All Things Are Contracts

Chapter 61

After the delicious meal, Baizhi’s mood improved considerably. She glanced at Zhanyue with a blush, feeling a bit embarrassed. She had just accused others of wasting a precious alchemy cauldron to cook soup, but now she had downed five bowls herself, like a glutton.

“Meal’s over, time to clean up.” Zhanyue circulated his spirit power, and the Earth Mother Golden Cauldron instantly became spotlessly clean. “I plan to refine some pills. Do you want to watch?” Zhanyue turned his head to ask Baizhi. Before officially heading to the secret realm tomorrow, he wanted to try breaking through to fourth-grade alchemist.

“You’ve just advanced to third-grade alchemist. Aren’t you going to consolidate your foundation?” Baizhi asked, pouting slightly.

“Breaking through to third grade was relatively easy. I want to try challenging fourth grade. They say there’s a threshold between third and fourth grade. I want to see how big the gap is,” Zhanyue said. He wasn’t confident himself.

Baizhi nodded, “Alright then, I’ll watch. You can start.”

Zhanyue sat cross-legged. Various medicinal materials had been prepared in advance according to specific methods, now all floating inside the alchemy cauldron.

“Is this alchemy cauldron your contract object? Was that mysterious flame earlier an accompanying awakened ability?” Baizhi’s eyes widened, discovering the cauldron’s extraordinariness.

Zhanyue answered while operating, “That’s right.”

“Hehe.” Baizhi smiled slightly, taking out a black alchemy furnace about the size of an incense burner. The furnace was exquisite and small, carved with various mysterious symbols, but that was all. “My contract object is this alchemy furnace. Don’t look down on its size, I find it very handy.”

“Hm?” Zhanyue hadn’t expected Baizhi’s contract object to be an alchemy furnace. It was quite a coincidence. However, compared to his Earth Mother Golden Cauldron, this black furnace wasn’t very eye-catching, not much different from an ordinary alchemy furnace.

“This fourth-grade Blood Mist Pill is quite difficult. If you’re using it to break through to fourth grade, be prepared for failure,” Baizhi warned, then instructed, “South Liri Flower is especially sensitive to temperature. It won’t work if the temperature is a bit too low or too high. You just placed the Blood Mist Grass seeds too close to it. That thing absorbs and releases heat intensely. This batch of pills is already ruined.”

“Ah?” Zhanyue’s face showed great shock. They had just started, and Baizhi had already pronounced his death sentence.

“Don’t panic. First, operate according to the normal process. Failed experience is still experience. We can’t waste materials. Continue,” Baizhi urged, patiently guiding him step by step from the side.

Indeed, when the pills were formed, the Blood Mist Pills were pitted and uneven, with completely inadequate density and appearance. It was a batch of waste pills.

“For your first time refining fourth-grade pills, you only made 166 mistakes. Not bad,” Baizhi critiqued sharply.

Zhanyue’s face turned black. The difficulty of fourth-grade pills was completely different from third grade. One mistake led to a series of errors.

“Let me demonstrate for you,” Baizhi took out her small alchemy furnace. She had also awakened a fire-related auxiliary ability, but that flame seemed very ordinary compared to the Extreme Yin and Extreme Yang flames.

As soon as Baizhi started refining pills, she entered a state of self-forgetfulness. Her delicate jade hands precisely and accurately controlled the flames and various materials. Using only half the time Zhanyue had taken, a small batch of Blood Mist Pills was formed, each one full and round.

“Ah.” Zhanyue sighed deeply. Indeed, there’s always someone better. Without the Earth Mother Golden Cauldron or exotic flames, using only the most ordinary alchemy furnace and the most ordinary flames, Baizhi had refined pills with perfect appearance. Compared to her, he was quite embarrassing.

“Don’t be discouraged. I can tell at a glance that you’re self-taught. What you said earlier about an eighth-grade alchemist being your master was complete nonsense. Your techniques are too crude. I’ll gradually correct your bad habits later,” Baizhi comforted, deeply afraid of discouraging Zhanyue.

“With your talent, I’m afraid you could immediately become a fifth-grade alchemist as soon as you advance to Profound Being. What’s limiting you has never been your alchemy talent, but your realm,” Zhanyue sighed. The woman before him was a true academic genius, while he was just a hardworking underachiever. The saying that poor students have many and good tools wasn’t a lie.

“By the way, why do you lean more towards refining external-use pills?” Zhanyue asked curiously. Pills had two types: internal use and external use. Baizhi obviously refined more external-use pills and was more skilled in this type.

Baizhi smiled and explained, “Unlike you, I don’t cultivate both alchemy and martial arts. I don’t have that ability. I focus solely on alchemy but don’t want to be completely without combat ability. When I discovered that many external-use pills could be applied in combat, that’s when I became determined in my path. Moreover, compared to internal-use pills, external-use pills have a shorter development time, so I can make more achievements.”

“Look, my greatest masterpiece,” Baizhi smiled and took out a pill. It seemed to be a third-grade alchemy.

“Among fourth-grade external-use pills, there’s one called the ‘Fierce Explosion Pill’. Its explosive power is astonishing, even able to harm Profound Beings. However, this pill is particularly unstable, easily exploding out of control, so few dare to refine it, and even fewer dare to carry it around. I improved the Fierce Explosion Pill, adding a protective layer outside it to make it less prone to explosion. Then I covered the protective layer with the pill skin of a third-grade ‘Fire Explosion Pill’, which has less power but higher stability. When needed, activate the outer Fire Explosion Pill to destroy the protective layer and detonate the inner Fierce Explosion Pill. This way, it has both stability and power,” Baizhi proudly introduced her masterpiece.

Zhanyue swallowed. This girl was too incredible. He had repeatedly overestimated Baizhi’s talent but still underestimated her. Self-created composite pills? What level of skill was this? What would happen when this girl advanced to seventh or eighth-grade alchemist?

“Now I think your second uncle is just an idiot. If I were your second uncle, I’d be afraid of dropping you if I held you in my palm, afraid of you melting if I kept you in my mouth,” Zhanyue complained.

Baizhi glared at Zhanyue, “What do you mean if you were my second uncle, keeping me in your mouth? That’s disgusting. You’re always trying to take advantage of me. Besides, as you said, I’m not his direct blood relative. The more talent I show, the lower the future status of his line will be. You should practice quickly. We need to focus on exploring the secret realm later.”

Time slowly passed. Although Zhanyue was still quite far from becoming a fourth-grade alchemist, as they say, a good teacher produces excellent students. He believed that under Baizhi’s guidance, breaking through to fourth-grade alchemist was just a matter of time. Although Baizhi was also only a fourth-grade alchemist, Zhanyue now didn’t dare to view her that way at all.

“Teacher Bai, if you’re tired, you should sleep first. I’ll study a bit more,” Zhanyue said, looking at the somewhat fatigued Baizhi.

Baizhi yawned and went into the inner room, falling asleep immediately. A smile still hung on her lips. It had been a long time since she felt this needed by someone.

Watching the graceful figure enter the room, Zhanyue felt something in his heart. “We still need to find a way to solve the Bai family’s issue. This girl will definitely become a master-level figure in alchemy in the future. If we don’t hold onto this big leg and cultivate feelings now, when will we?”

“Ah, it’s a pity I can’t contact big sister now. Otherwise, we could have another person to give advice.” Since entering Ghost Island, Zhanyue had completely lost contact with the illumination Goddess. There seemed to be extremely powerful restrictions here preventing any form of communication with the outside world, even the illumination Goddess couldn’t do anything about it.

Ghost Island also had day and night, although the sky was still grayish, just noticeably brighter during the day.

“Let’s go, it’s time to check out the Azure Sky Secret Realm,” Baizhi said, resuming her all-black robe attire, concealing her peerless beauty.

“What a pity, can’t feast my eyes anymore,” Zhanyue sighed, following her towards the entrance of the secret realm. There were two secret realms on Ghost Island: the Azure Sky Secret Realm and the Blue Sky Secret Realm. The former could be entered by those below Profound Being, while the latter could be entered by Profound Beings.