“This is it,” Amanda said with intense focus. “Oh my, this thing is actually really good.”
“You can actually understand it?” Yang Hao thought no one would be able to comprehend those strange symbols.
“I might not understand the writing, but can’t I understand the blueprints?” Amanda rolled her eyes at him. “The design of this furnace is quite clever. The flame below needs to reach temperatures above a thousand degrees, while the pot on top is special—it can concentrate all the heat to a single point instantly.”
“Do you think you can make it?” Yang Hao asked nervously. His life literally depended on Amanda right now.
“Yeah, I can make it,” Amanda nodded. However, before Yang Hao could feel relieved, she added, “But it’ll take at least seven days.”
“Seven days!!” The little hope Yang Hao had just begun to feel vanished immediately. He slumped back onto his chair like a deflated balloon. “Even you need that long? Guess I really have no hope left.”
“You’re in that much of a hurry?” Amanda smiled, completely lacking sympathy. “Building a pill furnace is actually quite simple. It only takes about an hour.”
“Really?” Yang Hao exclaimed in surprise.
“But…” Amanda, clearly still a bit upset, dragged out her words to tease him, “…the inner wall of this pill furnace needs to be polished into a specific curvature to concentrate the heat. So seven days really isn’t that long…”
Yang Hao was utterly disheartened. He threw a pile of herbs onto the ground, grumbling under his breath and cursing the already-asleep Hun Yuan Zi loudly.
“Don’t want them anymore?” Amanda kindly picked up the herbs he had thrown.
“It’s useless,” Yang Hao shook his head. “If the pill furnace isn’t ready within three days, I’m as good as dead. Not even you will be able to help me—no one else could either.”
“If it’s not done within three days, you’ll die?” Amanda was genuinely shocked. “What illness do you have exactly?”
“It’s just a really serious illness,” Yang Hao replied weakly.
This was when Amanda realized the severity of the situation. “So as long as the pill furnace is completed within three days, you’ll be okay?”
“Yeah,” Yang Hao still didn’t have the strength to say much.
“Then there’s no problem!” Amanda smiled brightly, visibly relieved.
Yang Hao immediately looked furious. Just moments ago, Hun Yuan Zi had said Amanda had a crush on him. Yet now, upon hearing he might die, she was smiling so happily—clearly she was enjoying his misfortune. What kind of “crush” was that?
But Amanda quickly dispelled Yang Hao’s suspicions. “I’ll start right away. I promise I’ll make it for you within three hours.”
“Three hours?” Yang Hao was completely confused. “Didn’t you just say seven days? How come it’s only three hours now?”
“Seven days is what it would take if you went to those idiotic factories,” Amanda, still clearly upset about Elsie, replied. “But if you come to me, three hours is more than enough.”
Yang Hao was overjoyed, but still a bit uneasy. “You have to make it exactly according to the blueprints, no cutting corners. Otherwise, it won’t work at all.”
“Don’t worry, when did I ever say I’d cut corners?” Amanda gave him a light rap on the head.
“But how can you do it so fast?” Yang Hao still couldn’t wrap his head around it. “Even factories need so much time. There’s no way you can be that much faster than them.”
Amanda had already turned on a mid-sized molding press and summoned several robots to assist. “This furnace requires precision polishing. Regular factories are really slow, but I have my secret weapons.”
Yang Hao wanted to ask more, but Amanda had already begun working intently on the pill furnace, so he dared not disturb her. Just as the room fell silent, the ill-timed Hun Yuan Zi popped out again.
“Good disciple, see? I told you this girl has a thing for you. As soon as she heard you were dying, she immediately focused all her attention on helping you.”
Yang Hao had already gotten used to these sudden interruptions. “Don’t remind me. This is all your fault anyway. Think again—did you forget anything else? Don’t drag me into another disaster.”
Taking advantage of Amanda’s work, Yang Hao quietly turned to face the wall and began conversing with Hun Yuan Zi again.
“Good disciple, I’ve made a big decision,” Hun Yuan Zi spoke as if he had just declared something monumental. “I’m going to teach you our sect’s cultivation principles first, just in case I develop senile dementia and forget them later.”
“Senile dementia?” Yang Hao muttered. “Even you, an ancient ghost of a thousand years, are afraid of getting sick?”
Hun Yuan Zi pretended not to hear and, for once, spoke seriously. “Our sect’s method of dual cultivation of pills and furnaces is different from other cultivation sects. We basically don’t meditate. Instead, we mainly rely on consuming pills.”
“Of course a sect of aphrodisiacs would rely on taking pills,” Yang Hao, clearly unimpressed with this sect, quipped.
“The following part is really important,” Hun Yuan Zi said gravely. “You must listen carefully. Pills are divided into two types: main pills and auxiliary pills, each with different purposes.”
“Do aphrodisiacs come in different varieties too?”
“Nonsense!” Hun Yuan Zi was slightly angered. “Listen carefully, or else if you die from taking the wrong pill, I won’t be responsible for bringing you back.”
Since he spoke so seriously, Yang Hao dared not joke around anymore and listened attentively.
“Auxiliary pills must be taken daily. Their main function is to replenish true energy. However, different auxiliary pills have different side effects, which you must gradually memorize.”
“What’s the point of replenishing true energy?” Yang Hao was no longer unfamiliar with the term “true energy.” He hadn’t forgotten that it was the true energy of this sect’s aphrodisiac cultivation that had put his life in danger.
“Once cultivation begins, you must replenish true energy every day, or else your blood vessels will rupture and you’ll die. Other sects absorb cosmic energy through meditation, but we simply take pills. It’s simple and convenient—truly the best choice for everyday life and travel…”
“Enough!” Yang Hao quickly interrupted, knowing Hun Yuan Zi might start advertising again. “Just briefly explain what the main pills can do.”
“The main pills are powerful,” Hun Yuan Zi, true to form, exaggerated. “They are the essence of our dual cultivation sect. In fact, the main purpose of everything we do daily is to cultivate the main pills. There are seven types of main pills, ranging from basic to advanced, each with increasing difficulty in their creation.”
“What are main pills even for? Can’t I just buy them with a credit card?” At the mention of pill-making, Yang Hao’s head hurt. He wished he could just prepare all the pills at once, swallow them, and be done with it.
“Of course not! Each main pill can only be successfully created after consuming rare treasures from around the world. Sometimes, just gathering the ingredients can take over a decade.”
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