Ancient Strengthening Technique

AST 221 – Success in concocting the Endurance Pellet. Magnificence of the River and Mountains.

When Qing Shui heard that melodious voice, incomparable joy bloomed in his heart. There were twenty-four hours in a day. Being in a state of extreme focus and attention throughout the day was very tiring and could not be done by ordinary people. Mental fortitude was also the reason why Alchemists were stronger than the other professions.

Qing Shui opened his eyes. To him, being in that special state of focus for twenty-four hours couldn’t be considered much. After all, after he ate the Potential Fruit, his mental and spiritual strength was boosted by a huge degree. Not to mention that the degree of difficulty in concocting the Endurance Pellets was several times lower when compared to the Small Revitalizing Pellets.

Opening his golden cauldron, Qing Shui saw that there were over ten pellets in it. Every pellet was the size of a grape and had a yellowish color. Despite so, it was sparkling and translucent while emitting a resplendent light.

Qing Shui immediately ingested one of the pellets as he quickly dissolved it with the aid of his circulated Qi from the Ancient Strengthening Technique. A thick and warm current entered into his Dantian, as it replenished the consumed Qi from the Ancient Strengthening Technique. Not only that, it also provided energy nourishment for bone structures and muscles.

Endurance was a good thing, but he wasn’t able to sustain it for long. After finishing a pellet, Qing Shui discovered that the effects dissipated after a short while.

“Seems like this pellet can only be consumed once per person.” Qing Shui thought with some regret.

This could be considered the 2nd type of ‘real’ pellet concocted by Qing Shui, disregarding his Golden Sore Ointment. He was extremely happy and satisfied upon seeing the results of his alchemy.

The most revered profession in this world of the nine continents was alchemy. Qing Shui was thinking. As of now, he should be able to be considered an Alchemist. Even counting the Golden Sore Ointment, he had only concocted three types of medicinal pellets. These three types of medicines would be sufficient for others to lead a lifetime of riches.

Just thinking of the fire bird, happiness bloomed in his heart. The fire bird was his treasure, something akin to his own wings. In the future, he would depend on it to travel the nine continents.

Walking beneath that gigantic Wutong Tree, Qing Shui summoned the fire bird. A beautiful, crisp bird call sounded out as the fire bird affectionately hovered in a spiral around Qing Shui’s head. Qing Shui was already used to the fire bird doing this. If some other ordinary people were to see this scenario, they would most definitely be shocked.

Qing Shui placed an Endurance Pellet into the mouth of the fire bird.

An instant later, a reddish light bursted out from the fire bird. The light was so resplendent that it seemed akin to a phoenix undergoing its nirvanic rebirth. The fire bird joyfully called out as it continued spiralling about in the airspace above Qing Shui’s head.

Qing Shui took out a 2nd pellet. Upon seeing this, the cries of the fire bird got shriller in excitement.

Qing Shui placed the 2nd pellet into its mouth as the reddish glow of light shone again. Qing Shui enjoyed observing the fire bird’s expression as the imposing manner of a divine bird shone during consumption. He knew that the reddish glow of light was an indicator of the Endurance Pellet taking effect.

Qing Shui was very happy, but he knew that two pellets was already the limit for the fire bird. Even if it consumed more, it would have no effect. There wouldn’t be such a good thing in this world that had no natural limit.

Despite so, under the earnest calls of the fire bird, Qing Shui retrieved a 3rd pellet and placed it into the mouth of the fire bird.

This time around, there was no other effect. From this experiment, Qing Shui could confirm his guess. The limit for humans was one pellet while the limit for demonic beasts was two.

As for tomorrow, he intended to give some of the pellets to Canghai and the rest. Canghai Mingyue, the Canghai couple, and Huoyun all needed three. This caused Qing Shui to be slightly depressed as he only had a total of five pellets left on him…

The helpless Qing Shui could only grit his teeth and use the remainder of the ingredients to produce 10 more Endurance Pellets. Qing Shui didn’t doubt his successful concoction rate. He was different from most of the other alchemists on the continent that would only have a 10% success rate. They failed nine times out of ten.

The reason may be because of his primordial flames, or perhaps his Golden Flint Iron Cauldron. His success rate was much higher when compared to the others. His Golden Flint Iron Cauldron was able to increase his success rate by ten percent, which also allowed him not to have any failed concoctions in past up till today.

Looking at the next random pill named the Beauty Pellet, it still required 108,000 miles of experience before he could reach it. Luckily, Qing Shui discovered that each successful concoction of the Small Revitalizing Pellet gave 1000 exp, while each successful concoction of the Endurance Pellet gave 500 exp. What a pity that there were no more ingredients. If not, he would abuse the heck out of the time dilation effect of the spatial realm to heavily boost his experience points.

A day later, Qing Shui gave the Endurance Pellet to the others. This time around, the Canghai Couple was badly shocked, not to mention Canghai Mingyue. She was staring dumbly at this mysterious guy. She knew that the medicinal recipe of this pellet was extremely precious, especially the ingredients like the Diamond Fruit (Endurance Fruit) which was extremely hard to obtain.

She looked at the three pellets contained within the small bottle Qing Shui gave her. Her ears still resounded with Qing Shui’s voice, “A human can only consume one, while demonic beasts were able to consume two. Eating more has no effect. I’ve already tested it.”

Canghai Mingyue lowered her head, “…”

Qing Shui passed three pellets over to the Canghai Couple, as well as three pellets to Huoyun Liu-Li, as he smiled. “When you have a mount in the future, you have to remember this.”

Huoyun gave a charming yet crafty smile in response, causing Qing Shui to marvel at her change in attitude. It seems as though she wouldn’t avoid him now…

The Canghai Couple understood that it was very time-exhaustive to concoct such a high level pill. The Endurance Pellet could be considered a first-level, King-grade pill. Canghai couldn’t help but feel suspicious. Qing Shui only received the recipe about twenty-four hours ago, and considering how precious the ingredients were, how would he have managed to concoct so many pills of this grade within such a short frame of time?

Qing Shui gave the Canghai Couple three pellets because he knew that they would probably have a mount. It was the same amount of pellets he had given to Canghai Mingyue and Huoyun Liu-Li.

“Ah Mingyue, give me some money. I want to go to Greencloud Furniture City to take a look.” Qing Shui laughed.

Canghai Mingyue was speechless. This fellow was pretty good at being shameless. Give him an inch and he would want a mile. He had already even started to call her Mingyue out of habit. Canghai Mingyue could only shake her head as she gazed at Qing Shui speechlessly before passing a wad of silver banknotes over to him.

“Sister Mingyue, let’s go together. God-father said that the calligraphy and painting there are pretty good!” Huoyun Liu-Li added happily from the side.

“Okay let’s go, we have nothing going on and were planning to laze about anyways. Would some guy welcome us to go with him?” Canghai Mingyue intentionally gazed at Qing Shui.

In the end, the three of them entered the Greencloud Furniture City. “Where are the calligraphy and paintings?” Huoyun immediately asked Qing Shui as they entered.

Qing Shui intentionally shifted his glance to that avaricious little sister at the front desk. Upon seeing Qing Shui flanked by two other girls, the counter girl was slightly disappointed and felt a touch of jealousy.

Qing Shui felt that the collection of furniture in this great store was extremely complete, and he actually found many things that he wanted. Feeling joy in his heart, he also felt an impulse to buy everything that he took a liking to. At the moment, he felt a sense of familiarity with it.

Staring at the screen far away, Qing Shui suddenly realised that he needed a few screens. Shortly after his arrival, he had already separated himself from the two girls as he immersed himself to enjoy the artistic concept which Canghai had told him about.

“Flower-patterned screen.” Qing Shui sighed in remembrance as he stared at a classic flower- patterned screen with a touch of elegance.

There were large and small screens. After all, all of these would be put to good use in the future as they could separate a room into small areas.

Qing Shui continued strolling about, and discovered that most of the furniture here were things of the 1st and 2nd-level that he recognised. As for those 3rd and 4th-levels, Qing Shui still had not seen any yet.

Birch Cabinet. Qing Shui was numbed as he stared at such ordinary furniture. He had long lost any feelings he had for such ordinary items.

“Redwood Eight Immortals Table!” Qing Shui turned his gaze as he looked at a rectangular table with a fragrance emitting from it. Qing Shui knew that this was something at the pinnacle of the grade of 2nd-level furniture. It could already be considered extremely luxurious.

“Jade Tiger-Prints Table!”

This table was manufactured from top-graded red wood, had patterns of ferocious tigers imprinted on it, and white jade ornaments decorating it. Qing Shui had a deep impression of this table because this was something that he liked.

After leaving the immediate area, Qing Shui continued strolling about.

“Ai, I’ve almost forgotten about beds.”

Qing Shui exclaimed as he came into the beds section of the store. As he stared at the rows of different types of beds, he felt that his perspective had widened.

Qing Shui didn’t continue walking forward, as he thought of a few beds in his memories which he had really wanted. The Eight Trigrams Evil Suppressing Couch had a picture of the Eight Trigrams imprinted on it and was rumoured to be able to ward off evil.

Immortal Veil, a bed manufactured from special wood materials. It was comfortable, and would enable the user to feel fresh and relax, and to forget fatigue or even induce beautiful dreams.

The Dragon and Phoenix bed was manufactured from violet sandalwood. The images of the dragons and phoenixes on it were incredibly vivid and life-like.

Night Dreams, the name of a legendary bed that would enable one to forget all their worries once they slept on it. It was one of the five precious legendary beds in this world.

All these things were in Qing Shui’s memories. However, he still felt that the Eight Trigram Evil Suppressing Couch didn’t lose out to the Night Dreams and the Dragon and Phoenix Bed.

After which, Qing Shui wished to proceed to the 2nd level. After all, there was nothing that caught his eye on the first level. As he stepped onto the 2nd level, Qing Shui gasped in surprise. The items here were higher in quality and grade by at least one level compared to those furniture on the first level. Not only that, an exceptionally conspicuous screen caught his eye!

A painting of magnificent rivers and mountains was painted onto the screen with radiant colours further embellishing it. What an exquisite craft. This was capable of adding an atmosphere of joy to the most mundane homes.

Qing Shui was extremely agitated. Finally, he saw 3rd-tier furniture!