Shen released a huge amount of air from his lungs. The benefits he received from Absolute Duo Manual became limited. If the girls' power didn't receive any drastic changes, he would hardly receive any benefit. More like, now that Shen broke through the Martial King realm, the girls felt drastic changes in their power, of course after their steamy night with Shen.

After last night, Mingyue Gelou from the peak of 1st grade Xiantian jumped to the peak of the 2nd grade of the Xiantian realm. She was already on the verge of breaking through to the 3rd grade Xiantian realm. Shen discovered another effect of Absolute Duo Manual during the shower, the body of Mingyue Gelou released a light amount of impurity. Though he leaned toward it being one of the effects of his Absolute Physique.

Still, he managed to reach the peak of 2nd Layer of the Martial King realm. The 24 strands of Chaos Qi on his muscle that surrounded his bone frame, increasingly released absolute qi on his blood and helped in forming Absolute Bloodline. Every day he was going closer to forming his very first drop of Absolute Bloodline!

After executing a series of sword technique with the Big Dipper Sword, Shen decided to practice Alchemy. Lately, whenever Shen thought of Alchemy, he can't help but frown.

Taking the Heavenly Genesis Cauldron, Shen sat in a comfortable position as he added many common grade herbs inside the cauldron. But any of them were at least above three hundred years old! The Pill he was cultivating was Spirit Concentration Pill!

Spirit Concentrating Pill: Allows the pract.i.tioner to improve their cultivation speed for 24 hours. The effect depends on the purity and grades of the herbs used!

The ingredients Shen used to concoct this pill: Five hundred-year Fleeceflower Root, two-hundred-year Tigerbone Powder, three-hundred-year Bear Gall, three-hundred-year Turtle's Blood, Four-Edged Lotus Leaf, Purple Leaf Flower, five-hundred-year Fu Ling!

The main reason he decided on this pill was that it helps him in cultivation, not to mention there was no negative effect from this pill. Especially the herbs required for the pill was all from common grade.

While alchemy may seem to be very simple, it required one to be fully focused, both physically and mentally, sensing each step when the medicinal herbs sublimate, and combine, and sublimate...

Once there exists the tiniest of errors, the alchemy attempt would fail. The higher the quality of the medicinal pill, the more it needed to sublimate and combine, and the success rate would be very low. The lowest pill would only need one time to combine or sublimate, therefore the success rate would be very high.

Shen controlled the Primordial Genesis Flame, focusing his Spiritual Sense fully to sense the changes to the medicinal herbs within the Heavenly Genesis Cauldron, sensing each step of the sublimation, combination, sublimation...

The process of burning the impurities with heat was one of the fun processes he had encountered so far. He was proud of the fact that he could remove 81% impurity after the long practice of the last month. As he went through the success of the combination and sublimation each time, Shen did not dare to let down his guard.

It was to the extent that a dense layer of sweat droplets had appeared on Shen's forehead. Shen was not perspiring from the heat, but rather, from feeling anxious because it was at the final stage!

Pa!

The cauldron violently shook!

"Sigh, I feel tired to even count..."

Shen exasperatedly thought. From the last month, he had yet to success a single time. He tried different pill formula but the results were the same. He even thought there was some problem with the prescription or the herbs had a different name or medicinal effects, else he didn't know why would he fail so many times, especially at the pill forming stage.

Shen sat in silence, pondering over the reason for his failure. The cauldron was always enveloped with his Spiritual Sense and he could feel every change happening with it. When he compresses the medicinal properties and tries to form the pill, for some reason it causes a small explosion, causing the pill form to fail.

Suddenly, he felt that every time when he starts forming the pill, he unconsciously increases the temperature. Not only that, many medicinal properties are wasted inside the cauldron and end up having insufficient amount to form the pills.

He felt an inspiration this time, why bother with his spiritual sense only? He had Absolute Vision, this technique not only used Absolute Qi but also his spirit power. He could see any form of energies with it, in another way, it was by no mean inferior to his spiritual sense.

While he knew he will success sooner or later, he felt more confident about succeeding now! He had the confidence that he would be able to succeed at the next attempt, and so long as he could succeed, Shen would be able to success again.

After cultivating another round of Absolute Strengthening Technique, executing the sword movements, Shen again attempted to concoct Spirit Concentrating Pill.

He already had high familiarity with all the process other than pill forming, and this time, he astonis.h.i.+ngly removed 87% of the impurities! As the process of pill forming neared, he instantly turned serious.

Using his Spirit Power, he controlled everything in the cauldron and proceeded on pill forming. He made sure to keep attention on the temperature. The Primordial Genesis Fire was especially potent, just a little increase changes the temperature by a huge margin.

Ting!

Success!

It was his first success concocting a pill! The sound given by the cauldron sounded so melodious to his ears that he could feel himself melting. Just how many times did he suffer failure? If it was someone else, they might've considered quitting pill concocting. Especially considering how much herbs went to waste, they might even cry a sea of tears!

The medicinal pill had a green translucent color, its size was also that of a grape. The pill was not completely translucent, and slightly cloudy. Indicating their purity, but if someone from any alchemy family got this pill on their hand, they would die to get their hands on the technique. After all, it was common knowledge, anything even with 80% purity was a rarity among rare pills. And this pill's purity reached an astonis.h.i.+ng 87%! It even exuded a slight soothing fragrance. He quickly bottled them into the small porcelain bottles prepared beforehand. These porcelain bottles were custom-made to retain medicinal effects of the pills.

Shen was surprised when he found 20 pills inside the cauldron! After so many failures he almost forgot about the effects from the Heavenly Genesis Cauldron. The cauldron had +30% chance of producing a double amount of pills, with the Primordial Genesis Flame, the chance was doubled!

After taking a short break, Shen once again attempted to concoct the Spirit Concentrating Pill!

Success!

Success!

...

Shen smiled. After his first time succeeding, he felt he can complete the process even in his sleep. But too bad, this pill was not much of use to him. He only used common grade herbs in this pill and the effects it brings is also minuscule. The only reason he concocted this pill was training purpose only.

Out of the total of three rounds, the double effect only chanced on first round causing him to have a total of 40 lower Spirit Concentrating Pills.

"Hmm, let's try the effects. I will gather some thousand-year-old herbs to concoct better pills!"

Shen took out a light green Spirit Concentrating Pill and swallowed it. Immediately a cool feeling rose from his Dantian, gus.h.i.+ng all the way up to his brain, making him feel refreshed throughout his body. His Spiritual Sense and ability to sense things was even strengthened by almost one fold.

This was something Shen didn't consider! Just by creating a pill from common grade herbs, he was able to concoct Spirit Gathering Pill that increases one's spiritual sense by almost onefold!

He took a pill and inspected.

[Lower Spirit Concentrating Pill; Purity-Medium

Increases concentration and sharpens spiritual sense for 24 hours by 1.74x]

"..."

Shen was left speechless. 87% purity and his Absolute Upgrade only indicated it as "Medium". Just what needed for it to show "High"? Maybe 98% or possibly it won't show without complete 100% purity!

But he was satisfied seeing that it increased his cultivation speed by 1.74x. Even though it was not completely onefold. He deduced it was due to the lower quality herbs. Shen didn't know if it was not for the high purity and the additional effect from the cauldron, even 1.5x would have been impossible with the same ingredients.

At this moment, Shen had a brilliant idea in his head. Something he didn't consider before, that was to upgrade the pills!

Taking the same pill, he tried to upgrade.

Success! He felt now he could upgrade all the way to +10!

Upgrade! Upgrade! Upgrade!...

Crack!

In a frenzy, Shen upgraded the pill all the way to +10. Unfortunately, the pill cracked and burst into hundreds of tiny parts on the tenth upgrade. But it caused Shen to think seriously, he was able to upgrade the pill all the way to +9 without destroying it. Even though it was a fragile pill...

Suddenly his eyes brightened! He took out another pill and started upgrading it. If what he thought was correct then he will have another path to take for his Absolute Upgrade.

What was different between the weapons and the pills other than the materials that Shen upgraded? It was not about the items, but Shen himself!

Shen concocted the pill. He knew everything, from start to finish how the pill forms. It was his insight. He had more insight about the pill than the weapons created. Not only he didn't know their materials. He personally didn't have any knowledge of weaponsmithing.

But the pill was different. He knew everything about the pill and its properties. He again upgraded another pill to its +10, causing it to shatter in pieces again. Again he took another pill, but stopped at +9 and checked its effects.

[Lower Spirit Concentrating Pill +9; Purity-Medium

Increases concentration and sharpens spiritual sense for 24 hours by 2.51x]

The increase was not that great, but consider the pill was only created from common grade herbs. The effects of his cultivation speed increased by more than onefold was terrific to Shen.

After all one day was equal more than 40 days for him! And his cultivation speed doubling means he can cultivate 80 days worth of cultivation in a single day! If it was not for his mighty cultivation being slow, he would have increased in strength by leaps and bounds!

Shen calmed down, as he went through everything about the Absolute Upgrade so far, and noted down a few important things.

Absolute Upgrade can upgrade anything or every non-living to +10;

Requirements:

The inherent property of the item must be good enough to hold the power of the upgrade.

If the item is not inherently strong, the user must have enough insight about the item.

These are the only thing Shen could think of so far. The mystery of Absolute Upgrade was yet to surface, but now he had a clear direction as to how he can exploit the Upgrade completely!

Shen stored the upgraded pill in another porcelain bottle and started cultivating the Absolute Strengthening Technique. He noticed how he can absorb spirit energy from the realm much faster than before. It was the main effect of the Spirit Concentrating Pill, increasing the speed of cultivation.

...

The next morning, Shen and Mingyue Gelou sat before Yan QingQing, both of them looked at the girl as if checking on a specimen. QingQing felt uncomfortable and pressured under their questioning gaze.

"I..." Yan QingQing paused, her words stuck to her throat.

For Shen and the girls, it was a simple answer, yes or no. But for Yan QingQing it was more than that, last night she went through many conflicts insider her. What she wanted, what was the most appropriate choice. Surely her mother was searching for a way to take her back, but how much would she have to suffer to do that? Was there not something that could lessen her suffering? But she couldn't bring herself to accept such an offer.

She remembered the eyes of the young man, even though he wanted to help her. His eyes seemed to contain some ambiguous meaning, it was not something malevolent but rather something similar to curiosity and interest. It seemed he was curious. Curious as to what her decision would be, which path would she choose. Even though he wanted to help her, his eyes genuinely expected something from her. Then to answer those expectations and her own self, her answer could only be...

"I want to return to my mother and brother with my own strength, please help me!" QingQing stood up and bowed deeply.

Mingyue Gelou had an incredulous expression while Shen clapped his hands, "Good, your request has been accepted. But don't expect it to be for free, from now on you'll be under my wing!"