Zhen Shi was reasonably speechless.

But that didn't stop him from raging and complaining mentally, 'System WHAT THE FUCK!? What happened to the Legendary Mage Myne's prophecy? Where's my promised Divine Treasure?

And poor Goddess Guanyin! She is basically a simple MONK! A kind PRIESTESS! The Savior of the MASSES!

I, myself, might have been fine with stealing *cough* borrowing her most powerful treasure... but to be so perverted as to steal her USED bathwater? What the hell type of a perverted System are you? Is this the example you're setting for the young systems of the world? SHAME ON YOU!'

System: ƪ(˘⌣˘)ʃ

Zhen Shi heaved a sigh trying to calm himself down... But he was reminded of the fact that he had just wasted 100 OP on a jar of used bathwater! And looking at his system status, OP: 0 (+6), which revealed that he was completely broke, he was even more annoyed!

As such, he had to spend a few more minutes spewing 'colorful' words towards the 'best system in the world'.

----------------------

Now that he was a bit calm, Zhen Shi fell into deep contemplation, 'Why didn't I receive the prophesied divine treasure?'

Logically thinking, there were several possible reasons...

One of them being that Myne had lied. But Zhen Shi had faith in that annoying mage brother of his and threw this thought aside...

It was also possible that divination was unrelated to the system and IOUs, but Zhen Shi strongly doubted this. There was no way a god would pop up and leave him a divine treasure...

In the end, the only possible reason was the problem posed by the term 'Very Soon'... How long was this actually? A few minutes? A day? A week?

Since this was not specified, it was very possible that this wasn't the proper time for him to receive the prophesied divine treasure...

Shaking his head in annoyance, Zhen Shi ultimately decided to let bygones be bygones. In a way, it was his own fault for being impatient.

But, Zhen Shi couldn't help but think... if he hadn't heard Myne's divination, he never would've used the divine boon and wasted his OP! So while he had some fault for this catastrophic loss, it was definitely mostly the Myne's and the System's fault!

System: "..."

Annoyed at the situation he was currently in, Zhen Shi angrily looked down at the jar of used bathwater which had cost him a whopping 100 OP. But regardless of his previous words, Zhen Shi was unable to bring himself to just throw it away.

Thus, despite having no idea what the hell he would do with a goddess's used bathwater, Zhen Shi carefully placed the jar in the System inventory.

Heaving a stifled sigh, Zhen Shi decided to distract himself from this annoying situation.

Looking into the dantian planet, he could see that the (pseudo)soul was still hard at work on mastering formations. This meant he couldn't blacksmith just yet.

Thus, he decided to try his hand at some alchemy and refine some pills. He placed the leafy green pill cauldron in front of him while admiring the lively engraving of the trees and vines.

Flicking his fingers and drawing from the Vermillion Bird feather in his (pseudo) soul, Zhen Shi manifested the crimson undying flame and set the cauldron ablaze.

The undying nature of the flame and life aether of the pill cauldron appeared to resonate sending out a small wave of life qi. The plants in the central garden seemed to come to life and wriggle about in ecstasy as the life qi passed over them.

The crimson flame dulled down a bit as it mixed with the green life aether of the cauldron finally revealing an earthy brown color, but was livelier than ever.

With another wave of his hands, Zhen Shi brought a set of the same ingredients that Vivienne used to refine the Mortal Tier Healing Pill. He threw them into the cauldron and carefully began to heat them with the brown flame and extract their essence.

Despite the basic alchemy knowledge from the System's skill book, Zhen Shi came very close to failing and burning up the ingredients. But thanks to the life cauldron enhanced by the Undying flame, he was barely able to make it through.

Even so, he was sure that he had been unable to extract the maximum essence from the ingredients. With a dissatisfied wave of his hand, he attempted to move to the next step and combine the ingredient essences.

But he messed up the timing and the ingredient ratio was also unbalanced...

Poof!

In a cloud of black smoke, the ingredient essences were burned up. Even the undying flame was helpless to prevent this. Zhen Shi coughed in annoyance while waving his hand to brush away the smoke.

After having been fucked over by the System a few minutes ago, he wasn't in the mood to fail in alchemy as well. As such, he gritted his teeth in determination and started to repeat the refining process.

Poof!

Moments later... poof!

One step away from success... poof!

He kept missing up the proper combination of the ingredient essences to form the pill embryo...

Zhen Shi contemplated for a moment and canceled the Undying Flame. He manifested a simple flame of qi which burned brighter and hotter than usual due to the resonance with his fiery spiritual root. With this normal fire, he began to melt the ingredients into essence.

Poof!

But moments later he burned up one ingredient due to improper flame control and failed.

Nevertheless, Zhen Shi grinned as he had figured out the problem.

Pill refining was a connected process... Since he was unable to extract the essence by himself, using the Undying Flame to cheat past that stage had already ensured his failure in the essence combination stage.

Now that he had figured out the problem, he resolutely replaced the burnt up ingredients with a fresh one.

But just when he was about to try again and succeed with hard work, Zhen Shi was reminded of .

While the (Analysis) part of the skill was useless for alchemy, theoretically speaking since the eye could see through all flaws and aberrations with the (Appraisal) part, it should also work with refining pills...

Thinking that it was better to 'work smarter and not harder', Zhen Shi activated the skill, and his right eye glowed with golden divine light.

With the moonlight shining down on him, the plants rustling about in the wind, and the peaceful oriental music from the boombox still playing gracefully throughout the pavilion, Zhen Shi took a deep breath.

Calmly ignoring the smell of burnt ingredients and hints of smoke from his previous failures, Zhen Shi opened his palm and formed another fire of pure qi. With the golden eye focusing on his hand movement and helping him avoid mistakes, he threw the flame onto the green pill cauldron and set it ablaze.

With a calm face, he flicked his fingers bringing out the usual set of ingredients for Mortal Tier Healing Pills and sent them into the flaming cauldron.

Even with the golden eye helping him out, Zhen Shi had to focus with intense concentration as he handled the ingredients and melted essences out carefully.

His eyes relaxed as he finally separated the ingredient essences and the ingredient husks successfully.

Next, he slowly brought his two hands towards each other in order to combine the ingredient essences.

He couldn't help but grin as there were no problems this time. With the help of , he had performed the essence extraction perfectly and had maintained an almost perfect ingredient to ingredient ratio.

Thus by the time he stopped his hand motion the pill embryo had already formed successfully.

According to the remaining flaws visible through the golden eye, Zhen Shi realized that he will now be able to complete the refining process very easily.

However, as someone who had received guidance for free from Vivienne, he was unwilling to follow a path against the beliefs of her mistress. He wasn't going to be ungrateful to someone that had imparted knowledge to him... At least until it was proved to be wrong...

As such, he decided to use the pill enhancement skills, even at the risk of failing and having to try again.

So with this intention in mind, Zhen Shi flicked his fingers and burnt the ingredient husks into fine particles with the Undying Flame. Now that the pill embryo had been formed, it was completely fine to use the Undying flame for other actions.

With a careful wave of his hand, he sent the burnt husk particles towards the pill embryo. As the pill embryo combined with the husk particles, Zhen Shi formed his hands into a familiar hand sign and activated the first skill, "Ashes to Ashes!"

Zhen Shi heaved a sigh of relief as he succeeded and the pill embryo combined with the husk particles improving the grade of the pill substantially!

But his smile disappeared as he realized that to carry out the next part of the technique he would have to mark down a rune. But he would definitely faint if he tried to inscribe any of the mysterious nordic runes.

His brow frowned in contemplation as he tried to find a solution for this conundrum... He couldn't fail due to such a stupid reason.

His eyes suddenly glowed in inspiration as he was reminded of Myne's based on the ‘Ohtur’ divination magic. He decided to take another risk and give that skill a try... especially since the alternative was carving something nonsensical on to his first pill.

In reality, Zhen Shi was familiar with the term 'Ohtur'. It was rather similar to the ancient Norse term for divine inspiration or inspired mental activity; basically an epiphany.

Zhen Shi, who knew well about the value of epiphanies in the cultivation world, had been awed at the ability of this skill to lead cultivators into a trance-like state despite its 43 flaws...

He calmed down his breathing and began to follow the steps of the technique.

When the skill activated, his eyes glossed over. Immediately, his eyes were filled with a vacant look and his sense of presence vanished.

Zhen Shi lost track of time as his mind was filled with endless images and visions. Almost all of them passed by too fast to even register what was going in any of them. But then, a singular vision appeared in front of him...

Instantly, Zhen Shi's eyes opened as he felt his mind and spirit being filled with strength and vigor. He felt a strong intention to inscribe what he had just witnessed and hurriedly materialized a small-butterfly-like insect in his hand. With another flick of his hand, he burned it apart into small white particles with the Undying flame.

With graceful movement supported by , he moved his hands into another familiar posture and activated the second skill, "Dust to Dust!"

The white energy particles rushed towards the pill embryo and were absorbed into it one by one. And with each disappearing particle, a faint picture appeared on the pill surface.

If one didn't look closely at this, all they would see was a pill slightly darker than usual. But if they did, they would be met with the astounding image of a small boy fighting off a powerful terrifying giant with only a small sling-shot for a weapon. The grit and determination on the face of the brave child and the confident condescending face of the giant were like a painting come to life!

This was !

The fire flicked out as the pill flew into Zhen Shi's hand. He calmly scrutinized it and was surprised to realize that it was a Stage 1 Soul Tier Healing Pill! This was extremely hard to be achieved with only the pill formula of a Mortal Tier Pill...

But, it did make sense. After all, he had used a total of three enhancement techniques while following the perfect instructions of to avoid as many flaws as possible.

Zhen Shi canceled the Appraisal skill and let his right eye return to normal. Despite the fact that he had cheated and rushed through all the trials and problems of pill refining, he was very happy at his own success.

'Was it cheating? Of course not! This was respectable hard work! I achieved this with the sacrifice of my blood and sweat! And it's called being smart! Anyone who doesn't do the same is an idiot!'

While Zhen Shi was having fun tooting his own horn, suddenly a familiar notification sound rang out...

Ding!

Congratulations to the user for unlocking a new status category: Professions!

The user has gained his first profession, {Pill Refining Alchemist-Mortal Tier}

Ding!

Profession related quest system active.

First Quest Available. Will you accept it?

Zhen Shi who was still pissed at the System was quick to complain, "System, I'm fine with being a Mortal Tier Alchemist since I did use several enhancement techniques. But why do you add in a quest system now? Shouldn't it have been activated sooner? Will there be more hidden features like this? It's almost as if you're making it up as you go!"

System: (◕‿◕✿)

Zhen Shi heaved a momentary sigh of defeat. Even though he felt stifled, he would have to persevere until the day that he was strong even without the System.

He answered through grit teeth, "Yes. Accept it."

Ding!

Mortal Tier Quest: Refine 10 pills of Soul Tier Stage 1 or higher.

Reward: -1 random alchemy ingredient

-gift of experience

Zhen Shi nodded in acceptance of the fact that he was expected to refine Soul Tier pills despite being in the Mortal Stage... But he was confused for a moment, as he wondered about the meaning behind the sketchy term 'gift of experience'.

But since the System was unresponsive to any further questions, he was forced to give up while hoping that it simply meant experience points to improve cultivation and nothing else that was too crazy...

Although he had been forced to spend an annoyingly long hour to become a Mortal Tier Alchemist (an opinion that would definitely cause the vigorous coughing of blood by the general populace), Zhen Shi was confident of completing this quest in less than 2 hours. Especially since he had refined the first pill in under 10 minutes...

As such, he wasn't in a hurry to complete the quest and calmly checked on the status of the (pseudo)soul that was practicing formations.