Chapter 111 - Refining New Pills
Jian had given Zhou You the formula for all three pills. He has already explained the herbs and process of refining the pills to Zhou You.
He told Zhou You to bring the herbs as he was going to look after him when he tries to refine the pills. He had told him to gather all three materials as for only one day he would focus on refining.
It didn't take long for Zhou You to come back. He had collected three sets of herbs for each pill. He knew that he would not get a chance to directly understand the process by Jian. So he prepared everything beforehand.
Jian saw that Zhou You had gathered every material so he told him to meditate to be a top condition when he tried to refine the pills. Zhou You didn't hesitate and started to recover.
On the side, Jian was preparing for refinement. He arranged a set of herbs and a cauldron. He had decided to refine Qi Strengthening Pills since he was going to teach all three pills then it doesn't matter from which to start.
Still, the reason he chose the Qi Strengthening Pills was that he had already refined these pills and he had experience in refining the pills. So it would be easy to explain to Zhou You.
It took half-hour for Zhou You to be in top condition and then Jian told him to start the refinement. Zhou You then moved towards the cauldron and started to heat it.
Jian has decided to let Zhou You refine the pill on the first attempt. He would only look from the side and check whether he could refine it or not.
Zhou You knew that Jian was letting him have the first try so he didn't hesitate and started to refine the pill.
The process was similar, so one by one he would refine the essence of the herbs one by one. The number of herbs was larger as compared to other pills and the amount of essence in each herb was also huge.
So Zhou You had to carefully refine the herbs and extract the essence. He continued slowly and one by one he would refine the herbs.
This continued for more than an hour a day finally all the herbs required for the pills were refined. Now it was time for the final process which was forming the pill.
But Jian knew that Zhou You would not be able to complete this process. Because after refining all the herbs Jian knew that Zhou You was exhausted and he didn't have enough concentration to complete the process.
As Jian expected when Zhou You tried to complete the last process. The pill collapsed and the whole material was wasted. Zhou You also collapsed so Jian immediately supported him.
Zhou You was exhausted for the first time while refining pills. He was breathing very heavily. His was completely drenched in sweat he didn't have any strength to sit and if Jian had not supported him he would have collapsed.
Jian told him to rest and recover while he cleared the wasted material. It didn't take much time to clear the cauldron so after clearing it he arranged a new set of herbs and prepared for the refining of the pill.
This time he was going to show him how to refine the pill and was going tell his mistakes on where he went wrong while refining the pill.
Jian had told Zhou You to recover so he waited for Zhou You to recover and explain the process of refining the pill.
It didn't take long for him to recover when he could sit and listen to Jian's explanation. Zhou You recovered his Qi and immediately sat straight and got ready to see Jian refine the pill.
Jian saw that he had recovered so he didn't wait and started to refine the pill. He added herbs one by one and extracted their essence.
"You made several mistakes while refining which caused your pills to collapse. When there are many herbs to refine for one pill you don't need to focus on the extraction of the essence.
Because the herbs already have an abundance of essence so you don't need to worry about extracting every bit of it.
Because you focus on extracting every bit of the essence you were exhausted early before you could even complete the process."
Zhou You realize his mistake, he understood what Jian was saying and he recalled the process and continued to look at Jian's refinement.
Jian continued to explain his mistakes and refine the Pills. As he would refine the herb he would instruct Zhou You.
After one hour the pill was refined and finally, all mistakes made by Zhou You were also covered.
After refining the pills he gave them to Zhou You to check them.
Although the pills were not above ninety per cent quality they were still above 80 per cent and seeing this Zhou You was shocked. For the first time, he had seen Jian refine the pills while explaining and they were still above 80 per cent quality.
It took few minutes for Zhou You to come back to his senses. He immensely handed the pills back to Jian but Jian told him to keep them and gave him some instructions.
Now the last set of materials were remaining and Zhou was going to have his final attempt in refining Qi Strengthening Pills.
He recovered his condition and again started to refine. But this time while refining Jian was giving him the instructions so he worked very slowly and followed Jian's instructions.
It took him one and half hours but still, he was able to refine the pills but they were not accepted as their quality was below 50 per cent quality.
But still, Jian was happy for Zhou You for refining the pills on the second try. He then gave him few instructions and told him to recall the process and work on his mistakes.
Now that he was done with Qi Strengthening Pills Jian arranged another set of materials for Qi Returning Pills. This was the second pill, he was going to teach Zhou You.
As Jian was arranging the materials Zhou You was recovering. And in half an hour he was ready to refine the pills.
He followed the same process. Jian stood by the side while Zhou You refined the pills. But this time after all the herbs were refined and the final process of formation of the pill was also completed.
But the pills were wasted. There were not suitable to eat cause the quality was very low and they were filled with impurities.
But he was able to complete all the processes of refining pills because the herbs were similar to Qi Strengthening Pills herbs only a few were different so it was like a third attempt to refine the pill for Zhou You.
Jian immediately destroyed the pills and cleaned the area. He told Zhou You to recover and then he prepared the Second set of materials for Qi Returning Pills.
But this time he was not going to refine himself but give instructions while Zhou You would refine the pill.
So after recovering Zhou You didn't waste any time and started to attempt for a second time while following Jian's instructions.
And as expected he was able to refine the proper pill by following Jian's instructions and the pills were above 70 per cent quality. He only had to work on improving his refining skills then he would not make any mistakes.
While Zhou You was recovering Jian cleared the cauldron and arranged new seats of herbs but these were not for Qi Returning Pills but Healing pills.
As Zhou You can now refine Qi Strengthening Pills and Qi Returning Pills. Jian decided to teach him the next pill and told him to work on Qi Strengthening Pills and Qi Returning Pills himself.
After recovering Zhou You started to refine the Healing pills. This pills materials were different from the other pills. This pill was most compatible with Zhou You as Healing Pills have more Wood Qi as compared to others.
It was a similar process as refining the Qi Strengthening Pills. First Zhou You attempted to refine and as expected he was not able to refine all herbs for healing pills and the attempt was wasted.
Then Jian himself refined the pill and told Zhou You, his mistakes while refining. He also cleared few doubts about the Healing pills and told him to completely recover from the last attempt.
But still Zhou You was not able to refine the healing pills on his third attempt. So Jian gave him few instructions and told him to focus on new pills but still, he had to refine a certain amount of other pills.
He told Zhou You to improve his Qi control which would help him in improving the quality of the pills.
Zhou You thanked Jian and cleaned the sect hall and left.. After Zhou You left Jian went back to rest because he wanted to be in top condition when he attempts a breakthrough.