Heart Qi

The "Yin-Yang Immortal Essence Pill" - its effect: when yin and yang converge, it accumulates immortal essence.

"Yin and yang convergence?" Qin Ran read about the effects of this immortal pill, shaking his head. "Immortal essence?"

It wasn't entirely useless, yet wasn't completely useful either. After all, besides some secondary effects, the main purpose of this immortal pill was to increase one's chances of achieving immortality.

It seemed useful, yet wasn't really - firstly, he was merely a Golden Core cultivator, and achieving immortality was like taking just the first step of the Great Wall's ten thousand steps. Who knew when he would actually need the Yin-Yang Immortal Essence Pill? Secondly, even though his pill-refining skills had greatly improved, he still lacked the ability to refine immortal pills.

Thirdly, taking this pill required the convergence of yin and yang, which meant he needed a Dao partner.

But his avatar had traveled thousands of miles to reach the Celestial Sea Region - how the hell would he have a Dao partner? Most crucially, he wasn't even sure if he had "that capability."

"Looks like my original body will benefit from this..." He felt somewhat disappointed, but then another thought struck him. "Benefit my ass! That guy doesn't look like he could achieve immortality... Li Shiyin would be more suitable."

Who would ultimately benefit from this immortal pill remained uncertain, but there was a more pressing matter at hand. Which was...

This was a damn immortal pill!

An immortal pill!!

He couldn't refine it!!!

On the light screen before him, the Divine Essence Old Demon had very thoughtfully left just one slot, indicating that examinees only needed to refine one immortal pill to pass.

But there seemed to be a hint of mockery in this.

"The Divine Essence Old Demon himself probably couldn't even refine an immortal pill!" Qin Ran rolled his eyes.

He turned around and walked toward the desk in this pill-refining room.

He had learned the pill-refining techniques from the previous six rooms. The Heaven-Mending Pill room contained relatively basic techniques, and each subsequent room's techniques were more advanced than the last. The difficulty increased gradually from low to high - the Divine Essence Old Demon was being quite considerate.

[Translation continues due to length...]

Having studied diligently along the way, combined with his already decent foundation in pill refining, his current pill-refining skills had undergone a qualitative change compared to before.

With his current cultivation level, he could attempt to refine sixth-grade pills. In other words, his pill-refining ability was now limited by his cultivation level.

If his cultivation level were to increase, he should be able to refine most pills below immortal grade.

Therefore, unsurprisingly, this Yin-Yang Immortal Essence Pill room contained techniques for refining immortal-grade pills.

And again unsurprisingly, Qin Ran couldn't understand it. He encountered that situation where the text had characters, the characters had meaning, he recognized the characters, but couldn't comprehend what they meant.

To make an analogy, Qin Ran was like a brilliant middle school student who had self-studied high school material, but when faced with university-level knowledge, though familiar, it was incomprehensible.

After hesitating for a while, he still lowered his head and forced himself to read. It didn't matter if he couldn't understand - he would memorize it first. This was, after all, the technique for refining immortal pills.

Heaven finally showed mercy - the situation that Li Shiyin, Long Qiqi, Chasing the Wind, Tushan Youyou, and other Pill Peak disciples had faced before, he finally encountered today.

Just memorizing without seeking understanding took Qin Ran almost six days to completely record everything here.

After finishing the books, he still got up and went to the medicine cabinet to prepare the spiritual medicines for the Yin-Yang Immortal Essence Pill.

"The main ingredients are one Yin-Pole Dark Sea Lotus, five qian of Yang-Pole Lightning-Struck Rock, five liang of ten-thousand-year Chaos Golden Ginseng..." he muttered while gathering the medicines. "Supporting ingredients, two Blood Sea Gallbladders, Dragon Tail Whale tail..."

If these weren't spiritual medicines simulated by the sealed space, he wouldn't even be able to cut and separate the materials, let alone measure them accurately.

Finally, after preparing all the medicines, he started the furnace to refine the pill, but the first problem he encountered made him lose composure.

He threw the Yang-Pole Lightning-Struck Rock into the furnace's inherent celestial strange water, used his divine consciousness to activate the furnace, and then after half a day, the rock hadn't moved at all.

Forget about extracting the medicinal properties from the Yang-Pole Lightning-Struck Rock - this piece of stone hadn't shown the slightest change after soaking in the celestial strange water for half a day.

So Qin Ran knew that he could never refine this immortal pill.

If he couldn't even process the raw materials, how could he refine the pill?

"Is this how it ends?" He gave up on refining the immortal pill and returned to the light screen, reconsidering this test.

This was indeed a test, and passing it would bring extremely generous rewards. He had passed six stages consecutively, and although there were difficulties and setbacks, he had overcome them all and passed the tests, receiving rewards.

But...

Now that he was certain he couldn't refine an immortal pill, and there was no way to pass this stage, he had to face a problem:

How would he leave this pill-refining room? How would he escape this test? How would he leave this sealed space?

When he couldn't pass through the light screen, he realized that this pill-refining room was less like an examination room and more like a prison.

He wasn't a student taking a test; he was a prisoner trapped here.

Qin Ran took a deep breath and walked back to the light screen that had led him to this pill-refining room. After several attempts, he couldn't return to the previous room either.

He was trapped in this small pill-refining room.

Although... even if he could return to the previous room, or even the very first room, he still couldn't leave the sealed space.

"Am I going to die trapped here?"

Qin Ran realized this problem.

He suddenly found himself like a mouse in a jar. The mouse discovered rice in the jar and excitedly climbed in. It ate all the rice, then discovered a problem - it had reached the bottom of the jar, but the walls were too steep and slippery to climb out.

"How ridiculous have I become?"

He looked up and around at this small pill-refining room, which was about the size of a normal one. Like a prison cell, and also like...

"This square little room has become my coffin."

He couldn't help but laugh bitterly at himself. "A pill-refining room, dying in a pill-refining room, it's quite fitting. The Divine Essence Old Demon has quite a twisted sense of humor."

Qin Ran walked around the pill-refining room again and again, thoroughly checking every corner up and down, but found no mechanisms or secret doors.

The place was so small that no matter how much he tried, he couldn't find anything new.

He sighed and finally sat back down at the desk.

He took out the immortal pill-refining technique to read again, but couldn't focus anymore. It now seemed more like bait that had lured him into a trap rather than an immortal technique.

Putting down the book and looking around, he strangely thought of Brother Xun's iron room theory.

"Fortunately, I'm in my divine consciousness state, so I don't need to breathe and don't have to worry about suffocation," he smiled, then thought, "But because I don't need to breathe, I'll never think about breaking out of this iron room."

As he was smiling, he suddenly froze.

"Breaking the iron room..." Recently immersed in pill refining, and because of it, his mind wasn't working at full capacity. Only now did he react, "This..."

He would surely go mad, and then die in his madness. He knew this would be his final fate.

"So this was waiting for me!" Qin Ran despaired, lamenting, "I thought you, Divine Essence Old Demon, were a good person... you really are just a demon who toys with people's hearts!"

"Immortal pill..." he couldn't help but laugh coldly, "You, Divine Essence Old Demon, probably couldn't even refine it yourself."

"Ah..."

He collapsed to the ground, sighing.

But before he could finish sighing, he suddenly realized something:

"The Divine Essence Old Demon failed to ascend and died on Divine Essence Mountain!"

The Divine Essence Old Demon had died, which meant he must never have successfully refined the Yin-Yang Immortal Essence Pill!!

He jolted up and walked to the light screen, looking at the slot on it.

In the previous pill-refining rooms, each light screen had three slots. When he placed supreme-grade pills in them, the light screen would reward him with three real supreme-grade pills.

But here there was one slot, indicating that after successfully refining and placing an immortal pill, he would be rewarded with one immortal pill.

But...

The Divine Essence Old Demon himself didn't have an immortal pill, so what would he use as a reward?

Wasn't this contradictory?

There must be something wrong here!

Qin Ran raised his hand slowly, reaching toward the light screen...

His hand passed through the light screen without any resistance!!!

This light screen was different from the previous one - it was merely a layer of light with no blocking effect!

Great joy and sorrow, sorrow and joy, ups and downs, light at the end of the tunnel...

Qin Ran stood there, stunned.

At this moment, a deep and majestic voice echoed in his ears:

"Cultivation is an act of defying heaven! To defy heaven, you need the courage to challenge the heavens, to struggle against earth! You need the courage to break free from all mortal shackles! To become immortal, you must have the courage to reject all the golden rules left by those who came before!

"Young man, you need to be braver! You need more courage! Courage..."

Qin Ran knew this was the voice of Divine Essence Old Demon. It was his voice left within this light screen.

Standing there, he thought about his true self, or rather, himself...

He always thought too much, always hesitating and considering the consequences, lacking the courage to forge ahead. He was too timid. He lacked courage.

"Huff..."

Qin Ran let out a soft breath, stepped forward, and passed through the light screen.