[You had already reviewed Xie Huide's pill refining notes in advance]
[These pill refining notes were rather fragmented]
[Unlike Xie Huide's True Explanation of Pill Refining which was systematic]
[But these scattered notes were more targeted and detailed]
[They provided you with great inspiration]
[Especially several entries specifically explaining the practical refining of internal spirit pills]
[You studied them repeatedly for several days]
[You felt you had absorbed enough knowledge]
[You lit the pill furnace with a windproof lighter]
[After calming your mind, you officially began your first refining attempt]
[After two hours of complete concentration]
[The first batch of internal spirit pills steamed fresh from the furnace]
[You calmly opened the furnace]
[Thin-skinned with generous filling, eighteen folds]
[Ten failed pills lay quietly in the furnace]
[Without changing expression, you immediately began the second refining attempt]
[Your heart remained utterly calm]
[As long as your expectations were low enough, your mentality wouldn't be affected]
[Three days later]
[You produced another ten failed pills]
[You closed your eyes to rest, summarizing your failure experiences]
[You hadn't slept for three days and nights]
[Coupled with the extreme energy consumption of pill refining, you were utterly exhausted]
[You needed to sleep like the dead]
[Just as you were about to go inside to rest]
[The second-grade pill refiner under you found you]
[He said your group had run out of third-grade Golden Sore Pills]
[Only you could refine third-grade pills]
[So you had to work overtime]
[Forcing yourself to stay alert, you set up the furnace to refine Golden Sore Pills]
[Your usual yield for Golden Sore Pills was eight]
[But today your state was peculiar]
[Although half-asleep]
[You could clearly perceive the refining process]
[Every detail was infinitely magnified in your perception]
[In the end, this batch yielded ten Golden Sore Pills]
[Your third-grade pill refining technique had reached perfection]
[You were pleasantly surprised]
[But you steadied your mind, careful not to break this peculiar state]
[Maintaining this state, you refined three more batches of Golden Sore Pills]
[The second-grade refiner hurried away with the pills]
[You didn't stop refining]
[Keeping this state, you began refining internal spirit pills]
[This time you already had a premonition]
[When opened, the furnace revealed two successfully refined internal spirit pills]
["Hahaha, as expected of me!"]
[You picked up the two pills, unable to put them down]
[Your fourth-grade pill refining technique had begun]
[These days of effort hadn't been wasted]
[Simultaneously, you exited that mysterious state]
[No matter how you tried, you couldn't re-enter it]
[Instead, endless weakness washed over you]
[Your legs went weak as if you'd fought for seven days and nights]
[You hurried back to your room and collapsed into sleep]
[After two days and one night, you slowly awoke]
[Upon waking, Hu Zhongxuan happened to come looking for you]
[Having not seen you for days, he thought you'd deserted]
[Glancing at your furnace and seeing internal spirit pills]
[He was utterly shocked]
[Your progress speed was terrifying]
[Reaching fourth-grade pill refining in mere days]
[But you knew it was only because of accidentally entering that mysterious state]
[You noticed Hu Zhongxuan seemed knowledgeable about refining too]
[Since he recognized these as internal spirit pills just from the failed ones]
[Hu Zhongxuan offered to provide ample materials for refining internal spirit pills]
[But half the yield would go to the military]
[You indeed didn't have many materials for internal spirit pills]
[This damned Yajiangkou near Cangwang Desert had nowhere to buy more]
[Hu Zhongxuan's offer solved your problem]
[But half was too much]
[After bargaining, you settled on giving three-tenths to the military]
[Hu Zhongxuan considered and agreed]
[Given your current low success rate]
[Even giving half wouldn't make you lose]
[Now only giving three-tenths was pure profit]
[You rarely went to the medical corps now]
[You stayed safely in the rear]
[Diligently refining internal spirit pills]
[Only going to help when third-grade pills were needed]
[Hu Zhongxuan didn't force you to the medical corps either]
[You thought Hu Zhongxuan was quite decent]
[Year Eleven]
[Great Qian and Jin Yue Nation fought fiercely]
[Neither yielding to the other]
[Even Ultimate Grandmasters began joining the fray]
[But neither side gained clear advantage]
[In Ultimate Grandmaster numbers, Jin Yue held superiority]
[Great Qian's Li imperial clan had fifty-six Ultimate Grandmasters]
[Jin Yue Nation had sixty-eight Ultimate Grandmasters]
[But most of Jin Yue's belonged to Mizhen Sect]
[Mizhen Sect was Jin Yue's state-protecting sect]
[Unlike Great Qian with its many sects]
[Jin Yue had only Mizhen Sect]
[Mizhen Sect's leader held immense power, even above Jin Yue's ruler]
[Jin Yue's ruler had to affectionately call him "beloved father"]
[So Jin Yue's military could mobilize few Ultimate Grandmasters]
[Great Qian wouldn't deploy all its Ultimate Grandmasters either]
[Thus the stalemate continued]
[This year, through constant practice]
[Your internal spirit pill refining reached Initial Achievement]
[You could produce four pills per batch]
[Enough for your daily cultivation needs]
[And all materials were provided by Hu Zhongxuan]
[The freeloading feeling was delightful]
[But you never re-entered that mysterious state from the first refining]
[You tried staying awake for days]
[Tried nonstop refining until mind-numb and disoriented]
[All useless]
[You gave up, planning to ask Xie Huide later]
[With nobody paying attention]
[You didn't hide your cultivation, practicing openly]
[One day while condensing true qi]
[You suddenly felt the world expand]
[You completed the ninth qi condensation]
[The surrounding world seemed changed]
[Clearer somehow]
[Yet upon closer inspection, no different]
[You'd vaguely felt this at the eighth condensation]
[Now the feeling intensified]
[You grew puzzled]
["Did compressing too much qi damage me?"]
[But you felt no discomfort]
[No immediate risk of exploding like a pressure cooker]
[Besides, worrying was pointless]
[You had no precedents to reference]
[Since Miao Liwu, creator of Nine Condensations Profound Skill, wasn't even born yet]
[Miao Liwu wouldn't be born until Year Sixteen]
[And you suspected he might never be born]
[Many events differed from last simulation]
[Like this war between nations that hadn't occurred before]
[But you decided to visit Willow Tree Village in Year Fourteen]
[That year's drought might starve Wei Xia and Miao Jiayao without your aid]
[Ensuring Miao Liwu would never be born]
[You'd been at Yajiangkou for two years]
[During which combat intensity remained moderate]
[But recently, casualties surged dramatically]
[Hu Zhongxuan reassigned you to the medical corps]
[Many arriving wounded were gravely injured]
[Numerous missing limbs, high mortality]
[Hu Zhongxuan explained higher-grade martial artists were now extensively deployed]
[War intensity was escalating]
[Before this conflict, Great Qian and Jin Yue only skirmished]
[Like stealing dogs or chickens]
[You didn't know why they now fought so fiercely]
[Asked Hu Zhongxuan]
[He gazed skyward at forty-five degrees, mysteriously saying: "You'll know when you should know."]
[You nearly slapped his damn face then]
[You hated such pretentious riddlers]
[Clenching your restless right hand]
[You suppressed the urge and continued conversing]
[Learned Bai Chen had been conscripted]
[Arriving at Yajiangkou tomorrow]
[Apparently when conscripted, Bai Chen reacted swiftly]
[Fleeing straight from the clinic's backyard]
[But his martial arts were too weak, caught quickly and forcibly returned]
[You sighed in relief: "Close call, almost let that old bastard live comfortably."]