Three days passed.
With the help of the Enlightenment Tea gifted by her master, Chen Jinshu finally finished analyzing the pill formula for the Ningxi Pill.
Although she had yet to refine it, she was now confident enough to succeed. Her only concern was the lack of spiritual energy. Before advancing to the sixth layer of the Qi Refining Realm, she could only manage one or two batches at most—perhaps not even a full batch on her first try.
"My cultivation has progressed too quickly. It's been less than half a year since I broke through the fifth layer."
It wasn't that she didn't want to advance faster, but cultivation had to proceed step by step; haste would only lead to ruin. She had set aside considerable time each month to cultivate, but breaking through to the sixth layer would still take four to five more months.
The higher the realm, the more spiritual energy required—and the increase was exponential.
"Let's try refining one batch first."
She wanted to see whether her current Qi Refining Level Five reserves could handle a full batch. After calming her mind and focusing, she raised her hand to ignite the furnace before her. In no time, bright orange-yellow flames flared up within the pill room.
"Whoosh—whoosh!"
One medicinal herb after another was swiftly tossed into the furnace, each motion crisp and without hesitation. She then began forming hand seals she had practiced countless times before.
"Just this refining stage alone consumes twenty percent more spiritual energy than a mid-grade pill!"
She felt the rapid depletion of her spiritual energy and frowned. Half an hour later, Chen Jinshu reached the final step of the process. By now, only a third of her spiritual energy remained. The consumption matched what she had anticipated.
Since it was her first time refining this pill, she had deliberately slowed her pace and taken extra care to avoid mistakes—hence the additional energy expenditure.
"Boom!"
A deep, muffled sound rang out from the furnace—louder than the typical reaction upon pill completion. Wisps of pale white vapor began to drift upward.
"Collect!"
With a change of hand seals, a small vortex formed above the furnace, sucking the white vapor back in. Moments later, Chen Jinshu picked up a pill bottle and waved her hand. Three radiant white pills flew into the bottle. She looked at them with a mixture of weariness and delight.
"To succeed on the first attempt... not bad at all. The quality just barely reaches the lower tier of standard grade."
"My dantian only has five or six wisps of spiritual energy left."
She stretched and lit a stick of incense nearby, then took out her Lüqi Zither and began to play.
That night.
While playing the zither in the courtyard to restore her energy, her mind wandered to the spirit seed she had planted in her herb garden.
"It's been three days. It should've sprouted by now."
With a single thought, she summoned the spirit seed that had been soaking in the nurturing elixir. Sure enough, when she looked into the bowl of liquid, she saw a tiny sprout had emerged.
"Wait—two sprouts? Is this a twin-lotus or a single seed splitting in two?"
Her sharp eyes quickly noticed that the sprouts had grown from both sides of the seed, but with different colors—one a rich green, the other pale and whitish, as if malnourished.
"Could it be an uneven distribution of nutrients?"
She fished the sprouted seed from the basin and only then realized—it was a lotus seed.
"It's really hard to tell the species of spirit seeds by eye alone!"
"Since it's a spirit seed, it'll need more water."
She buried it in a fresh pot and watered it with the same nurturing elixir. As soon as the liquid touched the soil, the seed responded—breaking through the surface. Two thin, bamboo-like shoots emerged.
"Under normal circumstances, a spirit lotus would take at least half a month to grow two or three inches. To bloom into a lotus flower would require two to three months minimum."
She placed the pot aside and resumed her music. The gentle flow of her zither melodies echoed through the courtyard, and her dantian gradually replenished its energy. By the third quarter of the hour after midnight, the moon overhead had quietly turned full, casting a soft, silvery glow across the darkening courtyard.
Chen Jinshu, fully immersed in her playing, didn't notice the two sprouts in the pot had turned blood-colored under the moonlight—veins of crimson creeping across the surface of the soil like capillaries.
Fifteen minutes later, she finished playing Hymn of the Earth Vein's Rebirth,having restored the majority of her spiritual energy. The rest would return through meditation.
"What kind of spirit seed is this...?"
She glanced at the potted plant—and was startled to see it covered in crimson threads. The two sprouts had grown small fang-like tips, with blood-red streaks extending outward like human veins.
The moonlight made the scene eerily mesmerizing.
"It's absorbing moonlight to grow?"
She looked from the moon to the sprouts, quickly realizing the connection—the sprouts had grown an entire inch while bathed in moonlight.
"Looks like I'll have to bring you out every night for some moonlight."
She had expected it to take two or three months to bloom, but at this rate, it might be much sooner.
A month and a half passed.
When Chen Jinshu brought the pot back out, she noticed another strange change. The previously five- or six-inch-tall plant had retracted back into the soil, leaving behind only two curved stems as thick as her pinky.
"Why would it grow back into the soil?"
Just the day before, it had been upright and full of vitality. She'd even looked forward to seeing its lotus flower bloom in another month. Now it had receded into the earth. Over the past six weeks, she'd finally figured out the plant's moonlight absorption cycle.
The crimson vein-like threads would disappear in the absence of moonlight and re-emerge when bathed in it—clearly a form of lunar energy absorption. But today's retreat into the soil was something new—completely beyond her expectations.
"This strange a spirit seed... if it grows to maturity, it will definitely be extraordinary."
She placed the pot in the courtyard again and picked up her zither.
In the Xuanming Sect's territory, the moon usually became full around the final hours of the night. That's when its light was strongest—perfect for helping the spirit lotus grow.
Sure enough, the moon rose high and poured its silver light over the courtyard and onto the pot. The previously buried plant pushed its head out again, and the stems became laced with blood-red threads.
Every time Chen Jinshu saw this, she couldn't help but think of blood-sucking demonic spirit plants—so eerie and mysterious. But aside from this odd behavior and its lunar dependence, the plant had shown no signs of hostility.
"No wonder Medicine King Peak has so many bizarre spirit seeds."
"I'll wait a bit longer and observe. Then I'll ask Master for guidance." She had a feeling... this seed might be something truly rare.