Immortal Mortal

Mo Wuji thought to himself, how sensitive was this woman’s nose?

“The pills you just fed me were refined by you, weren’t they? Since you are a pill refiner, why did you become a service disciple? If you wanted to hide your abilities and be a service disciple, why did you help Pill Master Shi?” Yan Qianyin rattled on with questions directed at Mo Wuji.

It was not unusual for him to think of adding Water Velvet Vine into the Energy Condensing Pill to reduce the level of difficulty of refining it and increase the chances of success. This was because there were a few different pill recipes for refining Energy Condensing Pill, and one of them indeed used Water Velvet Vine. The pill made from this method had a slightly milder effect, but the refining process would become much simpler. Perhaps Mo Wuji had seen this pill recipe before, but Shi Jun had not.

As for what Mo Wuji wanted to obtain from Shi Jun by setting up this ruse, Yan Qianyin did not care. Not giving up the pill recipes one had, and to use any methods possible to obtain other benefits. This was completely normal. But since Mo Wuji could refine pills by himself, it can’t be that he found a different pill recipe for the Energy Condensing Pill. Instead, this showed that Mo Wuji had learnt pill refining before. If he had learnt pill refining, and could refine pills successfully, there was no reason for him to hide in the Formless Blade Sect as a service disciple.

Mo Wuji began to develop a headache, doubting if he should have rescued Yan Qianyin in the first place. No one knew the story of the farmer and the snake better than him [1]. Yan Qianyin can’t be a snake right? At this point, Mo Wuji boldly replied, “My pill refining skills were passed down through the generations in my clan. My clan was once the clan of a prefecture lord. But when the position of prefecture lord was snatched away, my family’s status soon degraded to nothing. Even though I had learnt much about pill refining, but I never got the chance to prove myself, hence I wanted to use the opportunity of entering the Formless Blade Mountain with Pill Master Shi, to practice my skills and prove that they are legit.”

To say this much, Mo Wuji had to consider many factors. Firstly, in the clan of a prefecture lord, it wouldn’t be impossible for him to learn pill refining. Secondly, any traces of the Mo Clan had essentially been wiped out by then, so even if she wanted to check on his background, nothing would likely come up. However, Mo Wuji did not know that his grandfather was indeed a pill refiner, otherwise, he would not be so afraid. Facing Yan Qianyin’s questioning, he would just tell her that his grandfather was a pill refiner, and that he learnt his skills from him. As for the fact that his grandfather, Mo Tiancheng, leaving before he was born, who cared about that? Couldn’t there be an ancestral pill manual that was passed down?

Yan Qianyin asked in shock, “So you’re saying that you only learnt pill refining theory previously, and upon seeing all these spiritual herbs here, you tried your hand at pill refining, succeeding to refine a Tier 1 Mortal Pill in a month?” It wasn’t that Yan Qianyin did not believe what Mo Wuji just said, but it was simply preposterous. Even for a genius with years of research into various theoretical aspects of pill refining, it would be hard to refine a Tier 1 Mortal Pill within a month.

There were few pill refiners in the world precisely because a large amount of talent and repeated practice over and over again. This was also why it’s difficult to train a pill refiner. First, you would not know if you had the talent. Then you would also require large amounts of spiritual herbs. Lastly, you would require the guidance of a master. It was hard to achieve any one of the above conditions. Moreover, the Tier 1 Mortal Pill that Mo Wuji refined was of high quality, a bit more and he would be able to make Tier 2 Mortal Pills.

After hearing Yan Qianyin’s words, he suddenly remembered that he had pill techniques and hand techniques. He owed his rapid success not only to the detailed analysis of various herbs’ characteristics in the wordless pill manual, but also to the pill and hand techniques. On top of that, there was his experience as a top notch drug refiner. While drug refining was comparatively easier than pill refining, but normal herbs instead of spiritual ingredients were used. Drug refiners were ordinary people who did not cultivate too, hence they were unable to use any spiritual energy to help them. On the other hand, pill refining largely used spiritual ingredients, and worked on the principle of preserving the unique properties of these ingredients. For non-cultivators, it was almost an impossible task. But for experts who cultivate, there was little difference in executing this process as compared to drug refiners refining normal herbs.

“The situation is really as such, and before I actually started to refine pills, I studied pill refining theory for over 10 years.” Mo Wuji could keep this under wraps no long, as his true background and abilities could really be uncovered. As long as he did not reveal the existence of the wordless pill manual, he would not be affected much.

“Wow, you’re very talented in pill refining. For someone as talented as yourself, if you can become a pill refiner of our sect and obtain even more resources for pill refining, your future achievements will definitely be off the charts…” Yan Qianyin suddenly stopped in the middle of her sentence. She thought of an obstacle that Mo Wuji would have great difficulty overcoming in the future: his poor quality spirit roots. According to Mo Wuji, he had low grade spirit roots.

Other than talent in pill refining, one’s talent in cultivation was equally important for a pill refiner. As the tier of the pills being refined increases, the demands towards the pill refiner’s cultivation increases commensurately. If a pill refiner’s cultivation is too low, it would be difficult for him to refine higher tier pills.

However, Mo Wuji never thought that his talent for cultivation was a problem, as his rate of cultivation was simply too fast. The thing that was on his mind was Yan Qianyin’s words. If he really joined the sect and became their pill master, he would gain access to the library. Who knew, maybe he would get the chance to join the lessons of the Sect Technique Master. At this point, Mo Wuji quickly replied, “If I can become a pill master of the sect, I’ll definitely agree, but it can’t be this easy right?”

Yan Qianyin sighed, and answered him confidently, “As a Tier 1 Pill Master, you’ll be very useful to the sect. I can recommend you to join the sect, and become one of the sect’s pill masters. Just that your talent for cultivation is very limited, so I cannot guarantee that you’ll get sufficient resources for pill refining.”

What resources for pill refining, Mo Wuji did not care at all. Since he arrived at the Formless Blade Mountain a month ago, he had already enjoyed many benefits from the sect already. “Senior apprentice sister Yan, I will be satisfied as long as I am able to enter the library to study, and listen to some elders’ lessons. As for the resources for cultivation and pill refining, I don’t really mind.” Mo Wuji said.

Yan Qianyin did not have any of the arrogance that other Tier 4 Earth Pill Refiner had, hence once Mo Wuji changed his tone, the relationship between them improved.

Hearing that Mo Wuji had little requests, Yan Qianyin lightly chuckled, “Don’t worry, as a pill master of the sect, regardless of whether you’re a Tier 1 Pill Refiner, your position in the sect will be already much higher than most ordinary disciples. These requests of yours are all something that disciples would ask for, so there naturally won’t be any problems meeting them.”

“Senior apprentice sister Yan, what happened to you previously? It seemed as though all life was sucked out of you?” With Yan Qianyin’s assurance, Mo Wuji could relax a little, and his mind moved onto the scene before him not that long ago. Yan Qianyin’s mood took a sudden change for the worse. Her peaceful demeanor quickly switched to become very serious, and at the same time, she stood up.

After mulling over something for a few minutes, she took a look at Mo Wuji and asked, “Junior apprentice brother Mo, there is a great treasure out here. But there is equally great danger associated with it. If you’re not careful, you’ll end up like me previously, drained of life energy. Would you dare to try your luck at it with me?”

“Oh, so you nearly lost all of your life energy for the treasure?” Mo Wuji finally understood what was going on. Yan Qianyin nodded her head and replied, “You’re right, I suspect that the place I was at had the Peerless Blade Technique and Skill that one of the past sect heads had left behind, or even more than that. However, you can’t get close to that location at all, once you move nearer to it, your life energy will get sucked away.”

“Do you still have any more of those Elementary Life Pills?” Mo Wuji thought of Yan Qianyin’s previous situation and a lightbulb lit up above his head. However, Yan Qianyin shook her head, “No, I do not. Since you have chosen the path of cultivation, if you don’t struggle through such adversity, how could you ever achieve anything?” After all this, Mo Wuji still did not want to go. There were many other ways for him to improve his cultivation. It wasn’t that he was afraid of dying. If he was, then he wouldn’t have staked his life to use lightning energy to train his meridians. The true reason behind his reluctance to follow Yan Qianyin was that there was simply too much risk involved, and there was nothing that really attracted his attention. To put his life on the line like that would be plain stupid.

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[1] It’s a story where a farmer finds a freezing snake, and puts it into his warm embrace to save it. But once the snake warms up, its primal instincts take over and the snake bites the farmer, its savior