From Under One Person: Sincere Journey Through the Heavens

However, this disrupts the balance with the brain's neural pathways...

Taking it one step at a time, like he did, isn't necessarily a bad thing, as long as one can withstand the backlash from the imbalance.

However, this path is extremely dangerous. A slight mistake could lead to disordered meridians and the loss of all cultivation.

The transition from the skin and flesh to the internal organs is relatively easy, but the transition from the internal organs to the primordial spirit and brain is extremely dangerous; if not handled properly, it can lead to death and the annihilation of one's spiritual essence.

Another quarter of an hour passed, and Lu Jin finished refining the medicinal power of the half-core. His eyes were brighter than usual, his acupoints opened, and his Qi circulated around him before returning to his body without leaking out.

Unlike Li Muxuan, he cultivated the Nine Apertures simultaneously, circulating Qi throughout his body and connecting all 720 apertures at the same time. He cultivated both internally and externally in harmony, resulting in a long and continuous flow of Qi. As his cultivation improved, his appearance was no different from ordinary people, except that his eyes were connected to his primordial spirit, revealing a hint of brilliance due to his improved cultivation.

Both of them showed joy as their cultivation improved, and the others were extremely envious. However, since the Earth Dragon King was killed by Jiang Liu, Lu Jin, and Li Muxuan, the spoils of war were naturally divided among them.

“The twenty-four centipede beads of the Earth Dragon King are mine; those six thin wings look extraordinary. If you find a weapon refiner, you can try to ask him for the secrets of weapon refining. Perhaps you can refine a magic weapon. Since you pulled them out, they are yours; the remaining corpse has a tough shell. After processing it, it can be made into a shield or armor. It is yours, Lu Jin; and the last piece of flesh and blood is mine, the Angry Sun Chicken.”

Lu Jin and Li Muxuan had no objection to the division of the river, as the unique inner core alone had already recouped their investment.

Grabbing the six thin wings, Li Muxuan peeled away the flesh and blood from the wing roots, stacked them side by side, and temporarily placed them in the bamboo cage behind Jiang Liu.

Lu Jin pulled out the nine nails and used them as tools to peel the Earth Dragon King's shell from its flesh and blood, folding it into a half-meter-thick piece, which he then temporarily placed in the bamboo cage behind Jiang Liu.

"Young brothers, could you give us some of the thousand legs of this six-winged centipede?"

Partridge Whistle stepped forward and asked, "This centipede has cultivated for at least six hundred years. Its thousand legs, when ground into powder, can also be used for medicine."

“Okay, we can’t take any more anyway.” Jiang Liu exchanged glances with Lu Jin and Li Muxuan, and after confirming that they didn’t want the centipede with its thousand legs, he agreed.

Thank you!

Partridge Whistle was overjoyed and quickly took out his dagger with Old Foreigner and Flower Spirit, cutting off the centipede's many legs one by one, then tying them together with rope and carrying them on his back.

Hong Gu Niang also took seven or eight centipede legs, tied them with thin rope, and fastened them around her waist, which could be considered a harvest.

At this point, the Earth Dragon King was reduced to a long, white lump of flesh, but it was not disgusting; in fact, it had a crystalline texture under the firelight.

Seeing this, Jiang Liu stepped forward to take a look, borrowed a dagger from Partridge Whistle, cut off a small piece of white meat, and used a wisp of fire energy to roast it at high temperature.

Zizizi!

The white meat held in Jiang Liu's palm oozed oil and emitted a meaty aroma.

"You want to eat this meat?"

The girl covered her mouth in disbelief, "This centipede might have eaten people! How could you bring yourself to eat it?"

"Everything is in a cycle. Sheep eat grass, wolves eat wolves, and when wolves die, their bodies decompose and return to the soil, where they are absorbed by the grass. It's nothing serious." Jiang Liu used the principle of "following the natural way" as an excuse to put the white meat roasted with the Heart Monkey Fire Qi into his mouth, chewed it once, and swallowed it. It digested quickly, and he felt an extremely subtle warm current flowing through his body, just like eating three bowls of white rice.

"what about the taste?"

Li Muxuan licked his lips, wanting to try it.

"The texture is similar to that of unsalted chicken."

Jiang Liu pursed his lips, patted his stomach, and said to everyone, "But it's not poisonous, and a piece of centipede meat the size of a palm is extremely filling, equivalent to eating three bowls of rice."

As he spoke, Jiang Liu cut off another piece, activated his inner ape to unleash his fire energy, cooked it, tore it into several pieces, and handed them to the crowd.

"Um, Brother Jiang, I guess I won't need it?"

Looking at the piece of meat in his hand, Lu Jin felt a chill.

Do you really want to eat?

"What are you afraid of?"

Li Muxuan was not willing to fall behind Jiang Liu. He put the small piece of roasted meat into his mouth, chewed it a couple of times, his face stiffened, and he swallowed it directly, complaining, "It really is just like you said, it tastes like chicken without salt."

Seeing that Li Muxuan had eaten it, Lu Jin had no choice but to bite into it as well. He chewed it only once or twice before swallowing it. He stuck out his tongue and said, "It really has no taste, but it's very filling. If you wash it, dry it, and roast it, it can be made into jerky. It should be a good kind of dry food."

"I think so too."

After saying that, Jiang Liu cut a large piece of meat from the remaining centipede, cut it into strips, activated his fire energy to evaporate the moisture, and made centipede jerky. He borrowed a piece of cloth and a rope from Partridge Whistle, put it in the bamboo cage, and separated it from other things.

The remaining meat was cut into pieces and transported outside the Wuliang Hall to be taken on the return trip, serving as food for the Angry Sun Chicken to grow.

# Chapter 155 Magical Artifact Alchemy Furnace

After dealing with the corpse of the Earth Dragon King and dividing up the treasures produced from his body, everyone turned their attention to the alchemy furnace in the very center of the Boundless Hall.

The dog-head lock outside the Wuliang Hall is a product of the Song Dynasty, so this hall was probably also built during the Song Dynasty—most likely the Northern Song Dynasty.

reason?

The emperors of the Northern Song Dynasty greatly admired Taoism, but most of them felt that cultivation was arduous and wanted quick results, so they chose the path of external alchemy in order to refine elixirs of lead and mercury in order to seek longevity.

However, lead and mercury are merely metaphors used in spiritual practice and should not be consumed!

Even those precious elixirs like the Relic Inner Elixir, when ingested, are not used to enhance one's power, but rather to nourish the body with Qi, harmonize the Yin and Yang within the body, and assist in one's cultivation.

Seeking immortality through external elixirs...

Unless the elixir was refined by Laozi (the Supreme Lord Lao), all one could obtain was a comment:

The gathering of three flowers at the crown is an illusion, and soaring through the clouds beneath one's feet is not real either.

Horizontal scroll:

A great dream must eventually end!

The furnace in question is at least six or seven hundred years old, yet it still emits a faint, pale blue flame, which is truly astonishing.

This alchemy furnace is about one meter wide and about two meters high;

The main body is oval-shaped with three legs at the bottom. The body is carved with four sacred beasts, and there are round holes on one side near the top cover. There are twelve holes in total.

Furthermore, the twelve round holes are engraved with octagonal grooves depicting the twelve zodiac animals, which is quite mysterious.

Finally, the furnace lid is shaped like a pagoda or pavilion.

The faint blue glow emanated from the twelve holes in the alchemy furnace.

Jiang Liu leaned closer and peered through the hole, but saw nothing flammable. The light was not fire, but rather a faint, shimmering blue glow emanating from the patterns on the inner wall of the alchemy furnace illuminated by the external firelight.

Because the external flames flickered and the light was uneven, the glow reflected inside the furnace wall also flickered.

The bottom of the inner wall of this alchemy furnace has a nine-palace eight-trigram pattern, which is one layer higher than the bottom of the furnace. When a person manipulates it with a magnet, the eight-trigram wheel can rotate and even absorb a small part of the Qi emitted by him. Then, the pattern on the inner wall of the alchemy furnace directly lit up with a blue and white glow.

This time, it was not illuminated by external light, but lit up on its own.

"This alchemy furnace is a magical artifact!?"

Partridge Whistle keenly noticed this and exclaimed in surprise, then sighed, "Unfortunately, we can't use it."

The three methods of controlling objects, transforming objects, and refining artifacts all require the use of one's own Qi to nurture them, so that the objects nurtured by Qi and the magical artifacts refined from them can only be used by oneself.

"It seemed like this alchemy furnace was responding to Brother Jiang's Qi just now?"

Lu Jin was puzzled, so he tried placing his hand on the alchemy furnace and injecting a wisp of Qi. Surprisingly, this activated the furnace, causing the patterns on its inner wall to glow.

"Perhaps the passage of time has caused this alchemy furnace to lose its connection with its original owner."

Partridge Whistle also tried it out and saw the glow inside light up again. He guessed, "Even so, to use a magic artifact, you have to understand its special abilities and make your own Qi match it. Just injecting Qi is not enough. And... do you know how to refine pills?"

Everyone, including Jiang Liu, shook their heads.

Although the Sanyi Sect has methods for refining pills, neither Jiang Liu, who had spent some time in the Sanyi Sect, nor Lu Jin and Li Muxuan, who were originally disciples of the Sanyi Sect, had ever learned them.

However, they were all aware that the San Yi Sect's method of refining pills to aid cultivation only involved three steps.

The first step is to grind the medicinal herbs into powder, mix them according to the specified ratio, and then decoct them.

The second step is to mix the prepared medicinal powder with water, or glutinous rice water, yam powder, honey, flour, etc., and stir well to form a paste.

The third step is to use your hands or a mold to roll the paste into balls.

After the above three steps, the elixir is ready.

As for the remaining steps, such as calcining with fire—

That's mostly a plot device in storybooks. In reality, very few pills go through this step. If most pills that have been kneaded are to be calcined at high temperatures, they will inevitably turn into carbon and lose all their medicinal effects!

This alchemy furnace doesn't look like it's used to refine elixirs made from herbs and plants. Instead, it looks like it's used to refine cinnabar and extract lead and mercury. Otherwise, why would there be twelve fist-sized round holes on the side of the furnace?

"No matter what, this alchemy furnace is a magic artifact. It would be a waste to leave it here like this." Li Muxuan had an idea and wanted to take it back to the Sanyi Sect.

There are quite a few disciples in the Sanyi Sect who have already acquired skills and become disciples. If we ask them one by one, we might be able to find someone who has studied alchemy, which would increase the Sanyi Sect's foundation!

Even though this alchemy furnace was used to refine lead and mercury in ancient times, if it were cleaned and given to someone skilled in alchemy, it might also be used to refine elixirs made from herbs and plants.

The pills refined using this magical alchemy furnace might be even more effective, saving the newly joined disciples of the San Yi Sect a lot of time in the Foundation Establishment stage over the past two years.

Lu Jin, however, disagreed, since this was from a tomb—

Ok?

The Boundless Hall doesn't seem to be a tomb, but rather an abandoned alchemy hall built within Ping Mountain...

So the items inside don't seem to qualify as funerary objects found in a tomb...

The things in the abandoned alchemy hall—

It's clearly garbage!

That's all!

Lu Jin is an upright person, but after spending a lot of time with Jiang Liu and Li Muxuan, his moral bottom line has become more flexible. Besides, to be honest, the Lu family's rules and precepts do not say that Lu family members cannot "pick up trash".

Since there are no explicit regulations, then it's permissible to do it!

"Lu Jin, you've gone astray!" Li Muxuan grinned, laughing heartily.

“Where did I go astray? I haven’t violated any family precepts or rules.”

Lu Jin said with an upright expression, "Also, as your junior brother, even though you are older than me, you entered the sect later than me, so you still have to call me Senior Brother Lu!"

"Humph!"

Li Muxuan's face immediately darkened. He cursed Lu Jin's cunning inwardly, while also belittling his own past self for being so clever as to feign ignorance.

Now it's all good. As long as he is still a disciple of the Sanyi Sect, even if his strength surpasses that of his opponent, Lu Jin will still be his senior brother in terms of status.

What a damn bad luck!