Chapter 6 – Alchemists
Within the jade box, a green pill, about the size of a Dragon’s eye, laid quietly. The refreshing scent that had spread throughout the entire hall was emanating from the pill!
In Dou Qi Mainland, to become a Dou Zhe, one needs to be able to compress the Qi within one’s own body to a Qi cyclone. But the process of compressing Qi to become a Qi cyclone has an extremely high failure rate. After failing, one’s 9 Duan Qi would fall back to 8 Duan. Some unlucky people need to compress their Qi 10 or more times before they are successful in doing so. But by wasting so much time on the compression of Qi, one would lose the best time to practice Qi and thus destroy their future.
Qi Gathering Power, its use was to allow someone with 9 Duan Qi to have a 100% percent success rate when trying to compress one’s Qi!
This effect makes many people red-eyed. After all, anyone thats not a Dou Zhe is treated extremely badly.
But Qi Gathering Power isn’t something made by nature, rather it was made by someone: Alchemist!
In Dou Qi Mainland, the sole profession that’s more desirable than a Dou Zhe are Alchemists.
Like the name suggests, alchemists are able to create special pills that raise one’s strengths. Every free-agent alchemist is sought after by many forces.
The reason as to why alchemists have such a high position is because of how rare alchemists are and how strict the requirements to become an alchemist are.
First of all, one must be of the fire attribute. And then, within the fire attribute, one must have a tiny sliver of the wood attribute to act as a catalysis in pill-refining.
In the Dou Qi Mainland, a person’s attribute is determined by their soul. A soul since birth will only have one, sole attribute and reject any other attribute. So its impossible for a person to have two attributes.
Of course, nothing is impossible. Within a million people, there will always be someone who has a mutated soul. Within these people that have mutated souls, some have the potential to become Alchemists!
However, a person that has the fire and wood attributes is not enough to become an Alchemist. That’s because one must also have a strong Soul Perception or Soul Moulding!
In the refinement of pills, the three most important requirements are: The material, the flame and one’s soul perception.
The Material. They would have to be natural treasures. After all, even the best alchemists can’t create a god-tier pill from trash material. Therefore, good base materials are very important for good pills.
The flame. Or the fire that’s required when refining pills. The fire used in refining pills can’t be normal flames but rather, they must be Dou Qi flames created though Dou Qi with a fire attribute. Of course, there are some extremely strong mutated flames in nature. Some strong alchemists would take these flames and use them to refine pills instead of their own Dou Qi flame. Not only do these mutated flames boost the success rate of the refinement, they also increase the effectiveness of the pills!
Because refining pills is a gruesome task, extended periods of refinement requires a lot of Dou Qi, and because of that, every brilliant alchemist is also a strong fire-type Dou Zhe.
The final requirement is Soul Perception.
When refining a pill, the intensity of the flame needs to be controlled with ridiculous precision. If the flame is slightly too hot, the pill within the furnace would be burned to ashes, wasting the time and effort of the alchemist. Therefore, controlling the intensity of the flame is a prerequisite to becoming an alchemist. But in order to have a control over the flames, one must have an incredible Soul Perception; without Soul Perception, even if one meets or even exceeds the first two requirements, it would be pointless to try to refine pills.
Under these strict conditions, the ones who have the qualifications to become an alchemist are few and rare. Because there aren’t that many alchemists, the magical pills that they refine are also few and sparse. Since rare things are valuable and pills can definitely be defined as rare, alchemists all have a honorable, to an exaggerated extent, position.
…..
Within the main hall, with the gasps of the three elders, the younger generation all stare at the Jade box in Ge Ye’s hands.
Next to her father, Xiao Mei licks her red lips with her soft tongue and stares at the box, without blinking…
“Hehe, this was refined by our honorable elder Gu He. I think that everyone here has heard of his name right?” Looking at the embarrassing appearance of the three elders, Ge Ye started becoming arrogant.
“This pill was refined by the Pill King Gu He?” Hearing Ge Ye’s words, the three elders once again embarrassed themselves.
Pill King Gu He, an extremely influential alchemist within the Jia Ma Empire. His alchemy is mysterious and unpredictable, causing countless different forces to try to fawn upon him.
Not only does Gu He have extraordinary talent in alchemy, his own strength is at the level of a Dou Wang and he’s one of the top ten Dou Zhes in Jia Ma Empire.
Refined by his hands, the Qi Gathering Powder’s value is probably exponentially higher than other normal Qi Gathering Power.
The three elders smile at the Qi Gathering Powder within the Jade box. If the Xiao Clan gets this Qi Gathering Powder, then the Xiao Clan can probably develop another young Dou Zhe.
Right when the three elders were thinking about how to get the pill for their own grandsons, a young voice filled with fury resonates within the main hall.
“Mr. Ge Ye, it would be better if you kept the pill. Your request, we might not accept it!”
The main hall fell silent and everyone’s gaze turns upon the delicate face of Xiao Yan in the corner.
“Xiao Yan, you don’t have the right to say anything right now. Be quiet!” One of the elder’s face became dark as he yells at Xiao Yan.
“Xiao Yao, be quiet. I know that you’re not happy about this but we’ll decide what will happen!” Another quite old elder said to Xiao Yan.
“Three elders, if your sons or grandsons had their marriage released today, would you still be saying that?” Xiao Yao slowly stands up. The edge of his mouth was curved upwards in ridicule. Since it was apparent that the three elders treated him with disdain, why should he be so respectful to them?
“You…” Hearing Xiao Yan’s words, the three elders couldn’t find a way to argue against his words. The grumpy third elder even started materializing his Dou Qi in anger.
“Three elders, Xiao Yao ge-ge isn’t wrong. He’s the victim of this so you guys shouldn’t decide for him.” A clear girl’s voice rang across the main hall.
Hearing the girl’s voice, the three elders’ arrogance fell and after exchanging worried glances, they all nodded and sat back down.
Looking at the three elders backing off, Xiao Yao turns his head back and deeply gazes at the smiling Xiao Xun Er. Who are you? To be able to make the three elder fear you…
Pressing down his confusion, Xiao Yao quickly walks up and respectfully bows to his father, Xiao Zhan. Afterwards, he turns around to face Nalan Yanran. Slowly letting a breath of air, he asks: “Lady Nalan, I would like to ask a question. Your visit here today, to release the marriage, did Grandfather Nalan give his consent?”
Before, when Xiao Yan came out from his corner, Nalan Yanran already felt uncomfortable with him. Now hearing his question, her brow scrunches up. This guy, at first I thought he was pretty nice, but he’s actually extremely shameless. Does he not know the difference between the two of us?
Criticizing Xiao Yan in her mind, Nalan Yanran never considered how releasing the marriage would put Xiao Yan and his father into an awkward and infuriating situation.
Standing up and staring at the should be husband of hers, Nalan Yanran says: “Grandfather didn’t give his consent. But! This is my own problem and not related to him.”
“Since Grandfather hasn’t said anything then I hope that you will forgive my father for not accepting your request. Our marriage was set by our two grandfathers and since none of them have said to release the marriage then this marriage will go on. Or else, the people that are trying to release the marriage would be disrespecting their ancestors! I think, that within our clan, there aren’t any people that would do such a dishonorable thing.” Xiao Yan tilts his head and stares straight at the three elders.
Using the dishonorable title, Xiao Yan forced the elders to be silent. In the strict clan, doing something as blasphemous as disrespecting one’s ancestors would be enough for them to lose their spot as an elder of the clan.
“You…” After being rebuffed by Xiao Yan, Nalan Yanran couldn’t find any argument to retort Xiao Yan’s claim. Her face became ashen and heavily stomping her feet, her princessy nature became apparent. Looking at the young man with disgust, she annoyingly says: “Under what conditions will you release the marriage? Were the reparations too little? Alright, I can ask my teacher to give you another 3 Qi Gathering Powder. In addition, if you want to, I can let you join Faction of Misty Clouds and learn profound Dou Qi training methods, is that enough?”
Hearing the attractive conditions from Nalan Yanran, the three elders’ breathing started to become heavy. Within the main hall, the younger generation swallowed the saliva. Joining Faction of Misty Clouds? God, that’s the dream of countless people…
After saying all these conditions, Nalan Yanran raised her snow-white chin, like a princess addressing her servants. She waited for Xiao Yan’s response and knew that these conditions were enough to make any young man crazy…