The crisp, resounding sound of the medicine cauldron opening instantly tightened Mu Wanqing’s heartstrings; she felt as if she were the one refining the medicine, her expression unusually tense.

Nie Kong’s expression was grave, yet his movements showed no hesitation whatsoever.

Almost the moment the resounding clang echoed, both the Golden Peak Tassel and the Black Bone Jade Dragon Whip herbs were dropped into the cauldron, and then the lid snapped shut.

“Hoo! Hoo…”

The fire in Nie Kong’s palms surged, fluctuating wildly like waves again, and the amplitude of these fluctuations was more intense than at any previous point. Within seconds of adding these two herbs, Nie Kong pressed his left palm against the cauldron’s body, pouring an endless stream of his origin power into it.

“Nie Kong seems to be struggling a bit,”

Zeyue whispered into Taiyan’s ear.

Taiyan started in surprise, quickly taking a look, and only then did he notice a fine sheen of sweat that had broken out on Nie Kong’s forehead. A wave of worry involuntarily welled up in his heart.

Nie Kong was indeed finding it taxing.

Although he had long known that the final moments of refining the ‘Void Glimpse Golden Elixir’ were exceptionally difficult, he hadn’t anticipated that the sheer force released during the convergence of medicinal properties would be so formidable. Any slight pressure from the heat caused the properties to behave like wild, untamed horses, charging and smashing violently within the cauldron.

Under the impact of these medicinal forces, Nie Kong’s origin power was being consumed like flowing water.

“Crack!”

A sudden bursting sound erupted; a faint, hairline crack appeared on the medicine cauldron.

Mu Wanqing’s heart gave a jolt. When she looked again, she found the fissure had vanished. While she breathed a sigh of relief, she was also greatly astonished. Could it have been a hallucination?

It was certainly not her illusion. The moment the crack was struck open by the medicinal force, the little creature had instantly mended it completely. The consequence, however, was a sudden, significant depletion of its vital essence power.

“Boom!”

A moment later, the medicinal powers of the ‘Golden Peak Tassel’ and the ‘Black Bone Jade Dragon Whip,’ forced by the heat, once again rebounded with tremendous vigor, almost causing the cauldron to shatter again.

A sense of foreboding stirred within Nie Kong. If things continued this way, the cauldron would only explode four more times before the little creature’s vital essence power would be entirely exhausted. At that point, the refinement of the ‘Void Glimpse Golden Elixir’ would end in total failure. Ultimately, this was all due to his insufficient cultivation realm.

Nie Kong possessed strength comparable to a High-Grade Heavenly Spirit expert, yet his own cultivation rank was only Seventh-Grade Void Spirit.

In the process of alchemy, even the most potent spiritual arts or the most formidable techniques were useless; what truly mattered, besides refining skill, was the inherent spiritual power strength of the Spirit Alchemist themselves. The higher the spiritual power, the easier it was to resist the powerful surges expelled by the medicinal forces, and vice versa.

As the most difficult spiritual medicine to refine on the Heavenly Spirit Continent, the efficacy of the ‘Void Glimpse Golden Elixir’ was not just about raising one’s cultivation rank, but achieving an immediate leap of two tiers.

One could easily imagine the tremendous power unleashed during the fusion of medicinal properties for such a supreme elixir.

“I was a bit too eager,”

Nie Kong sighed inwardly. Even without the ‘Void Glimpse Golden Elixir,’ using two Eighth-Grade spiritual medicines, the ‘Green Shadow Pill Pearl,’ with a hundred percent fusion degree, would yield the effect he needed by tomorrow—it would just be less potent than a fully fused ‘Void Glimpse Golden Elixir.’

Since matters had come to this, regret was useless. All Nie Kong could do now was strive to ensure the ‘Void Glimpse Golden Elixir’ was successfully refined. Fortunately, there was still ample time; even if this attempt failed, he could refine the ‘Green Shadow Pill Pearl’ as a replacement for tomorrow after his origin power recovered.

“Crack!”

“Crack!”

“…”

When the cauldron suffered its fifth crack, the ‘Golden Peak Tassel’ and the ‘Black Bone Jade Dragon Whip’ finally adhered to the mass of medicinal power condensed from the eighteen different ingredients, beginning to intertwine thread by thread. However, by this point, the little creature’s vital essence power was only about ten percent remaining.

This meager amount of power could barely sustain the cauldron’s operation. But at the moment of completion, an even more ferocious burst of power would erupt, which the cauldron definitely could not withstand. If struck by that wave of force, the cauldron would completely shatter, and the little creature would suffer a severe draining of its core energy.

Nie Kong felt a touch of helplessness. Before refining, he felt he had a sixty percent chance of success, but now it seemed he had overestimated himself. Sensing the medicinal power swirling at the center of the cauldron gradually diminishing, Nie Kong hesitated: should he cut the fire now and let the refinement conclude naturally, or wait until the very end?

“Success or failure?”

Mu Wanqing had cultivated to the Heavenly Spirit realm, her mind already forged into something immensely strong, yet at this moment, her heart hung suspended in mid-air. If this spiritual medicine succeeded, Nie Kong would undoubtedly become the foremost Medicine King of the Heavenly Spirit Continent. In the minds of all Spirit Alchemists, the ‘Void Glimpse Golden Elixir’ was the ultimate standard for testing the number one Medicine King.

The reason why Meng Feiyang, the City Lord of Lingyu, and the previous Medicine Kings who appeared in Lingyu City held the highest positions among Spirit Alchemists on the continent was precisely because they had refined the ‘Void Glimpse Golden Elixir.’

“Whoosh!”

The fire had long since settled into a steady state, and the whistle of the flames leaping into the air was faint.

Nie Kong’s thoughts raced. Only the last few wisps of unintegrated medicinal power remained. He had to make a difficult decision immediately: continue or give up?

Time slipped by rapidly, and large beads of sweat formed on Nie Kong’s forehead.

Seeing his appearance, whether it was Mu Wanqing, Taiyan, or Qingyue, the worry in their chests soared to a critical peak. Hulu, the little gourd creature, had long since slipped back from the corner and perched on Mu Wanqing’s shoulder, now looking around with constantly darting eyes, clearly deep in thought.

Finally, only the last trace of vital essence power remained—”

“Forget it!”

Compared to Xiangxiang’s safety, a single ‘Void Glimpse Golden Elixir’ meant nothing. Even without this medicine, he could reach Ninth-Grade Void Spirit within a year at most. But if the little creature’s core energy was severely damaged, recovery would be much more troublesome. Nie Kong vividly remembered the experience of the cauldron shattering when he refined medicine in Lingyu City years ago.

His decision made, Nie Kong did not delay any further.

However, just as Nie Kong prepared to retract all the fire, a white shadow suddenly flashed past his eyes. Hulu actually floated above the medicine cauldron, then swiftly flipped over, its small head pointing down, large belly facing up, plugging the hole at the cauldron lid tightly with its mouth.

“Hulu, what are you doing?”

“Hulu, come back quickly!”

“Hulu…”

Mu Wanqing, Taiyan, and Qingyue were all struck dumb with shock. They had never expected the usually silent Hulu to take such action. To refine such a high-grade spiritual medicine required absolute focus; any interference could easily lead to total failure.

What was this little creature trying to do?

Nie Kong was also immensely surprised, but in that moment of stunned distraction, the last wisp of ‘Golden Peak Tassel’ inside the cauldron, scorched by the fire, finally fused completely into that round, golden mass of medicinal power.

“Boom!”

Immediately afterward, a loud explosion erupted inside the cauldron. An immensely powerful force scattered outward from within the golden medicinal mass like a breaching tidal wave…,…

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