Chapter 15: The Correct Way to Use a Skill

The Gao Family reacted faster than expected.

After inspecting his new Three-Star Alchemy Skill, Su Han had just finished lunch with Prince Jing and the Princess Consort when the head steward came to report that the Gao Family was requesting an audience.

Su Han didn't involve himself in the matter of the Gao Family coming to apologize, leaving everything for his mother, the Princess Consort, to handle.

After the meal, Su Han returned to his room. A short while later, the Princess Consort had someone deliver a pile of boxes, large and small. They were all apology gifts from the Gao Family.

He picked up a jade bottle from the table and poured out an Elixir. Su Han sniffed its fragrance and examined its color, but he didn't even bother to taste its medicinal potency before shaking his head in disappointment and tossing the Elixir back onto the table.

The best Elixir the Gao Family had sent as an apology gift was merely a two-star, high-grade one. It couldn't even be considered Top Grade, let alone the far superior Super Grade Elixirs that bore Pill Patterns.

'It seems... the Gao Family, for all their reputation as an Alchemy Family, have seen their Alchemy skills decline with each generation.'

Tossing the Elixir aside, Su Han opened several exquisitely crafted jade boxes, one after another. Inside, he found a few stalks of two-star and three-star Spirit Medicines.

'Sigh... I have all this Alchemy experience but none of the cultivation required to actually perform it. Otherwise, with these Spirit Medicines, I could have tried refining a few batches of Spirit Pills.'

As he thought this, his gaze swept over the Spirit Medicines. After he had examined all of them, a few pill recipes flashed through his mind.

'With these Spirit Medicines, the most efficient use would be to refine the two-star Spiritual Essence Pill. It's just a pity that...'

Before he could finish the thought, Su Han trailed off, his face suddenly frozen in an expression of someone who had just seen a ghost as he stared intently at the tabletop before him.

A white light flared to life on the table.

When the white light faded, a portion of the Spirit Medicines on the table had vanished. In their place lay twelve Spiritual Essence Pills.

'Is this... a Spiritual Essence Pill?'

Staring at the twelve lustrous, superior-quality Elixirs on the table, the look of astonishment on Su Han's face intensified. 'These Elixirs are...'

He was about to ask himself where the Elixirs had come from when, in a flash of insight, he recalled the moment just before they appeared.

'I just thought that the most efficient use for these Spirit Medicines was to refine Spiritual Essence Pills...'

The moment he finished that thought, a white light flared up on the table once more. When it faded, more of the Spirit Medicines were gone, and another twelve Elixirs had appeared.

Su Han: "..."

'So... that's how the Elixirs were made?'

'So I don't need cultivation? I don't need to perform any of the actual steps? Just a single thought, and the skill activates to create any Elixir I want?'

With this idea in mind, he looked at the few Spirit Medicines left on the table and silently thought, 'Refine Spiritual Essence Pills.'

The thought had barely formed when another white light rose from the table. A portion of the remaining Spirit Medicines transformed into another twelve Spiritual Essence Pills.

It was only then that Su Han realized something else.

Twelve!

'Each batch of Spiritual Essence Pills I refine... actually yields twelve Elixirs?'

If the knowledge he'd inherited was correct, the standard yield for a single batch of Elixirs in the Alchemy Realm was nine.

Some exceptionally talented Alchemy Masters, after dedicating many years to a specific Elixir, could maximize the medicinal potency of the ingredients and might have a chance to produce ten or even eleven Elixirs.

Records from over ten thousand years ago spoke of a great Alchemy Grandmaster from the Central State who, while refining a batch of one-star Elixirs, successfully produced eleven Elixirs and one Wasted Pill.

Eleven and a half—that was the highest known yield in the Alchemy Realm. Yet today, Su Han had shattered that record with his Alchemy Skill.

And... most importantly of all, every single one of the twelve Elixirs in each batch had three Pill Patterns evenly distributed across its surface.

Elixirs of the same star level were also divided by grade. The worst were low-grade Elixirs, from which a maximum of thirty percent of the medicinal potency could be absorbed.

Slightly better were medium-grade, with up to fifty percent absorption. Even better were high-grade and Top Grade, with maximum absorption rates of seventy and ninety percent, respectively.

But above all of these was another type of Elixir known as a Super Grade Elixir.

The hallmark of a Super Grade Elixir was the formation of Pill Patterns on its surface. The more Pill Patterns it had, the higher its quality and the more potent its effects.

It was also widely accepted in the Alchemy Realm that the number of Pill Patterns an Elixir could have was limited by its star level. An Elixir could generate, at most, one more Pill Pattern than its star rating.

In other words... the two-star Spiritual Essence Pills before him, each with three Pill Patterns, were the absolute highest quality that a Spiritual Essence Pill could possibly achieve.

After studying the Spiritual Essence Pills for a while, Su Han had Su Xiao'Er bring him a large quantity of ingredients for refining one- to three-star Elixirs.

After three long days of experimentation, Su Han finally had a clear understanding of his Alchemy Skill.

By using the skill, as long as he had enough ingredients, he could instantly refine any one- to three-star Elixir for which he knew the recipe. Furthermore, he could freely control the yield from one to twelve Elixirs and the quality anywhere from low-grade to the maximum number of Pill Patterns.

However, when he tried to use the skill to refine a four-star Elixir, the white light that only he could see was completely unresponsive. It wouldn't give him the time of day.

Such was the power of the Alchemy Skill. But when he tried to perform Alchemy without it, relying solely on his inherited experience, his few attempts all ended in failure.

It wasn't that he was incapable of performing Alchemy without the skill; the main problem was his complete lack of cultivation. Every attempt ended with the cauldron exploding due to insufficient power.

While Su Han was experimenting, three days passed quietly. On the morning of the fourth day, he was shooed out the main gate of the Prince's Residence by his mother.

It wasn't that the sole Crown Prince of Prince Jing's Residence had fallen out of favor and been kicked out. Rather... his Sister, the Eldest Princess of the empire, was arriving in Lingzhou from the Imperial City today.

"Little Han, what are you doing waiting out here? Did you miss me?"

After waiting less than fifteen minutes, Su Han saw Su Muyan appear before him, along with a very beautiful and graceful girl.

The moment she saw him, Su Muyan's two delicate, fair hands flew to Su Han's face, skillfully pinching and pulling his cheeks.

Rolling his eyes, Su Han slapped her hands away and grumbled.

"You think I want to be standing here? Your aunt forced me. It makes you wonder who her real son is."

Hearing Su Han's words, Su Muyan's lips trembled as she put on a tearful expression.

"Little Han, you've changed."

"You never used to treat me like this. You used to spoil me. And now, you're jealous of me."

Su Han: "..."

"After how much I dote on you, how could you treat me this way?"

Su Han: "..."

"SOB SOB SOB..."

Seeing Su Muyan vigorously rubbing her eyes with her little hands until they instantly turned red, Su Han's expression became exasperated, and he quickly grabbed her hands to stop her.

"Alright, alright, stop rubbing.

That's not how you're supposed to use Wind Oil Fruit juice. Even the eyes of a Spirit Platform Realm Cultivator couldn't handle that kind of irritation."

Hearing Su Han's words, Su Muyan's hand, which was rubbing her eyes, instinctively froze.

"How did you know I put Wind Oil Fruit juice on my hands... Ah, no, what Wind Oil Fruit? There's no juice here!"

Su Han: "...Don't bother hiding it. I can smell the Wind Oil Fruit juice on your hands."

"Really?"

Su Muyan brought her hand to her nose disbelievingly and sniffed, then frowned. "Liar. I can't smell anything."

Watching Su Muyan's antics, the girl beside her couldn't help but let out a soft chuckle.

"Yan, you're not a Pill Master, so of course you wouldn't know. Although Wind Oil Fruit juice is said to be colorless and odorless, making it the best insect repellent...

...some Alchemy Masters who are familiar enough with the fruit can sense the juice's distinct, damp, cold aura from a great distance."

As she spoke, the girl glanced at Su Han, clearly curious how someone so young could possess such experience.

"Is that so?"

Su Muyan gave Su Han a suspicious look. "Little Han, you know about Alchemy?"

Su Han answered modestly, "A little. Just a little."

"Tch."

Su Muyan scoffed, then pulled the girl beside her forward by the hand to introduce her to Su Han.

"Let me introduce you. This is my good friend, Feng Lixi. You can just call her Feng."

'Feng Lixi?'

Hearing the name, Su Han paused for a moment.

He wasn't sure if it was his imagination, but the name gave him a strong sense of familiarity, though he couldn't recall where he might have heard it before.

He hesitated, but decided against asking the classic, pickup-line-adjacent question: "Have we met somewhere before?"

Nodding, Su Han said, "Hello."

Feng also offered a faint smile and nodded to Su Han. "Hello, I'm Feng Lixi."