novelapdf Chapter 581 Yuwang Boat! Alchemy!
Chapter 581 Yuwang Boat! Alchemy!
Chen Fan lowered his head slightly and didn't say anything more.
Before long, Qin Taiyue also arrived.
He examined the signs of the fight in the courtyard and listened to Qin Zhan describe the black-clad man's methods. A sinister look flashed across his square, stern face.
He didn't say much, but simply ordered people to move Chen Fan's luggage to the Vice Minister's residence and added two more teams of guards to patrol around the residence.
That night, Chen Fan stayed in a guest room in Qin Taiyue's mansion.
The room was small, but the furnishings were quite elegant. Outside the window was a clump of bamboo, and the moonlight shone through the bamboo leaves onto the windowpane, creating a dappled, picturesque scene.
He sat cross-legged on the bed, not cultivating, but simply reviewing the events of the night from beginning to end.
Regardless of whether the assassin was sent by the Wang family or the royal family, one thing is certain!
That means Chen Fan is now a useful pawn.
He was useful to the royal family, so Qin Taiyue and Qin Zhan were willing to protect him.
He posed a threat to the Eight Great Families, so some people wanted to get rid of him.
Before a piece is completely captured, the player will do their best to keep it intact.
And that is precisely the space he can utilize.
What Chen Fan needs to do next is to navigate the gap between the royal family and the eight great families, until he obtains the offering token and leaves Tiannanxing.
By then, neither the royal family nor the Eight Great Families of Yu the Great would have any further connection with him.
Having thought all this through, Chen Fan closed his eyes and entered the golden bowl space to continue his cultivation.
The next morning, just as dawn was breaking!
Chen Fan emerged from the golden bowl precisely on time, straightened his robes, and pushed open the door.
Qin Taiyue was already waiting in the courtyard. When he saw him come out, he nodded slightly.
"Fellow Daoist Chen, the Prince is already waiting on the spirit boat outside the city. I still have official duties to attend to and cannot see you off any further, so I will take my leave here."
Chen Fan cupped his hands and said, "I have troubled you greatly these past few days. I will always remember Minister Qin's kindness in protecting me."
Qin Taiyue waved his hand, a rare smile appearing on his square face: "No need to be so polite. I look forward to your triumphant return from Zhao, and I will personally host a welcome banquet for you."
After exchanging a few more pleasantries, Chen Fan followed a black-robed steward out of the city.
Outside the imperial city, a massive spirit ship has taken off and is ready to depart.
The boat is fifty feet long and is made entirely of dark gold spirit wood. The hull is covered with intricate flight array patterns, and on each side there are eight fist-sized top-grade spirit stones embedded in the array eyes, emitting a soft spiritual light.
A large flag was erected at the bow of the boat, with a huge "Yu" character embroidered on it, written in strong and elegant strokes, exuding a magnificent aura.
This was the imperial carriage of the Yu Dynasty, the Yu King's Boat.
When Chen Fan boarded the spirit boat, there were already quite a few people standing on the deck.
Besides a squad of imperial guards clad in black armor, there were also several Nascent Soul stage civil officials and two Nascent Soul Grand Perfection stage deputy generals.
Qin Zhan stood at the bow of the ship, still clad in his black iron armor, his hands clasped behind his back as he faced the morning breeze.
Upon seeing Chen Fan come up, he grinned and waved, saying, "Chen Fan, come here."
Chen Fan walked to the bow of the ship, and Qin Zhan pointed to the surging sea of clouds ahead and said, "The capital of Zhao is about a million miles away from Yu the Great. At the speed of the Yu King's ship, it will take about ten days to fly there. During these ten days, you should rest well and get yourself into top condition. Don't worry about what happened last night. With me here, no one can touch you."
Chen Fan cupped his hands and said, "Thank you for your trouble, Your Highness."
Qin Zhan nodded, then looked at the two Nascent Soul Grand Perfection level deputy generals behind him and said loudly, "Pass down the order, let's depart!"
The Yu King's Boat trembled slightly, and the flight array patterns on its hull lit up one after another, while the top-grade spirit stones on both sides burst out with dazzling light.
The next moment, the entire spirit ship transformed into a dark golden streak of light, breaking through the sea of clouds and speeding off towards the northeast.
Chen Fan stood at the stern of the boat, watching the imperial city gradually disappear into the distance. His face remained calm, but he secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
We have finally left Yu the Great.
……
Yu Wang's boat flew smoothly through the sea of clouds for a whole day.
Outside the window, there was nothing but the unchanging white sea of fog.
After setting up two isolation barriers in the cabin, Chen Fan entered the Golden Bowl space with a thought.
With the selection process for Zhao State imminent, he dared not say he was certain of victory in the cultivation category among the three assessment methods, but alchemy and formations were his strengths.
With the "Fixed Word Technique" as its foundation, he was confident that his formation was second to none.
Although his alchemy skills have reached the fifth rank, he has only just begun to understand them and is still some distance from becoming a true fifth-rank alchemy master.
Ten days in the outside world on this journey would be a hundred days in the bowl, enough for him to take his alchemy skills to the next level.
In the quiet room, the fire from the Qiankun Furnace cast flickering light on the walls.
Chen Fan sat cross-legged in front of the stove, with medicinal herbs he had brought back from Baicaotang neatly arranged on the stone shelf in front of him!
These medicinal materials are more than enough to refine fourth-grade pills, but they are insufficient for refining fifth-grade pills.
The biggest difference between a fifth-grade pill and a fourth-grade pill lies in the degree of refinement of the pill core.
Fourth-grade pills only require the medicinal power to be fused and compressed into a pill core, while fifth-grade pills require an additional layer of "pill coat" to wrap around the pill core.
This layer of cinnabar serves as both a barrier to protect the medicinal power of the elixir from dissipation and a marker of the elixir's grade.
The more complete the cinnabar garment, the more cinnabar patterns it contains, and the purer its medicinal properties.
The manual of Danyangzi only has a few hundred words about the making of Danyi, which is vague and only says that "using divine consciousness as a guide and spiritual power as a thread, an invisible garment is woven outside the core of the elixir".
Chen Fan pondered it dozens of times and deduced it countless times in his mind before finally making his first attempt.
He chose the most basic of the five-grade pills, the Mind-Concentrating Pill.
This pill has the effect of calming the mind and stabilizing the soul. After taking it, Nascent Soul cultivators can resist the invasion of inner demons and it is of great benefit when breaking through bottlenecks.
On his first attempt at alchemy, the core shattered with a bang when it was only seventy percent complete, and the black smoke from the explosion stung his face.
The second time, the core was successfully condensed, but when the pill garment was being woven, the divine sense lost control, and the pill garment, along with the core, was melted into ashes by the high temperature of the Qiankun Furnace before it was fully formed.
The third time, the cinnabar garment was barely woven, but it was uneven in thickness. When the pill was formed, its surface was covered with fine cracks, and its medicinal power was completely lost.
The fourth time, the fifth time, the sixth time...
Time passed day by day in the bowl.
Chen Fan never left his house. When he was hungry, he would eat a few bites of radish. When his spiritual energy was exhausted, he would meditate to recover. He spent the rest of his time in front of the Qiankun Furnace.
Each failure was due to a slight difference in timing, a slight deviation in the proportion of medicinal power, a momentary lapse in the pace of weaving the cinnabar robe, or an excessive force in guiding the divine sense.
Undeterred, he recorded the reasons for each failure in a jade slip, repeatedly pondered and verified them, and then made corrections in the next batch.
Soon, a month had passed in the bowl.
Chen Fan sat cross-legged in front of the Qiankun Furnace, his eyes bloodshot, but his expression remained calm and composed.
Under the guidance of his divine sense, the infant fire in the Qiankun Furnace changed into various forms, sometimes as gentle and warm as a trickle, and sometimes as fierce and scorching as a storm.
The medicinal power of the Xuan Yin Grass, the Divine Grass, and the Crimson Sun Flower began to perfectly fuse under the wrapping of the dew membrane. The core steadily condensed under the compression of spiritual power. The most crucial step had arrived!
Weave a crimson robe!