Nie Kong followed the lead of the others, pinching some powder from a wooden box to begin his sampling.

Of the six herbs—Divine Fragrance Grass, Dragon Gall Flower, and four others—four were already present in the nine tiers of the Spirit Manor's medicinal gardens. The remaining two had been sent by the Heaven and Earth Sect and the Spirit Domain City, respectively, during the compilation of the Compendium of Materia Medica. Nie Kong had tasted them all. He knew their medicinal effects and properties intimately.

Tasting them now was merely a pretense, a performance to avoid arousing suspicion.

On the tables before Nie Kong and the others lay prepared parchment and something resembling a pencil. After a minute or two, the Ninth-Rank Medicine Kings began to scratch out their notes furiously.

For the next stretch of time, the sound of pen tips gliding across paper filled the entire hall.

No other extraneous noise dared to intrude.

Nie Kong also recorded the herbs' properties intermittently. This time, he deliberately chose to conceal his depth, writing down only the more obvious characteristics rather than exposing everything he knew. After all, Zhan Tianfeng and Ye Haoran were both present, and drawing too much attention too quickly could easily alert them.

After more than an hour, the seventeen participants gradually laid down their implements.

At this point, Taishu Yan and the dozen or so Medicine Kings from the Pill Immortal Sect also produced sheets of paper filled with their own observations, seemingly noting the properties of the same six herbs.

The papers circulated around the room, moving from hand to hand.

Nie Kong passed his sheet to the right, immediately receiving the trial results from the Medicine King on his left. Nie Kong scanned it quickly; it matched what he had written almost exactly, prompting a silent nod of approval. For a first-time taste test, achieving such accuracy without a single error was truly rare.

Not everyone, after all, possessed Xiangxiang, that little creature, nor did they have Xiangxiang's miraculous skill, "Scent Recognition for Medicine," which could discern every subtle property of any substance.

After more than a dozen rotations, Taishu Yan’s trial results finally arrived before Nie Kong.

Nie Kong had been waiting for this moment. His spirit instantly lifted as he leaned in to examine the writing closely. The more he read, the more profound his admiration grew. Taishu Yan truly lived up to his title as the Master of the Pill Immortal Sect; his attainment in the Way of Medicine was formidable, clearly a cut above the other Ninth-Rank Medicine Kings.

If Nie Kong's entry on these six herbs in his Compendium of Materia Medica represented a completeness of ten-tenths, then Taishu Yan’s findings reached at least eight-tenths accuracy. The other Ninth-Rank Medicine Kings ranged between five-tenths and seven-tenths.

If the conclusions of all the Ninth-Rank Medicine Kings were synthesized, the resulting profile would be comparable to what Nie Kong derived from "Scent Recognition for Medicine."

"The Pill Palace Immortal Gathering is truly impressive!"

Nie Kong passed the paper to the right, a strong wave of emotion stirring within him.

It was no wonder that the standard of the Way of Medicine in the Divine Sky Realm far surpassed that of the Celestial Spirit Continent; this "Pill Palace Immortal Gathering" made it starkly clear. Before the appearance of Nie Kong’s Compendium of Materia Medica, the Spirit Alchemists of the Celestial Spirit Continent had always guarded their knowledge jealously, sharing insights only within their respective sects or clans.

With the combined wisdom of dozens of Ninth-Rank Medicine Kings, those incomplete medicinal formulas would surely be supplemented and perfected soon enough.

Another hour passed, and the papers completed a full circuit, returning to their original owners.

“Esteemed colleagues, I trust everyone now has a clear understanding of the pharmacological principles and properties of these six substances?” Taishu Yan asked the assembly, his gaze gentle and his voice harmonious. The Ninth-Rank Medicine Kings nodded subconsciously, though no words were spoken, the excitement shining brightly in their eyes was impossible to conceal.

“Excellent!”

Taishu Yan clapped his hands and smiled. “I believe you are all well aware that my junior sister here, Luan Yexin, is not only a Ninth-Rank Medicine King but also a master cultivator of medicinal flora. I will entrust all six of these herbs to her cultivation. I am confident that within three years at most, every one of you will receive saplings of these six plants.”

“We thank Sect Master Taishu!”

“Elder Luan, the burden is on you then.”

“Fellow disciples of the Pill Immortal Sect, we shall not be impolite then.”

“…”

The sixteen guests from outside sects beamed, offering profuse gratitude.

Nie Kong also offered a cheerful word of agreement. Taishu Yan’s strategy was undeniably astute—giving a man a fish feeds him for a day, but teaching him to fish feeds him for a lifetime. Presenting them with saplings to cultivate themselves three years hence was far more valuable than handing over a few doses of the prepared medicines or a few pills refined from them.

Taishu Han waved a hand dismissively. “Next, we address the matter of the incomplete formulas. Junior Sister, please distribute the prescriptions to everyone.”

Only then did the assembly notice that Luan Yexin held a thick stack of papers. Luan Yexin picked up a sheet, gave it a gentle toss, and it landed precisely before a Ninth-Rank Medicine King. This process repeated rapidly, and within seconds, everyone held a copy of a formula.

Nie Kong glanced at the prescription and nearly laughed aloud again.

He was intimately familiar with these Ninth-Rank pill formulas; they were too familiar to ignore. Just as he had suspected, they were all excerpts from the Ninth-Rank spirit ingredient recipes in the Compendium of Materia Medica, save for the fact that several key ingredients had been omitted, thus creating the so-called ‘incomplete formulas.’

Nie Kong felt a wry amusement tugging at him.

He hadn't expected Kou Xilai and his cohorts to use his work to deceive the Pill Immortal Sect. Yet, Nie Kong had to be grateful to them; without this deception, the Pill Immortal Sect wouldn't have convened the "Pill Palace Immortal Gathering," and he wouldn't have arrived at Divine Splendor Peak so quickly, nor discovered Zhan Tianfeng and Ye Haoran so soon.

However, after the secret amusement subsided, a flicker of doubt crossed Nie Kong’s mind.

Most of his Ninth-Rank spirit ingredient formulas were derived from elixirs discovered within the Spirit Manor. Those formulas originally belonged to the Pill Immortal Sect; logically, Kou Xilai’s group should have been detected the moment they presented them. But judging by the current situation, the Pill Immortal Sect seemed utterly unaware of the true origin.

Nie Kong’s eyes remained fixed on the prescription, but his mind was racing with speculation.

After a long pause, piecing together the fragmented intelligence gleaned from the ninth floor of the Spirit Manor’s Medicine Tower, he began to piece together a possible truth.

The Pill Immortal Sect, it seemed, had received accurate warnings of the impending catastrophe only at the very last moment, forcing a hurried evacuation. They hadn't even had time to collect precious herbs and elixirs. Furthermore, they likely hadn't used the small illusory formation within the Medicine Tower, but another, much larger teleportation array.

Moreover, according to a few pages of sporadic notes left on the ninth floor of the Medicine Tower, the owner of those formulas was a Grand Elder of the Pill Immortal Sect. He had been in secluded cultivation there for nearly a hundred years, and the Sect was likely to have accidentally forgotten him during their frantic retreat. Consequently, the Grand Elder only realized the disaster had struck when the calamity descended.

He attempted to escape using the small illusory formation located inside the ninth-level medicinal garden. However, at the very moment of teleportation, the Spirit Manor was impacted, severely damaging the formation. He was torn apart by the resulting spatial rift and failed to reach the western part of the Phantom Spirit Continent at that time.

With his death, the Ninth-Rank and Tenth-Rank formulas he had developed were lost as well.

This sequence of events might just explain everything: why the Spirit Manor was left brimming with rare herbs and elixirs, and why the current Pill Immortal Sect knew nothing about these specific, incomplete formulas.

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