Dragon's Origin

Wang Sheng had learned a lot about identifying medicinal herbs. He had smelled enough of those that weren't poisonous but had obvious odors, but it only allowed the giant cauldron in his Yuan Soul space to solidify three of its legs. Most of the cauldron's body remained in a virtual state.

However, once, when Wang Sheng was lightly sniffing a medicinal pill, he suddenly discovered that the medicinal fragrance seemed to also solidify a part of his giant cauldron.

So, for a few days, Wang Sheng smelled almost all of the common, ordinary pills, and the cauldron's body finally solidified a shallow inch or so.

For Wang Sheng, this was a huge improvement. At least he had found a direction to focus his efforts. Then, Wang Sheng discovered an even more powerful way to enhance his Yuan Soul.

When Qing Ling Daoist was teaching Wang Sheng how to identify herbs, they encountered a colorless and odorless herb that had been processed poorly. So, he casually processed it once using his unique technique.

During the processing, Wang Sheng smelled a faint scent of the medicinal juice. And that faint scent caused a large part of Wang Sheng's giant cauldron to solidify.

If processing medicinal herbs could cause such a change, what about alchemy? Wang Sheng casually observed the process of refining a pill from beginning to end.

This time, Wang Sheng finally confirmed that the various scents released during the refining process of a pill, when multiple medicinal herbs were subjected to various processing methods, refining techniques, and even mixing, were the best way to stimulate Wang Sheng's sense of smell and enhance the strength of his Yuan Soul, rather than simply smelling a single medicinal herb.

Why did he have to come to this underground palace in the Thousand Desolation Land? Besides wanting to find a place to settle down, the main reason Wang Sheng came was to cultivate while experiencing the stimulation of the core aura in the Thousand Desolation Land and to enhance his Yuan Soul by using the special alchemy environment here.

Before leaving, Wang Sheng had told Mei'er that he was coming here to refine a batch of pills. He had also told Grandmaster Ling Xu the same thing. For this reason, the Grandmaster had specially sent several alchemist Taoists to accompany him, bringing a large batch of various medicinal herbs.

After settling everyone else down, Wang Sheng pulled the Taoist who was the most skilled in alchemy into an alchemy room and had him start refining. Wang Sheng watched and assisted, handing him herbs and adding water.

The old Taoist with the white beard didn't object to the requests of this highly respected secular elder. He did whatever Wang Sheng said. He was just puzzled that Wang Sheng didn't ask him to refine any particularly profound pills right away, but instead asked him to refine the pills he knew how to make, from the simplest to the most complex, one by one. He didn't ask him to refine too much of each type, just enough to successfully refine one furnace.

The alchemist Taoist thought that Wang Sheng wanted to learn alchemy, because Wang Sheng had already learned a lot about identifying and processing herbs from Qing Ling Daoist. It wasn't surprising that he was now starting to learn alchemy, and starting with the simplest pills was in line with the learning process of going from the shallow to the deep.

But only watching the refining process of each type of pill once seemed a bit careless? Or was it that Elder Wang had an exceptional memory and could remember everything after seeing it once?

Since the elder wanted to learn, the old Taoist was of course eager to show off his skills. He even carefully explained why he was doing things a certain way during the refining process, striving to help Wang Sheng master more alchemy knowledge in a short period of time.

The old Taoist taught earnestly, and Wang Sheng learned earnestly as well. Wang Sheng observed each type of pill very carefully, and in the old Taoist's eyes, Wang Sheng would exaggerately circle the alchemy furnace, sniffing around. Although smelling the scent of the medicinal herbs during the refining process could help determine the progress of the alchemy, Wang Sheng's actions were clearly too exaggerated.

Ignoring the old Taoist's puzzled gaze, Wang Sheng almost frantically inhaled the mixed scents of the medicinal herbs released during the alchemy process, as if he were absorbing the aura of the world. Sometimes, he would even occasionally tell the old Taoist what the scent of a certain stage should be, which herbs should be mixed with which herbs. Basically, as long as there were herbs that released a scent, Wang Sheng could accurately identify eight or nine out of ten of them.

This made the old Taoist even more convinced that Wang Sheng was truly a genius in alchemy. He had only learned from Uncle Qing Ling for a few months, and he could already say so much just by watching him refine pills. So, the old Taoist revealed his most treasured skills and used all his abilities to demonstrate them to Wang Sheng with the most exquisite techniques.

As he observed the refining of more and more types of pills, Wang Sheng was pleasantly surprised to find that the giant cauldron in his Yuan Soul space was solidifying piece by piece. When the degree of solidification of the cauldron's body exceeded a certain level, Wang Sheng finally felt an improvement in his sense of smell. Wang Sheng had been in the underground palace for almost two months.

Just like the improvement in his sense of taste and sight back then, there would be a process similar to spiritual energy tempering at each stage. However, this was not true spiritual energy tempering, but simply a fixed strengthening of one of Wang Sheng's senses.

But this strengthening process did cause spiritual energy to concentrate, bringing the same effect as spiritual energy tempering. Under the envious and comforting gaze of a group of Taoists, Wang Sheng experienced a full hour of olfactory enhancement, rapidly completing this initial strengthening process.

Wang Sheng calculated that to complete this initial strengthening, he had to observe the effects of nearly three hundred types of pills from nine alchemists. Combining the changes in the giant cauldron in his Yuan Soul space, he estimated that solidifying the entire cauldron would require more than a thousand types, just like the requirements of the Gluttonous Transformation back then. If Wang Sheng's calculations were correct, it should be one thousand and twenty-four types.

After completing this step, the speed of the alchemist Taoists also slowed down. The simple pills had basically all been refined once. If he wanted to observe more, he would need to refine some complex pills.

Complex pills could not be completed in a day or two. On average, it would take at least five or six days to complete one type. If Wang Sheng wanted to improve in a short period of time, it would not be so easy.

Also, the strengthening of his sense of smell brought another problem, which was that the sulfur smell in the underground space became increasingly pungent. Just like how ordinary food was inedible after his sense of taste was strengthened back then, this was another happy problem for Wang Sheng.

Fortunately, during the two months, the Taoists responsible for building another exit had successfully opened up several ventilation shafts and set up ventilation formations. Otherwise, with the amount of time everyone had spent here, some mild symptoms of poisoning would have inevitably occurred.

So, Wang Sheng also made a rule that each time they entered the underground space, they could only stay for a maximum of half a month and had to go out for a few days. This was to avoid long-term inhalation of volcanic gases causing physical discomfort, and also to avoid psychological problems caused by staying in a confined underground space for a long time.