Shun Long closed his eyes and sent his soul sense inside his herb garden, before dozens of medicinal herbs appeared in front of him one after the other.
Even the lowest-ranked of them was actually a rank 5 medicinal herb, while a handful of them were actually rank 6 herbs.
Seeing this scene, Jiang Chen and the others all remained silent as they looked at Shun Long.
Aside from Liu Mei, this was the first time for Jiang Chen, Xingyi, and Bai Longtian, see Shun Long personally refine pills.
The look on Shun Long's face was extremely solemn as he turned his attention towards the medicinal herbs that were scattered around him.
With the assistance of the orange earth flame, it only took a few minutes for the bronze cauldron to be fully heated and be ready to refine pills, but Shun Long knew that refining the 'five-elements awakening pill' wasn't going to be easy at all.
Taking a deep breath, Shun Long then circulated the qi inside his qi balls, causing his eyes to turn golden, before the invisible figure of an hourglass expanded from his body, completely enveloping the entire room.
57 silver-colored balls of qi were floating above his head, but aside from Shun Long, neither Jiang Chen nor the other could see them.
Extending his hand, Shun Long grabbed a handful of rank 5 medicinal herbs and threw them all inside the cauldron.
The moment that they entered the cauldron, under the terrifying heat of the orange-colored earth flame, the rank 5 medicinal herbs were instantly turned into a puddle of medicinal essence, before Shun Long threw in another bunch barely a second later.
An incense stick of time had passed before all rank 5 medicinal herbs turned into a puddle of colorful medicinal essence that swirled inside the bronze cauldron.
At that moment, as Shun Long used his soul sense to split the medicinal essence into 4 parts, his golden eyes suddenly turned extremely serious, as Shun Long suddenly threw in 4 rank 6 medicinal herbs inside the cauldron, all at the same time.
Among these medicinal herbs was also a single rank 6 'white petal flower', looking nearly identical to the flower that Shun Long had traded to Wan Zu for the stalk of 'five-elements grass'.
The only difference was, that the petals of this flower seemed to be slightly bigger than those of the flower that Shun Long had given to Wan Zu.
Of course, although this difference seemed to be negligible, an expert alchemist who knew enough about this 'white petal flower' would immediately understand that this was already a rank 6 'white petal flower' that had matured for more than 5000 years, while the 'white petal flower' that Shun Long had exchanged with Wan Zu was only a 3000-year-old 'white petal flower'.
Staring at the rank 6 'white petal flower' that was slowly turning into a white-colored liquid, but was clearly much harder to refine compared to the rank 5 medicinal herbs, Shun Long mumbled to himself in his heart
''Although a single 'white petal flower' is enough to refine 4 rank 6 'five-elements awakening pills', unless both the 'white petal flower' and the 'five-elements grass' have matured for more than 5000 years, it's impossible for the quality of the 'five-elements awakening pill' to reach the high-grade, let alone the top-grade.''
As he stared at the 'white petal flower' inside his cauldron, Shun Long lamented on how tough it was to refine this.
The older a medicinal herb was, the more difficult it would be to refine it into medicinal essence.
As for this 5000-year-old 'white petal flower' that he had grown inside his herb garden, Shun Long knew that without the assistance of the earth flame, it would be impossible for him to refine it fully by himself.
Even though his spiritual strength was almost at the level of a peak Dao King right now and he was qualified to be considered a peak rank 3 gold grade alchemist, Shun Long knew that even with his extremely pure qi, his qi flames wouldn't be strong enough to fully refine a rank 6 medicinal herb without the assistance of an earth flame.
It wasn't just him.
Shun Long knew that even powerful Dao Kings, and even peak Dao Kings who had reached the peak rank 3 gold grade as alchemists, wouldn't be able to fully refine rank 6 medicinal herbs by themselves either.
Although they could refine a small part of the herbs, Shun Long knew that those peak Dao Kings would usually cause 70 percent of the medicinal essence to be wasted.
Shun Long's spiritual strength surged, causing the power of the earth flame coming from the Refinement Hall to reach the limits of what he could use, before the 'white petal flower' was fully refined into essence, turning into a mix of colorful white and green medicinal essence that was mixed into the puddle of medicinal essence inside the bronze cauldron.
And yet, at that moment, Shun Long could feel his soul sense shudder as a wave of pain suddenly filled his head.
''Monarch's Domain!''
Shun Long's golden eyes had turned red from the pain, but he still called out furiously as he activated his 'Monarch's Domain', causing the flow of time around him to forcefully stop.
Shun Long knew that this wave of pain was caused because he tried to refine the essence of 4 rank 6 medicinal herbs simultaneously. However, Shun Long knew that if he didn't refine the essence of the 'white petal flower' and the other 3 rank 6 herbs at the same time before he fused them together, the chances of creating even a single top-grade 'five-elements awakening pill' would be almost 0.
This was because, a small part of the essence of each one of those 4 herbs would naturally be dispersed, unless Shun Long refined them all together at the same time.
At that moment, as he activated his 'Monarch's Domain', Shun Long didn't hold back at all, causing the flow of time around Bai Longtian and the rest to be stopped as well.
Even Jiang Chen and Liu Mei who had reached the peak of rank 7 in the Nascent Soul couldn't muster an inch of resistance in front of Shun Long's 'Monarch's Domain', as the flow of time around their bodies was forcefully halted.
At this point, Shun Long had failed to notice this detail, as his attention was fully focused on the bronze cauldron in front of him.
The pain from forcefully refining 4 rank 6 medicinal herbs at the same time was still assaulting his senses, and yet Shun Long knew that he couldn't lose his focus.
Refining a peak rank 6 pill, especially a pill like the 'five-elements awakening pill' that even star-rank alchemists only had a 40 percent chance to successfully concoct, was truly extremely difficult.
Extending his right hand, Shun Long grabbed the stalk of a five-colored grass that he had placed right next to him, and without any hesitation, he tossed it right inside the bronze cauldron.