, Jang So-cheon eventually reached the Advanced Stage of Qi Cultivation.
Tap, tap.
Now at the advanced stage, Jang So-cheon took out the Mystic Flask from his Heaven and Earth Pouch and tapped the bottom.
But for some reason, the Qi Spirit Pills refused to come out.
Annoyed, he glared at the innocent fox design on the flask before putting it away again.
He also asked Soso to bring him herbs that only grew in the Red Fox Tribe’s territory.
Now, his Mysterious Heavenly Blessed Land boasted a wide variety of herbs—not just those for Yellow Essence Pills and Qi Spirit Pills, but also the spirit herbs and spirit herbs used for Enhanced Spirit Energy Pills.
Recalling his promise to Eun Dan-bi, Jang So-cheon finally attempted to refine the Enhanced Spirit Energy Pill.
Of course, he didn’t use divine power.
The result was failure.
Just like his master’s old mistake, he failed to control the temperature during the secondary heating phase.
After analyzing the failure from every angle, he concluded that his cultivation realm was simply too low.
Yellow Essence Pills and Qi Spirit Pills weren’t so demanding, but the Enhanced Spirit Energy Pill for Spirit Refining Stage cultivators required extremely precise control of temperature, pressure, and impurities.
Having deduced the cause, Jang So-cheon stopped trying to refine the Enhanced Spirit Energy Pill for the time being.
Instead, he focused on studying how to use fire-attribute qi to evenly heat the pill furnace and control exothermic reactions more effectively.
Then one day,
He attended an auction with Soso and stumbled upon an unexpected secret technique manual.
"Now, this book was once owned by Yaksoo the Immortal, a renowned Pill Refining Grandmaster. It contains secret techniques for controlling the furnace temperature during pill refining. Unfortunately, the manual is damaged and only the latter half remains. The starting bid is five medium grade spirit stones."
The auctioneer’s voice rang out, but no one seemed eager to bid.
The Red Fox Tribe valued qi cultivation over pill refining, and the manual was damaged to boot.
Jang So-cheon whispered to Soso,
"Lady, I’d like to buy that book. Could you tell me how?"
"But it’s damaged—are you sure?"
"I just want to take a look, so don’t worry."
"Alright, then."
When Soso raised her bidding token, the auctioneer’s voice grew louder.
"We have a bid for five medium grade spirit stones! Any higher offers?"
No one else spoke up, and the auctioneer was about to declare the sale when—
"Seven."
A languid voice called out from somewhere.
Soso frowned slightly at the new bid, then boldly raised the price.
"Eight."
The languid voice responded immediately.
"Ten."
The price shot up, and murmurs spread through the crowd.
People whispered that it was madness to pay ten medium grade spirit stones for a damaged pill refining manual.
Soso glanced at Jang So-cheon, who remained utterly calm, smiling as if to urge her to keep bidding.
She had to crush the other bidder’s momentum.
Clenching her fist, Soso raised her token high.
"Fifteen."
"Twenty."
"Thirty."
As Soso called out her bids like a madwoman, the other voice suddenly fell silent.
Now nervous, Soso hoped the other bidder would shout "forty," so she could gracefully bow out and apologize to Jang So-cheon.
But—
"It’s been a while since Yaksoo the Immortal’s manual appeared at auction, but unfortunately, I’m a bit short on spirit stones. I’ll yield the manual to the young lady."
The languid voice conceded.
Only then did Soso realize what had happened.
She—
She, who prided herself on always being calm and rational—
Had just bought a damaged manual for thirty medium grade spirit stones.