Chapter 26: Prescription of the Elixir & above Level Nine & the Mysterious Realm (2/2)

My God, I'm a blacksmith, what do I need this for?

Junior Leopard tossed the book disinterestedly to the side.

Oh, what's this?!

He casually flicked through a few pages of Medicinal Soup Recipes. The first page had on it a mnemonic rhyme for the most basic soup recipe, something called ”Soup of Four Wise Men”. The soup of four wise men is peaceful and just; Blend Tuckahoe and licorice is what you must! Six noble names, stale from the summer sun, will clear your phlegm, and boost your Qi; add a yang bun. Pinellia plant's power is strange, that's true; Now add fragrant salts to cure stomach flu. There was also the ”Gentian Slimming Concoction”: Slimming gentian with turtle shell, Root of aster, and bones as well! Pinellia, ginseng, radix; we should all be told, to mix these to cure a cold! Junior Leopard did not completely understand this kind of thing, however, he knew this was the sort of book used as a primer for Physicians. When he was in the village, an old blind man had used this kind of book to teach them to read. Because of this, he looked through a few pages and then cast the book aside.

When the book was in mid-air, a stream of air flipped the pages and an old yellowed page filled with writing gently floated out.

Junior Leopard was a little curious and stretched out to grab the page. When he looked at what was on it, he was dumbfounded.

The page was densely filled from top to bottom with someone's tiny, spidery writing.

Anesthetic Pill, Bone-Forging Pill, Tendon-Changing Pill, Pulse Steadying Pill, Blood Changing Pill, Marrow Cleansing Pill!

His facial expression stiffened into a toothy grimace. At the corner of his mouth, a drop of saliva dripped out, and after he had finished reading he abruptly swallowed back a mouthful—he then discovered, that without realizing, the saliva from his mouth had already dripped into a puddle on the floor! It was fortunate that nobody was around to see him, or he would have been relentlessly mocked.

”Could it be, this is a case of 'the good will get their reward', as in legend? No, no it can't be… !”Junior Leopard gripped this page tightly in his fist—he wanted to keep it safe in his bosom, and then he wanted to rip open his bed sheets and hide it inside, and just at that moment, there was suddenly something happening without him knowing. ”This isn't a case of 'the good will get their reward', this is as if I am playing the leading role in a legend, how else could I so easily have come across such a treasure?”

Never mind the first anesthetic pill, but the other five, to look upon them made Junior Leopard break out into a cold sweat. All these pills, it was really just too exciting.

He was no longer the simple and crude Leopard holed up in a mountain village, now he was a blacksmith for the Wu's ironware shop. Although his martial arts were still really nothing much, his understanding of the world of martial arts was much greater than it was six months ago. Six months ago, he only knew from Wang Tianlei that all the true fighters under heaven knew how to balance the inner and outer cycles. This process was divided into three stages, or three realms, Skin Toughening, Bone Forging, and Tendon Changing. Wang Tianlei himself could just about be regarded as a Skin Toughening fighter, but nothing more.

At the Wu Family, his understanding had become much more detailed than before. At first, he knew the martial arts realm was divided into three phases, and these three phases were known as three realms. He, now, also knew that they could be further divided into nine levels: Three levels of Skin Toughening fighter, three levels of Bone Forging fighter, and three levels of Tendon Changing fighter. His own brother-in-law Wang Tianlei was only a Level One fighter—he had merely stepped onto the threshold of martial arts.

All those fighters under heaven who had reached Level Nine could be counted on one's fingers. The largest scale schools and best-known families would only produce one or two in a thousand years, at present this was a level that he could not even imagine achieving. For example, the strongest elder of the Wu's had only cultivated himself to Seventh Class. Any family who had someone reached only Level Three already had a powerful deterrent against any attacks on their clan.

Fighters above Level Three were very rare. First, this was because the road was so arduous, and walking it required such willpower, such wisdom, and such good fortune, that it was hard to persist; second, the required potions were hard to find.

In this world's martial arts, the key part of balancing the inner and outer cycles was mutual support between inner and outer. Using the inner to nourish the outer, and using the outer to bear the inner, both equally indispensable. But no matter what tricks you try, the speed of their mutual support is always very slow. For example, you want to use your internal qi to carefully nourish your tendons and vessels, and increase their toughness, strength, and capacity. This usually takes over ten years, and sometimes even decades. Life is so short and bitter, who has time for such things? So, if you want to increase the efficiency of your practice, you must have some potions to assist in strengthening your physique. So, this is why medicinal bath potions emerged, but their effect is not so good, and they cannot utilize the full effect of the potion. Through bathing in the potion one can only get about 30-40% of its effect; however, this 30-40% is still a great help towards strengthening one's physique, so the big families and martial arts schools would spare no effort searching all over for, and plundering these potions to give to their disciples.

And according to folk legends, in the martial arts circles long ago it was not these medicinal bath potions which were prevalent, but rather these pills. The amount of potion wasted by the pills was far less than the bath potions, only about 10-20%, and they were also several times more effective. It could utilize about 70-80% of the potion's power, and if refined well, could even have up to 100% efficiency. But now, these pills belonged only to legend. It is not that the medicinal materials did not exist, but the technique of making the pills and distilling the potion had been lost. The discrepancy between the tablet form and the liquid form was huge. The thing about potions was that even if there was only a single hair wrong, if an ingredient was a bit too much, or a bit too little, that it would not only be ineffective but could also be lethal. Aside from that, the technique and procedure for distilling medicine into pills had long been lost

Of course, it had not been completely lost. In this world, there still existed one type of pill, the bone-forging pill. This was the only one that had not been lost, however, the method was kept under control by the number one sect under heaven. That is to say, it was in the hands of the Black Sky Orthodox, a sacred ground in martial arts circles. It was inaccessible to ordinary people of the martial arts milieu, and even in Black Sky Orthodox, it was passed down through a tight lineage — apart from for use within the sect, only very few were allowed to be circulated outside. Every Bone-Forging Pill that did end up outside the sect was sold for sky-high prices. As for pills a level higher than the Bone-Forging Pill, these had been totally lost.

Not to mention that after the Tendon-Changing Pill, there were still three more types of elixir.

Pulse Steadying Pill, Blood Changing Pill, Marrow Cleansing Pill!

Could it be that this is above Level Nine, the legendary elixir of the mysterious realm?!