After Dan Zhenren’s class, the disciples were escorted toward the academy’s small refinent chamber located behind the dicinal gardens, near the eastern side of the academy grounds. Unlike the training halls filled with loud noises, this place had an eerie silence mixed with a suffocating dicinal fragrance. The walls of the chamber were built with dark, red stones resistant to flas, while rows of bronze cauldrons rested across the large circular room. Spirit herbs hung upside down from wooden shelves, slowly drying beneath the warm atmosphere.
As Dan Zhenren pushed open the massive chamber doors, waves of heated air rushed toward the students instantly.
"Woah..."
"So hot..."
"This place feels like a hot pot."
Several students muttered while entering the chamber carefully. Lin Yuan’s dark eyes slowly darted around the surroundings. The room structure instantly reminded him of magical laboratories from Noir’s previous world; controlled heat, stabilized surroundings, and essence concentration ant the core principles were nearly identical. Dan Zhenren slowly walked toward the center of the chamber and turned around toward the disciples.
"Today’s trial is called the Three Breath Trial," Dan Zhenren’s calm voice echoed across the room, causing the disciples to imdiately quiet down. Dan Zhenren flicked his hand once with a loud whoosh, and eight bronze cauldrons floated from the sides of the chamber before landing vehently in front of each disciple with a dull thuds. Beside each cauldron appeared one Green Spirit Herb, one Frost Dew Leaf, and one Rank 1 Pale White Beast Core.
"These ingredients are enough to refine a basic healing potion — Green Mist Recovery Liquid," Dan Zhenren elucidated calmly. He raised three fingers. "Your task is simple. You only have three breaths worth of fla control."
The students frowned imdiately, muttering that three breaths was impossible and wondering how refinent could finish so quickly.
Dan Zhenren ignored the murmurs.
"The mont the third breath ends, your flas must stop completely. If the ingredients are not stabilized or impurities remain above forty percent... you fail." Dan Zhenren’s sharp eyes narrowed, and the atmosphere beca heavy and suffocating.
Chen Ming swallowed hard while staring at the ingredients before him, whispering quietly toward Lin Yuan, "This old man is insane..."
Lin Yuan rely observed the cauldron silently.
Dan Zhenren continued. "Alchemy is not about producing dicine. It is about efficiency." He slowly tapped the side of a cauldron, letting his beast aura slither faintly into the chamber.
"A proper apothecary wastes nothing. Too much fla burns the essence. Too little fla kills the reaction. Too much hesitation creates impurities." Dan Zhenren suddenly smirked. "And panic ruins everything."
The students beca nervous hearing those words. Dan Zhenren pointed toward the ingredients, shouting, "You may begin."
The chamber instantly exploded into activity as, one after another, disciples ignited flas under their cauldrons.
Yun He moved first among the students, her movents smooth and accurate as she carefully crushed the Green Spirit Herb before dropping it into the cauldron.
Huo Ren’s flas burned vehently from the beginning, causing the heat around his place to rise expeditiously, while Lian Nichang remained calm, deliberately adjusting the fla output with precise movents. anwhile, Chen Ming was already sweating, muttering anxiously into his cauldron: "Why are you heating unevenly?"
Lin Yuan remained motionless. He did not touch the ingredients imdiately; instead, his eyes quietly observed the fla temperature, ingredient reactions, essence flow, and condensation speed. Noir’s mories instinctively analyzed every process occurring within the chamber, calmly retrieving that the structure was unstable from the beginning.
The Green Spirit Herb released natural essence quickly, the Frost Dew Leaf existed to stabilize temperature, and the Beast Core powder compressed the dicinal effect, but the timing was everything.
Suddenly, a loud explosion echoed across the chamber. One disciple yelped as smoke burst from his cauldron, causing the surrounding students to flinch.
Dan Zhenren rely glanced once and declared, "Failed. Too much fla." The disciple’s face turned pale, and Dan Zhenren remained still with no expression as the atmosphere instantly beca more tense, forcing several students to slow their movents carefully.
Lin Yuan finally moved. He slowly crushed the Green Spirit Herb between his fingers before placing it into the cauldron, and then he did nothing. The herb slowly lted naturally beneath the fla with no rushing and unnecessary movent. His eyes remained calm. Beside him, Gu Shiyan silently glanced toward Lin Yuan before continuing his own refinent.
Unlike the others, Gu Shiyan’s movents were cold, precise, and almost inhuman. Ying Yue, on the other hand, looked slightly panicked while attempting to stabilize her flas, muttering nervously that it was too fast.
Dan Zhenren slowly walked around the chamber, observing every disciple carefully until his gaze paused briefly on Lin Yuan. The herb inside Lin Yuan’s cauldron had not lost a single strand of dicinal essence.
’Interesting...’ Dan Zhenren narrowed his eyes slightly, and thought.
anwhile, Huo Ren suddenly increased his fla intensity. The liquid inside his cauldron boiled vehently as Huo Ren grinned confidently, shouting that efficiency ans speed. An instant later, the liquid exploded upward with a loud boom.
Huo Ren stumbled backward, his face covered in smoke, which caused several students to laugh softly.
"Efficiency without control is recklessness," Dan Zhenren coldly said, offering a pathetic look to Huo Ren. Huo Ren clenched his fists in embarrassnt.
Lin Yuan ignored the surroundings, keeping his focus inside the cauldron where the herb had fully liquified. Deciding that temperature stabilization was next, he calmly picked up the Frost Dew Leaf and slowly tore it into smaller pieces. He did this not because it was necessary, but because smaller fragnts allowed smoother cooling distribution — a principle taken from mana balancing techniques.
HISS!!
The mont the leaf entered the cauldron, the heat imdiately stabilized with a sharp sound. Lin Yuan’s eyes slightly narrowed along with a nod of approval.
anwhile, Chen Ming looked like he was fighting for his life, panicking over why his liquid was bubbling so intensely.
"Less fla..." Lin Yuan spoke calmly without looking away from his own cauldron. Chen Ming imdiately reduced the fire, and when the bubbling stabilized slightly, he exhaled in relief.
Dan Zhenren silently noticed the interaction, his gaze sharpening slightly as he realized that Lin Yuan was observing the entire environnt even during his own refinent.
Lin Yuan finally crushed the Pale White Beast Core carefully into powder. The mont the powder touched the liquid, essence flickering exploded within the cauldron, and the dicinal liquid instantly beca unstable. Several disciples panicked at this exact stage, but Lin Yuan remained calm, knowing that the Beast Core was not the dicine, but rely the catalyst. His fingers lightly adjusted the fla output slowly by lower, lower again, and then slightly higher until the liquid slowly stabilized and a faint green glow erged from inside the cauldron.
Dan Zhenren’s eyes glead faintly at the heat adjustnt. Most beginner disciples either overheated the core or froze the reaction, but Lin Yuan controlled the balance point perfectly.
Another explosion erupted from Fenglian’s cauldron, filling the chamber with smoke once again.
"Dammit!" Fenglian cursed.
While Dan Zhenren sighed softly, muttering. "These brats truly had no patience."
Minutes slowly passed as, one after another, disciples either succeeded partially or failed completely. Lian Nichang successfully refined a pale-green liquid with minimal impurities, and Yun He also succeeded, though her potion appeared slightly unstable. Gu Shiyan’s potion was darker than usual but extrely concentrated.
"I completed it!!" Chen Ming sohow survived the process through pure panic and luck, and expressed his win by excitedly shouting.
Dan Zhenren glanced at his potion. "...Barely,"
It imdiately made Chen Ming depressed again. At the center of the chamber, Lin Yuan slowly extinguished his flas, and the room suddenly beca quieter. Inside his cauldron rested a crystal-clear green liquid releasing a faint dicinal fragrance. With no excess heat, no instability, and no wasted essence, the liquid swirled smoothly like calm water.
Dan Zhenren walked toward Lin Yuan slowly, drawing the gaze of the surrounding disciples, while even Gu Shiyan narrowed his eyes slightly.
"Ninety-two percent purity." Dan Zhenren stared into the cauldron silently for several monts before his expression changed slightly.
The entire chamber froze in disbelief and whispers rippled through the room.
"What?"
"Ninety-two?"
"That’s impossible..."
Even Lian Nichang widened her eyes slightly. Dan Zhenren slowly lifted the liquid with essence, the dicinal glow remained ticulously stable, and not a single trace of burned essence existed.
"How did you learn fla balancing?" Dan Zhenren turned toward Lin Yuan slowly, and asked.
"I simply reduced unnecessary losses." Lin Yuan calmly answered.
Dan Zhenren stared at him quietly. That answer sounded simple, but only experienced apothecaries understood how terrifying it truly was. Most people refined by following instructions, morizing thods, or relying on instinct, but Lin Yuan refined through pure understanding, which was completely different from others.
"Hahaha... You truly are an interesting monster, Lin Yuan." Dan Zhenren suddenly laughed softly, shocking the disciples, because the old apothecary almost never laughed.
Lin Yuan remained silent while Huo Ren clicked his tongue in irritation. Gu Shiyan quietly observed Lin Yuan from the shadows of the chamber, Ying Yue looked at him with disbelief, and even Yun He’s expression beca slightly complicated.
Dan Zhenren waved his hand suddenly, sending several small jade bottles floating into the air to land before Lin Yuan, Lian Nichang, and Yun He.
"These are your rewards for the top three refinents," Dan Zhenren announced.
Lian Nichang carefully received his bottle, Yun He bowed respectfully, and Lin Yuan simply grabbed his bottle calmly.
"Lin Yuan received first place. Thirty Essence Stones. And... permission to enter my dicinal garden for one day." Dan Zhenren continued, squinting his eyes gently.
The disciples imdiately beca envious, as Dan Zhenren’s dicinal garden was famous throughout the academy, and even the low-grade herbs there were worth enormous amounts of essence stones.
"Brother Lin... you struck gold..." Chen Ming imdiately whispered excitedly.
Lin Yuan rely looked down at the jade bottle silently. But inwardly, Noir’s mories continued analyzing the process of essence change, heat stabilization, and reaction balance. The similarities between magic and alchemy cultivation were becoming clearer and clearer, and for the first ti, Lin Yuan felt sothing dangerous slowly erging inside his thoughts. It was a possibility: If beast cultivation could be analyzed like alchemy, then perhaps the River of Origin itself also had rules. And anything with rules could eventually be broken.
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