The Undying Immortal System

After we returned to the alchemy hall, Deacon Liu placed five herbs on the counter.

“Take a look at these,” he said. “These are the herbs needed to concoct the most important Rank 2 pill, the Meridian Builder Pill. The herbs combine to increase the flow of qi to the user while also improving the ability to focus. In truth, the pill can be used in a number of ways, but it’s mainly used when creating new meridians, thus the name.”

“These herbs are harder to process and use than Rank 1 herbs, and I need to be able to handle all five herbs at once? Isn’t there an easier place to start? Like, a pill that uses fewer herbs?”

“Yes. The Meridian Builder is far from the easiest Rank 2 pill, it is actually one of the more complicated Rank 2 pills. However, it is also by far the most common. It’s useful in many situations, and Martial Masters will tend to buy as many as they can. For these reasons, the herbs to create the pill have become staples. They are the five most commonly grown Rank 2 herbs, and while you can find easier pills to make, you will not find cheaper ones.”

I nodded. “Alright, so what do I need to do to get ingredients to practice with?”

“Hold on. Take a look at these in qi sight first.”

Doing so, I noticed that the herbs on the counter were almost entirely composed of the chaotic, toxic energy. Very little medicinal energy existed in them.

“Rank 2 herbs are a lot harder to grow. While a normal farmer can grow Rank 1 herbs with consistently high and standardized amounts of medicinal energy, the same cannot be said for Rank 2 pills. To achieve a pill of 100% standard effectiveness, you will not only have to perform alchemy well, but you also need to select the right herbs to use. The herbs in front of you are complete trash. They grew wrong, so they are nearly worthless for pills.”

“They are worthless for pills, but you kept them…” I said, thinking. “So, they are useful for something else. Training, perhaps?”

“Right you are,” he said with a grin. “Based on your performance earlier, you can be allocated five sets of the five herbs. If you can create a single pill of any quality with them, you will be given access to more. If not, you will need to do some other work before you can try again.”

I was about to take the herbs and go seclude myself in an alchemy workshop to figure out how to use them, similar to what I had done so many times in the past. My alchemy skills were nearly entirely self-taught. Rudy spent a few moments showing me the basics early, and I had taken a few lessons in the city, but none of those people were more than Disciple Alchemists.

I was confident that with enough time, I would be able to study on my own and understand how to use Rank 2 herbs as well as I could use Rank 1 herbs, but that could take decades or even centuries. I had a support system around me now. No one had known how to use a fire seed, so I hadn’t gotten much help learning that, but everyone here was a far better alchemist than myself. It was time to ask for help.

“Deacon Liu, can you teach me to make this pill? I know that the sooner I learn this, the better, and I do not know how long it will take me to learn on my own.”

The deacon looked at me with a kind smile. “Of course.”

I bowed to him. “Thank you.”

“No need for that,” he said, catching my shoulder, “let’s go to a workshop.”

“You can already make excellent Rank 1 pills,” said Deacon Liu. “Rank 2 pills are very similar. The main difference is that the toxic energy is much more difficult to remove.”

He picked up one of the prepared herbs and handed it to me. “Try to use your fire qi to work on this like you would for a Rank 1 pill.”

I looked at the herb in my hand. It looked like nothing more than a spout of sage but looking at it in qi sight showed thick toxic energy with just a hint of green at the core.

“Try using your fire qi to burn away the toxins,” said the deacon.

I took a strand of fire qi and tried to burn away the chaotic energy. It worked, but very, very slowly. Even if I completely drained myself of qi, I still wouldn’t be able to cleanse even a single herb.

“Now you see why we need spirit fires,” he said, picking up another herb. “What do you know about pill toxins? What can you tell me about them?”

I thought about it. I realized I had never thought to ask that question. I was told they were toxins, and toxins were bad, and I knew from experience that if there were too many toxins, it would be impossible to form a final pill, but that was about it.

“Not much,” I said, “I really just know that I should remove them.”

Deacon Liu nodded, expecting my response. “I’m not a master herbalist, so I only know the basics myself. As herbs grow, they pull in energy from the environment. If grown in the perfect environment, with the right energy balance, the herb’s medicinal energy will be extremely pure. These herbs,” he said, holding up one of the waste herbs, “were contaminated by other energies as they grew.”

The deacon placed the five herbs in front of me. “For the Meridian Builder Pill, you need an herb of each basic element. This water-affinity herb has mainly been contaminated with an abundance of wood energy. The other four have been contaminated with an abundance of water energy. The reason your fire qi did so poorly at purifying that first herb was because fire qi is terrible at cleansing water-based toxins.”

“So,” I said, understanding, “using an earth-attributed spirit fire is far more effective.”

“Exactly. Your spirit fire is great for dealing with water toxins and okay with fire toxins. Your fire qi will work well on metal toxins and should suffice for wood. You will still have some problems with strong earth toxins, though. You will have to use your spirit fire against them, but earth against earth will make things difficult. You may also occasionally find herbs contaminated with more exotic energies, but those may be impossible to properly handle.”

The deacon again handed me the herb with wood energy. “Try to cleanse this one again, but this time use your spirit fire.”

I held the herb in my left hand and opened my soul for spirit fire in my right hand. The moment the energy touched the toxins, both energy and toxin almost seemed to instantly vanish without any effort on my part. I worked to carefully expose the core of medicinal energy. My control and isolation with the spirit fire was much worse than with qi, so I nicked the green energy a few times, but it wasn’t catastrophic. When I finished, the medicinal energy was extremely pure, though small.

Once my task was complete, my concentration lapsed, and the small ball of energy quickly dissipated. Toxins having been burned away, there was no structure to keep the remains of the herb together.

“Not bad,” said the deacon, “you did a good job, though you did cause some damage. Without a high earth affinity, your control of the spirit fire will never be as strong as your control of qi. It’s not so important with wood-based herbs, but with others, especially water herbs, it can be disastrous to even touch the medicinal energy with your spirit fire. So, I recommend not trying to do everything with it. Use the spirit fire to remove the bulk but leave a thin membrane around the core. Use your fire qi to remove that. It takes significantly more energy, but it will work as long as you thin the membrane as much as possible.”

“Okay,” I said, happy with the quick progress, “what’s next?”

“Next? Here are the other four herbs from that set. You need to be able to cleanse five simultaneously. You’ve done three when working on Rank 1 pills, so begin by moving up to four.”

The water herb, being contaminated with wood energy, was easy to deal with since I could use my fire qi. However, the other three all had to be dealt with using my spirit fire. It was more challenging but within my capabilities. I followed the deacon’s advice and only focused on removing the bulk with my spirit fire while using my fire qi for the finishing touches.

“Good job,” he said, “you got the hang of it a lot faster than I expected. Now, let’s try all five at once.”

Again, I set to work. Adding in another herb added complications, but since it was the wood herb, which was the easiest for my spirit fire to deal with, it wasn’t too bad, and having more practice, I was able to clean these five slightly faster than I had the previous four. I was not focusing on making a pill though, so after the energy was free, it quickly dissipated.

“Good, good,” said the deacon, “we still have three sets of ingredients to work with and you are already at this point. That’s excellent work.”

“I just need to combine the energy now, right?” I asked.

“Yes, but have you ever worked with a pill using ingredients of different elements before?”

“No, deacon.”

“Alright then. When working with multi-element pills, you need to consider the cycle of elements when combining the energies. If you simply push water and fire energy together, the result will never be good. Also, with a five-element pill, you need to think about what the final goal should be. We want to make a Meridian Builder Pill, but what kind of meridian do we want to use it to make? You have fire qi, so you have fire meridians.”

Deacon Liu placed the fire herb in front of me.

“A fire meridian is our end goal.” He placed the wood herb to the left of the fire one. “Wood feeds fire, so the wood energy needs to be fed into the fire energy.”

He then placed all five herbs in order. “Earth produces metal. Metal generates water. Water nourishes wood. Wood feeds fire. By starting the cycle from earth, the energy will be enhanced each time, and you will end with a Meridian Builder Pill tailored for fire meridians.”

I took the herbs to the cauldron and began to work. Cleansing the herbs went more smoothly than before, and I finished it having expended less energy than the previous two times. After that, I quickly moved to combine the energies together.

I fed the earth energy into the metal energy. When I did so, it wasn’t a simple matter of 1+1=2. It was more like 1+1=3. The combined energy felt at least 50% more potent than when they were separate.

I fed that combined energy into the water energy, then that into the wood energy. Each time, the total amount of energy grew. After finally feeding it into the fire energy, the cycle was complete, and energy blossomed again.

The energy growth was surprising, but I should say that the total amount of energy I was dealing with was not that much. The final product felt like it was only about twice as much energy as was contained in my Rank 1 pills. This was due to the extreme lack of energy in the herbs I used.

Because the total energy was close to what I was used to, I was able to condense it and form a pill without difficulty.

Deacon Liu picked up the pill and examined it. “Looks to be barely Mid-Purity with about three percent the effectiveness of a standard pill. It is barely acceptable, but it is good for your first attempt.”

He looked at me with a slight smile. “You have two more sets of ingredients here. Work on them and bring me the results when you can.”

With that, the deacon left me alone in the workshop.

Practicing with the herbs and making the pill had used quite a bit of my energy, but I had sufficient reserves to at least finish the other two sets. I was more careful when cleansing and mixing the energy, and it seemed to help. After less than an hour, I had produced two more pills.

“Deacon Liu,” I said upon returning to the pill hall, “please check these for me.”

“Already finished? I didn’t think you would have the energy to make any more today,” he said. “Let me see them.”

The deacon took the pills and spent several moments examining them.

“4% and 6% medicinal efficacy, and both are solidly Mid-Purity. I would say these are about the best pills you could make from those waste herbs. Good job. Now it’s time to start earning your keep.”