As this was a first realm recipe, meant for Qi Refinement alchemists to work with, there was no need for spirit sense, or rather, the process was designed in a way that one could succeed without the use of it. Still, as with most daoist arts or practice methods in the cultivation world, one could certainly use the advantage of their higher realm to brute-force success in lower realm matters.

What once required talent, understanding, and experience would be solved using raw power and versatility, which was why many cultivators were fixated on realm before doing any of these 'side' practices.

For Li Ling at the moment, he chose to do his first few alchemy processes honestly, as if he were a first realm practitioner. That was to assess his talent and understanding of alchemy from a more natural point of view to gauge whether it was worth it to invest more in it, then he would use his realm to push through the procedure to see how applicable that was.

The procedure itself was quite straightforward. Due to the nature of the sealed void and the fact that the reagents had all been placed within at once, it meant that they had to be worked on concurrently, which was usually quite taxing when using Fire Alchemy, but was the highlight of Water and Earth Alchemy.

Immediately, the Grade 2 Spirit Soil that encased the cauldron began to shift and move on its external frame, seeming like a bunch of tiny ants hurriedly scuttling about the cauldron, never touching the lid area. What this did, though, was generate a strange earth element force that resonated with the cauldron, adopting its frequency and penetrating through the cauldron into the void where the medicinal materials were held.

This elemental force was the key of Earth Alchemy, which interacted with the medicinal materials under the relatively precise control of the alchemist who refined the earth used for this method, going through the commands of the recipe to refine the reagents.

For the Qi Nourishing Pill, the process was to first sift through the materials, removing the necessary properties of these herbs relevant to the recipe while discarding those unrelated, either confining them to another point or destroying them. A skilled alchemist could confine these extra medicinal properties for other purposes, while most new or unskilled alchemists would rather just destroy them than risk causing the current refinement to fail.

Li Ling was simulating first realm alchemy, so he naturally destroyed what was not needed, using his control over the Spirit Soil's elemental energy to easily crush the medicinal materials into different pastes.

Earth Alchemy was more about crushing and then filtering, almost akin to how water was filtered using the sand method. The extent of the filtration, its quality, and the duration were decided solely by the skill of the alchemist versus the type of specific Earth Element Alchemy technique they were using.

This was why Li Ling took the Earth Nurturing Method, because the use of Spirit Soil had great effects during the filtration stage, causing a lot of the medicinal properties to be retained without impurities and even enhancing them slightly, which boosted the success rate and the quality of the final pill.

In a matter of 30 minutes—since Li Ling was using Grade 2 Spirit Soil rather than Grade 1—the interior of the cauldron had gone from seven reagents to seven different colored pastes or residues that shone with a magical light, covered within a bubble by the earth element energy that Li Ling generated through the Spirit Soil.

Then he began closing the bubble, causing it to rapidly contract into the form of a small pill, merging the remaining residues together to form a colorless gray mass that was rapidly undergoing fusion and refinement with the earth element energy as a source of power.

This process surprisingly took another 30 minutes, in which the fusion stabilized to a great degree, and Li Ling found that it was too concentrated—which was normal for almost all alchemy recipes. As such, he split the bubble into five pieces, creating five little round balls with less concentration but just enough to be functional.

After this, another 30 minutes passed until he made a hand sign and caused the cauldron lid to open slowly, causing the five successfully refined pills to float out under the control of his spirit sense to hover in front of him.

Li Ling assessed the pills while rubbing his chin, taking them one by one to sniff, taste, and then compare to what the recipe stated should be produced. In the end, he came to the conclusion that he had crafted three high-grade pills and two average-quality ones, a great success for his first ever attempt!

But Li Ling shook his head, lamenting that indeed, his alchemy talent was poor. It might seem like he had achieved a great result on his first try, but that was only through leveraging many advantages due to his higher realm.

Not using spirit sense did not mean that he did not have higher realm advantages.

For one, controlling the Spirit Soil to move and generate elemental energy required constant infusion of spiritual energy. A Qi Refinement cultivator's mere refined spiritual qi would struggle to keep up, needing them to have robust foundations or to take breaks, both of which had their own problems.

But Li Ling had Magic Power, which was even at the perfection of Foundation Establishment, so it barely cost him 1% of his energy reserves to produce this pill, even going at full force.

Another thing was the fact that the Spirit Soil he used as the Refining Power was at Grade 2 thanks to his refinement, so the elemental energy it produced was of higher quality, easily able to filter the reagents. Grade 1 Spirit Soil would not have had such an easy time, as it would be like trying to shave off a portion of frozen butter versus warm butter with a knife.

Yet with these advantages, he could only make three high-grade pills and two average ones.

If it did not seem ridiculous, one could see it as a graduate of law being given a political studies exam question at senior high level with five questions and only scoring seventy out of a hundred.

Li Ling put these pills aside and started up a new batch, this time leveraging the full use of his realm without holding back, which meant the inclusion of spirit sense.

Merely 45 minutes later, he glanced at the seven top-grade pills before him with a strange look on his face. Indeed, it was apt to describe using a higher realm to attempt lower methods as a dimensional reduction attack, because this was outrageous.

If a genuine first realm alchemist were to achieve this, they would be hailed as a talent not seen in a hundred years, but Li Ling was easily able to achieve this by stacking his various realm-related advantages. If every Foundation Establishment Perfection cultivator could also do this, then how could mere average Qi Refinement alchemists survive?

Li Ling shook his head and put the pills away.

He checked in on the enslaved duo and found that they were hard at work with procreation, so he left them to their business. Instead, he was about to pick up Artifact Refining when he received a delayed notification from his Asura Blood Token that he was being summoned by the Hall Master of his hall.

As he had put himself in a sort of seclusion, the token knew not to disturb him and only sent the notification out now, when he was done. This sort of adaptability was very useful for disciples of the sect, because even if one entered a long seclusion—especially if one entered a long seclusion—they would still be informed about important details during their breaks, allowing them to end it early if need be.

It avoided the situation where one would be in seclusion and their loved ones passed away or fell severely ill and one was not able to see to them because they were closed off from the world, a big fear for many cultivators.

Li Ling coldly smiled as he could guess what this summon was about, but he also had his own plans in mind, so he did not reject it. Rather, he came out of his separate practice room and walked out of the courtyard silently, walking stately towards the Administration Hall of the outpost, where Tang Huo had visited to handle Li Ling's matter.

On his way over, he saw that Ding Yan, the neighbor who was also a demonic sect spy, was drinking tea in her courtyard, watching him go with sharp eyes. When she saw him look over, her gaze became somewhat charming and friendly, waving over like a fellow disciple seeing one of their own passing by, to which Li Ling chuckled and returned the gesture.

When he came to pass though, Ding Yan frowned and wondered what Li Ling was up to, deciding that this activity was important enough to warrant her reporting it upward to her superiors.

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