In the space, a faint medicinal fragrance emanated from a raised alchemy furnace.
Xiao Fei's somewhat ethereal figure sat cross-legged before the furnace, continuously casting various hand seals into it.
He had attempted to refine pills in his space before, back in Star Moon City. However, his cultivation was too weak then, and his spiritual sense was not condensed enough. He had tried for three months without success.
Now that he had reached the tenth level of Qi Condensation and his spiritual sense had improved significantly, he decided to try alchemy in the space again.
He had already ruined two furnaces of Qi Gathering Pills. This was the third furnace, and Xiao Fei was very confident of success.
As he cast the final pill-forming hand seal, the refinement of this batch of pills concluded.
Xiao Fei stood up and opened the furnace lid. A wave of medicinal fragrance washed over him.
At the bottom of the furnace lay ten pills, each the size of a finger. Five were black, three were gray, and two were white.
The black pills contained a large amount of medicinal toxins and impurities, making them complete failures, waste pills, and unfit for consumption.
The gray pills were in between failure and success, considered flawed products. They contained many impurities and a small amount of medicinal toxins, but also abundant spiritual energy.
Some impoverished rogue cultivators who couldn't afford proper pills would occasionally buy one or two flawed pills to satisfy their cravings.
These flawed pills were still helpful for cultivation, though they came with numerous side effects.
Only the remaining two white pills were successfully refined.
Xiao Fei carefully bottled the two finished products and the flawed pills separately. As for the waste pills, he casually tossed them onto the ground.
The waste pills would quickly decompose, their spiritual energy absorbed by the earth.
Xiao Fei then refined several more furnaces of pills. His success rate had temporarily stabilized at around twenty percent.
When refining with his physical body outside the space, his success rate reached forty percent. However, when operating with his spiritual sense inside the space, the success rate dropped by half.
At this success rate, refining pills was actually a loss.
But Xiao Fei didn't care. His current space possessed a time flow thirteen times faster than the outside world.
He only needed to spend one hour each day entering the space to refine pills. In the space, thirteen hours would pass. Since a day only had twenty-four hours, he effectively gained an extra day compared to others.
This extra day was used for refining pills, earning contribution points, and improving his alchemy skills.
At the same time, it did not affect his cultivation.
No matter how diligent a alchemist was, they couldn't spend all their time refining pills. They still needed to cultivate, eat, sleep, and so on.
This way, Xiao Fei refining pills in the space for one day was equivalent to two or three days for others.
Furthermore, there was a very important point: his spiritual sense body spending ten times the time in the space did not affect his physical body or lifespan.
A person's lifespan was determined by their physical body, which was a material entity that would decay, age, and eventually die from prolonged use.
Mental consciousness and spirit, attached to the physical body, required constant nourishment from the physical body to exist. When the physical body died, the spirit, having no anchor, would mostly dissipate.
Therefore, as long as the physical body remained intact and the spirit was nourished, the lifespan could continue indefinitely.
It was said that cultivators who reached very high realms could break free from the constraints of their physical bodies, thus achieving immortality.
However, there was another theory: cultivating the physical body to an extremely powerful, indestructible state, allowing the spirit to remain unbound from the physical body, thereby achieving immortality.
But Xiao Fei heard from his instructors at the Dao Transmission Academy that the second method was currently only a theory, and its success was uncertain.
After all, immortality was a concept too distant for their current level.
On this day, Xiao Fei withdrew his spiritual sense from the space, feeling deeply exhausted.
Refining pills continuously for thirteen hours was a tremendous drain on his spiritual sense.
Upon returning to his physical body, he felt incredibly drowsy, unable to keep his eyes open.
He went to the kitchen. Before entering the space, he had stewed a dish of spiritual pig brain with ginseng. It was now ready.
Xiao Fei directly grabbed the clay pot and began to eat.
Things that could truly nourish the spiritual sense were extremely rare. The psychological comfort provided by this spiritual pig brain far outweighed its actual effect.
After finishing the pot of pig brain and taking a nap, he finally got up to submit his mission at the sect's Mission Hall.
He had refined pills for thirteen hours in the space, producing a total of fourteen pills. He submitted them as a mission for two furnaces, earning another 10 contribution points.
Through his efforts over this period, he had accumulated over 500 contribution points.
Now, he could finally visit the sect's library.
His cultivation progress had been slow recently, and he planned to find a body-refining technique in the library to cultivate his physical body.
The library was located on the main peak of the Cui Hua Mountain Range, named Ning Cui Peak. Many important sect institutions were situated on this peak.
At the summit, there was a plaza covering over ten mu. Important sect activities were usually held on this plaza.
In the center of the plaza stood five stone tablets, each five to six stories high.
It was said that these five stone tablets were magic treasures refined by Golden Core cultivators of the sect. They were erected here specifically to display the sect's five ranking lists for disciples.
These five lists included combat power, alchemy, artifact refining, talisman crafting, and formations. Each list only ranked the top 100.
Anyone walking into the plaza could see the golden names on the rankings from afar.
This served as an invisible incentive and spur for all disciples.
Around the plaza, various important institutions of the Dan Xin Sect were erected.
These included the library, the Elder Council, the Sect Master's Hall, the Alchemy Hall, the Artifact Hall, the Talisman Hall, the Formation Hall, the Trial Tower, and so on.
Xiao Fei crossed the plaza and walked to the entrance of the library, where two disciples were on duty.
"Present your sect token."
"Entering the library requires a payment of 10 contribution points."
Xiao Fei presented his sect disciple token. The two disciples verified it and deducted 10 contribution points from the token.
The contribution points of Dan Xin Sect disciples were recorded within their tokens, making both deposits and withdrawals convenient.
After entering the main gate, there was another smaller door, guarded by a Foundation Establishment cultivator and two reception disciples from the Qi Condensation realm.
As this was Xiao Fei's first time entering the library, the two disciples guided him to take a Dao Heart Oath, vowing not to leak any knowledge learned in the library to the outside without the sect's permission.
Such Dao Heart Oaths had a certain binding force in the cultivation world. Violating them would have some impact on cultivation and advancement.
"Alright, you may enter. You can choose to view the books inside, or you can copy a portion of them to take back and study at your leisure.
10 contribution points only allow you to view for one day. Exceeding this time requires additional contribution points."
Xiao Fei entered the library and, after turning past a screen, was greeted by rows upon rows of bookshelves.
The bookshelves were filled with various books.
Books in the cultivation world were not limited to paper books; there were many other carriers.
The most common and widely used were jade slips.
Jade slips were made from special spiritual jade and could store a vast amount of information.
Besides text, they could also store images, dynamic visuals, audio, and even some profound content that could not be described in words. Jade slips could be used as carriers for all these.
For instance, some cultivation insights that were impossible to express in words could be compiled into a stream of information and stored in a jade slip, making them very convenient to access.
Xiao Fei walked between the rows of bookshelves, his spiritual sense scanning the books on both sides.
He discovered that the books on the first floor of the library were all very basic.
This included common knowledge about the cultivation world and fundamental cultivation knowledge.
Xiao Fei, having come from a background of rogue cultivation and without a master, was severely lacking in this fundamental knowledge.
He casually picked up a book. It was a book akin to a geography of the cultivation world.
It detailed the geographical environment of the Lu Kingdom, its local spiritual resources and specialties, the distribution of spiritual veins and mineral deposits, and the locations of the four major sects and various prominent families.
Xiao Fei had only known fragments of this information before, but he had never understood it so systematically and comprehensively.
Xiao Fei stood before the bookshelf, spending a considerable amount of time to roughly finish reading this book.
His eyes narrowed slightly, and a complete topographical map of the Lu Kingdom appeared in his mind.
Only then did he pick up another book. This book was dedicated to introducing various demonic beasts, including their species, habits, distribution regions, and the value of different parts of their bodies to cultivators.
In this manner, Xiao Fei spent three days in the first floor of the library without realizing it, completely engrossed by the various knowledge and forgetting himself.
It was only when his stomach began to ache intensely from hunger that he suddenly remembered that he had come to find cultivation techniques. He quickly put down the book he was holding and headed for the second floor.