The Master of Refining

"It wasn't a fire; someone barbecued here…"

The director sniffed in the room and found it weird.

"Unbelievable! This is unbelievable!" Xin Qi shivered in fury. "Feng Gan, is this how you've been managing the refining rooms? By letting people barbecue and picnic here? The sanctuary of refining is now a diner? Unacceptable!"

The suffocating smoke and the intense smell of pepper and cumin both suggested what had been done there.

Thinking that someone had barbecued in such a holy land, Xin Qi couldn't stop trembling.

Feng Gan, the director, lowered his head and almost cried.

He approached the fire and saw the marks of oil, soy sauce and vinegar all over the floor.

It was obvious that someone had barbecued or cooked there!

Gnashing his teeth, Feng Gan hurried to explain, "It was all my fault, Mr. Xin. I'll check who used this room today…"

"Okay!"

Xin Qi finally nodded, "Find out who it is. If it's a student, they will be expelled; if it's a teacher, I'll tell the headmaster to give them the most severe punishment!"

"Yes, sir!"

Feng Gan nodded quickly.

"This lab is unavailable for refining. I'll use a different room. Have someone clean this up, especially the platform…"

Xin Qi was about to use another refining room, when he was stunned.

A drop of gold liquid had been left on the platform, where herbs were kept not far away from the fire.

"Is this… the liquid of herbs?"

He went up close.

The liquid was bright gold with intense spiritual energy. He felt that his muscles were revitalized even before touching it.

He grabbed the drop of liquid and observed it with a magnifier. The more he observed, the redder his face became.

"Mr. Xin…"

Feng Gan, thinking that Xin Qi was angry, said prudently, "I've asked someone to investigate it. There will probably be a result soon…"

Students with one illuminated star were already qualified to refine herbs, and that refining room didn't require registration. So, it wasn't so easy to track the users of that room.

"Shut up!"

Xin Qi interrupted Feng Gan before he could finish.

Xin Qi's fury had been replaced by passion. He mumbled nonstop as if he had seen a treasure.

"The Smoke Grass and the Gold Thread Flower are perfectly melted!"

"The White Wood and the Tail Leaves are perfectly melted!"

"The Secondary Dawn Wood and the Purple Silver Leaves are perfectly melted…"

"…Perfect!"

…

"The twenty-seven herbs are perfectly melted without the slight conflict…"

Xin Qi shivered nonstop.

It was easy to melt herbs, but melting them perfectly without wasting any of them or causing other chemical reactions was an intricate task!

One could even say that it was impossible!

Even he, as a real Druggist, found it challenging. Furnace explosions were anything but unusual for them.

However, the liquid in front of him was a perfect combination of dozens of herbs. It was in the most perfect gold color!

Even if he were to do it personally, he could only melt them at best, and the product wouldn't be half as impeccable as that!

It meant that whoever did it was even stronger than him in terms of refining!

"Mr. Xin…"

Feng Gan looked at him carefully.

He wondered if the Druggist had been driven mad.

If so, he would certainly be fired as the person responsible for the place.

"I'm fine…"

Mr. Xin kept mumbling, "The Masculine Sun Grass requires 971 degrees to be melted, and the Purification White Lotus requires 1432 degrees. The former will be ruined if the temperature is above a thousand degrees, but the latter will not melt if the temperature is too low… I've tested 129 times but still failed to melt them…"

"The Gold Threat Flower is cold in nature. Normally speaking, it has to be put in a three thousand degrees fire, when the fire has burnt for 13.7 seconds. Also, it needs Heavy Agarwood to melt other herbs. This gold liquid doesn't contain any Heavy Agarwood. How did he make it?"

"The blood of the spiritual fox and the True Gold Grass are opposite ingredients. They have to be soaked in Purple Sun Water to eliminate their power before they are put in the furnace. The combination here obviously didn't follow the procedure. I can even see that the blood of the spiritual fox and the True Gold Grass are perfectly integrated…"

…

For a Druggist, inferring the ingredients of a medicine was a daily task. The gold liquid, despite the smell of barbecue, was obviously designed to polish the body!

Xin Qi figured out the ingredients and the way to refine them easily.

However… no matter how he calculated and deduced, it was impossible to refine those herbs perfectly in such a refining room!

Even if he performed the mixture, the product would be acceptable at best!

Even he was incapable of doing that. Who was it that achieved it in the Green Abyss Academy?

Also, the most unbelievable thing was that, since perfection allowed no errors, the weight of the herbs had to be absolutely precise. The tiniest smoke or saliva during refining could have ruined the product!

So, to achieve perfection, the first requirement would be to work in a dust-free refining room!

There were no such facilities in the Abyssal Ocean Kingdom…

However, a perfect product had been made in a room full of dust, grease, and smoke!

"Mr. Xin, I'll find out who was here and I'll teach him a good lesson about the rules…"

Feng Gan was anxious seeing that Xin Qi's face became weirder and weirder.

"Teach him a good lesson?"

Returning to himself, Xin Qi asked with his eyes bulging, "Who are you going to teach?"

"The saboteur who messed up this place just now, of course…" answered Feng Qian in a hurry.

"That's bulls*it!"

Xin Qi burst into fury. "A saboteur… What saboteur? He was a master!"

"A master?"

"Yes. He was a real master of refining, and it's our privilege to appreciate his work… Investigate it carefully and in secret, and do not piss him off. I'll visit him in person after you find out who he is…" said Xin Qi.

Startled, Feng Gan looked around and felt like crying.

The smoke, the pepper powder and the stink of barbecue…

"You're saying that a master refined herbs here?"

"Why do I feel that someone had a barbecue party?"