Chapter 221: Grade 4 promotion-1

"How can this guy own Crimson Firefox flame, and from the view I incur that it was a crimson fire in the advance of the general realm. It is a rare species to come across, and he managed to find a flame core within an adult crimson firefox."

The elders from various forces knew about the benefits of possessing a high ranked flame. Contrasting to the low graded ones, high grade beats flame made it easier to refine the herbs and carry out alchemy. The stronger the flame, the higher the control is required to tame it. Lu Ming had already proven his abilities as one of the top-tier fire controllers and hence it came as no surprise that he could tame this flame.

The rarity of the flame was what astonished all the practitioners present there. The Crimson flame wrapped around the herbs and soon enough the refining began. Lu Ming's extraordinary control abilities enabled him to create a unique environment for all the herbs present within the fire pit.

"How could he manipulate all these herbs so efficiently? One needs to be pretty thorough and familiar with the herb's properties to even know the specific temperature environments needed to refine it. He must have practiced with the herb, and the number of concoctions should be massive."

The inner elders had their own speculation regarding Lu Ming's performance. The audience, which was initially demeaning of Lu Ming's capabilities, had morphed into his support. The human heart was truly fickle in this respect.

.........….

"I guess your brother has gone through some extensive adventures to be possessing the Crimson Firefox flame. It is not easy to get your hands on it. The last I heard; they were seen in the Kemono mountains. Your brother must have participated in their annual beat hunt."

"He seems to have practiced refining quite often. Even I am not sure about refining grade 4 herbs at the same time as he does, even though I broke-through the emperor realm. I need to temper myself more." The Hall leader was ashamed of her earlier comments. It turned out to be a fluke set by her younger brother.

"You shouldn't berate yourself. Your younger brother's origin is a mystery to me, but I can confirm that his backing is quite powerful. To have such treasures and such a monstrous training speed, his origin must be a power greater than my estimate."

..........

The herbs slowly refined and started to charred. The process of refining a herb usually involves three steps. The first one was to char the herb so that the essence begins to flow out of its body. The next aspect was to extract its essence with the help of a proper fire medium. Herbal essence was quite volatile in nature and hence required extensive isolation from the environment with the help of fire energy.

Once the essence is extracted from the herbs, the third process can begin. It involves the refining of the extracted essence. The herbal essence usually contains several impurities within itself in addition to the herbal essence. Fire energy is required to refine the herbal essence. The more proficient one is within the refining part, the better is the essence obtained.

Pure herbal essence is required for the formation of a better pill. It was the reason behind there being multiple gradations even among the same pills.

Lu Ming proceeded with caution. The first step soon came to an end and the herbal essence started to flow out of the herbs one by one. Lu Ming uses vessels made out of fire energy to contain the essence which was extracted and soon enough a small collection of herbal essence was floating around Lu Ming's body. 

The second step began and Lu Ming had to concentrate on collecting the essence without intermixing them. The second step took quite a bit of time, but eventually, it came to an end. It was time for the third step, which involved refining. Lu Ming couldn't stand it, and had to sit down for better control of his fire energy. Small vessels were slowly refining the energy contained within them.

Half an incense stick later-

Most of the participants had begun with their pill concoction, while Lu Ming was still busy refining his herbs. He wasn't bothered by his surroundings and eventually the herbal essence was completely refined. An aroma soon spread throughout the room, surprising the judges. They never expected that Lu Ming would be able to refine the herbal essence to such a degree.

"Just what sort of refining method did he use to bring out such shocking properties of the herbs."

"The boy lives up to his name as the first ranker within the competition."

"One shouldn't be claiming a result which is still uncertain. The final result can only be declared after the pill refining is complete. No matter how good his refined herbal essence is, it would go to waste if he couldn't concoct a proper pill out of it." An elder from the ten families spoke up.

"Ten families sure are jealous of anyone who has better potential than them." The elder couldn't help but glare at the person who spoke up. He decided to remain silent.

"What is the guy doing?" Another person exclaimed while looking at Lu Ming's chambers. All the eyes shifted to his room, just to be surprised by what they were looking at.

............…..

The general rule which was followed while performing alchemy prescribed the alchemist to blend in the various refined essences within the cauldron and begin refining the pill, but Lu Ming's choice was a bit different.

Rather than blending all the herbs, he paired up various herbs into different sectional mixtures which he then began to refine once again.

All the alchemists present were surprised by this approach. The inner elder's interest was piqued by this irregular approach to refining pills. 

"The boy is trying to pull something up."

"He sure is. I have some insights as to what he is trying to achieve, but it would be quite difficult. The pill recipe must be quite a high grade to have such strict restrictions. I feel that the chances of failure are quite high in this case."

The first elder was looking at the scene with calmness in his eyes. Although he was surprised by the approach, he managed to understand the intention behind it.

"Your younger brother is risking quite a lot in this concoction."

"Is the recipe too hard for someone his level?" The Hall leader was worried.

"Although the recipe is not that hard, what he is trying to achieve is a qualitative leap from the original recipe. He is trying to enhance the effect of the pill with the help of external agents. That is the reason behind choosing such a wide variety of herbs."

The first elder was hoping that Lu Ming would succeed in his task.
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