Chapter 14 Herbalism

Chapter 14

As the sun starts to set, darkness slowly pervades the vast forest. Inside a small cave lays a demon beast with fur as white as snow. The beast lays there prone without moving or making any sounds. Then all of a sudden one of its ears jerked which means it picked up something.

This is the demon white tiger Nushia waiting for the young human. It picked up a sound that slowly becomes clearer and seemed to come closer. It suddenly lifts its head and looked in the direction where the sound of rustling trees comes from. Squinting its eyes as if to see more clearly in the dark, it then noticed a shadow flashing a top the trees. And in a blink of an eye appear in front of it, which startled the white tiger.

"Hey! Sorry it took me a long time to find and gather these."

Shin Jiao said as he took out a small pouch full of herbs that he collected and showed them to the white tiger.

As the white tiger saw the herbs it was amazed of the ability of the human in front of it.

'He clearly is not a cultivator, but how come he can move like one and even survive in this dangerous place' the white tiger once again asked itself as it doubted its views of the world now.

"It's more than enough, thank you once again young man."

The white tiger nods with a grateful tone.

Upon receiving the herbs it did something that amazed Shin Jiao. The white tiger combined some of the herbs and with its big paw grinds them into paste. The most amazing part was when it formed the paste into a ball turning the ground mixture of herbs into a pill without any furnace. The tiger made a total of 6 pills. Though it doesn't have the aroma of a pill, because it was not concocted and just formed using pressure and compounding. But still it made Shin Jiao slacked jawed in awe.

"H… how did you do that?" Shin Jiao asked in a dazed.

The white tiger showed a smug face looking at the awed expression of the youth. Then it chuckled.

"Are you amazed by that?"

"Duh… That's amazing… If I can make a pill without a furnace then I won't suffer here!"

"Hmmm… As I am again in your debt I can teach you the basics of pill making, but the question is would you accept a beast as your teacher?"

"No question there, I for one don't discriminate races. As long as I can learn new things I agree." Shin Jiao quickly reply. In his mind he is thinking of the possibility of learning alchemy for free and this can also help him grow while figuring out the things of this world.

"Okay once my wounds are healed, I can slowly teach you. But I can only stay here for a month because I still need to return to the borders."

The white tiger promised.

"Good. I'll stand guard while you heal yourself."

Shin Jiao said as he quickly disappear from where he stands and reappear atop on one of the trees.

"I'll stand guard here, so don't worry about a thing."

Shin Jiao said as he made his move. But the white tiger was amazed as she felt something about her surroundings.

"This is a concealing formation. How did he know how to do this?"

The white tiger was amazed after finding that she is now inside a formation that Shin Jiao made. This formation is one of the basic enchantment he learned from the jade slip, which can disguise and change the appearance of an artifact.

A week later…

"Boom!" a loud bang echoed through a small part of the vast forest, and from afar a flying thing can be seen bursting out of the smoke and hitting a cliff wall.

Embedded deep within the cliff wall was Shin Jiao, with torn clothes, body full of wounds and burnt right arm, he stayed there not moving. But the wounds all over his body started to heal itself in a fast rate which is visible to the naked eye.

Not far from this place a white tiger lazily lays on a huge tree branch, it lifts up its head and just looked casually at the hole on the side of the cliff wall.

"How many times is that now?… He's too persistent! But I'm amazed how his physique can recover so fast from even fatal wounds." the white tiger murmured while shaking its head.

After some time, movements can be heard inside the small human size hole. From inside the hole, a clenched hand stretch forth holding something inside.

Then a loud shout boomed.

"Yes! It was a success! Ha! Ha! Ha!"

As Shin Jiao emerges out of the hole his face is plastered with a huge grin and happiness can be seen on it. Then he turned his gaze towards the white tiger and bowed his head, and with a tone of respect he muttered in his mind.

'Thank you!'

This is one of the skills he learned from the white tiger as it explained the theory of how it can transmit voices and data in other's mind. As he did some experiments and painstakingly practiced he got the grasped of it.

This was a heartfelt gratitude that he wanted to convey to the white tiger who for the whole week taught him the basics of beast race alchemy. At first the white tiger wasn't sure if the frail looking youth can successfully learn what it will teach him.

But to its surprise only after 2 days of theory, Shin Jiao already can make simple healing pills. This rate of progression is mind blowing for the white tiger. It remembered that learning the basic took it months before it can start making pills by compounding and using spiritual energy as a cauldron.

But the human in front of it only took two days to start making pills. Though he can't use spiritual cauldron, he crafted one himself with an added rune to control the intensity of the fire and demon cores as an added fuel.

This made the white tiger slacked jawed, in its mind it was thinking that if this youth will sell this cauldron to any kingdom, there would be wars between alchemists. But not long another mind blowing thing happened.

Shin Jiao started to make more advance pills, which resulted to him blowing dozens of cauldrons as he failed and tried again and again. For the whole week booming sounds and a human cannon ball is a regular sight in this side of the vast forest.

Then now at last Shin Jiao successfully refined a level 5 pill called "immortal restoration pill" which has the ability to restore any broken parts of the body, either internal or external.

As the white tiger saw this its heart skip a beat, and can't help but dashed towards Shin Jiao to ascertain if it's true. Looking at the pill in the youth's hand it asked in confirmation.

"D…did you really succeed?"

With a smug face, Shin Jiao smiled and showed it one pill. The pill's aroma wafted through the air and the feeling of spiritual invigoration pervades each of their bodies. Then he look at the white tiger and signaled to open its mouth.

Without thinking the tiger involuntarily opened its huge mouth full of razor sharp teeth, then all of a sudden it felt something goes into it. With a dumb struck expression it involuntarily gulp down.

Not long after that, heat suddenly rose up its body, as pain and itchiness can be felt all over. Without a word it closed its eyes and with gritted teeth struggled to endure the pain. It can feel that something is happening in its core and it is something good.