Chapter 4844 — Qing Xuanzi's Worry
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
This was the true reason he had been willing to cast aside his dignity and kneel publicly to beg admittance as Wei Zhao's disciple. Two hundred years without the slightest progress was not, in itself, a fatal thing for a seventh-grade alchemist. Had this affair not existed, Qing Xuanzi could well have gone on groping forward alone.
But with the deadline in sight, if he did not strive to do something, the Qing Clan's removal from the rolls was a certainty. And once the various resource allotments of a pill-refining clan were lost, returning to those ranks would be utterly impossible.
"So you took me as master in order to break through to Mystic-Rank first grade?" Wei Zhao regarded Qing Xuanzi with a strange expression. This fellow, surely, was a dying man consulting any doctor he could find. Never mind that he himself was no legendary Mystic-Rank alchemist—even if he were, there was no way he could elevate Qing Xuanzi to Mystic-Rank in short order...
"No, no. Your disciple is not yet remotely among the foremost even of seventh-grade alchemists—how would I dare aspire to Mystic-Rank first grade?" Qing Xuanzi shook his head repeatedly.
"Then what are you after?" Wei Zhao asked, puzzled.
"All your disciple can do now is advance another step. Seventh-grade alchemists, too, are divided into grades. I wish only to reach the first grade, so that when those people come to strike our name, there may still be some room to turn things around. Otherwise, I fear we will not even have a chance to bargain." Qing Xuanzi smiled bitterly. There was in fact one more thing he did not dare say: that if he could win over a Mystic-Rank first-grade honorary clan elder, the name of a pill-refining clan could likewise be retained. But he had just forced a master-disciple bond upon the man—how could he then force Wei Zhao to become his clan's elder?
"Oh? And where would you rank yourself now among seventh-grade alchemists?" Wei Zhao asked with keen interest.
"Barely second grade, I suppose." Qing Xuanzi thought it over and explained: "With my present ability I can already refine almost all seventh-grade pills, and I can often produce pills of superior quality. But there is one deadly problem—I cannot guarantee success every time, and as for absolute success in pill formation like yours, Master, I would not even dare imagine it."
By success every time he did not mean a hundred-percent formation rate, but that every attempt would successfully form a pill. For the vast majority of alchemists, producing even one pill from ten portions of materials counted as success.
"Is that so? Have you thought of any way to solve it?" Wei Zhao asked, stroking his chin. Because of the Divine Farmer's Cauldron, his own pill refining had always exceeded expectations—at worst he achieved a formation rate near one hundred percent, and only when a pill's grade far exceeded the scope of his ability would refining fail.
But the situation Qing Xuanzi described was one Wei Zhao had never encountered before. With the ability plainly there, why should refining so often fail?
"I have consulted many senior alchemists on this very matter, but none could point the way—and indeed many of them suffer the same problem as I do." Qing Xuanzi shook his head, then said: "Such a problem cannot be solved by shutting oneself away and building a cart behind closed doors. So after much thought, I decided to go to Middle Island and consult the Pill God, Zhang Lifeng. I dare not presume to beg a place among his disciples; if I could but obtain a word or two of guidance, it would benefit me beyond measure." (To be continued.)