Chapter 124: A small success in alchemy, mortals can never defeat the passage of time

After analyzing his failures, Arius regulated his mana once more, preparing for yet another round of pill refinement.

Control the flame. Add the medicinal herbs. Compress the essence.

Several moments later—

Boom!

Another deafening explosion erupted!

This time, the pill furnace didn’t even make it to the final stage before detonating.

But Arius remained utterly unfazed.

After all—

He had plenty of cauldrons.

If once wasn’t enough, he’d try ten times.
If ten weren’t enough, he’d try a hundred.

As the ancient saying went:

Failure is the mother of success.

Even the greatest alchemists had endured thousands—if not tens of thousands—of failures before mastering their craft.

Fortunately, Arius possessed the Mirror of Immortal Appraisal, which allowed him to enhance the medicinal age of his ingredients.

Otherwise, with this rate of failure and repeated furnace explosions, not just the De Molinos Family, but even Level 2 factions would struggle to sustain such losses.

Generally, even among ordinary Level 2 forces, the best they could cultivate were low-tier alchemists.

These alchemists were only capable of refining pills for Body Tempering cultivators.

Occasionally—with enough luck—they might produce a single batch of Ninth-Grade Pills.

However—

Only those with vast experience and moderate cultivation could occasionally succeed in such attempts.

The Nine Grades of Alchemy.
Each grade, a realm of its own.

A single Ninth-Grade Pill could be worth hundreds of low-tier pills.

Taking a deep breath, Arius calmed his mind.

“No rush. No rush.”

“Focus. Breathe. Control the flame. Refine the herbs.”

Closing his eyes, he recalled the alchemy theories stored in his mind while allowing his mana to recover.

Without the aid of Earth Vein Spiritual Flames, every attempt drained his mana significantly.

If not for his Late Level 1 cultivation, he wouldn’t have lasted this long.

A cultivator at Early Level 1, in comparison, would run out of mana after just a few batches.

Not to mention, weaker divine sense made controlling the refinement process far more difficult.

Ultimately—

The higher one’s cultivation, the easier it was to refine pills.

Take a Level 4 Grandmaster, for example.

Even if his alchemy talent was abysmal, his powerful divine soul and precise mana control would allow him to effortlessly refine Ninth-Grade, or even Eighth-Grade Pills.

For Arius, at Late Level 1, producing low-tier pills was easy.

Only Ninth-Grade refinement posed a challenge.

After resting briefly, Arius retrieved yet another fresh cauldron.

Again:

Control the flame. Add the herbs. Compress the essence.

Half an hour passed, a fragrant medicinal scent filled the air.

This time, no explosion. No accident.

For a moment, Arius felt a surge of hope.

But when he opened the cauldron—

All that remained were charred medicinal dregs.

Another failure.

Yet, Arius remained entirely unfazed.

“Only three failures so far.”

If he had succeeded this quickly, that would be far more surprising.

After all—he wasn’t some heaven-defying alchemy prodigy.

He continued.

Fourth attempt. Fifth attempt…

Batch after batch, Arius persisted relentlessly, refining his alchemy technique with each failure.

For ninety-nine consecutive attempts, he had yet to successfully produce a single pill.

However—he hadn’t triggered another explosion either.

Finally—

On the hundredth attempt—

A gentle wave of pill fragrance drifted from the cauldron.

Arius hesitated.

Had he finally succeeded?

Holding his breath, he opened the cauldron—

And in that instant—

His uncertainty vanished.

After ninety-nine attempts, Arius had finally succeeded.

He had refined a complete batch of Low-Grade Spirit Gathering Pills.

Nine pills in total.

If he were to sell them at a cultivation marketplace, he could earn at least eighteen Low-Grade Spirit Stones.

Considering that the herbs used to refine this batch cost only two Low-Grade Spirit Stones—

Alchemy was, without a doubt, a highly profitable craft.

Even experienced Ninth-Grade Alchemists, when refining ten batches, would at most succeed in five.

Meanwhile—

Arius had burned through the ingredients for a hundred batches just to successfully refine one.

At this rate—

He was still far from qualifying as a true Ninth-Grade Alchemist.

“Again!”

Determined to improve his success rate, Arius immediately began the next round of refinement.

Alchemy, like all things, was a craft of perseverance.

If one lacked talent, then relentless effort and a sufficient supply of ingredients would always lead to mastery.

This principle applied not only to alchemy but to all forms of cultivation.

For instance—

Sword cultivators and blade cultivators, even if they lacked superior comprehension, could still forge their own Sword Intent or Blade Intent through sheer repetition.

It was merely a matter of enduring hardship.

Seated among the ruins of his lakeside pavilion, Arius gradually lost track of time.

He forgot about his surroundings, his worries—everything but the refinement process.

One day… two days… one month… half a year…

Time passed like flowing water.

Through countless failures and successes, Arius had nearly exhausted all his resources.

His precious herbs—

Either they had turned to ash in failed attempts or been successfully transformed into pills.

After half a year of relentless effort—

His success rate had finally reached nearly fifty percent.

Through pure willpower and dedication, Arius had forcibly turned himself into a seasoned Ninth-Grade Alchemist.

With a sufficiently powerful spiritual flame, he might even be able to refine Eighth-Grade Pills.

Of course—

The success rate would be abysmal.

To produce a single successful batch, he would need to burn through at least a thousand sets of materials.

Yet, even with all his focus on alchemy, Arius had not neglected his own cultivation foundation.

The process of refining pills had subtly tempered his divine soul and deepened his immortal foundation.

Most notably—

His soul strength had multiplied several times over since six months ago.

Arius finally exhaled deeply, eyes glinting with satisfaction.

“This is enough. My current level of alchemy is sufficient to pass the certification.”

He turned his gaze toward the ruined pavilion by the lake.

Lifting a hand, he dispelled the protective array, then prepared to call upon the family members to restore the site.

Just as he stepped away from the wreckage, he noticed a familiar figure approaching from the distance.

It was Simon.

The last time they had met—

Simon had already begun to show signs of aging.

Now—

His appearance had deteriorated even further.

In truth, Simon was not that old.

Had he been free from the burdens of family leadership, enjoying a life of leisure and cultivation, with the aid of the longevity pills Arius had provided, he could have easily lived beyond a hundred years.

Yet now—

His body bore the wear of time far too soon.

The crushing weight of family affairs had drained him.

He was long past the age when he should have stepped down.

However—

With Justin still at war, and no one else in the clan capable of holding the family together, he had no choice but to remain as patriarch.

Seeing him now, Arius sighed softly.

Mortals, without spiritual roots, could never truly defy the passage of time.

Even if they lived past a hundred years, in the end they were still powerless against the erosion of age.

“Simon pays his respects to the Ancestor.”

Leaning heavily on his wooden staff, Simon bowed with great difficulty.

His steps were unsteady, his body frail.

The years of ceaseless burdens had withered him, his flesh unable to bear the weight of his endless responsibilities.

Even with Arius’s longevity pills, the damage had already been done.