Fictional Transcension System - Chapter 45 Superior Pill Flame

Lu Fengyi entered a dark room with the attendant showing the way, clutching at the cauldron by his side. His hand felt hot against the surface of the cauldron even though he knew that a metallic object like the cauldron would usually feel cold to the touch. It was almost as if energy was being transmitted to him through contact.

“Store attendant 2, requesting access into the pill forging demonstration room.”

A burly man walked out of the shadows before taking the cauldron from Lu Fengyi and placing it in the centre of the room, “You don’t usually bring customers to test cauldrons. What’s different about this guy?”

The store attendant stepped closer to the man before whispering into his ear. While it was true that Lu Fengyi possessed the cultivation of a Zhizun realm expert, he could not make out the attendant’s words at all, only able to see the slight movements of his mouth.

Silently releasing a subtle aura, Lu Fengyi attempted to scout out the boy’s cultivation, however he was met with the weak aura of a Dantian realm primary cultivator. Even among the young adults of the village, most of them would have reached the following realms by the age of twenty, however, this young man who looked in his mid to late twenties had such a weak cultivation. If that was the case, then there was no way that he would be unable to hear the boy’s words.

There was only a single explanation, and that was the boy was not talking at all!

Suddenly, the burly man stood up abruptly before reaching out towards Lu Fengyi, “So it is an official apothecary. It is my honour for such a renowned figure to visit my humble store.”

Lu Fengyi took the handshake before answering, “You mustn’t speak that way. Your store is one of a kind and strikes a completely different aura compared to the other cauldron stores. My name is Lu Fengyi, however I still do not know yours…”

“Ahh, I have been rude. My name is Kan Kai, Kan for seeing and Kai for open. Thank you for apothecary Lu’s praise.” the man clasped his hands.

Lu Fengyi mentally creased his brows as he heard the name. While there was a large variety of Chinese names and each would have their own unique meanings to them, the man’s name was quite weird despite this.

Nodding slightly, Lu Fengyi asked, “So, what are you planning with the cauldron?”

This time, the attendant stepped forwards, “As you heard from the boss, I do not usually bring customers in to test their cauldrons as that would slow business efficiency too much, however your technique that you told me about piqued my curiosity. Most of the reason why I made an exception was simply because I wished to view the technique and try and correct some of the more obvious flaws.”

“I don’t mind of course. Do I just have to forge pills?” Lu Fengyi reached into his robes, prepared to feign taking out the herbs from there instead of the Internal Storage.

“Since I was the one who was curious, I’ll provide the ingredients.”

Lu Fengyi looked up to the attendant before thanking him. It wasn’t that Lu Fengyi was lacking in herbs, but if he could get free goods, why the hell would he not?

Lu Fengyi stepped up to the cauldron before staring blankly inside. He had learnt that one would have to light a pill fire, however he had no experience on doing such. Was he supposed to summon it out of his body? Or maybe he was to induce it using his cultivation.

Kan Kai stared oddly at Lu Fengyi, “Why aren’t you starting?”

“Hehe…,” Lu Fengyi turned slowly towards the store owner, “The thing is… I don’t know how.”

Hearing his words, both the attendant and the store owner stared at him in shock, ‘You don’t know? What do you mean you don’t know how? You told us a second ago that you were an official apothecary, how could it be that you don’t even know how to light a damn cauldron? Brother, are you sure you got your qualifications from the right place?’

Seeing the astounded faces, Lu Fengyi could only elaborate, “I passed the apothecary examination through Pill Debate, so I haven’t had any practical experience with forging pills yet. If it’s not a burden, could you guide me now?”

The attendant flashed a suspicious look before quickly concealing it, while Kan Kai’s eyes bulged out, ‘Pill debate?! If you passed the examination through pill debate, doesn’t that mean that you bested ten official apothecaries in terms of knowledge without even knowing how to light a goddamn fire?’

The attendant sighed before stepping forwards, “Boss, I’ll take care of this one for now.”

Still recovering from his shock, Kan Kai stepped back into the corner of the room, watching the duo from the shadows.

“I guess I’ll start now. If you’ll step up to the cauldron and begin channelling your cultivation. There are several methods to light a fire for pill forging, however I’ll teach you the most direct one that you should able to complete. First, circulate your cultivation…”

Lu Fengyi closed his eyes as he followed the instructions of the attendant, circulating his qi throughout his meridians and guiding a frictional interaction between two separate streams of zhenqi. A flare of heat appeared within his body, gathering towards the tips of his fingers before propelling towards the cauldron before him.

Hearing a gasp of surprise, Lu Fengyi quickly opened his eyes to see what had happened. Before him lay the cauldron, now vibrating in a peculiar manner, however the main focus was not that, but the blue flames below. While the attendant had a surprised expression, he had kept his cool, however Kan Kai leapt out of the shadows, displaying a shocked expression as he pointed towards the cauldron.

“How… how could this be?” Kan Kai muttered with difficulty.

While Lu Fengyi had gone through hundreds of pill forging books already, there had been none that talked about the significance of the flame colour, however one point was that every recount from past apothecaries had only mentioned a yellow flame at most.

“What does the blue flame mean?” Lu Fengyi asked.

The attendant opened his mouth to answer, however Kan Kai beat him to it, shivering with excitement, “Do you not know? A blue flame is a symbol of mid level purity zhenqi. As you experienced just then, pill flames are generated by expelling zhenqi and causing friction between separate strands and creating large amounts of heat, however most apothecaries are only ever able to generate yellow flames as their zhenqi is not pure enough to complete the combustion effect. If one is able to create blue flames, that means that one’s zhenqi is so pure that they can generate complete combustion reactions with their zhenqi alone!”

“Ahh? So what does that mean for me.” Lu Fengyi continued in confusion.

Kan Kai stepped forward, before staring deep into Lu Fengyi’s eyes with his own, “This means that you’re a genius, boy. Not only in cultivation, but in pill forging as well!”