Chapter 12

The danger of magic pills.
Returning to his room, You XiaoMo’s mind slowly clears up. The words of the pink dressed girl revealed quite a bit of information. That ‘Elder brother’ most probably is a top level disciple of the Warrior division while the pink dressed girl should be a mage. Even though You XiaoMo is not very sociable, he knows that she couldn’t possibly be from Earth peak. That pink dressed girl should be a disciple from Heaven peak or Flying peak. Tossing out the petulant voice of the pink dressed girl from his mind, You XiaoMo starts to read his book seriously.
Speaking of the quality of magic herbs, the book actually does touch on the subject. Magic herbs will grow differently depending on the method of cultivation, leading to good and bad magic herbs. However, without exception, regardless of cultivation method, the quality of magic herbs have never exceeded 95% perfection. Of course, this would directly affect the quality of magic pills. It is recorded in the book that problems arose in the method of cultivating magic herbs several thousand years ago. From then on, no one has been able to cultivate top quality magic herbs, affecting the usability ratio of the herbs. Therefore, magic pills are divided into 3 grades, top, middle, and low grades.
Flipping further, You XiaoMo studies how to judge the quality of magic herbs. Simply put, it’s related to the spiritual energy absorbed by mystics. Magic herbs are so-called because they absorb the spiritual energy of the universe. With spiritual energy flowing in the meridians of the magic herbs, soaking in day by day, growing to maturity. Therefore the quality of the magic herbs can be determined by the amount of spiritual energy contained in them. Only now does You XiaoMo understand that the white mist he saw earlier on the stems and leaves of the peaceful spirit flower in the medicine garden represents magic herbs of the best quality. But the probability of this happening is not high. Even in the level one medicine garden, there are only the occasional few plants. What more the high level magic herbs? The probability of this happening is practically zero.
Furthermore, because of the different magic pill grades, there is a predetermined risk for the martial artists of the Warrior division when they take the pills. The lower the grade of the magic pills, the higher the risk. For example for low grade magic pills, since the quality of the magic herbs lie between 60-70%, the risk for the martial artists when they take low grade magic pills reaches up to 35%. Not high yet not low. The results for mid grade magic pills are slightly better. Since the quality of the magic herbs are from 70-85%, so the risk of taking mid grade magic pills is only 20%. Naturally, the lowest risk is the top grade magic pills. The quality of top grade magic herbs is 90% so the risk of top grade magic pills is only 8%. This is why top grade magic pills have always been the goal of mages and martial artists. The high level mages of Long Xiao continent, other than spending time refining magic pills, also regularly devote themselves to researching the cultivation methods of magic herbs.
However, there are some exceptions. Five hundred years ago, a high level mage discovered another way of reducing the risk of magic pills. That is to refine the extraction process, removing the impurities. The more impurities are removed, the better the quality of the magic herbs, leading to decreasing risk in the resulting magic pills. Later, when the discovery was passed on, it caused a huge uproar among mages. From then on, more and more mages adopted this method. One after another, hoping to further distill the magic herbs to reduce the risk of the magic pills. However, this method can only reduce the risk of the magic pills, not increase the grade. That’s because the grade of magic pills is dependent on the level of spiritual energy contained in the magic herbs. Removing more impurities does not affect the original level of spiritual energy contained in the magic herbs. Regardless, the method discovered by the high level mage is still very useful. Going through the distillation process, the risk of low grade magic pills is reduced to 15%, mid grade to 10%, and top grade to 5%.
All this information leaves You XiaoMo confused and disoriented. It’s really quite complicated. Now he understands why those disciples said earlier that refining magic pills is not easy. Looks like it takes so many steps just to refine one magic pill. Refining a level two magic pill within 6 months does not seem plausible no matter how you look at it. You XiaoMo’s head starts to ache. Looks like he needs to put in 200% of effort if he plans to stay with TianXin sect.