Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

Leaving aside the matter of training in the first move of the Heaven Splitting Sword Art, Earth Splitting, Xuan Hao instead turned to leave his room before heading towards the location of the alchemy room where Qing Yi had been spending most of her time over the past few months.

Using most of her time on improving her skill in alchemy so she would be ready for the upcoming alchemy competition. If she was not there, she would either be at the Alchemy Hall or training together with Chu Yang.

The last few weeks had been especially intense for Qing Yi, as the date of the alchemy competition slowly grew closer.

At this point in time, she would rarely leave the alchemy room in the pavilion, asking Zhi Ruo to get her any of the herbs she needed while she would remain focused on trying her best to improve her skill.

Not without any success, as even though her cultivation realm had not improved by a lot compared to Chu Yang who solely focused on increasing his cultivation realm, Qing Yi had managed to reach the peak of the Journeyman Alchemist Realm. Only a single step away from reaching the realm of an Expert Alchemist!

Her rapid rate of improvement had not only stunned Xuan Hao, but also the elders of the alchemy hall.

This had in turn caused the elders of the alchemy hall to fully support Qing Yi with any spiritual herbs she needed, as they looked forward to her performance in the upcoming alchemy competition.

Xuan Hao on the other hand… Began growing worried that the Artisan Alchemist from the Sky Empire would really attempt to steal his disciple away!

Even if he himself had improved a lot by learning several new recipes fitting for the level of an Artisan Alchemist, he still felt it was lacking.

After all, the other party was an Artisan Alchemist from the Sky Empire! There was no way he would ever be able to have access to as many different and high-level recipes that someone belonging to the Sky Empire would!

The only thing he could do at this point was try the unique recipes that the system had so graciously bestowed upon him…

Even if they were not as useful as the other recipes that the Flying Sword Sect had stored up over the years, they were still of a way higher level and would help him familiarize himself with the alchemy knowledge that he had been given by the system…

Not wanting to think too much about the system recipes, Xuan Hao came to a stop in a more secluded part of the pavilion. This was his destination and also the small corner of the pavilion that had been solely dedicated to either storing spiritual herbs or practicing alchemy after Qing Yi spent a week transforming the place together with Zhi Ruo.

Whoosh~

"Master!?"

Before Xuan Hao even had a chance to knock on the door, Qing Yi who had been standing at the other side suddenly swung the door open. Looking like she was about to rush over towards the storage room just behind him filled to the brim with all kinds of different spiritual herbs that the elders from the alchemy hall had brought over.

"Hello there, Qing Yi, just continue what you were doing before and ignore me." Smiling a bit as he noticed how she had begun anxiously glancing over in the direction of the spiritual herbs located in the storage room behind him.

"Thank you!"

Whoosh!

Not saying much more than that, Qing Yi rushed into the storage room before grabbing onto a small bundle of dried star flower leaves before rushing back into the alchemy room she came from with a worried expression on her face.

"…"

Xuan Hao just observed Qing Yi as she began preparing the leaves before beginning to add them into a small cauldron filled with a pink coloured boiling liquid that looked like it was just about to boil over a spill onto the ground beside the cauldron.

Psh~

Watching as the leaves of the star flower were added to the mixture, Xuan Hao could not help but smile approvingly at Qing Yi as the boiling pink liquid began calming down before slowly changing into a yellowish red colour.

For now, it looked like Qing Yi had managed to calm down the mixture in time.

"So, what are you making?" Feeling a bit curious about the mixture in the cauldron, Xuan Hao could not stop himself from asking the moment things had calmed down and Qing Yi got the situation under control.

"I'm making a Fire Explosion Potion… I just changed a few of the ingredients to make it more… Potent and things almost ended up backfiring on me…"

"Fire Explosion Potion…" Muttering the name of the potion to himself as he slowly made his way over towards the cauldron before inspecting the mixture inside, Xuan Hao quickly remembered what he knew about the potion.

The Fire Explosion Potion was on the lower end of what a normal Journeyman Alchemist could make, but it was not to be underestimated because of this! While not too hard to make for a new Journeyman Alchemist, the Fire Explosion Potion, as its name suggested, would cause a large fiery explosion.

When thrown out, the potion would rapidly absorb a large amount of fire qi from the surroundings upon contact before using the quickly gathered fire qi to cause a large fiery explosion. Damaging anyone within a few meters of where it landed.

The strength of the Fire Explosion Potion was not too weak and not too strong either, having enough power to easily hurt someone in the Foundation Establishment Realm, but having a hard time truly doing any permanent damage unless the target was below the Foundation Establishment Realm.

However, this did not affect the value of the potion in the eyes of the disciples. Not only was the Fire Explosion Potion easy to produce, but it was by far one of the best tools for disciples adventuring outside.

Its main use being scaring off demon beasts, as the large explosion would in some case even be able to scare off demon beasts at the Core Formation Realm. Allowing the disciples more than enough time to escape or launch an attack towards the confused and scared demon beast.

"Wait… You said you made it more potent… How much more potent are we talking?" Remembering the last few words Qing Yi had said, Xuan Hao suddenly realized that his disciple might have ended up in a really bad situation if the mixture boiled over and fell onto the ground below.

Given the fact that it was a Fire Explosion Potion… The mixture would likely have caused a large explosion upon hitting the ground and in turn ignited the rest of the mixture into an even large explosion!

Given how much she had made, part of his pavilion might have ended up disappearing before he could even react and use his ice domain to stop the explosion from spreading…

"It should be enough to hurt someone at the Core Formation!" Not realizing how dangerous the situation had been only a short moment ago, Qing Yi proudly told her master how much stronger her Fire Explosion Potion was.

"I see… Mind if I try it out?"

"No… But it will need to cool down first before it can be transported- Ah!"

Before Qing Yi could finish what, she was saying, Xuan Hao directly used his ice domain to cool down the boiling liquid inside the cauldron before picking up a small potion bottle and filling it up with the liquid mixture that was Qing Yi's more potent version of a normal Fire Explosion Potion.

Inspecting the small potion bottle now filled to the brim with Qing Yi's more potent Fire Explosion mixture, Xuan Hao left the alchemy room with Qing Yi following closely behind him.

Soon, both of them made their way out of the pavilion and reached the training ground where Chu Yang curiously observed both of them. Not expecting Qing Yi or his master to suddenly show up.

"Master? Qing Yi? Are you here to train!?" Asking this with an excited look in his eyes along with a rising fighting intent clearly visible to Qing Yi and Xuan Hao, Chu Yang walked over towards the two of them.

"No, master wanted to test one of my new potions…" Rolling her eyes as she said this, Qing Yi's words instantly caused Chu Yang's excited expression to dim down a bit.

Over the past few months, his time had mostly been spent at training and as Qing Yi was the only person who could currently spar with him on the mountain peak, Chu Yang constantly went to get her whenever he needed to test out a new spear move, he had come up with or another attack he had improved on since their last spar.

All things considered, Qing Yi had been interrupted by him a lot until she stopped Zhi Ruo from helping him find his way to her alchemy room…