Chapter 104: The Surprising Formula
While Fei Bingzhu was searching for the Treasured Blood Lotus seeds, Mo Wuji was thinking of a way to advance to a Tier 3 Mortal Pill Refiner. If his pill refinement quality was higher, he would have more opportunities to approach Granny Linglong.
Back in his room, Mo Wuji opened the package which Yan Qianyin left behind. There were close to a hundred Tier 3 spiritual herbs in it.
The number of Tier 3 spiritual herbs could at most allow Mo Wuji to refine over 10 Tier 3 spiritual pills. To do so, he needed to add in quite a few Tier 1 and Tier 2 spiritual herbs too.
Mo Wuji was already very grateful to be able to receive these large number of Tier 3 spiritual herbs. Yan Qianyin's promise was to give him some Tier 3 spiritual herbs so he could learn how to refine a Tier 3 pill. The preceding condition was that Mo Wuji hand her the broken half of the sword so she could acquire the secret of the sword.
Now that the broken sword was given to her, both parties should have gotten what they wished for. Perhaps Mo Wuji needed more out of the deal because Mo Wuji needed Yan Qianyin to hide the fact that he had already acquired the Revolving Star Passage Technique. Even so, Yan Qianyin still kept her end of the promise by giving him so many Tier 3 spiritual herbs.
All these Tier 3 spiritual herbs amount to quite a fortune. Other than wanting to keep her promise, Yan Qianyin probably offered these items to Mo Wuji because she wanted to repay him for his life-saving grace. Mo Wuji saved her once, gave in to her at the Formless Blade Mountain as well as voluntarily handing her the legacy of Mo Luoqu.
There was a letter placed on top of the spiritual herbs. After opening the letter, Mo Wuji realised that it was written by Yan Qianyin.
"Junior apprentice brother Mo, these spiritual herbs are what I promised you. Feel free to use as much as you want to practice. I will not be giving you the complete Tier 3 pill formula but I have here a fragmentary one for you to practice with it. Even though these spiritual herbs alone may not help you advance to become a Tier 3 pill refiner, it can help you increase your understanding for Tier 3 spiritual pills.
Given the quality of your spiritual roots, it is already a remarkable achievement for you to advance to become a Tier 2 pill refiner. Don't be too disheartened even if you cannot advance to become a Tier 3 pill refiner. As a Tier 2 pill refiner, you would be able to gain a foothold wherever you go. Pill Master Ju and I will be heading to the Pill Refiners' Exchange to prepare for the competition at the Five Elements Desolate Domain. I am not sure when we will return to the sect from this exchange but I will keep to the end of my promise and bring you with me for the Five Elements Desolate Domain half a year later. Medicine King Summit, Yan Qianyin signing off."
The reason why Yan Qianyin left this letter behind was very clear: She knew that Mo Wuji will definitely not be able to advance to become a Tier 3 pill refiner. No matter how good his pill refining skills are, he will never be able advance any further.
Yan Qianyin did not give him the complete Tier 3 pill formula also because she was certain Mo Wuji will never be able to become a Tier 3 pill refiner. By leaving him with a fragmentary pill formula, she kept to the end of her promise as well as to convince him to give up trying to advance to become a Tier 3 pill refiner.
Mo Wuji's eyes fell on the fragmentary pill formula the moment he kept the letter away.
Even though Yan Qianyin had no confidence in him, Mo Wuji had full confidence that he will be able to become a Tier 3 pill refiner.
Even if he was only able to reach Channel Opening Stage Level 4, he was confident he could advance to become a Tier 3 pill refiner. The only thing he was lacking was the spiritual herbs. As Mo Wuji already had the Wordless Pill manual which contained a few of the Tier 3 pill formula, he did not really care whether or not Yan Qianyin left any pill formula for him.
As the formula of Tier 3 pills was still very precious, Mo Wuji was indeed curious to see how the fragmentary one that Yan Qianyin gave looked like.
"Spirit Strengthening Pill..."
Mo Wuji felt a sense of familiarity the moment he saw this name. This pill was included in his Wordless Pill manual too. However, on the Wordless Pill manual, there was only a brief description of it: Spirit Strengthening Pill, a primary spiritual will pill. It is capable of increasing the soul force of the spiritual will of low level cultivators.
As for the remaining, the Wordless Pill manual did not mention anything extra. How was Mo Wuji supposed to know about the soul force of the spiritual will if he did not even have a mentor?
The pill formula that Yan Qianyin gave actually had a detailed description of the Spirit Strengthening Pill. In fact, the description itself actually took up half the space of the entire pill formula. In other words, this pill formula was actually meant to describe mainly about the Spirit Strengthening Pill and a few more spiritual herbs.
This should not be called a fragmentary pill formula but rather, an introduction to a pill formula.
As we all know, only cultivators who have formed the true primordial spirit after reaching the Nihility God Stage will be able to concentrate and make use of the spiritual will. The strength of those who are capable of using the power of spiritual will are far more superior than the average cultivators out there.
Spirit Strengthening Pill is a pill capable of allowing those who are unable to reach the Nihility God Stage to strengthen their own spiritual will. Those with talent will even be able to concentrate and bring out the power of the spiritual will.
Mo Wuji's heart skipped a beat the moment he read about the power of spiritual will. Even without a mentor, he knew a little about the spiritual will. He knew how incredibly strong the power of spiritual will was.
Back then, because Mo Wuji did not have proper technique, he had to make use of his will power to control and direct the lightning bolt to help open his meridians.
However, his type of will power was only a one sided affair. Out of the many times he tried to use it, he might not even succeed once. Even if he did succeed, it might not be due to his will power. Will power is the embryonic form of the spiritual will power. He only just learnt that spiritual will power can only be used or controlled by cultivators who have reached the Nihility God Stage and formed the primordial spirit. Mo Wuji also knew clearly that the Nihility God Stage is the third stage of the Earth Realm. Only after the Nihility God Stage will one be able to stand a chance to pry into the first stage of the Heaven Realm.
It would benefit him tremendously if he were to succeed in concocting this pill. Even if he did not require will power to help open his meridians, he would probably need such spiritual will power when he was concocting pill.
His pill technique was forcefully controlled by will power as the fact was that it required spiritual will power. Because he did not have spiritual will power, even with strong will power, he still had to borrow some primordial power to control the will power. Due to this, it resulted in many failures in the past.
If he was capable of cultivating till he can use the spiritual will power, the quality of his pill refinement will increase by many folds. He might even be able to concoct an Earth grade pill.
Once he made his decision, he will find a way to concoct this Spirit Strengthening Pill. Once he succeeded, his influence will be far greater than the influence on him when he concoct any other pills.
Once he settled down, Mo Wuji started to compare the spiritual herbs of the fragmentary pill formula as well as the herbs on Wordless Pill manual to concoct a the Spirit Strengthening pill.
The spiritual herbs mentioned in the fragmentary pill formula was only left with five types of which three of them were Tier 2 spiritual herbs. The remaining two Tier 3 spiritual herbs includes Icy Soul Grass as well as Golden Fetal. Mo Wuji did not care much about the Tier 2 herbs because he was confident he would be able to get it from many places.
There were 11 types of Tier 2 spiritual herbs mentioned in the Wordless pill manual for the Spirit Strengthening Pill. Mo Wuji looked through everything and knew that he could get almost all of these herbs easily. There were actually only five Tier 3 spiritual herbs recorded in the manual. These were the Icy Soul Grass, Leafless Fog Rattan, Green Frost Fruit, Little Freedom Flower and Round-whisked Wind Fruit. It is considered rare for a Tier 3 spiritual pill to only contain five Tier 3 spiritual herbs.
Comparing the two formulas, Mo Wuji realised that the three types of Tier 2 spiritual herbs mentioned in the fragmentary formula Yan Qianyin gave were also mentioned in the Wordless Pill manual. However, there was no Golden Fetal in the five spiritual herbs mentioned in the Wordless Pill manual.
Mo Wuji did not hesitate as he has decided to follow the formula on the Wordless Pill manual to attempt to research and refine about the Spirit Strengthening Pill.
Out of the five Tier 3 spiritual herbs, Mo Wuji only collected three stalks of the Round-whisked Wind Fruit from the Formless Blade Mountain. The package that Yan Qianyin gave him had some Icy Soul Grass as well as the Green Frost Fruit. Currently, he only lacked the Little Freedom Flower and the Leafless Fog Rattan.
Mo Wuji immediately left the Lotus Sword Summit for the Hall of Affairs without even asking how Fei Bingzhu's search for the Treasured Blood Lotus Seeds went. Even though as a guest pill refiner, Mo Wuji will not get the same privilege to use as much sect's resources as a sect's pill refiner, he will still be able to use a small portion of the spiritual herbs. He was intending to use these rights to purchase a pot of Spirit Strengthening Pill's spiritual herbs.
What Mo Wuji needed was not just a pot of spiritual herbs. If he were to research on how to concoct the pill, he would need at least 10 pots of it. However, Mo Wuji had no such authority to ask for 10 pots of such rare herbs. Furthermore, he would be lacking a lot of the Tier 2 spiritual herbs too.
Fortunately in the package that Yan Qianyin sent over, there were some of the Tier 3 spiritual herbs which Mo Wuji did not find useful for this. He could exchange these herbs for those that he needed. Given his status now as a guest pill refiner, he would give those disciples at the dispensary the shock of their lives if he were to go down to exchange for these herbs personally.