Chapter 63 Bottleneck
Chapter 63 Bottleneck
In the alchemy room.
Chen Yuan closed his eyes and meditated, making hand gestures. In front of him, a blazing flame enveloped the alchemy furnace, and a faint elixir fragrance wafted out of the furnace.
Suddenly, Chen Yuan opened his eyes, the spell in his hand changed, the lid of the furnace was lifted, and six green pills flew out and fell into a jade bottle beside him.
Chen Yuan withdrew his magic power, the flames dissipated, and the alchemy furnace slowly fell to the ground.
With a wave of his right hand, he put the alchemy furnace into the storage bag, took the jade bottle, went to the training room, took a green pill, closed his eyes and meditated.
I didn't know how many years I had been practicing, and three days passed in the blink of an eye.
Chen Yuan opened his eyes, feeling the spiritual energy filling his body, and a smile appeared on the corner of his mouth:
"After four years of hard training, I finally stand on the threshold of the late stage of Qi Refining..."
At this time, four years had passed since he mastered the art of alchemy.
After refining the Spirit Gathering Pill, Chen Yuan did not immediately start practicing, but continued to study alchemy.
When refining the 80th batch of Soul Gathering Pills, the success rate increased to 50%.
Afterwards, Chen Yuan turned to refining the Bailing Pill.
The difficulty of refining Bailing Pill is much higher than that of refining Ling Pill.
But Chen Yuan had a foundation, and his spiritual awareness was constantly growing. He successfully refined the third batch of Bailing Pills, with a success rate of 30%.
In the tenth furnace, the success rate of pill making increased to 40%.
After the 30th furnace, the success rate of pills increased to 50%.
After the fiftieth furnace, the success rate of pills increased to 60%.
This is also the current limit of Chen Yuan's alchemy skills.
It takes five days to refine a furnace of Bailingdan, and it requires one plant each of Bilinghua, Asparagus cochinchinensis, and Qingmu root.
These three sixty-year-old spiritual herbs cost three spiritual stones each, and a furnace is nine spiritual stones.
The price of a Bailing Pill in the market is four spirit stones.
The success rate of ordinary alchemists in refining the Bailing Pill is only 20% to 30%. They can only earn three spirit stones from one furnace and even risk losing money.
Chen Yuan's success rate in refining pills is as high as 60%. He can earn 15 spirit stones by refining a furnace of Bailing Pills.
However, Chen Yuan's goal is to improve his cultivation, so he will not sell all the Bailing Pills.
He also needs to infuse his body with starlight, which also requires the help of the elixir.
In the past, elixirs were scarce, and Chen Yuan could only absorb the spiritual energy of heaven and earth to restore his magic power.
Now that he has no shortage of elixirs, he naturally won't waste time on recovering his magic power.
If other cultivators knew that Chen Yuan used the Hundred Spirit Pills, which could equal a month's hard training, to restore his mana, they would definitely scold him for wasting such a gift.
But Chen Yuan, feeling his spiritual consciousness growing stronger and stronger, felt that this was the best use of his resources.
Every time he refined a batch of Bailing Pills, he would keep three for his own use. He only sold one bottle of Bailing Pills every month and did not earn much spirit stones.
It took four years to save up 275 spirit stones.
But with the accumulation of elixirs, his cultivation reached the peak of the sixth level of Qi Refining and he touched the bottleneck of the late stage of Qi Refining.
……
Chen Yuan finished his training and came to the courtyard.
After mastering alchemy, he no longer lacked spirit stones, but he did not move to a better cave.
Chen Yuan spends a lot of time on alchemy, and his spiritual veins are idle for at least half of a month.
He might as well stay in Dingdeng Cave and practice with elixirs. The speed is not slow and he can also save some spirit stones.
It was the middle of winter, with cold winds howling in the air and heavy snow falling. Everywhere you looked, it was covered in white.
Chen Yuan stroked his storage bag, summoned the Qingyun Sword, made a spell with his hands, and shouted softly:
"disease!"
Zheng!
The Qingyun Sword let out a cheerful sword sound, shot out, and suddenly changed direction, circling back and forth in the snow, as agile as a swimming fish.
Chen Yuan took out the black iron shield again and threw it in front of him.
The black iron shield immediately grew to two feet in size, emitting a faint black light, surrounding Chen Yuan, appearing in front of him and then disappearing behind him, floating like willow catkins.
Two quarters of an hour later, Chen Yuan took back the Qingyun Sword and the Black Iron Shield, and began to practice the Fireball Technique, Fire Snake Technique, and Quicksand Technique.
He didn't stop until most of his magic power was consumed.
After each session of refining elixirs and meditating, Chen Yuan would take time to practice his magical instruments and spells.
As your cultivation level increases, you must not neglect the means to protect yourself.
Just as Chen Yuan stopped, a voice rang out from outside the courtyard gate:
"Brother Chen, are you in your house? I am here to visit you."
Chen Yuan took out the jade token of the cave and opened the door, and Cao You was outside the door.
Chen Yuan led him into the main hall and seated the host and the guest.
Cao You smiled and said:
"Brother Chen, this month's Bailing Pill..."
Chen Yuan took out a jade bottle from his storage bag and handed it over.
Cao You took the jade bottle and touched his storage bag, and a small pile of spirit stones appeared out of thin air on the table.
Chen Yuan smiled and scanned with his spiritual sense, finding exactly forty spirit stones. He raised his hand and put them into the storage bag.
After he refined the Bailing Pill, he no longer set up a stall to sell the pill.
Most of the mid-stage Qi Refining cultivators who could buy a bottle of Bailing Pill at a time were regular customers of those pill shops, and rarely bought pills at the stalls. Setting up a stall could only sell one or two pills at a time, which was a waste of time.
If you sell directly to those shops, you will make two or three less spirit stones for each bottle of medicine.
At this time, Cao You volunteered to buy the Bailingdan from Chen Yuan.
He has a wide range of friends in the market town and knows many cultivators in the middle stage of Qi Refining. With some effort, he can sell the pills.
All he had to do was to help Cao You refine a batch of elixir every three months.
Cao You provided the spiritual herbs, and Chen Yuan was only responsible for refining the pills. No matter what the success rate was, he just had to give him three Bailing Pills.
In this way, Chen Yuan saved time and energy and could concentrate on refining the elixir.
On average, Cao You could earn one spirit stone every month. It just took a little effort, and he enjoyed it.
……
Cao You put away the Bailing Pill, looked Chen Yuan up and down, and said with a smile:
"Congratulations, Brother Chen, on your great progress. I see that Brother Chen has a lot of spiritual energy. He should have reached the bottleneck of the late stage of Qi Refining, right?"
Hearing this, Chen Yuan's smile faded and he said:
"It's just that we have just touched the threshold. It's still unknown when we can cross it."
Cao You smiled and said:
"Brother Chen is an alchemist, he has no shortage of spirit stones, so why would he worry about breaking through the bottleneck if he buys a Snow Soul Pill?"
Chen Yuan's heart moved, and he asked:
"What is the Xuepo Pill?"
Cao You showed a surprised look:
"Brother Chen, you don't know about the Xuepo Pill?"
Chen Yuan said:
"Chen has been refining elixirs behind closed doors and rarely goes out, so I am somewhat ignorant. I would like to ask Daoist Cao to help me solve my doubts."
Cao You explained:
"This Xuepo Pill is a kind of elixir that is exclusive to the Guiyuan Sect. After taking it, it can increase the chance of breaking through the bottleneck of the late stage of Qi Refining by 30%."
Chen Yuan frowned slightly:
"Only 30%?"
Cao You said:
"Thirty percent is already a lot. For cultivators like me with four spiritual roots, the chance of breaking through the bottleneck of the late stage is only one or two percent. If we can increase the chance by 30 percent, there is a 50 percent chance of breaking through the bottleneck. Brother Fan has been stuck at the peak of the sixth level of Qi Refining for five years. He has been accumulating spirit stones, hoping to buy a Snow Soul Pill to break through the bottleneck of the late stage. Unfortunately, he failed to do so and died in the Huanyue Mountains..."
Two years ago, Cao You and two other men went into the mountains to hunt monsters. They encountered two high-level level one monsters. Fan Yigang died on the spot, and only Cao You and Ren Man escaped.
From then on, they could only try their luck at the edge of the Fantasy Moon Mountains.
But a year ago, the two of them broke through the sixth level of Qi Refining one after another, and their strength increased a lot.
Together, they re-entered the outskirts of the Fantasy Moon Mountains and hunted down monsters.
Fan Yigang was a generous and loyal man, and Cao You and Ren Man both missed him all the time.
Chen Yuan also had a good impression of the quick-talking big man, and felt sorry for him.
Cao You sighed, shook his head and said:
"Cao has lost his composure. Brother Chen's great progress in cultivation is a happy event. If I ruin his happiness, wouldn't that be a sin? Let's talk about the Snow Soul Pill. This pill is extremely precious and is only available at the annual auction. Twenty pills are sold at a time, and the transaction price is generally around four hundred spirit stones. With Brother Chen's financial resources, it shouldn't be a problem."
Chen Yuan nodded:
“When will the auction be held?”
"The next auction will be held in more than three months. If Brother Chen wants to participate in the auction, he must prepare now."
……
After seeing Cao You off, Chen Yuan immediately went to the market to buy spiritual herbs.
In the past four years, he has been devoted to alchemy and practicing hard. Even when he set up a stall, he came and went in a hurry. He has only heard of auctions but has never participated in one.
The auction at Huanyuefang City is held once a year, and the participants are mainly foundation-building cultivators, alchemists, weapon refiners, and financially strong late-stage Qi-refining cultivators.
Chen Yuan used half of the pills he refined for cultivation. He didn't have many spirit stones, and apart from the pills, he had no other needs, so he was not interested in the auction.
But the Xuepo Pill can increase the chances of breaking through the bottleneck of the late stage of Qi Refining, so he is determined to get it and cannot miss this auction.
Chen Yuan still had two furnaces of spiritual herbs in his hand, and he spent another 153 spiritual stones to buy sixteen furnaces of spiritual herbs.
For the next three months, Chen Yuan even stopped infusing his body with starlight and continued to make elixirs every day.
Seven days before the auction started, Chen Yuan refined his nineteenth furnace of pills, and had accumulated fifty Bailing Pills in his hands.
Cao You also knew that Chen Yuan needed spirit stones, so he contacted more independent cultivators and bought fifteen pills from him every month.
After three months, that's 180 spirit stones.
Together with Chen Yuan’s previous savings, there were a total of three hundred and two spirit stones.
If I sell these sixty-eight Bailing Pills, it should be enough to buy a Xuepo Pill.
In the next six days, Chen Yuan set up a stall in the market and sold thirty-four pills at the price of four spirit stones per pill, earning one hundred and thirty-six spirit stones.
Chen Yuan sold the last sixteen Bailing Pills to Guiyuan Sect at the price of sixty spirit stones, a small loss of four spirit stones.
At this point, the number of spirit stones in Chen Yuan's hand had reached 498.
It shouldn't be a problem to take a picture of Xuepo Pill.
He returned to the cave, meditated and practiced, waiting for the auction to start the next day.
(End of this chapter)