All the materials were ready. Elder Young braced both hands on the massive furnace, channeling fiery red elemental energy into the pill cauldron, while Morgan Yates was busy fanning the flames at the side. Elder Young's expression was grave, injecting energy while carefully monitoring the heat.

  “Morgan Yates, increase the heat!”

  “No, the heat is already too high!”

  “Morgan Yates, turn it up even more! This Solid Essence Pill is different from the Nourishing Essence Pill—the heat must be sufficient!”

  The current heat was already Morgan Yates's limit. Helpless, Morgan Yates sent a surge of dragon force directly to the acupoint in his right hand, his strength skyrocketing, and the heat instantly rose.

  Seeing this, Elder Young sensed the sudden surge in temperature. He was startled at first, then broke into a satisfied smile. After another ten minutes, Elder Young withdrew his hands.

  “That’s enough. You can stop now.”

  Morgan Yates stopped fanning the flames. Immediately, the cauldron gave a loud bang as the refining process finished. Elder Young opened the lid, and a fragrant aroma wafted out—the batch of Solid Essence Pills was complete.

  “Ha ha, finally finished refining the Solid Essence Pills!” Elder Young laughed heartily.

  Morgan Yates quickly stood up and flattered, “Elder Young truly is a genius alchemist. With Elder Young in the Ye family, becoming the number one clan in Shiyan City is just a matter of time.”

  “Enough with the flattery. What was that just now? How did you manage to increase the heat so much? Did you break through your acupoint?” Elder Young asked sternly again.

  “It’s all thanks to the Nourishing Essence Pills refined by Elder Young that I was able to break through by sheer luck.”

  “That’s good to hear. But don’t think you’ll get away with sneaking those Nourishing Essence Pills. I need to refine more Solid Essence Pills these days. Go to the Treasure Pavilion and buy one tael of Fusion Powder for me—make sure it’s the best quality.”

  Fusion Powder is a material required for refining all pills. It’s not cheap, but not exactly expensive either. One tael of Fusion Powder costs a tael of gold, which is equivalent to a hundred taels of silver.

  Elder Young’s tone made it clear he wanted Morgan Yates to pay for it himself. A hundred taels of silver—Morgan Yates couldn’t even raise that much if he sold himself.

  “Elder Young, about the money—” Morgan Yates hadn’t finished speaking when Elder Young immediately cut him off.

  “You expect me to pay? I’ll be out looking for a pill apprentice these days. If you haven’t bought the Fusion Powder before I find one, I’ll send you straight to the Discipline Hall.”

  “Fine!” Morgan Yates agreed through gritted teeth. This old man really had no sense of sentiment.

  After refining a few more Nourishing Essence Pills, Elder Young stopped alchemy for the day. He stored the Nourishing Essence Pills in the alchemy room, took the Solid Essence Pills with him, gave Morgan Yates a few instructions, and left.

  Morgan Yates tidied up a bit and returned to his own room.

  With no more Nourishing Essence Pills, he now had to scrape together a hundred taels of silver to buy Fusion Powder, and still be on guard against Ethan Yates's revenge.

  At this point, the only thing he could do was try to improve his own strength and see if he could find a way to make money outside.

  Morgan Yates sat cross-legged, controlling two streams of dragon force to assault the acupoint in his brain.

  Originally, Morgan Yates wanted to break through the acupoint in his right leg, since in combat, attack and speed are most important.

  But then Morgan Yates reconsidered—if he broke through the acupoint in his brain, his perception would improve. And since his dragon force was stronger than ordinary elemental energy, if he broke through the brain acupoint, would his perception also surpass that of ordinary martial artists?

  Morgan Yates continued refining dragon force while using it to assault the brain acupoint.

  Morgan Yates's black dragon force was much stronger than ordinary elemental energy. With two streams attacking the acupoint at once, the speed was even faster.

  He spent the entire afternoon in a daze. Eventually, Morgan Yates couldn’t take it anymore and stopped using dragon force to assault the brain acupoint.

  Most martial artists choose to break through the brain acupoint last, as they consider it the least important and the hardest to open.

  Once all five acupoints are opened, a martial artist can cultivate techniques and officially break through to the first level of the Qi Creation Realm.

  Morgan Yates thought of another problem: although he could use dragon force, and it would generate automatically, where had his own elemental energy gone?

  “With my current strength, refining two streams of dragon force already reaches saturation. If I use my dantian to refine the world’s energy, won’t the dragon pillar stop absorbing my elemental energy? Wouldn’t I then be able to refine my own elemental energy?”

  With that thought, Morgan Yates began refining two streams of dragon force again. Two black dragons of elemental energy flew out from the base of the dragon pillar, coiling in his dantian, ready at any moment.

  Morgan Yates then started refining elemental energy. Sure enough, the black dragon pillar no longer absorbed the world’s energy. Morgan Yates directly converted the world’s energy into elemental energy, which surged continuously into his right hand.

  “Heh heh, I really did extract my own elemental energy. But even though it’s endless, compared to dragon force, it’s just too weak!”

  With two types of power in his dantian, Morgan Yates knew well that elemental energy and dragon force were on completely different levels, and dragon force could even be stacked.

  “Let’s see if dragon force and elemental energy can be used together.”