Finally, she was clean again, it was surprising were soot could go! She even found some between her toes! The forest was no longer on fire too, she was able to snuff out most of the flames with her ice quite quickly, and her clothes were slowly repairing themselves as she feed Qi to them.

"Mhh.." She clenched her left fist, she refused to believe that she could not do this! Many things were very dependent on her succeeding in Alchemy. Her future growth for that matter was very reliant on proper elixirs and pills! Just munching on herbs was a waste! Of course, Kou did not know that even those most gifted would fail the first few times! Controlling the heat while also properly handling the ingredients and the cauldron was very hard, the reason not many people could become alchemists! You had to have superb control, Aykou lasting as long as she did was quite the achievement.

Sadly nobody was there to tell her, nobody to teach her, she had to learn by herself with just the book as a guide-line. Shi Shi had made it so. It was always better to develop your own way of making alchemy than learning from someone else! You could improve your own skills so much more if you did it your own way then following a strict guideline that allowed no experimentation at all.

Well, at least that was Shi Shi's way of doing things...

A few hours later.

Yun Kou had brought out a new pill furnace - this time she spends some time with it before using it, check it up and down for cracks, getting accustomed to the Qi and structure it had.

All these furnaces were used and somewhat old, of course, they were, a new one was very expensive! But old furnaces had their very own merits! A long-time used furnace would have medical energies in it, and leftover Qi from all the pills and elixirs that had been created inside of them.

Kou this time tried to attune herself to this furnace as best as she could, she very very much did not want to have another one explode! Understanding the furnace was a part of Alchemy too!

Well, that is at least what Kou made up for herself.. if you don't want something to explode make sure you know how stable it is...

Finally, she felt confident in trying again! While she had gathered quite the amount of herbs in her time here she did not want to waste any! Even if she just managed low-grade things it would be better than failure!

While she prepared the ingredients Kou let out a sigh. There were many kinds of medicine, and usually they would be classified from low to mid to high grade, for Kou she never had gotten anything that was not low grade, she had seen Mid-grade pills on the market but rarely.

Those kinds of pills were also very expensive! The book had no special recipe on how to create different grade pills, it was fully dependent on the skill the alchemist had! A good alchemist could even make high-grade medicine out of low-quality products.

Well, that was a dream for the future! Kou went with exactly the same set up like last time, her fluffy tail grabbing the spear to supply it with Qi while most of her attention went to the furnace.

This time there was no explosion, Kou's hair was disheveled her eyes bloodshot but the finished! The pills she created were barely low-grade barely better than rubbish, and she had wasted most of the ingredients only making 2 pills. But, it was a success, well partly...

While the furnace did not explode once Kou was finished the furnace started to stink horribly, violet smoke was forming form the slightly burned wasted materials, Kou quickly backed off, her eyes going wide as she saw the smoke hit some leaves, those immediately withered.

"Oh nuh.." She blinked grabbed the furnace and quickly hauled it away with all her power towards the sea, at least there it would not be her problem anymore.

"Urg! Why is this so hard!" She growled impatiently - she had not have to struggle at all until this point! Cultivation was something she had great talent in after all! She heard a cough and Xiong suddenly fell from a tree his face purple, the ..smoke went up there..

The man's eyes were rolled back and he had foam in front of his mouth! What kind of demonic pill did she create that even the smoke could damage someone as powerful as Xiong! Kou quickly pulled the pills away into the furthest corner of her storage before dragging Xiong over to her bed so he could rest.

She did not quite know how to help him so she brought some water for him to drink...

A few hours later.

"HAHAHA! So that was your alchemy! I was just about to come for a visit and suddenly I fly into some violet cloud! Knocked me out good! Maybe you should try your hand in poison arts!" He laughed again before sitting up finally he had recovered! And luckily he did not seem angry at Kou, which was a relief she did not want to make the powerful man angry at all

Xiong pushed his massive frame upwards and immediately hit his head against the low ceiling of Kou's cave home. The following 2 minutes were filled with curses way worse than any sailor it was so bad that Yun Kou's ears tilted all the way down and her eyes became as big as saucers.

Xiong had finally calmed down after leaving Kou's cave, Kou's face was slightly pale, having to witness the bearlike mans tirade of cursing was a first for her, she had learned many new words, most of them involving someone's father or mother.. apparently.

"Ah, sorry about that Lil, one, been a while since I hit my head that bad.." Rubbing the back of his head Xiong felt slightly ashamed, of letting out such a storm of curses in front of someone so young.

Kou treated him to some of the food she already preserved as to pacify him still not really wanting to have him be angry ever again... "So Lil'one you're getting into Alchemy yes? That's good, good, you little humans need that!"

With a nod Kou curled her nose slightly "Mh, ..got some problems with the cauldrons and the flame, I can't concentrate properly on everything..." Kou went on explaining her problems.

"Mh, dun know too much about ya pills and such, but I do know that good tools lead to good results, let me tell you something! This Island! It is not a natural one, many many years ago it has been brought up from the sea ground by a mighty expert, he was an Alchemist, and he used this fresh and fertile land to grow herbs, of course, this expert long since died and the island's gardens grew wild, but you can still find many many rare herbs here. And some of the belongings of that old man."

Xiong grinned slightly as he leaned down towards Kou "Wanna go on a little adventure? I know one of the places that old fart left things behind, not that I ever had interest in those, but for you, there might actually some things left behind that are worth something, and maybe if that helps you will not completely destroy the island!" He laughed again

Kou curled her nose and nodded cautiously getting some things of a senior alchemist sounded very beneficial but she was not too sure about going on an adventure with Xiong. The definition someone so powerful had of an "Adventure" worried her quite a bit.

But Xiong simply scooped her up and placed her on his left shoulder "Well then hold on we are gonna go fast, it's not all that far away from my home, so you are better with me, or my children may attack you! We actually are guarding that place usually."

Kou was shocked, Xiong was flying! And he was so very fast! It was fun! The rushing winds how everything moved past them in the blink of an eye! Kou thought she was fast already, but with Xiong's speed, there was no comparison! Would she someday get as fast as this? Would she learn to fly too? She wondered what cultivation level Xiong even had.

Quickly the landscape changed as they traveled what had been a lush jungle before quickly became a rocky mountain and finally a large snowy field, there was white everywhere! The air was thin and fresh and cold! The Ice Qi in this place was plentiful and Kou could see some of those Ice flowers growing on the snowy lands.

She already wanted to stop Xiong so she could go pick a few but the man just put one of his hands on her head. "Look closer." He grinned, a closer look.. revealed the terror, there were quite a few plant-like monsters each in the 4th realm waiting near those flowers to chomp down on anyone that would try and pick it! How did plant beasts even live in this cold

"Everything on this island is done in a way to protect the Gardens that were left behind, we all that live here are just guards, well are supposed to, we are the generations that came out from those guards, we are mostly free now but many of the less smart creatures still follow their programmed orders in protecting the herbs and island, that old fogy that made this Island, so powerful, but in the end he still died - a realm of power I will probably never reach, and he still died... Fragile Humans.." He shook his head a few times but they quickly approached a cave entrance.

Kou blinked slightly "So he just left everything here? Has there never been anyone coming here to take things?" This seemed strange to Kou, such a mighty figure was probably well known after all! Once someone died everyone would fall over his riches like greedy scavengers after all. "Mhm, There have been a few, but those just took grand things you do not have to worry about, what is left over is still quite substantial for someone of your level after all, also that old fogy liked to play tricks on people, so if you will get something will also have to do with your luck, luckily I've never heard of anything being lethal."

"There we go, stay up there, for now, that way we can get past the wards without problems.." While saying that they passed through a thick membrane inside the cave, what seemed to be a desolate and empty cave before now had a giant wooden door and finely chiseled walls. It was as if they had suddenly entered into a temple hall, it was so grand that nothing the sect back home had could even remotely compare! The work on the walls, the way the door was crafted, even for someone that usually had no interest in such things like Kou it was quite striking.

"Good little one, I can't get in there with you, but there should not be anything dangerous in there." With those words, he shoved the door open small lightning bolts tickling his hands. "Ur, Always kinda tickles.." He mumbled before giving Kou a shove in too, as the girl seemed to already back off again, she passed through without a problem. "Go on now."