Nonsense! How could my adopted son be a villain?

Xu Lingguang glanced at the slowly burning incense, pulled his wandering thoughts back, and focused on refining the elixir.

Fortunately, he had a habit of hoarding materials. Although he fed Jue Ru a lot of spiritual medicines along the way, he actually kept quite a lot for himself.

If you calculate the materials needed, it would be more than enough to refine ten kinds of pills.

The types of pills to be refined had been planned long ago.

There are fasting pills for sustenance; White Sheep Pills and Primordial Breaking Pills for healing; Qi-Replenishing Pills, Spirit-Nourishing Pills, and Spirit-Restoring Pills for replenishing spiritual energy. There are also Barrier-Breaking Pills, Purple Fire Pills, and Fire-Splitting Pills for self-defense, etc.

We need to refine some pills for various purposes.

Because he didn't know if the pills he had refined would be confiscated, Xu Lingguang, to be on the safe side, prepared several extra sets of the materials needed for each type of pill. That way, even if one set of pills was confiscated, he would still have enough left over for his use.

After distributing all the medicinal herbs, Xu Lingguang took the alchemy furnace from the table and began refining pills.

Xu Lingguang initially thought it was just an old alchemy furnace, but once he picked it up, he sensed something different.

After spiritual energy is introduced into an ordinary alchemy furnace, the alchemist needs to continuously supply spiritual energy to keep the spiritual fire burning. If the spiritual energy becomes unstable or is interrupted, it will affect the alchemy process, leading to failure or a poor-quality product.

But this alchemy furnace seems to be different from the ones we've used before.

After Xu Lingguang sent in a wisp of spiritual energy, he felt the energy flow towards a corner of the alchemy furnace.

He stopped what he was doing in confusion, picked up the alchemy furnace and looked inside, and found that the inside of the furnace was engraved with very intricate array patterns.

He tried to send his spiritual energy in again, but it was like throwing a mud ox into the sea.

Xu Lingguang thought for a moment and then stopped sending in spiritual energy. Instead, he ignited the spiritual fire.

A faint flame ignited in the alchemy furnace, followed by a flow of spiritual energy that nourished the weak flame and made it burn even brighter.

Xu Lingguang: ?

He held the alchemy furnace in amazement, looking at it from all angles. He saw that the spiritual fire burned brightly for a short while before returning to its original weak state.

Xu Lingguang vaguely grasped the key point and tried to send spiritual power into the alchemy furnace again before stopping.

The spiritual fire, nourished by spiritual energy, did not go out.

Xu Lingguang's expression was one of disbelief—this was actually a semi-automatic alchemy furnace that could store spiritual energy!

The things in this cultivation world are so advanced!

It was more advanced than many of the novels he had read before.

Having such a semi-automatic alchemy furnace means that as long as he stores enough spiritual energy in the furnace, adds medicinal herbs, and adjusts the heat, the furnace can automatically refine pills!

No wonder this old and dilapidated alchemy furnace could be used as a reward.

I just don't know what the quality of the pills will be.

Xu Lingguang couldn't wait to start trying to refine pills using a semi-automatic alchemy furnace.

After attempting to refine two types of pills, Xu Lingguang confirmed the effectiveness of the pill furnace—

The semi-automatic alchemy furnace produced pills of mediocre quality, almost all of them of medium grade, with no high-grade and very few of low-grade. Compared to his own alchemy skills, the quality was naturally much lower, but for an ordinary alchemist, it was definitely a miraculous tool for increasing the success rate of pill refining!

Moreover, this alchemy furnace is more energy-efficient and much more effective than ordinary alchemy furnaces, making it very suitable for the situation in the Mountain and Sea Hundred Refinements.

Xu Lingguang was determined to obtain this alchemy furnace.

Before the incense burned out, Xu Lingguang finished refining all the medicinal materials, making a total of twelve kinds of pills.

He painstakingly collected all these medicinal herbs from various places, and he was so careful not to waste a single one when refining them, using them all sparingly.

As soon as the last incense stick burned out, Bifeng came in.

He emerged from the wall of the palace with his arms crossed, swept his sleeve to collect the pills, and without counting them, simply smelled them before looking at Xu Lingguang, raising an eyebrow in surprise: "Who is your master?"

Facing the spirit of the artifact, Xu Lingguang did not hide anything: "My formal master is Danhuang Liuzhu, and there is another one I did not formally become a disciple of, but who should be considered half a master of mine, named Yuan Jiu."

"Hmph, you're quite lucky to have two Pill Emperors as your masters."

As expected of a weapon spirit forged through countless trials by mountains and seas, Bifeng not only knew Liuzhu, but also Yuanjiu.

Xu Lingguang was somewhat surprised: "You've met Yuan Jiu?"

It's not surprising that Liu Zhu, a human alchemist emperor, has passed the Hundred Trials of Mountains and Seas. But Xu Lingguang didn't expect that Yuan Jiu, an ancient emperor, would also attempt to pass the Hundred Trials of Mountains and Seas for humans.

Bifeng curled his lip, clearly harboring a prejudice against Yuan Jiu: "I've seen him. He almost looted all of the Mountain and Sea Hundred Refinements."

Xu Lingguang originally wanted to say a few words in defense of Yuan Jiu, but when he thought about how Yuan Jiu had snatched those alchemy books and pharmacopoeias from the mortal realm when he first started learning alchemy on his own, he silently shut his mouth and pretended to be a quail.

Fortunately, Bifeng clearly didn't intend to hold Xu Lingguang responsible for this. Instead, he gave Xu Lingguang a very sarcastic look from head to toe and said sarcastically, "With two Pill Emperors teaching you, why are you only now trying the Mountain and Sea Hundred Refinements at your age?"

He clicked his tongue and said, "If I remember correctly, Danhuang Liuzhu passed the Hundred Trials of Mountains and Seas when he was sixteen years old."

Bifeng said in a very critical tone, "You're already twenty-four years old."

Xu Lingguang: "..."

I don't know why, but Bifeng's words always give me the feeling that he is very old.

But he is twenty-four years old, not one hundred and twenty-four.

In modern society, twenty-four years old is not long enough to start working!

How did they get involved in age discrimination?!

Xu Lingguang swallowed his anger and said, "Master Liuzhu is exceptionally talented, and I am naturally no match for him."

Bifeng snorted: "Of course you can't compare, but compared to other fools, you haven't disgraced your master."

After saying that, he tossed a Sumeru Ring to Xu Lingguang and said, "You've passed this test. Stop dawdling and let's go!"

Before he finished speaking, the palace in front of him suddenly disappeared, Bifeng was nowhere to be seen, and Xu Lingguang was in a lush forest.

Xu Lingguang looked around and, after seeing the shadows of the distant, rolling mountains, confirmed that he had finally arrived at the forest he had been looking for.

No wonder I couldn't get there no matter how I looked before; it turns out this was where I was waiting.

Xu Lingguang opened the Sumeru Ring to check and found that all the pills he had refined were inside. In addition, the semi-automatic pill furnace was also there, along with five extra wooden boxes.

Xu Lingguang opened the wooden box and looked inside, discovering that it contained precious and rare medicinal herbs.

It seems that the reward for passing the level is not just a pill furnace. These spiritual herbs are quite valuable, and they can be sold for a large sum of spirit stones after we get out.

Although Xu Lingguang no longer lacks spirit stones thanks to alchemy, who would complain about not having enough money?

He happily put on the Sumeru Ring, then looked around and walked deeper into the woods.