This meant that Ji Fengyao faced twice the difficulty.

With the herbs only half-refined, Ji Fengyao felt that she had consumed too much spiritual energy and was somewhat weak.

She quickly activated the spirit-gathering formation to absorb the spiritual energy within it for replenishment.

However, she underestimated the difficulty of refining pills two levels above the Foundation Establishment stage for cultivators who had not yet established their foundation. When the herbal liquid was about 80% refined, the spirit stones in the spirit gathering array were almost used up, so she had to replenish it with another batch.

The magpie stayed with Bailu for a while and saw that she was lively and energetic and seemed to be alright.

Bai Lu was also worried about leaving Ji Fengyao alone, so she kept urging Xi Que to go and keep Ji Fengyao company.

The magpie then left the side courtyard and returned to the main courtyard.

After searching the main house and bedrooms without finding anyone, the magpie then led them to the secret room.

Upon entering, he saw Ji Fengyao sweating profusely and looking pale as she started refining medicine in the furnace. He immediately became anxious: "Miss, why didn't you tell anyone before starting to refine medicine? We already have enough pills. Why are you working so hard?"

"I did it for them," Ji Fengyao explained with difficulty, then tossed a pile of spirit stones to Xique and said, "Keep an eye on the array around me. If any spirit stone breaks, put a new one on top."

Xi Que put the spirit stones into her storage ring, carefully sat down next to Ji Fengyao, and looked at her pale face with great heartache: "Miss, do you really think that Sister Lin Shuang has harbored resentment?"

“If it were me, even if I didn’t understand cultivation, I would have wild thoughts too,” Ji Fengyao said as she added herbs to the alchemy furnace. “Since she has the ambition to improve, I will refine this Body Tempering Pill to help her. How far she can go depends on her own perseverance and fortune. For cultivators, perseverance and luck are also very important.”

Xi Que nodded, seeing that Ji Fengyao was really struggling, and dared not say anything more.

An hour later, all the herbs were refined.

The next step is to condense the elixir.

The process of condensing the pill requires even more care and caution, otherwise the essence of the medicinal liquid will be burned away by accident; the pill formulas are all the result of repeated trials, and if the essence of one ingredient is burned away, the pill will not be a body tempering pill.

Even the loss of a single drop of the medicinal essence will affect the quality of the finished product.

This means that Ji Fengyao needs to be especially precise in controlling the heat and the timing of condensing the elixir; and therefore, she needs to expend more spiritual energy to support it.

Seeing that Ji Fengyao's face was almost deathly pale, Xi Que was extremely anxious.

She desperately wanted to tell her mistress to stop and cease her alchemy practice, but she feared that interrupting her mistress's alchemy at this critical moment would lead to even worse consequences.

Finally, the last impurity in the medicinal essence was removed, and it began to become a unified whole. Ji Fengyao gently patted the alchemy furnace with her palm, and a gentle spiritual power enveloped the medicinal essence inside the furnace, gently swirling around it. Under the scorching and refining of the extreme fire, it solidified and took shape.

One stick of incense, two sticks of incense,

A quarter of an hour, a quarter of an hour;

Just as Ji Fengyao had exhausted all her spiritual power and could no longer continue, the pills inside the furnace finally solidified completely.

A rich aroma of herbs filled the secret room, making people feel refreshed and relaxed.

The magpie only sniffed the medicinal fragrance a few times, but it felt its muscles relax and its whole body feel comfortable.

"rise!"

Exhausted, Ji Fengyao patted the alchemy furnace again, took out eight jade bottles from her storage ring, and put the twenty-four Body Tempering Pills into the bottles.

Before she could retract the jade bottle and alchemy furnace into her storage space, she slumped to the side, exhausted, and collapsed into the arms of the magpie beside her, with traces of bright red blood seeping from her mouth and nose.