Mingzhi returned to Hut 404, his body screaming for rest. His muscles trembled from hauling the heavy iron cart all day, and his hands were raw from gripping the shovel.

  He barred the door with the ironwood plank and collapsed onto the wooden bed. His physical tank was empty, but his mind was wired with desperate energy.

  "Phase 1 is complete," he whispered, ignoring the hunger gnawing at his stomach. "I have the raw materials. Now, I need the skill."

  He touched his left eye. "Spirit. Start the Simulation."

  His consciousness was pulled inward, slipping through the veil of reality into the silent, grey universe of the Void Eye.

  Hovering before him was the Virtual Furnace. Beside it lay the virtual table with the scavenged "trash"—the Calcified Nodes of Ice-Heart Essence.

  "Welcome to the classroom," the Spirit’s voice echoed. It appeared as a white silhouette, radiating an air of scholarly superiority. "We have approximately one week before the Young Sect Master needs results. Let us begin with the Fundamentals."

  Four glowing diagrams appeared in the air.

  "Alchemy is governance," the Spirit lectured. "A pill requires four officials to function: The Monarch (Main Herb), The Minister (Booster), The Assistant (Detoxifier), and The Guide (Binder)."

  "However," the Spirit pointed to the furnace. "The universal constant is Fire. To melt the herbs and fuse the essences, heat is required. Fire Cultivators have a natural advantage—they use their own internal Qi Fire. It is clean and precise."

  "Others," the Spirit sneered slightly, "must use External Fire, like Earth Fire vents. It is clumsy. It creates impurities—a 'Dirty Signal.' The smoke and ash get trapped in the pill."

  "But governance requires purity. In this world, every herb contains 'Medicinal Essence' and 'Impurities'. The Alchemist's job is to separate them."

  The Spirit waved a hand, displaying a detailed chart of Pill Grades.

  "Low Grade (10-29% Purity): Visual: Dark, uneven surface, smells like burnt toast.

  Effect: It creates a 'Dirty Signal.' It works, but it dumps sludge—Pill Poison—into the body. If you eat too many, your meridians clog, creating a bottleneck."

  "Mid Grade (30-69% Purity): Visual: Dull color, smooth surface.

  Effect: The standard. Contains toxins, but the body can flush them out over a few days."

  "High Grade (70-89% Purity): Visual: Shiny, glowing.

  Effect: Expensive. Almost no toxins. Used to level up quickly. This is the minimum Grade Qingyu requires."

  "Supreme Grade (90-99% Purity): Visual: Translucent, like glass or a gem.

  Effect: Close to Zero toxins. Fast absorption."

  The Spirit paused, its voice dropping to a whisper.

  "And finally... Perfect Grade (100%). When a pill hits absolute perfection, physics breaks. Phenomena appear."

  "Pill Veins: The Heavens are jealous of perfection, so they try to crack the pill. If it survives, the cracks become Veins."

  "Pill Clouds: A colored mist shaped like a dragon or phoenix hovers over the pill permanently."

  "Pill Tribulation: If the pill is too perfect, the Heavens send lightning to destroy it. Creating one is an act of defying the Dao."

  Mingzhi nodded, absorbing the scale. "So I need at least High Grade to fix her."

  "Based on your lack of a Fire Seed," the Spirit assessed coldly, "I predict your ceiling is High Grade. You cannot scrub the impurities completely."

  "Then we face a dilemma," the Spirit said, projecting a diagram of Qingyu’s body.

  "Option A: We make a standard Fire Cleansing Pill.

  Pros: Safe. Her Fire Constitution accepts it.

  Cons: Inefficient. To scour the ash, you would need High Grade purity. Which you can hardly achieve."

  "Option B: We use the Ice-Heart Essence to make a Water Cleansing Pill.

  Pros: Potent. It washes the ash away gently.

  Cons: Lethal. Her Fire body will reject the Water Qi. Without perfect stabilization, she will explode."

  "Option B is impossible," the Spirit concluded. "Option A is insufficient."

  "Let's try Option A first," Mingzhi said stubbornly. "Maybe I can force the purity."

  Simulation: Day 1

  Mingzhi stood before the virtual furnace. He simulated a standard External Fire vent.

  He threw in the Monarch Herb (Fire-Scale Root).

  Hiss.

  "Control the heat!" the Spirit barked. "You are burning the essence!"

  "When burning a herb," the Spirit explained, "a bad alchemist wastes 80% of the potential energy. They barely scrape together enough essence to form one solid pill."

  "A Master wastes nothing. They preserve so much essence that they must split it into 2, 4, or 8 pills. Otherwise, a single pill would be too dense and explode."

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  Mingzhi struggled. He sweated. He managed to condense the liquid.

  Clink.

  One pill rolled out. Dark, lumpy.

  "Low Grade," the Spirit critiqued. "Purity: 15%. Garbage."

  Mingzhi gritted his teeth. "Again."

  He practiced for hours in the simulation. He refined his timing. He reached Mid Grade. Then, barely, high Mid Grade.

  But he hit a wall at 68%. The impurities of the external fire prevented perfection.

  "It’s not enough," Mingzhi said, wiping virtual sweat from his brow. "I can't get to High Grade with Option A."

  Simulation: Day 2

  (In reality: Qingyu arrived briefly at dawn to drop off the main herbs. Mingzhi took them, barely spoke, and dove back into the trance.)

  Back in the Void.

  "Let's try Option B," Mingzhi said. "The Water Pill."

  "I told you," the Spirit sighed, sounding skeptical. "Even if you make it, Fire and Water do not mix."

  "Just let me try."

  He tried. He used the Fire to melt the Ice-Heart shell.

  HISS.

  The moment the heat touched the cold essence, steam erupted. Vaporized.

  "Conflict," the Spirit said. "You are using Fire to refine Water. Physics is fighting you."

  Mingzhi stepped back. His real-world head was throbbing with a migraine. He looked at his hands—his "Trash" hands with their 20% affinity for everything.

  "I can't fight the elements," Mingzhi murmured. "I need to switch them."

  He looked up, a wild logic forming in his engineer's mind.

  "Spirit... I have a Balanced Body. I have the pipes for Water Qi. I just don't have the tank. But what if I don't store it? What if I use a Passthrough Method?"

  "Explain."

  "I gather ambient Water Qi from the air. I channel it through my arm and shoot it straight into the furnace to wrap the Ice Herb. No Fire involved."

  "Your cultivation is Level 1, your constitution is 20%," the Spirit countered. "Ambient Qi is dirty. If you channel raw Qi, you will contaminate the pill."

  "That's where you come in," Mingzhi said. "You use your Divine Sense to purify the stream as it passes through me."

  The Spirit paused. "Using me as a sieve? It is... theoretically possible. But the mental burden on you will be excruciating."

  "Do it."

  Simulation: Day 3 & 4

  Mingzhi tried to pull ambient Water Qi. It was heavy and sluggish.

  Splat. The pill collapsed into sludge.

  "Too slow," the Spirit critiqued.

  Mingzhi’s nose bled in the real world. In the simulation, his avatar flickered with exhaustion. But he kept grinding.

  Step 1: Use Fire (Passthrough) to melt the shell.

  Step 2: Cut Fire. Switch to Water (Passthrough). The Spirit filtered it. Mingzhi wrapped the Ice Essence.

  Step 3: Switch to Earth. Bind it.

  Simulation: Day 5

  The Spirit’s disdain was gone. It watched in amazement as Mingzhi moved with a fluid, rhythmic grace, switching elements faster than a normal cultivator could blink.

  Fire. Water. Earth. Wood.

  "The energy density is too high," Mingzhi noted. "I haven't wasted much. It's going to explode."

  "Split it!" the Spirit shouted. "One becomes Two!"

  Mingzhi used his Divine Sense to slice the liquid sphere.

  Split.

  Split again.

  Clink. Clink. Clink. Clink.

  Four pills rolled out of the furnace.

  They weren't brown. They weren't just shiny.

  They were Translucent, glowing with a deep blue internal light like frozen ocean water.

  "Analyze it," Mingzhi asked, his voice shaking.

  The Spirit floated closer. It scanned the pills.

  "Supreme Grade," the Spirit whispered. "Purity is 96%. Zero toxins."

  The Spirit looked at Mingzhi. "You didn't just refine it. You wove the elements together. This... this is the Alchemic Harmony Body."

  Mingzhi slumped against the virtual table.

  "It works," he mumbled. "Now... I just have to do it for real."

  Mingzhi stared at the four translucent blue pills hovering in the virtual furnace, a grin of triumph stretching across his face.

  "Supreme Grade," he repeated, savoring the words. "It’s perfect."

  "It is indeed a masterpiece of Alchemy," the Spirit agreed, its voice somber. "Congratulations, Mingzhi. You have successfully refined a Supreme Grade Poison."

  Mingzhi’s smile vanished. "What?"

  "You forgot the patient," the Spirit said, pulling up the diagram of Qingyu’s meridian system again. "You solved the Purity Problem, but you ignored the Constitution Problem. This pill is pure Ice Essence. If Qingyu swallows this, her Fire-attribute Dantian will view it as an invasion. The resulting elemental collision will not cleanse her meridians; it will shatter them."

  The Spirit popped the virtual pill, watching it dissolve into mist.

  "You built a masterpiece of ice. Now try feeding it to a volcano. The result is an explosion."

  Mingzhi slumped back against the void, pressing his palms into his eyes. The headache from the simulation was already pounding like a drum, and now the solution had slipped through his fingers.

  "So we’re back to Option A?" Mingzhi asked. "The Fire Pill? But we proved I can't get the purity high enough to scour the ash."

  "Logic dictates we are at an impasse," the Spirit admitted.

  "No," Mingzhi muttered. He stood up and began to pace the grey void. "We aren't at an impasse. We have the payload—the Ice Pill. We just have a delivery problem. The interface is wrong."

  He stopped, his engineer's mind latching onto a concept from his old life. Encapsulation.

  "Spirit," Mingzhi said slowly. "What if the Ice never touches her Dantian directly? What if we hide it?"

  He sketched a circle in the air.

  "A Layered Pill," Mingzhi proposed. "Like a fruit with a core.

  The Core: The Supreme Water Pill (The Payload).

  The Buffer: A thin layer of Earth Qi (Insulation).

  The Shell: A coating of Fire Essence (The Disguise)."

  "A Trojan Horse," the Spirit realized, the white silhouette shimmering with intrigue. "Her body senses the Fire Shell and absorbs it without resistance. Once it enters the system, the shell dissolves, releasing the Ice Essence behind her defenses, directly onto the calcified ash."

  "Exactly," Mingzhi said. "Can we do it?"

  "Theoretically? Yes," the Spirit said. "But the difficulty is exponential. You aren't just switching elements anymore. You have to hold the Water Core stable while wrapping it in molten Fire. If the Earth buffer fails for a microsecond, the pill detonates in the furnace."

  "To do this," the Spirit warned, "you must weave three conflicting elements simultaneously. Your mental energy is already critically low."

  "I'll sleep when I'm dead," Mingzhi growled. "Reset the furnace."

  Simulation: Day 6

  The grind began anew. This wasn't just alchemy; it was bomb disposal.

  Mingzhi stood before the virtual furnace, his avatar flickering like a dying candle.

  Step 1: The Core.

  He used the Passthrough Method to refine the Water Essence. He condensed it into a tiny, freezing bead.

  Step 2: The Buffer.

  He switched to Earth Qi. This was delicate. He had to coat the freezing bead in gravity without crushing it.

  Crack.

  The bead shattered under the pressure.

  "Too heavy," the Spirit marked. "Again."

  Attempt 29.

  He stabilized the buffer. Now came the impossible part.

  Step 3: The Shell.

  He switched to Fire Qi. He had to wrap molten heat around a frozen core, separated only by a hair's width of Earth Qi.

  HISS-BOOM.

  The furnace exploded violently, throwing Mingzhi’s consciousness backward.

  “You are nearing collapse.” the Spirit warned urgently. "Mingzhi, you are damaging your soul. Stop."

  "No," Mingzhi rasped, pulling himself up. "I can feel the rhythm. The Fire... it needs to flow over the Earth, not push against it."

  Attempt 41.

  Mingzhi moved with the fluidity of a conductor leading an orchestra.

  Water condenses.

  Earth wraps.

  Fire coats.

  He held the conflicting energies in a terrifying suspension, his Balanced Body acting as the perfect neutral ground.

  Clink.

  A single pill rolled out.

  It was bright red, glowing with the warmth of a Fire pill. It smelled of spice and heat. But deep inside, undetectable to the naked eye, lay a heart of absolute zero.

  "Analysis," Mingzhi croaked, his vision swimming.

  "Supreme Grade Composite Pill," the Spirit whispered. "Structure: Stable. Disguise: Perfect. It is a masterpiece."

  The simulation collapsed.

  Reality

  Mingzhi gasped, jerking awake in Hut 404.

  He rolled off the bed and dry-heaved onto the floor, his head feeling like it had been split open with an axe. Blood dripped steadily from both nostrils, staining his grey robes. His hands shook so violently he couldn't push himself up for a full minute.

  "I have the method," Mingzhi wheezed, wiping his face with a trembling hand. "I have the ingredients."

  "Now I can take a little rest, then do it for real."