Chapter 459 – New Challenge

While refining the dan, Li Baojun was also keeping an eye on Chen Xiang's movements. He wanted to see how Chen Xiang would refine dans.

Having processed the herbs of Building Foundation Dan and the Five Elements True Elemental Dan, Chen Xiang placed the Five Elements True Elemental Dan herbs inside the Brilliant Flame Dragon Furnace. As the Five Elements True Elemental Dan was a bit harder to refine as compared to the Building Foundation Dan, using the Brilliant Flame Dragon Furnace was more appropriate.

Noticing Chen Xiang placing only one hand inside the alchemical furnace to pour in the flames, Li Baojun found it a bit strange. But when he saw Chen Xiang pick up the Building Foundation Dan herbs, he was even more astounded.

"What does he want to do?" wondered Li Baojun in his heart.

Releasing his spiritual energy, Chen Xiang created a transparent alchemical furnace, the Illusionary Brilliant Furnace. An alchemical furnace that was completely invisible to the naked eye.

When Chen Xiang placed the Building Foundation Dan herbs inside the Illusionary Brilliant Furnace, Li Baojun was so shocked that he almost blasted his furnace.

Watching the Building Foundation Dan herbs floating in the air, Li Baojun felt as though the herbs were placed inside a transparent alchemical furnace, situated in the middle section of the furnace. At the sight of this scene, Li Baojun very much wanted to dig out his eyes and wipe them clean, to make sure his eyes weren't playing tricks on him. Even after having lived so long, it was still the first time he had seen such a strange scene.

But what shocked him even more was still the next part, when Chen Xiang poured the flames inside the Illusionary Brilliant Furnace. The scene of flames rising from below, swirling their way into the second level and baking those herbs was simply astounding. Owing to the flames, those herbs started releasing white and green brilliance, dazzling Li Baojun's eyes to the point that his eyes started to hurt. Which also proved that he wasn't mistaken!

Li Baojun gulped fiercely in shock. He was so shocked by Chen Xiang that he was profusely sweating. Only now he knew what Chen Xiang was doing; he was actually refining two sets of herbs at the same time. Furthermore, one set was being refined without an alchemical furnace!

This way, Chen Xiang could refine two sets of dan at a faster speed. And then, he could use the time he had just saved to employ the Refining Simulation Technique in order to refine the Baptizing Bone Dan!

This kind of far-sighted thinking left Li Baojun in admiration. He suddenly felt that he wasn't a match of Chen Xiang. He felt that aside from the fact that he could refine higher grade dans than Chen Xiang's, he was nothing.

If someday, Chen Xiang could also reach the same level as his, he believed that Chen Xiang would surely be able to refine better high-level dans than him, especially quantity wise! Under normal circumstances, when refining high-level dan, the alchemists would refine fewer dans in order to increase their chance of success. Therefore, high-level dans were very rare.

However, if Chen Xiang could refine an extra dan, he would surely make a killing. When refining high-level dans, the difference of an extra dan was comparable to the difference between heaven and earth.

Li Baojun calmed himself down as he watched the startling scene of Chen Xiang using the transparent alchemical furnace to refine dans. Even at his age, he never got to see how the herbs are converted into dans inside the alchemical furnace with his own eyes. Therefore, this startling scene was a rare sight for him!

The spirit herbs contained a vast amount of energy. Once they were incinerated by the flames, it would cause the energy to burst out, which would then release a dazzling aura. Now, when Chen Xiang was refining the Building Foundation Dan herbs, glaring golden and green brilliance dazzled everyone's eyes. The corresponding scene was extremely beautiful.

From the changes happening inside that alchemical furnace, Hua Xiangyue and Li Baojun realized that Chen Xiang was refining the Building Foundation Dan at an astonishing speed. Furthermore, he was also putting every wisp of those herbal spirit qis into use; he wasn't wasting even the slightest bit. All of the herbal qis were being congealed into dans. Generally, in order to do this, one needed to have a very high degree of control over flames and divine sense, both. Furthermore, the alchemical furnace also needed to act in consort.

But Chen Xiang was doing everything flawlessly. More importantly, he was doing it while refining a batch of Five Elements True Elemental Dans at the same time! At the sight of this, Hua Xiangyue and Li Baojun were secretly amazed, for they believed that they won't be able to do to this degree. As far as they were concerned, this was the ultimate state of alchemy.

At this time, Li Baojun suddenly felt that Chen Xiang would very like become someone an alchemist who would one day surpass Dan King Li Tianjun. He was very familiar with Li Tianjun. He knew that if Li Tianjun descended to the mortal world, perhaps he too would be unable to defeat Chen Xiang.

Although he saw Chen Xiang display such a unique alchemy technique, Li Baojun still believed that he could win because Chen Xiang did not know how to refine the Baptizing Bone Dan. Even if Chen Xiang used the Refining Simulation Technique, the chances of failure were pretty big.

However, Li Baojun felt that even if won, it was still because of the unfair advantage in the contest, because whether it was Chen Xiang's age or experience in alchemy, they were far too lacking as compared to Li Baojun's. Especially the fact that Chen Xiang didn't know how to refine the Baptizing Bone Dan.

Very soon, four masses of green aura appeared in that transparent illusionary brilliant furnace of Chen Xiang. Seeing four masses of green fogs rotating on their own axis, Li Baojun marveled once more. His own limit was three dans per set. However, Chen Xiang was actually refining four and that too in those conditions!

Refining four Building Foundation Dans with one batch of herbs was pretty easy for Chen Xiang. Even if he was using the Flame Dragon Brilliant Furnace, he would have gotten the same result. However, achieving the same was doubly difficult for other alchemists!

Now, Li Baojun came to realize why an attractive woman like Hua Xiangyue was willing to be with a kid like Chen Xiang, for Chen Xiang's talent and prospects were simply too horrifying. So long as he was trained properly, Chen Xiang would surely become an outstanding alchemist in the future.

In the world of cultivation, no matter how high the level of refiners, array grandmasters, and talisman masters was, they could not be compared to an alchemist. Because the dan refined by a top-level alchemist was simply priceless. It could allow someone to breakthrough their bottleneck, revive someone from the inch of death! Therefore, even those refiners and talisman masters would take most of the items personally crafted by them to please the alchemist so that he would refine a dan for them. And whether the alchemists would refine or not also depended on his or her mood.

Soon, four glittering green dans were congealed inside the Illusionary Brilliant Furnace. These were the Building Foundation Dans. Judging from their color and the herbal qi wafting from them, it was clearly evident that these Building Foundation Dans were of top-grade quality.

Meanwhile, Chen Xiang had also finished refining the Five Elements True Elemental Dans. What's more was that there were ten of them and of top-grade quality at that! Chen Xiang's relaxed expression gave the impression that refining these dans were as easy as eating for him.

As for Li Baojun, he had yet to finish refining one set. Now, he decided to get serious, or else, he would lose to Chen Xiang for sure. If he could refine the three dans before Chen Xiang, he could still win the game.

Having finished refining the Building Foundation Dans and the Five Elements True Elemental Dans, Chen Xiang began processing the Baptizing Bone Dan herbs. He decided that he must get more of these Baptizing Bone Dans, for he was planning to train a team of three thousand True Martial Realm martial artists. And these Baptizing Bone Dans were very useful in True Martial Realm.

The main ingredients of Baptizing Bone Dan were three Iron Heart Fruits. From the books and Su Meiyao, Chen Xiang knew that these Iron Heart Fruits were very difficult to refine. Furthermore, their herbal spirit qi was extremely violent and also very heavy, adding another level of difficulty especially when congealing the dan. This was what made the Baptizing Bone Dan difficult to refine.

Chen Xiang wasn't worried about refining them as he had the Heavenly Sun Fire Spirit. Neither he was worried about the violent nature of the herbal spirit qi because he could suppress them with his spiritual energy! Since he came to know that the spiritual energy could save his strength when it was used in alchemy, his speed of refining dan had improved a lot. Therefore, refining these extremely difficult dans didn't give him any pressure.

Just to be on the safe side, Chen Xiang was planning to use the Brilliant Flame Dragon Furnace, since it could also allow him to raise his speed as well.

Winning this round would mean passing Li Baojun's test. Chen Xiang wanted to get that herb garden as soon as possible so that he could return early!

For refining the Baptizing Bone Dan, there weren't too many ingredients. However, they were extremely heavy, all because of those three Iron Heart Fruits. Although they may be the size of a baby fist, three of them altogether weight a hundred jin. This in itself proved how mystical this spirit fruit was.