Chapter 171: Advanced third grade alchemist

Long Tao's training was pretty streamlined due to the genius formulation by the master of the pill hall. As advised by the hall maser, he dedicated three avatars to alchemy training. Lu Ming (Long Tao's avatar in pill hall) was busy practicing in soul arts.

"There are two efficient ways of practicing soul `energy, which could give out very apparent results."

"The first is to visualize your soul space as a container. A soul space, unless regulated with specific methods, always remains the exact same throughout the life of a cultivator."

"The two most effective properties are the quantity and quality of your soul energy. In pill concoction, the success of the pill depends on the quantity, while the grade of the pill formed, would depend on the quality of soul energy and its usage."

"The first type of training which you would be doing is to understand your boundaries when it comes to overall soul space capacity. You just need to start expending the soul power, until there is barely anything remaining. A cultivator tends to lose consciousness once their soul power drops below 20%. You are to train until you are near that boundary."

"Once the container empties, you will begin the refilling using the recovery formula and the pill you concocted while being in grade 2. I guess it will take time, but you would be able to see the results as time goes by. The results would be apparent during pill concoction."

"No matter how talented you are, you wouldn't be able to train more than 4 times a day like this. Hence this training will be done every 4 days. In the meantime, you will be practicing soul arts. The omnipotent soul manual did provide you with soul attack and defense arts right. Even the illusion arts are a good way of practice."

"since you have three days in between every consecutive quality training, you are going to divide them between the three types. Although there are other ways to utilize soul power, for the time being, concentrate on these three aspects.

"You want me to practice each of the arts every single day?"

"Yes, that would be the best choice to go with. You can even improvise on the attack arts, like changing the shape and trying to instill more energy on a singular attack. The possibilities are endless. Just go ahead with what suits you the best. It would have been even more efficient if we could have found you a sparring partner."

As Lu Ming began his training of the soul, the initial days were filled with extreme agony. Although the Hall master advised doing an 80% drain, every time Long Tao went below the level of 40, the pain in his soul just reached new heights. 

"You need to persist through the pain. Remember, you are utilizing the soul energy in a regulated fashion by your own will. It won't be detrimental to you like it would have been if you had used this much against an enemy."

"So, concentrate. Your cautious attitude holds your power back. You need to use it as freely as possible."

Hence the soul training began.

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"The next aspect you need to take care of is your elemental affinity, especially fire affinity. Fortunately, there have been some enhancements due to the training in the fire vein for the last month. Although a direct energy input from the firestone would be too much for you, a diluted version is usable."

"The fire pool condensed this time should be used as the first training zone."

"You need to keep in mind that fire energy is a type of energy at the end of the day. If used in one manner, it can help you improve your Qi cultivation. But rather than doing that, I would like you to utilize the maximum amount of that power to reinforce your body, especially your bones, veins, meridians, and acupoints."

"It is the same as body cultivation, but rather than excavating, you are strengthening, or rather buffing them you with stacks of new energy layers."

"The process would not only help reinforce every single part of you, it would also help in tempering and cleansing of your body. There might be growth in Qi cultivation. Just ignore that aspect."

"I suppose the pol would be able to last you until a long time, or at least for the current training period. As for the other elemental affinities, you don't need to mind them as of now since they are balanced due to your training in them by the other avatars."

"Once you manage to completely absorb the fire pool, the fire stones would be next in line. As I said before, if you really want to improve your firepower and affinity, you need to suppress your cultivation to the best of your abilities and utilize this fire pool to improve your body."

"The other aspect is training in fire arts. Alchemy is highly dependent on the skilled use of your fire abilities. The skill training will also be done in three phases. One is complete drainage and refill. This time, you will use the energy in the pool to refill your Qi. Also, a complete exhaust is required in this case."

"The other two are using your fire attack and conjure skills. Attacks are to be practiced on live moving targets and there are some possibilities like manipulating its direction and increasing and decreasing the output fire."

"On the other hand, conjuring is a much better and faster way to improve your ability to manipulate fire. It requires an incredible amount of concentration and imagination. Try conjuring the objects you are most familiar with. You are to first try and conjure singular objects and practice with them. After that, you will try to conjure multiple objects at the same time."

"How long would I train in this way?"

"Until you can successfully conjure at least 20 different objects at the same time. You fire training would be over that day."

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"Should I cultivate the skills first and then go for alchemy?"

"You already qualify the minimum requirements for the concoction of this pill. The material for white dew was available, but as for the rest of the herbs required for the other pills, you need to collect some samples and start cultivating them within the artifact. Begin the concoction by refining the materials first. Then you need to extract their essence and combine all of those to give rise to a pill. The next step would be the pill merging."

"Concentrate your soul energy to combine the pills and the last one would be final concoction which would result in pill formation."

Long Tao began the alchemy. The first batch took a very long time and the end result was just a single low grade one. Long Tao stored it and began practicing with the second batch. The second batch was relatively easier to concoct, but the result was the same. After three more trials, Long Tao was finally able to get two low-grade pills, but he drained all his soul energy and lost consciousness.

After some recovery was done, he began to practice once more. He found out that the maximum amount of trials he could successfully execute on a single recovery break was no greater than 6. But the result started to show up. Initially, the number of pills grew more and more, but soon enough the quality began to rise too."

Long Tao instructed one of the avatars to go ahead and sell these pills to merchant organizations ad auction house. Sure enough, alchemy was a profession of great wealth.

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1 year within the crimson lord world-

Long Tao finally tried to concoct a top-grade white dew pill and succeeded. The second batch soon came up. 

"You are ready to jump to the next stage. You will start a concoction of bone powder now. Remember, Horsesnow is not easy to refine. The major differences are not only the difficult ingredients but the extra purification process to be carried out at the end. As you are now, refining a low-grade batch is easy. The problems start thereafter."

"How long is this going to take?"

"I can't confirm the time period. You have average talent in alchemy and are not comparable to the Crimson lords in the past."

"Didn't you say that I am the most talented among all crimson lords?"

"I referred it on the basis of overall talent, not just alchemy. In terms of alchemy, you are not even considered a talent as of now. But if we can't make up for the requirements with talents, we just have to put in more effort. That is the benefit of having the Crimson lord artifact. Just continue to persevere."

Long Tao didn't have a reply at this stage. He decided to give his best. As predicted by the hall master, the benefits of his training were slowly pilling up. He could perform alchemy much better, and his fire control has grown a lot. The same went for the qualitative growth of his soul energy.

When he first started refining the bone powder, Long Tao wasn't sure about the final mixing and refining of components, but as he went on with the recipe, he was bale to coagulate the product and obtain a low-grade slurry. The slurry was radiating off a white luster and upon application over the body, Long Tao could feel its assimilation over his bone.

"You performed better than expected, almost creating a middle-grade slurry. This refining might take less time than the previous ones, but remember, 2 batches of top-grade bone powder are a must to switch to the next stage."

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Another year within the Crimson lord world-

Long Tao was concentrating on the medical pot. The refining finally took place and they successfully managed to coagulate with each other. This was the last part of the pill formation. The core was at its place and the assimilation of the outer coating was on its way. Finally, with a loud bang, the pill cauldron exploded and a greenish pill fell on the floor.

Long Tao picked it up and looked at it with excitement. "You managed to create a top-grade haze pill. Congratulations on finally entering the advanced level of the 3rd-grade alchemist."

Long Tao was now confident about winning the upcoming pill brew competition.