Chapter 158

Chapter 158: Challenge Yourself

Zong Ping Shi said, eyes lighting up by several degrees even as he tried to be modest: “This… Fellow Daoist Lin, you are far too courteous.”

For a matter that promised benefits, who would not be delighted?

Rong Shu smiled slightly and took the initiative: “Shall we head into the Scripture Tower?”

Han Cheng Yun answered crisply: “All right.”

…

The group walked toward the Scripture Tower.

After the cultivators ahead of them entered, it was Rong Shu and her companions’ turn. The moment they stepped inside, the tower doors swung shut. Rong Shu’s vision blurred as if a formation had started up, and in the blink of an eye they were standing in a sealed chamber.

Three of the stone room’s walls were lined with bookshelves crammed with books; the fourth wall held a single tightly closed door. In the center, a long table displayed several pill furnaces along with a jumble of assorted pill recipes.

Su Hua exclaimed in delight and reached out impulsively: “There are pill recipes!”

Han Cheng Yun called out a reminder: “Wait, these recipes cannot be taken. They are protected by formations.”

Pill recipes left behind by an alchemical grandmaster could be worth a fortune. Even if one was not an alchemist, selling such a thing outright would fetch a handsome price. If they could really be taken so easily, then in the past two openings of this secret realm every last recipe would already have been stripped away.

Sure enough, Su Hua’s fingers had barely brushed a recipe when an unseen force bounced his hand back.

Su Hua muttered, unconvinced yet chastened: “There really is a formation?” He was about to try again when his elder brother, Su Meng, stopped him.

Su Meng said, tone even: “Enough. They are just a few recipes. It is not as if we have never seen such things.”

Zong Wen Shi stepped forward to smooth things over: “Our urgent task is to lift the door’s restriction, and the key to doing that is hidden in these recipes.”

Rong Shu’s attention had already settled on the chamber’s single door. Its form was unusual: ten round recesses ringed together to form a larger circle, and at the very center a hemispherical knob protruded, red as a jewel. Looking closely, one could see liquid coursing within it.

[Scripture Tower Secret Chamber]

Those who enter must refine pills according to the displayed recipes, then place the pills in the door’s ten circular sockets. If every pill is made correctly, the chamber door will open.

Han Cheng Yun produced a storage pouch and offered it to Rong Shu: “Fellow Daoist Lin, these are the spirit herbs we prepared. Use whatever you need.”

Rong Shu did not stand on ceremony. She accepted it with a nod: “Thank you. I will do my best.”

Although the recipes on the table could not be lifted, they could be read in place. With a single sweep of her gaze, Rong Shu saw they were all basic first-grade pills. Even a trainee alchemist might not guarantee a high success rate, but out of ten furnaces two or three should still come out right.

She drew the appropriate spirit herbs from Han Cheng Yun’s storage pouch and began. They had come prepared; the storage pouch held a complete assortment of what would be required.

Rong Shu set out a pill furnace and opened the fire to refine.

While she worked, Han Cheng Yun and the others used the chance to comb through the entire chamber, not leaving a single corner unchecked. Every manual and recipe in the Scripture Tower was set with formations. Nothing could be taken out of the tower and nothing could be destroyed. Each visit allowed only a rubbing onto a jade slip. As for the door, none of them tried to force it. Others had already attempted such things. Short of the correct pills, even brute force could not budge the chamber doors.

Rong Shu needed to refine ten different pills, five of which she had never handled before. There were simply too many kinds of pills, and she had only become an alchemist in the last two years, usually refining things useful to her own cultivation. So there were quite a few first-grade pills she had never tried, and she failed once or twice on some.

Even so, they were only first-grade. The difficulty was not high, and she soon refined all ten types.

She said evenly: “Done.”

She called to Han Cheng Yun and the others, then carried the freshly refined pills to the door. They gathered around.

Han Cheng Yun asked with bright expectation: “Fellow Daoist Lin, you already finished?”

Rong Shu nodded and raised the pills in her hands as a sign: “Now I just place them into the ten sockets, yes?”

Zong Wen Shi answered at once: “Yes.”

Under their eager gazes, Rong Shu set the ten pills into the recesses. Several seconds passed. Then the dark red “stone” at the center brightened by several shades.

Zhu Chun was the first to notice the change, and he cried out in delight: “It worked! It really works!”

Yun Gao Fei urged in a low, excited voice: “Quick, press the door’s switch so we can reach the next chamber.”

This first room, even after they had scoured it inside and out, had not offered anything of true value.

Yun Gao Fei added, glancing at Rong Shu with newfound confidence: “According to our collected intel, the first three floors are passable for any first-grade alchemist.”

With a calm motion, Rong Shu pressed the red stone. The chamber door swung open at once.

Beyond was another sealed room.

Rong Shu continued refining in the new chamber. Floor by floor for the first three levels, she produced the pills with ease and led Han Cheng Yun’s group upward.

From the fourth floor onward, second-grade pills were required, and the difficulty increased markedly.

Rong Shu scanned the second-grade recipes and murmured to herself as she memorized them: “Fire-Warding Pill… Wind Stride Pill… Breath-Holding Pill… Stench Pill… Croak Pill…”

Among the second-grade recipes lay several she had never encountered, some she had not even heard of. Rong Shu sank wholly into pill-refining.

Fourth floor… cleared.

Fifth floor… cleared.

Sixth floor… cleared.

When they cleared the sixth, Rong Shu was about to continue to the seventh when Zong Wen Shi spoke up to stop her: “Fellow Daoist Lin, any higher and we will be into third-grade pills. You…”

Yun Gao Fei said, practical and cautious: “Reaching this point is already a huge gain. Why not leave directly?”

Zhu Chun added, equally wary of risk: “Yes. If we fail to unlock the next floor, we will be trapped in the Scripture Tower for fifteen days before being released. Losing half a month of field training and resource hunting would be too costly.”

Seeing that one after another they were reluctant to continue, Rong Shu said simply: “Then, Fellow Daoist Zong, you all go on ahead. I will stay.”

She smiled sincerely as she explained, thoughtful of their position: “My cultivation is shallow. The Scripture Tower is likely my greatest opportunity in this secret realm. Rather than go out and gain nothing, being trapped inside is not necessarily a bad thing.”

Han Cheng Yun’s expression turned upright as he declared in a ringing tone: “What is half a month? Thanks to Fellow Daoist Lin, we have already gained much. How could we abandon you halfway and run off alone?” Wu Man nodded repeatedly and chimed in: “Exactly, exactly. Leaving Fellow Daoist Lin alone in the Scripture Tower, what if danger arose? That would be our fault.”

He finished, earnest: “Let us continue, let us continue…”

Their sudden change of heart made Rong Shu lift a brow. She said nothing, merely pressed the red stone and stepped first into the seventh chamber.

She had no other motive. She simply felt that the Scripture Tower was a fine place to quiet the mind and polish her alchemy. [Third-grade pills… is a second-grade alchemist really unable to refine them?]