"It is the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor's duty to properly conduct the Rite of Parting."
"Please rest assured, Director Hu Tao, I will handle every detail of the Rite of Parting."
Morax nodded earnestly, assuring Hu Tao.
Hu Tao naturally had complete trust in her Guest Elder's professional abilities, so she didn't give too many instructions. She simply told Morax to prepare early and then went to attend to other matters.
"It's only logical that the Director would be the first to think of holding the Rite of Parting..."
After Hu Tao left, Morax muttered to himself.
He didn't delay any further and left the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor directly.
Preparing for the Rite of Parting is no simple task; it requires at least several days of preparation... Time quickly moved to the next day, and Lumine and Paimon planned to meet with Young Master.
Meanwhile, in Jueyun Karst's Aozang Mountain, Ryan finally extinguished his alchemy flames, and the red phantom around him slowly disappeared.
"No one disturbed me, I was fully focused, so it should be successful this time..."
Ryan muttered to himself, then opened the alchemy furnace named star swallowing cauldron.
Just like when alchemy was successfully completed in the past, a golden light emanated from the pill, accompanied by a waft of medicinal fragrance.
However, what was different was that this time there were three pills in one batch.
"Three..."
Ryan frowned slightly and reached out with both hands to catch the pills.
Then he softly chanted a spell, and golden light fell upon the pills.
[Three Heads Eight Arms Pill (3-star): After consumption, one can temporarily gain the power of three heads and eight arms. Can be gilded.]
"Oh..."
Seeing the effect of the pill, Ryan was slightly surprised.
He had refined it once before, and although it was a failure, at that time its name was "Three Heads Six Arms Pill," and it was a two-star pill.
Why had it become a three-star now? And it could even be gilded?
"Is it because the amount of ingredients that should have made ten pills was concentrated into three...?"
Ryan muttered, somewhat puzzled.
This pill formula used a relatively large number of medicinal ingredients; otherwise, it wouldn't have required such a large piece of volt locust wood. Because of this, when he refined a failed pill last time, he got ten pills from one batch.
He still had one left that he hadn't used.
This time, using the same amount of materials, he only refined three pills. If it weren't for the different description, Ryan would have suspected that he had wasted all the extra materials when forming the pills.
The method he used to form pills was to control the heat to adjust the pressure inside the alchemy furnace, thereby allowing the refined materials to gather into a spherical shape on their own, rather than him manually shaping the refined materials into spheres one by one.
Therefore, under normal circumstances, if the amount of materials placed exceeded what was needed for one pill, he wasn't entirely sure how many pills would ultimately condense.
"Forget it, no matter what, with these three pills, the compatibility for Spirit Invocation with Martial Uncle Bosacius will be much higher."
"It's a pity that Martial Uncle Indarias is female, and her compatibility with me isn't high; otherwise, controlling fire would suit me better..."
Ryan looked at the pills in his hand, muttered to himself for a moment, then turned and walked out of the cave.
Arriving at the open area outside Aozang Mountain, Ryan then took out one Three Heads Eight Arms Pill.
Multiple pills undergoing tribulation together would greatly increase the power of the lightning tribulation, so Ryan only took out one, storing the rest back in his qiankun bag.
"Heavenly Tribulation, Etch! Nine Heavens Thunder Forges Profound Light!"
"Immortal Art! Spirit Invocation!"
Ryan raised the pill while chanting a spell, and a four-armed purple phantom wearing a mask appeared behind Ryan, ready at all times to receive the heavenly thunder.
Soon, dark clouds obscured the sun, lightning flashed, and strong winds howled through Jueyun Karst.
"...Undergoing tribulation."
At the peak of a mountain in Jueyun Karst, Shenhe casually picked a Pure Heart and put it in her mouth, her eyes looking into the distance.
Her location was not far from Aozang Mountain, allowing her to clearly see Ryan holding the pill.
As a bolt of lightning struck, Ryan used the Spirit Invocation Immortal Art to block it.
But a second bolt of lightning followed closely, and Ryan was momentarily overwhelmed, the electric current coursing through his body causing him to show a pained expression.
"Senior Brother..."
Seeing this, Shenhe swallowed the Pure Heart in her mouth, then immediately sprang into action.
She first leaped down to the mountainside, where a pair of twin Electro Slimes happened to be lurking.
Then, Shenhe grabbed one of the large yellow Electro Slimes with one hand and, with lightning speed, threw it towards the sky above Ryan.
With a whooshing sound, the Slime shot out.
Boom—!
Just then, a bolt of lightning struck, precisely hitting the Electro Slime.
The power of the lightning came and went quickly, all absorbed by the yellow Electro Slime.
The Electro Slime, having absorbed the lightning's power, swelled to a size taller than a person, with electric arcs surging around its body.
Then... *pop*—!
Like an overinflated balloon, the Electro Slime exploded in mid-air, leaving only a large amount of Slime mucus scattered around.
"Lime—!"
Seeing the Slime, which had inexplicably flown over to help him block a lightning bolt, die like that, Ryan cried out in grief.
However, after shouting, he quickly left the range of the lightning tribulation. He had already blocked several bolts, and the rest would be up to the pill itself.
"It's good that he's alright."
Seeing Ryan out of the lightning tribulation's range, Shenhe finally relaxed and went back to picking Pure Heart to fill her stomach.
"Wuwuwu, Electro Slime brother..."
Although he didn't know this Electro Slime, its act of blocking the tribulation lightning for him deeply moved Ryan. So he collected most of its scattered mucus, dug a pit, buried it together, and even erected a stone as a tombstone.
The lightning tribulation quickly came to an end, and the Three Heads Eight Arms Pill emitted a colorful, ethereal glow, dispelling the surrounding electric arcs.
Ryan then walked over to catch the pill and checked its attributes after gilding.
[One Head Two Arms Pill (3-star · Gilded): After consumption, immediately discard excess limbs to enter a one-head, two-arm state. Reattaching the discarded limbs to their original positions restores the normal state.]
"..."
"?"
Withdrawing the golden light from his eyes, a large question mark seemed to appear above Ryan's head.
It was normal for gilding to enhance a pill's attributes or improve its effects, but completely changing the effect and even the pill's name was something he had never seen before.
And... "This, this is worse than not gilding it!"
Seeing the gilded One Head Two Arms Pill, Ryan exclaimed that he had been tricked.
The Three Heads Eight Arms Pill, besides making Ryan more compatible when using the Spirit Invocation technique, also provided the power of three heads and eight arms.
But the gilded pill seemed to simply turn a person into a one-head, two-arm state.
The problem was, when he transformed into a human, he already had one head and two arms.
"I'm not doing it! Whoever wants to do it can!"
Discovering that gilding had turned into a losing business, Ryan put away the One Head Two Arms Pill and walked away.
After Ryan left, a large, mutated purple Electro Slime hopped over and stopped in front of the tombstone Ryan had erected, remaining there for a long time...
After a day of alchemy, Ryan felt it was time to return to Liyue Harbor to check the situation. Perhaps the immortals had already gone to assign blame.
He still needed to take advantage of the chaos to get his hands on some of the Exuvia...
"With the Three Heads Eight Arms Pill, my compatibility with Martial Uncle Bosacius should increase. This way, besides my master and the other martial uncles and aunts, I don't think anyone can stop me. The Geo Archon's legacy is mine for the taking..."
Ryan thought to himself.
"However, the Geo Archon is, after all, my Grandmaster, so I can't tarnish his image. When I trim his beard, I'll have to trim a little from each side to maintain symmetry. For the dragon scales, I'll take one from each side. The fur on his back should be fine to trim however, as it probably won't be noticeable..."
On his way to Liyue Harbor, Ryan was already fantasizing about what his harvest would look like.
He couldn't even imagine what kind of pills could be refined from the Exuvia left behind by the oldest of the Seven Archons after his death!
"Wait, no... I'm so hungry... I want to swallow a whole forest boar in one bite!"
At this moment, the hunger from not eating for a day finally surged, and Ryan decided to find a place to eat something before continuing his journey...