"Two qian of snakeberry, one tael and six qian of Tianzhuzi, four qian of oleander..."
Qin Mu brought Hu Ling'er to the Imperial Academy's treasury, handed in the prescription, and bought the medicinal ingredients he needed. He said to Hu Ling'er, "What I'm going to refine this time is called the Bewildering Incense, a type of anesthetic. Grandpa Herbalist once used it to bring down a flood dragon. That bull may be strong, but this will definitely bring it down! However, this medicine requires a special furnace to refine, and not the slightest carelessness is allowed."
Hu Ling'er asked curiously, "Why?"
"The aroma released from this medicine can bring down a flood dragon, let alone the pharmacist refining it?"
Qin Mu smiled. "If the furnace isn't sealed, once the medicine is done, the fragrance will spread. Wherever the scent reaches, even a great power at the Celestial Being realm would fall. I don't have a sealed furnace like that. I'll need to borrow one from the Imperial Medical Hall..."
Suddenly, a familiar voice rang out: "Little Divine Doctor, where are you off to?"
Qin Mu looked toward the voice and smiled: "Ah, it's Imperial Physician Qu. That's right, you're a scholar at the Imperial Academy now—I should call you Teacher Qu."
Imperial Physician Qu quickly said, "Please don't say that, it's too embarrassing! Little Divine Doctor, my lecture is this afternoon—I'm supposed to discuss medical theory with the students. Since you're a divine doctor, why don't you take my place?"
Qin Mu laughed in spite of himself: "I'm just a student. How could I possibly give a lecture? Besides, I have matters to attend to this afternoon, so I'm afraid I can't make it. I plan to refine a batch of medicine, which I need for this afternoon."
Imperial Physician Qu looked somewhat disappointed, but then his eyes lit up: "You're going to refine pills?"
Qin Mu replied: "Not exactly pill refining, just medicine refinement."
Imperial Physician Qu's gaze flickered: "Little Herbalist, might I observe?"
Qin Mu hesitated for a moment, then nodded: "I plan to borrow a furnace from the Imperial Medical Hall. If you want to watch, you can come along."
Imperial Physician Qu was overjoyed and said with a laugh: "Little Divine Doctor, you go ahead to the Imperial Medical Hall—I'll be right behind!" With that, he departed like the wind.
Qin Mu headed toward the Imperial Medical Hall. Before he even reached the front, Imperial Physician Qu was already waiting there. Besides him were Imperial Physicians You and Yu from the Medical Bureau, all wearing expressions of excitement.
Qin Mu was puzzled. He was just planning to refine an ordinary anesthetic. Was such a fuss really necessary?
"Little Divine Doctor, hurry, hurry!"
The several imperial physicians urged him on, chattering all at once: "Do you need to activate the ground-fire furnace?"
"We can help!"
"Which medicinal herbs? In what order are the ingredients arranged?"
"When do you use gentle fire, and when do you use fierce fire? How should the qi flow during the technique?"
...
Qin Mu walked into the Imperial Medical Hall with them. The first thing he saw was an enormous cauldron—a furnace so large that whatever pills were refined from it would likely take two or three years to consume. It was probably meant for military use, or perhaps for refining some earth-shattering spiritual elixirs.
There were also other furnaces of various sizes below, each with runic formations connected to the ground fire three thousand zhang below, drawing the flames up for pill refining.
"Do you have a sealed furnace?" Qin Mu asked.
"Little Divine Doctor, this way please."
Imperial Physician You quickly led him to a stone furnace in the hall and said with a smile: "This is the sealed furnace. Does it meet your needs, Little Divine Doctor?"
Qin Mu's eyes lit up. The stone furnace was carved directly from jade stone, hollowed out from top to bottom, with the Eight Trigrams and Five Elements set inside, with no air vents. It just needed to be closed and twisted a bit to be completely airtight. Even if the pill inside exploded, it probably couldn't break open this furnace.
"This will do!"
Qin Mu lifted the furnace lid, examined it carefully, then placed the medicinal ingredients in order into the Eight Trigrams and Five Elements compartments inside. These compartments had their own sequences—after a set time, they would open, and the ingredients inside would fall into the furnace, so there was no need to lift the lid to add ingredients.
Once he had placed all the ingredients, he immediately slapped his palm and drew ground fire from the runic formation on the floor to heat the stone furnace.
Hu Ling'er wasn't particularly interested in alchemy and was looking around, while several white-haired imperial physicians watched eagerly from the side, their eyes fixed on the process. When Imperial Physician Yu saw Qin Mu's technique, his eyes lit up and he praised endlessly: "This technique is truly sublime and beyond imagination—truly excellent! Little Divine Doctor, why do you strike thirteen consecutive times in this method?"
Qin Mu replied: "The Purple Crystal Stone is jade stone. Its medicinal essence is hidden within the stone, making it harder to extract than other ingredients. That's why thirteen consecutive strikes are needed to extract its medicinal properties. My cultivation is relatively weak. If any of you teachers had more robust cultivation, you wouldn't need thirteen strikes—you could extract the essence with fewer."
The several old imperial physicians nodded repeatedly and hurriedly took notes.
Qin Mu refined the medicine while discussing with them, though the old physicians asked far more questions than he did. He mostly explained the pharmaceutical principles and alchemy techniques to them.
"Is this the Dragon-Tiger Mutual Aid technique?"
Suddenly, Imperial Physician Qu's expression changed drastically and he exclaimed: "A technique that has been lost!"
The other three old physicians also showed looks of astonishment, staring intently at Qin Mu's flashing hands, trying to memorize his techniques.
The white-haired Imperial Physician Yu murmured: "The Dragon-Tiger Mutual Aid technique has been lost for two hundred years. I never expected to see this legendary alchemy technique again through Little Divine Doctor. Am I dreaming?"
"If you want to learn, I can teach you when I have time, but I don't have any available lately."
Qin Mu had now reached a critical stage in the refining and couldn't afford to be distracted. The Dragon-Tiger Mutual Aid technique was just one of the hundreds of techniques the Herbalist had taught him—not particularly special in his view. He felt it wouldn't be a big deal to pass it on.
The most critical aspect of alchemy was mastering pharmaceutical principles; techniques were merely supplementary.
Despite what Qin Mu said, the techniques were of utmost importance in the eyes of the imperial physicians. Besides techniques, pill formulas were also treasures that countless medical practitioners dreamed of obtaining. If someone got their hands on a unique pill formula, they would treasure it greatly and rarely share it with others.
This was completely different from what the Herbalist had taught Qin Mu. The Herbalist didn't put blind faith in pill formulas or techniques. What he taught Qin Mu most was pharmaceutical principles.
He had never thought about how impressive the things the Herbalist taught him were—he felt they were all ordinary things. The shock of these imperial physicians left him feeling bewildered.
At this point, Qin Mu was preparing to collect the medicine. His techniques grew faster and faster, becoming a dazzling blur. In just a short moment, the imperial physicians saw more than a dozen techniques that had been lost to time, some even more complex than the Dragon-Tiger Mutual Aid technique.
Numerous techniques flashed by in succession, each one bringing different manifestations of the ground fire. Before the old physicians could even note them down, Qin Mu had already finished. He then stood quietly beside the stone furnace, waiting.
Once the furnace had cooled, Qin Mu suddenly transformed his qi into Black Tortoise qi. His palm grew cooler and cooler, colder and colder, until it pressed against the stone furnace and a layer of frost quickly formed on the furnace wall.
After a few more moments, Qin Mu asked the imperial physicians and Hu Ling'er to step back, then held his breath and carefully opened the stone furnace. A thin layer of pink mist lay at the bottom of the furnace.
Qin Mu used one hand to channel Black Tortoise qi to cool the mist, while the other hand took out a small jade vial. His qi formed a guiding technique inside the vial, drawing the mist from the furnace bottom into the jade container.
He hurriedly screwed the lid tight, and still not satisfied, used Black Tortoise qi to form a seal of mystic ice over the mouth of the vial before finally letting out a sigh of relief.
"The medicine I needed has been refined."
Qin Mu thanked the imperial physicians: "Teachers, I have other matters to attend to, so I won't take up any more of your time. As for this afternoon's class..."
Imperial Physician You smiled: "Just go about your business. In the future, if you have things to do, there's no need to come to the lectures. But if you have time, do come by often to give us old bones a lecture or two and demonstrate some pill refining—that will be more than enough."
Qin Mu took his leave and departed.
No sooner had he left than the old physicians huddled together. Imperial Physician You said with excitement: "Gentlemen, did you note down all the ingredients?"
Imperial Physician Yu replied, his voice trembling slightly: "As if we could miss anything! I can identify those herbs just by smelling them. Not even the exact weight in qian and milligrams can escape my nose!"
"And the order of the Eight Trigrams and Five Elements—the minister, assistant, envoy, and guide sequence?"
Imperial Physician Qu laughed: "Don't worry, I've noted it all down!"
"And the techniques?"
The old men all laughed together: "Each of us memorized half. Put them together, and we can reconstruct his techniques!"
Imperial Physician Qu hesitated slightly: "But when he collected the medicine just now, he asked us to step back. I didn't note down that collection technique. Besides, we don't even know what medicine he was refining. If we try to make it blindly..."
"Collecting the medicine is just a minor matter—it won't be too troublesome. As for what he was refining, we'll know as soon as we smell it once it's made! Whatever Little Divine Doctor refined is bound to be extraordinary!"
The old physicians were brimming with enthusiasm. Imperial Physician Yu immediately went to the treasury to fetch ingredients, while the remaining old men cleaned the stone furnace. When Yu returned, they immediately placed the ingredients into the Eight Trigrams and Five Elements compartments in the proper order.
The several imperial physicians worked together, drawing ground fire, each performing one or more techniques, circling the stone furnace as they refined the medicine.
Before long, many students from the Imperial Academy arrived to attend the lecture. But the imperial physicians were at a crucial stage in their refinement and had no time to attend to them. In recent days, the Imperial Academy had first been blockaded by the Daoist sect's Dao Master, then by the Buddhist disciple of the Great Thunderclap Monastery, and many had been injured. This had made the academy's students realize the importance of the Imperial Medical Hall. Now that the Hall was holding a lecture, they naturally came to attend.
The students could only watch as the imperial physicians displayed their unpredictable and sublime techniques, marveling again and again, filled with admiration. Imperial Physician You and the others circled the stone furnace, their steps shifting and bodies weaving like several old butterflies drifting around the furnace fire—truly an air of immortal grace, unmistakably the bearing of accomplished masters.
Suddenly, the old physicians stopped, each withdrew their hands, adjusted their breathing, and waited for the stone furnace to cool.
At this point, the imperial physicians all hesitated slightly. Imperial Physician Qu placed his hand on the furnace: "I think this was the technique—his hand was pressed just like this..."
Imperial Physician You laughed: "If it doesn't work, it doesn't matter. We can just refine another batch. Let's open the furnace!"
Imperial Physician You stepped forward and lifted the furnace lid. Immediately, a wave of fragrance wafted out. He couldn't help but laugh: "Smells go—od—what—a—ah—ah—ah..."
Thud.
Imperial Physician You collapsed to the ground, a strange smile still plastered on his face—a smile like a flower that had only half bloomed, having had time to smile only halfway.
Thud, thud, thud.
Imperial Physician Yu, Imperial Physician You, and the others also fell face-up with smiles frozen on their faces. The students watching not far away cried out in alarm when they saw this—some moved to help, others tried to flee—but suddenly, all the students felt as though their limbs had vanished, and they toppled over one after another with soft thuds.
Not only did they feel their limbs had disappeared without a trace, but their eyes, noses, ears, and even their heads seemed to have "vanished"!
Even their Spirit Wombs were suddenly paralyzed, unable to move, their qi frozen solid!