16 A failure

An Bing Qing was weighting the times she could attempt to refine the Blood Detoxification Pill with the herbs she had brought and didn't notice Xue Zi Hui contemplation. In fact, even if she were to know, she couldn't possibly be able to guess his line of thinking; she had used the method of fighting poison against poison many times before, and was very normal for her now, after all.

As he had decided to trust the little human girl who had his soul imprint, he didn't ask anything and just nodded his head, saying, "All right".

She didn't answer him, as she was still immersed in her thoughts.

He waited for a while; but his patience was short and asked aloud, "Little girl, when are you going to begin, then?"

"Huh?" She turned around absent minded. After processing his words, she said, "I need a quiet place with no disturbances".

He smirked, "There's no need to waste more time, then. This place is good; no one will dare to come here".

She raised an eyebrow; though she didn't know why he was so confident about it with a field of hot potatoes beneath their feet, she believed in him.

She got up holding the Blood Bud Roots within her bosom; she surveyed the area and walked towards a big flat stone near a tree. There were still some herbs that needed a couple or tens of years to reach the hundred years' time; though they can be harvested even if they were a year old, the uses for them were others and they can be found in plenty big herbs' stores. She didn't want to ruin them if something unexpected were to happen.

She jumped onto the stone; when her soles touched the rough surface, she placed all the herbs on it and took out the old pill cauldron. Then, a stream of different kinds of herbs flowed out from the green qiankun bag hanging from her white sash. There were some three-earth herbs along a bunch of two-earth one; and all of them weren't hers, of course. She had taken them from the treasury hall along the pill cauldron; the Elders thought the Patriarch had given it to her; but she had intruded in the treasury hall and plundered many things. She had planned it the same day she went out from cultivation, and she carried it out the day before parting. Her father should have a headache right now; but this was necessary as she needed them to practice, and she didn't want to expose herself yet.

She divided the batch of herbs on the floor, making four groups with four different kinds of herbs each. She lined them up before picking a Blood Bud Root to place it at the end of each row. She went to the cauldron that was beside and heaved a sigh; she only has four opportunities.

She mobilized her elemental energy and a red flame was set aflame in her palm. The wood element appeared and she mixed both of them, calming the flame. She nodded to herself and thanked that fire element cultivators could exert their attribute with just opening the third gate and that the uncommon wood element had followed her after rebirth, or else, she couldn't possibly be able to do something to help him.

The first step of immortal cultivation was reined by elemental energy; and the initial level, Mundane, marked clearly the seven elements there were. The attribute of a cultivator was determined by the origin root which was where all the meridians were born from. Earth cultivators were the luckiest as they only need to open the first gate to be able to use their element while metal or gold cultivators must wait until they reached the seven gate who was the most difficult to open. Wood element wasn't included as one of the seven elements and was considered a mutation of earth element.

She threw the flame into the cauldron and entered the flame compartment in the lower part, warming it.

By this time, Xue Zi Hui had quietly jumped onto the flat rock and was just three meters apart from her. He took seat in the lotus position and closed his eyes. He wanted to watch her movements but he couldn't give himself that luxury. Though he had said no one will come here, he must be alert; moreover, his body was a mess and he needed time to stabilize his condition. Besides, he had also seen her moves as she arranged things; she really was an Alchemist.

After some time, cracking sounds were heard; the refinement of herbs had begun.

Hours passed by and a blue coloured herb had become a crystalline blue liquid. She activated one of the runes inside the cauldron and a little compartment opened from the cauldron's body. She have never seen before a one-earth cauldron that had many runes to open storage compartments, usually they will have only three; but she didn't have the time to ponder about this now. She placed the liquid inside it and mobilized her soul force to divide the flame and keep the liquid at its needed temperature. She then threw the following herb and began to refine it.

Time flowed and dawn arrived. She had already refined the five herbs and was now in the fusing stage. She was extremely concentrated but her looks weren't that good; her beautiful face had lost its colour and drops of sweat rolled down, wetting her white gown.

Half an hour later the pill began to take form and a slight pill scent started to waft around.

Xue Zi Hui opened his eyes at this flavour and watched her movements in detail with little shock in his eyes; but this grew as the fragrance became richer with each passing second, 'Is this for real?! Such a little girl can truly make a three-earth pill?'

Sigh, he shouldn't have questioned that.

"Bang", a loud sound suddenly thundered, giving An Bing Qing no time to react. 'A failure', she closed her eyes by reflex but the pain she waited for didn't come; she felt warmness instead.

She smelled a sweet bloody scent and hastily opened her eyes. She was met with a strong chest and silky strands of white hair; she didn't need to raise her head to know Xue Zi Hui had saved her. Still, she looked up and saw some blood dripping from a corner of his mouth. She worriedly asked, "Were you hurt?"

He didn't answer her question. His inner shock was too much; he didn't know why or how, but he had reached for her instinctively and protected her within his embrace as he had heard a slight crack before the sudden burst. Aside from his turmoil, he was scared; he unconsciously secured her firmly within his arms.

She heard no reply but feeling how tightly he was holding her, she thought, 'He must be all right, right?' After calming down her worrywart heart, she scrutinized his stock-still self from up close and was finally relieved; but she didn't understand why he hadn't gotten hurt with such a big burst. If he was in his best shape, she was sure he wouldn't be hurt; but that wasn't the case. This was a good thing but it was strange.