Starting as a stray dog, I embarked on a journey of cultivation.

After removing the poison, Gou An began to examine the characteristics of each spiritual herb.

After familiarizing himself with the process, Gou An moved into the alchemy room and began his first alchemy attempt.

The initial steps proceeded smoothly, and the elixir fused very well.

However, when the process progressed to the second half, problems arose after the missing spiritual materials were required.

Gou An, relying on his own understanding, added potentially missing spiritual materials. Although he managed to prevent the furnace from exploding by accurately controlling the fire, the originally evenly mixed and stable liquid in the furnace began to repel each other, clearly indicating that the formula was incorrect.

Seeing this, Gou An did not stop and continued to forcibly refine the product.

If something is lacking, add that kind of spiritual material to make up for it; if something is excessive, add another kind of spiritual material to neutralize it.

In the end, Gou An used more than fifty kinds of spiritual materials to successfully refine a batch of pills.

Although the pill was successfully refined, its radiance was weak and its medicinal fragrance was mixed, making it clearly not a finished product.

According to the records in the prescription, this pill may only be about one or two tenths of the finished product, and its efficacy cannot be guaranteed.

"It failed!"

Gou An shook his head helplessly, then tried again.

Having learned from his previous mistake, Gou An changed his refining method this time, but he still failed halfway through the process.

After several failed attempts, Gou An did not blindly continue refining the product, but instead began to look for the problem.

He wrote down all the failed refining processes on paper and compared the reasons for the failures of different combinations one by one.

After repeated comparisons, Gou An finally identified the key issue.

It wasn't due to improper control of the heat, nor was it because the wrong auxiliary medicine was selected.

Rather, it was the few highly toxic ingredients in the prescription that were inherently incompatible with the medicinal properties of the auxiliary herbs used to detoxify and strengthen the body.

His previous accumulation of spiritual materials could only temporarily suppress the conflict, but could not truly allow the two types of medicinal properties to merge and become one.

Besides lacking auxiliary materials to neutralize the toxins, this ancient elixir fragment is also missing a crucial pivotal spiritual material.

This substance is not responsible for detoxification and strengthening the body, but it serves as a bridge for the medicinal properties of the entire prescription, capable of absorbing the potent medicinal properties of the highly toxic main ingredient.

After being dissolved, the liquid is diverted and distributed to the remaining spiritual materials, thus unifying the entire batch of elixir into one.

Without it, no matter how it is mixed, the elixir will eventually repel each other, and the medicinal power will be locked in a low position forever.

But what exactly is this missing ingredient?

Gou An arrived at the table full of materials and carefully examined the supplementary materials he had found, but they were all quite different from what he expected.

Left with no other choice, Gou An could only seek out Master Wenxu and borrow a book on alchemy from him.

This alchemical book records tens of thousands of spiritual plants found in the world, making it a complete collection of spiritual materials.

Originally intended as a loan, Master Wenxu gave it directly to Gou An, which surprised Gou An.

Without any hesitation, he took the alchemy manual and returned to the alchemy room to study it diligently, hoping to find the spiritual ingredient he wanted from it.

He spent two days flipping through the book, and actually found a spiritual plant in it that perfectly matched his needs.

Its name is, the Dew-Gathering Grass!

The description of this medicinal herb above is very detailed.

The leaves are thin and semi-transparent, with fine, dark purple spiral patterns covering the surface.

A glistening dewdrop, which never drips, is perpetually held at the tip of a leaf. It grows only in the deep, shady ravines of the Monster Mountain Range, in a damp place filled with miasma.

This herb is neutral and non-toxic, with very little spiritual energy, and has extremely low medicinal value.

Because they are extremely delicate, difficult to cultivate, and hard to preserve, their numbers are very scarce.

However, this ingredient can play a significant role in this ancient elixir formula.

Because it has one characteristic: it is moderate in terms of market sentiment and has extremely high compatibility.

It can serve as a transit hub for the medicinal properties and a medium for buffering the medicinal properties.

Although I don't know if it will actually work, I'll give it a try and see.

So Gou An summoned a demon servant and asked him to go to the warehouse again to retrieve it.

But when he returned to the alchemy room, he was empty-handed.

"Where are the spiritual materials?" Gou An asked.

"Reporting to Your Excellency, Elder Xuanding said that there is no such spiritual ingredient in the warehouse!" the demon servant replied weakly.

"No?" Gou An frowned upon hearing this.

Although the alchemical texts mentioned that this item was rare, it turned out that there wasn't even a warehouse for it.

That means if you need this item, you'll have to go to the Monster Mountain Range to find it yourself.

Just then, the Pill Hall began issuing pill-refining tasks, requiring the refining of basic pills such as Transformation Pill, Qi Nourishing Pill, and Qi Replenishing Pill.

However, these pills were basically made by the alchemists of the original three major alchemy halls.

The newly recruited cultivators and those with higher alchemy skills, such as Gou An, are required to refine higher-grade pills such as the Solidifying Essence Pill, the Concentrating Spirit Pill, and the Gathering Essence Pill.

Unlike before when I was in the Pill Hall, I don't need to hand over pills every day. Instead, I only need to hand over pills once every ten days.

Furthermore, the quantity is not large. Judging from Gou An's abilities, he can refine all the required amount of these pills in four or five days.

Moreover, the alchemy materials required for this mission were delivered by Xuan Ding Zhenren's demon servants on his own initiative, so there was no need to collect them separately.

While all the alchemists were starting to refine the mission pills, Gou An did not rush to open the furnace. Instead, he left the Demon King's Mansion, left the City of Ten Thousand Demons, and came to the Demon Beast Mountain Range.

He wanted to find the Ghostly Dew Grass first.

After all, there's a bet involved, so getting the pills done sooner will put my mind at ease sooner.

Otherwise, if that Long Youzi had some special abilities and managed to refine it before me, it would be difficult to handle.

Upon entering the Monster Mountain Range, Gou An couldn't help but take a deep breath; the air in the forest was much better than in the City of Ten Thousand Demons.

After all, with so many monsters gathered in one city, it's hard to imagine how pleasant the smell would be.

Gou An followed the descriptions in the alchemical text, searching for the most suitable place for the growth of the Ghostly Pattern Dew Grass.

However, after searching several locations, no spiritual herbs matching the description were found.

After much difficulty, I finally found the Dewdrop Grass in a mountain stream, but its leaves did not have the dark purple spiral pattern.

Helpless, Gou An continued his search and eventually found a secluded mountain stream a few hundred miles away from Wan Yao City.

Unlike the other mountain streams we had searched before, this one was at a lower elevation, and there was a faint trace of miasma drifting from its bottom.

This perfectly matches all the growing conditions of the Dewdrop Grass.

So Gou An went down into the mountain stream and searched everywhere for the magical herbs that grew in the cracks of the rocks.

These medicinal herbs, polluted by the miasma, often end up with strange and unusual shapes.

Just as Gou An was focused on finding the spiritual herbs, something seemed to be swimming beneath the deep water not far away.

Gou An's ears twitched as if he had heard something, but when he turned his head, the surface of the pool was calm and still, not showing any signs of danger.

Just as Gou An thought he had misheard and turned back to search again, a huge creature suddenly leaped out of the pool and flew straight into the sky.

Upon hearing the sound, Gou An immediately turned his head to look.

They discovered it was actually a giant, monstrous python covered in dark black scales!

Its body was filled with demonic energy, and its surroundings were also polluted by miasma.

"What the hell!" Gou An instinctively flipped his right hand and took out the Divine Iron Hammer, ready for battle.

The giant python flew into the sky, its long, narrow, and deep eyes fixed on Gou An, as if scrutinizing its prey.

Unlike ordinary monster pythons, this python had something resembling dragon horns growing on its head.

Gou An noticed this and knew that this guy was definitely not an ordinary monster.

Furthermore, judging from his Fiery Eyes of Truth, this guy's demonic aura was already comparable to that of a Golden Core demon.

"Hey, I'm just passing by, there's no need to make a move, is there?" Gou An took the opportunity to charge up his divine iron hammer.

But the giant python had no sense of martial ethics and completely ignored Gou An's words. It opened its mouth and spat out a dense array of black needles.

Gou An had no choice but to keep dodging.

But the next second, to Gou An's dismay, even more black pythons emerged densely from the crevices of the mountain stream.

A dense, dark mass surrounded Gou An from multiple directions.

Before Gou An could react, the nearest black pythons launched an attack on him.

Having no other option, Gou An could only wield the divine iron hammer to fight back.

One hit, one kill!

Even without charging up the power, a single swing of the Divine Iron Hammer could smash these ordinary demonic beasts and black pythons to pieces.

But there are too many of them; it's impossible to kill them all one by one with a hammer.

The giant python flying in the air simply watched as Gou An on the ground was surrounded and attacked by the swarm of pythons, seemingly intentionally exhausting its prey's strength.

Upon seeing this, Gou An immediately stomped heavily on the ground, intending to fly into the air.

But just as it took off, the giant python in the air opened its mouth again and spewed out a dense barrage of black needles.

Gou An had no choice but to land again to avoid the pythons on the ground, where he continued to be entangled by them.

Seeing that Gou An was in trouble, the giant python flying in the air curled up slightly, clearly enjoying the feeling of watching its prey slowly struggle before its eyes.

But the next second, a ball of flame suddenly enveloped Gou An.

Gou An used the Nine Separation Demon Fire to gather a flame shield to envelop himself.

The swarm of pythons that crashed into the demonic fire shield would be instantly ignited by the demonic fire.

The Nine-Separation Demon Fire has a strong adhesive property; once a black python is ignited, the flames will quickly spread to another.

Before long, the group of black pythons that were besieging Gou An were all covered by demonic fire, their scales crackling and burning, and the smell of burning filled the air.

Upon seeing this, the giant python flying in the air narrowed its eyes, as if it had given some kind of command.

The pythons that had been frantically attacking Gou An immediately scattered and burrowed towards the nearest body of water.

Although the Nine-Separation Demon Fire deals only moderate damage, it is extremely difficult to extinguish once ignited.

Even after the black pythons that had been set ablaze escaped into the water, the Nine-Part Demon Fire continued to burn.

Before long, a large number of charred python carcasses floated to the surface of the water.

"I already said, I was just passing by!" Gou An stared at the giant python, knowing that it wouldn't give up easily, so he said, "But since you want to fight, then fight. I can just take your snake bones to refine pills."

After saying this, Gou An moved his whole body, his bones cracked, and his body began to swell and grow larger.

Sorcery, the colossal body of a demonic beast!

Gou An rarely uses this sorcery, mainly because the transformation process is very painful each time.

After the transformation was complete, Gou An, who was not tall to begin with, had become a giant more than two zhang tall, and his robes were torn apart.

His slender frame had become strong and powerful, with his muscles bulging.