Chapter 634: Alchemy Limits and the Power of Fireseeds

This point was especially important—it wasn’t like silver, gold, and black fireseed artifacts were growing on trees.

If these Oddities can be used repeatedly, that’s the best scenario. But if they’re consumables, even Song Chi as Master of the Omniverse Market might struggle to bear the cost.

Besides, all the pills refined by this Oddity need a thorough test. How effective are they really? What’s their maximum potency and to what rank of beings? How many pills can you get from one batch after enhancements?

Then there’s the matter of the missing ‘Liuding Divine Fire.’ He’d heard about it before—supposedly an immortal flame straight from legends in his past life with a rank that definitely wouldn’t be low. If he ever found it, what grade would the fully restored Creation Eight Trigram Furnace reach?

A mythical color grade is certain—the only question is, would it be lower, upper, or even supreme tier?

Song Chi’s thoughts raced.

Snapping back to himself, he swept his hand and watched as several fireseed artifacts shot over from the Oddities Exchange below.

By now there were over a million different Oddities in his Exchange. More than fifty were silver or higher tier, and some were indeed fireseed artifacts.

Soon, he had two strands of silver fireseed and two strands of golden fireseed in hand.

As for the silver fireseed, one strand came from the place of inheritance his eldest brother discovered in the Flame God Clan, and another was from his recent opportunistic find. Of the two golden fireseeds, one was a recently half-fused, still-incomplete “Samadhi True Fire.” The other was the ‘Flame of the Crimson Wheel,’ both recovered from the Flame God Clan’s heritage site.

Instead of tossing Samadhi True Fire and Flame of the Crimson Wheel directly into the Creation Eight Trigram Furnace, Song Chi wanted to do a few tests first.

Of course, before that he spent one Eighth-Tier Floating-Land Origin, eleven Seventh-Tier Dominion Souls, and a ton of Titanite Crystal to directly enhance the Creation Eight Trigram Furnace to level 80.

After it hit eighth tier, the component attributes changed noticeably. The most obvious upgrade: bigger pill yields for certain types.

{Essence Pill: Once the component successfully fuses with one strand of silver fireseed, it can spend 100,000 Eon Energy Points to automatically refine one batch of Essence Pills. Average yield per batch: 20–30 pills. Note: Essence Pills can be taken by all flesh-and-blood creatures in the Sea of Stars to boost physique over time. Not yet activated—this trait is still sealed since no fireseed’s been added.}

Spirit-Nourishing Pill batches now matched the Essence Pill: each batch could produce 20–30 pills.

Bloodline Ascension Pills had their yield lifted to 5–10 per batch.

Genesis Creation Pill batches remained capped at 3.

Only the Breakthrough Immortal Pill and Threefold Golden Body Pill stuck at one pill per batch—no change at all.

Song Chi wasn’t disappointed. As long as there was progress, he was satisfied. Anyway, thanks to his recent scavenging spree, he had plenty of high-tier resources left: four more Eighth-Tier Floating-Land Origins and over thirty Dominion Souls. Supplies weren’t a problem.

He’d already guessed as much about Breakthrough Immortal Pill and Threefold Golden Body Pill. Judging by their traits, each one was basically a treasure with infinite returns for just a single dose.

Enhancements done, Song Chi took a strand of silver fireseed and dropped it straight into the Creation Eight Trigram Furnace.

Sure enough, once he’d slotted the fireseed, the “sealed” tag on the Essence Pill function vanished. Song Chi didn’t hesitate to turn this trait on.

Next thing, flames billowed up inside the cauldron component as Eon Energy kept pouring in. The silver fire intertwined with the energy in a fierce reaction.

Time ticked by. The outline of pills slowly took shape in the furnace.

“One… two… eight…”

Counting them out, Song Chi found his luck was decent—looked like 26 pills were forming this first batch. That would probably stay true for future batches too.

Almost twenty minutes later, that first batch of Essence Pills was finally done.

After bottling all 26 of them, Song Chi’s gaze lingered on the inside of the Creation Eight Trigram Furnace.

“The fireseed’s noticeably dimmer now.”

That definitely wasn’t good news.

He quickly determined the silver fireseed was faded by about a thirtieth. So, one strand would last for thirty batches of Essence Pills—roughly 600 to 900 pills total. Was this a gain or a loss? He wasn’t sure, but he decided to accept it all the same.

Truthfully, he’d already suspected as much deep down.

In his memory, every pill-refining master of his past cultivation world always needed tons of specialty ingredients—aged spirit herbs, primordial liquids, rare minerals and the like. There was no way he’d just dump in some dark energy and get pills out of thin air—if so, that’d be absurd.

Settled on this, he popped back over to Dragon-Spine Continent and grabbed another silver fireseed artifact from the Clan Vault—one that could never be upgraded to a higher fireseed. With that, he had three strands of silver fireseed to play with.

Next, he tested out Spirit-Nourishing Pills. Like the Essence Pills, each silver fireseed could only refine 30 batches.

Having collected one batch each of Essence Pills and Spirit-Nourishing Pills, Song Chi didn’t bother refining Bloodline Ascension Pills yet. He was determined to test the first two pills’ effects before deciding if it was worth it.

If the results were mediocre, he wouldn’t waste more resources refining the others any time soon. Plus, the last four pill types all demanded golden fireseed artifacts—something even Song Chi himself was reluctant to burn through lightly.

He summoned a Sixth-Tier Doomstar and tossed one Essence Pill and one Spirit-Nourishing Pill to it.

He knew the pills from the Creation Eight Trigram Furnace wouldn’t be poisonous—any flesh-and-blood creature in the Sea of Stars could safely take them. But he still couldn’t be sure how strong they’d be. If the effect was too intense, a sixth-tier creature might not survive it and end up literally exploding—that would be no joke.

He waited patiently. When the Doomstar showed no odd response, Song Chi checked again with telepathy just to be sure.

The sixth-tier Doomstar’s reply was simple: it felt like it had endless energy, and its mind was alive and buzzing.

Clearly, both pills were working—but the Doomstar’s answer was vague, and as their species differed, Song Chi would need to experience the effects himself. At the very least, he confirmed that a sixth-tier lifeform could handle the pills.

Calming his breath, Song Chi took a moment to prepare, then swallowed one Essence Pill.

No sooner had the thumb-sized pill landed in his stomach than heat flooded his core. His Eon Energy surged in response, cycling faster and faster. The shift was so profound it affected the space around him—he could sense his own absorption of Eon Energy rising dramatically.

All told, the Essence Pill’s effects lasted three whole hours. With its support, even Song Chi’s Guiding Technique—already at the peak of level 67—seemed ready to break through. He figured just three of these pills and he’d reach level 68.

By that measure, the Essence Pill was impressive indeed—easily on par with a fifty-thousand-year Deepwater Pearl. It might even help seventh-tier cultivators as well.

Now it was time for the Spirit-Nourishing Pill, though the effect on Song Chi himself was much less.

That wasn’t because the pill was weak—his divine mind was just off the charts already. He’d long since used up every Seventh-Tier Gray Crystal he’d had, and his spirit thread count had broken the 200 mark six months ago; now it held steady at 223. This was exceedingly rare for a sixth-tier Torch Captain.

Because his mind was so much stronger than his peers, the Spirit-Nourishing Pill didn’t do much for him. But for any other sixth-tier Captain, it’d be invaluable.

Once convinced these two pills were worth it, Song Chi threw the Flame of the Crimson Wheel straight into the cauldron.

Sure enough, a batch of Bloodline Ascension Pills soon emerged—just 6 this time, he wasn’t very lucky.

Again, a sixth-tier Doomstar tested them first. Once Song Chi was sure there were no nasty surprises, he took one himself.

“Not bad. Just a hair weaker than the ‘Advanced Bloodline Baptism’ at the Market’s Bloodline Baptism Platform. If you took two at once, that’d boost a low-tier being’s genetic value past 70 points—enough to upgrade them to a Sea of Stars advanced lifeform and really multiply their potential.”

He was satisfied with the pill’s function—after all, it didn’t come with the Bloodline Baptism Platform’s harsh prerequisites. But Song Chi still didn’t think much of it.

It mostly boiled down to two things: first, these pills had no effect on himself—he’d already evolved into an advanced lifeform at rank four; second, the high cost to make them.

He saw the just-used Crimson Wheel flame had already dimmed by a tenth. In other words, a single golden fireseed artifact would only make ten batches of Bloodline Ascension Pills. Hardly cost-effective, in Song Chi’s view.

But as for the fourth type—Genesis Creation Pills—he was quite interested. Their effect was healing, restoring all injuries instantly. If they worked for sixth- or even seventh-tier beings, their value would be immense.

If nothing else, whenever he used the Celestial Authority Ring’s Enslave Seal: Berserk skill, he’d have way fewer limitations—once a slave creature rampaged, he could just restore them right away and save them from death.

Unfortunately, he simply didn’t have enough golden fireseed artifacts for now. That would have to wait.