Under Ye Qingxuan’s control, the various fifth-tier spiritual herb essences began to collide and merge in sequence.
The collision of these various fifth-tier essences did not result in a peaceful fusion. Instead, it started a violent reaction, causing the entire alchemy furnace to tremble continuously.
Seeing this, Ye Qingxuan had to increase his spiritual power output to stabilize the changes inside the furnace, forcibly controlling the intensity of the reaction as the fifth-tier essences merged with each other.
As time passed, Ye Qingxuan’s spiritual power consumption grew larger and larger.
In the end, Ye Qingxuan had to focus on two things at once.
While refining the pill, he simultaneously controlled the power of the Cave Heaven Paradise to bolster himself and used its strength to forcibly suppress the increasingly violent reaction within the furnace.
At the final moment, the entire alchemy furnace had turned red-hot and entered a state of spirit gathering, continuously channeling the dense surrounding spiritual energy into the furnace.
With this continuous infusion of spiritual energy, the energy reaction inside the furnace became even more intense.
Facing this energy far exceeding his own realm, even with the assistance of the Cave Heaven Paradise, Ye Qingxuan gradually felt overwhelmed.
Ultimately, no miracle occurred. The furnace’s spirit-gathering state was directly shattered, and Ye Qingxuan could no longer suppress the vast energy inside.
Ye Qingxuan’s expression changed drastically. He immediately used the power of the Cave Heaven Paradise to hurl the entire alchemy furnace into the void outside the paradise.
Having lost Ye Qingxuan’s control, the furnace had barely appeared in the void not far from the paradise when it was directly blasted to pieces by the powerful energy within.
Even with the suppression and restraint of the void energy, the aftermath of the energy explosion directly shook the paradise, causing it to tremble slightly.
Seeing this scene, Ye Qingxuan wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and said with lingering fear:
“Wow, this power is comparable to a nuclear bomb from my previous life, right?”
The furnace was destroyed, but Ye Qingxuan didn’t feel distressed. This furnace was refined by himself and was only at the top-grade True Artifact level.
It wasn’t that Ye Qingxuan couldn’t refine a furnace at the extreme-grade True Artifact level, but his cultivation was insufficient. Even with the assistance of the Cave Heaven Paradise, activating an extreme-grade True Artifact furnace was still too demanding.
As for the top-grade True Artifact furnace, although it still exceeded the usable range for his cultivation level, with the paradise’s assistance, it was just right.
Ye Qingxuan wasn’t distressed about the furnace, but he regretted being unable to forcibly refine a fifth-tier pill, crossing two tiers, and advancing to a fifth-tier alchemist.
If he had succeeded in refining a fifth-tier pill this time, then after breaking through to the Golden Core stage, he might have been able to refine sixth-tier pills.
Sixth-tier pills corresponded to the Nascent Soul stage. If he could rely on the Cave Heaven Paradise to refine pills crossing two tiers,
then after he broke through to the Golden Core stage and condensed an External Incarnation, he could take the pills outside the Xuantian Sect and reap tremendous profits.
Unfortunately, his idea had failed.
Thinking about the process and power of the explosion while refining the fifth-tier pill, Ye Qingxuan still felt some lingering fear.
“No wonder pills above the fifth tier are so expensive.”
What he refined was just the Infant Coalescence Pill, an auxiliary pill containing the least amount of energy, yet the energy contained and the power unleashed were already this immense, let alone other pills.
If an ordinary cultivator made a mistake while refining this, the least severe outcome would be severe injury, and the worst would be direct death.
After the void outside the paradise returned to calm, Ye Qingxuan began to meditate and recover his spiritual power.
After recovering, Ye Qingxuan replayed the refining process in his mind.
His refining technique wasn’t wrong; the fifth-tier inheritance had indeed been thoroughly comprehended thanks to his powerful insight.
But that energy, far exceeding his own cultivation level, was something he couldn’t fully control, even with the power of the Cave Heaven Paradise.
After all, although the Cave Heaven Paradise had a massive scale, he couldn’t possibly mobilize its full power.
The Cave Heaven Paradise wasn’t a true world; most of its power was used to maintain its own stability.
Within the Cave Heaven Paradise, Ye Qingxuan could, at most, utilize one ten-thousandth of its power.
That was why Ye Qingxuan felt so powerless against energy two tiers above his own.
The refining process in his mind quickly replayed to the final explosion stage, once again showing him the destructive power comparable to a nuclear bomb from his previous life.
If the Earthly Mystic Realm didn’t have various rules and extremely strong suppression, this power might have been able to break through the void’s restraint and destroy his Qingxuan Cave Heaven Paradise.
Thinking of nuclear bombs from his previous life, a sudden flash of inspiration struck Ye Qingxuan. He murmured to himself:
“Nuclear bomb? Pills?”
“I wonder if it’s possible?”
Ye Qingxuan’s mind began to race, calculating the feasibility of this approach.
He certainly wasn’t planning to manufacture a nuclear bomb; that wasn’t realistic, and within the Earthly Mystic Realm, the utility of a nuclear bomb would be very limited, not worth the effort to research.
The inspiration Ye Qingxuan received was simply to see if there was a way to first control the massive energy within high-tier pills, and then detonate it when needed.
If that were possible, then one pill would be equivalent to a cultivator’s self-detonation. The more energy the pill contained, the greater the explosive power. This would be far superior to talismans.
After all, talismans merely involved drawing the corresponding spell patterns and infusing them with a portion of a cultivator’s power, waiting to be activated. Among the same tier, the danger wasn’t significant.
But high-tier pills were different. Vast energy was condensed into a tiny pill. If this energy could be kept from solidifying and could be detonated at any time, the power would be much greater.
And if this were truly achievable, perhaps one could even control the explosive power of the pill by infusing different amounts of energy according to one’s needs.
“However, using the energy of spiritual herbs for detonation is a bit wasteful. Since it’s for detonation, isn’t any energy source just as good?”
Ye Qingxuan’s mind raced wildly as he spoke unconsciously.
After browsing through the alchemy inheritance within the Earth Immortal heritage and examining the refining methods for various pills, a sudden gleam flashed in Ye Qingxuan’s eyes:
“That’s right, I can use demonic cores.”
Demonic cores were things that could only be condensed by demons at the Foundation Establishment stage and above, containing the demon’s entire cultivation base.
Within the Earth Immortal inheritance, there were quite a few pills refined using demonic cores.
However, the normal refining method was to purify and refine the energy within the demonic core, expelling the vast majority of the energy containing impurities, retaining only a very small amount of pure energy for pill refinement.
What Ye Qingxuan wanted to do, conversely, was to infuse even more energy into the demonic core, then find a way to bring the demonic core into a state of explosion, and then control that explosion, making it manageable in his own hands.
For now, Ye Qingxuan only had a rough plan in mind, but its specific feasibility required a large amount of experimentation and verification.
And this process would require a large number of demonic cores.
Thinking of this, Ye Qingxuan directly sent a voice transmission to Zhu Dafu:
“Zhu Dafu, procure a batch of second-tier demonic cores for me.”
Second-tier demonic cores came from demons at the Foundation Establishment stage. Ye Qingxuan planned to start his research with the lowest-tier demonic cores first, as this would increase his chances of success.
Once he succeeded in refining second-tier demonic cores according to his idea, gaining experience and a template, researching higher-tier demonic cores would become much easier.
On the other side, after receiving Ye Qingxuan’s voice transmission, Zhu Dafu was somewhat puzzled.
This thing, the demonic core, wasn’t very useful within the Xuantian Sect.
The energy in demonic cores was too impure; in the development of immortal paths within the Earthly Mystic Realm, they had long been gradually phased out.
Nowadays, the Earthly Mystic Realm had too many natural treasures and spiritual plants that could replace the function of low-tier demonic cores.
Therefore, aside from some special pills that required demonic cores, the vast majority of low-tier demonic cores weren’t very useful. High-tier demonic cores, of course, were an exception.
After all, no matter what it was, once it reached a high tier, its uses were considerable.
Even if it had no uses, people would find uses for it through research.
“Forget it, if he wants to procure them, let him procure them!”
Although Zhu Dafu didn’t know why Ye Qingxuan wanted to procure demonic cores, he didn’t meddle and ask about the specifics.
Anyway, it wasn’t his money being spent.
Subsequently, Zhu Dafu instructed his subordinates to start procuring second-tier demonic cores.
