Bab 3: A Recipe

Editor: Kurisu

The sun rose up in the sky, representing noontime.

Song Shuhang's roommates knew that he had yet to recover from his cold, therefore they told him to rest and had already helped him apply for another day's leave.

'Why is my illness getting more serious? Is it due to the lack of training recently so my physical fitness is getting worse?' Song Shuhang pondered.

There was a serving of century egg porridge his roommate had gotten for him in the afternoon on his side.

'Such a nice person!' Shuhang gave his roommate a nice guy card without hesitation.

Not knowing how long he had slept, he was famished and finished the porridge in a few mouthfuls. Afterwards, he switched on his computer.

He opened the chat software out of habit and saw the number of unread notifications beside the Nine Provinces Number One Group chat group.

Song Shuhang curiously opened the chat to see what his deeply infected chuunibyou friends had been chatting about during the night.

The chat log from morning appeared before him.

Questions about the newcomer by Northern River's Loose Cultivator, Thrice Reckless Mad Saber seeking death, and the interesting Spirit Butterfly Island's senior. There was also a guy who claimed that he had calculated his affinity with Shuhang, True Monarch Yellow Mountain.

Looking at the chat logs, a few human silhouettes formed in his mind.

'So they had actually added me by mistake! See, I have already guessed so. I don't even know this True Monarch Yellow Mountain guy.'

Reading the chat logs, it doesn't seem like everyone can join, huh? One must also have a recommendation to enter.

Also, the age of the seniors in this group didn't seem to be small, one even had a daughter.

Furthermore, his daughter didn't seem to be young, judging by his tone. If that was the case, they would most probably be around 40-50 years old. His daughter seemed to be quite pitiful seeing how her father still had chuunibyou at his age.

Scrolling through the chat, Song Shuhang maintained the state of a lurker and definitely would not reply.

Looking at the members' chuunibyou symptoms act up was an interesting scene. However, he wasn't even a chuunibyou himself, so if he had joined in, what would that make him be?

Therefore, he decided to stay hidden and look at the chat logs purely for daily entertainment purposes.

He was going to wait for the day when he lost interest in this group—he would then exit from Nine Provinces Number One Group.

That had been his intention from the very start.

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Unknowingly, ten days had passed.

June 1st, Saturday, Children's Day.

Song Shuhang's roommates were all staying part-time at the dormitory. That is to say, they would stay in the dorm from Monday to Friday and return home during the weekends. Therefore, he was left alone in the dorm whenever weekends arrived.

His cold had long recovered, just that he still had the symptoms—blocked nose and coughing. As the latter was a cold cough, it was more troublesome since it would even take up to months of coughing to recover if not taken good care of.

Resting on Saturday, Song Shuhang had slept till 8 am before he got up while going to the dining hall to grab some light food.

As he had nothing on, he went back to the dorm.

After turning his computer on, he habitually opened the chat log of Nine Provinces Number One Group group. This became one of his favorite ways to pass time everyday.

He hadn't even noticed as ten days passed since his joining the group.

Lurking for more than ten days, the majority of the members was discussing about their adventures in the secret territory and their harvest, or where did the evil spirits and demons appear at, and how they would subdue and kill them while speaking as if it was all real. Song Shuhang thought that if he were to make a copy of these contents, he could send it online as a Xianxia novel to earn money as an author after slightly amending the contents.

Within ten days, Song Shuhang had gotten to know several figures within the group.

For example, True Monarch Yellow Mountain—the admin—who rarely appeared, or the two managers, Daluo Sect's True Monarch Rain Moon and Venerable Seventh Cultivator of True Virtue, that had never appeared since he had joined the group.

The ones usually online were 'information-gathering' Northern River's Loose Cultivator, the expert in seeking death Thrice Reckless Mad Saber, Su Clan's Seven who only spoke about fighting whenever he opened his mouth, and Medicine Master whose words were as precious as gold.

There was another lurker named Wandering Monk Profound Principle inside the group. Even if he were to appear, he would only send some emojis or punctuation marks. It was said that this senior monk was in a silent meditation. Not only was he unable to talk, neither could he type any words and the most he could do was to send an expression.

Lastly, inside this chuunibyou group, there was a female named Spirit Butterfly Island's Soft Feather who seemed normal, judging from her messages. As there was just a single digit difference between hers and Song Shuhang's ID number, he had been accidentally added into this group.

He had obtained this knowledge when the enthusiastic Northern River's Loose Cultivator introduced the other members to Spirit Butterfly Island's Soft Feather.

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Opening Nine Provinces Number One Group chat's window, the first thing he saw was Medicine Master's message.

"Improved a foundation liquid recipe." It was a rare thing for Medicine Master to speak.

This was a sentence of five words and a full stop. Ever since Song Shuhang had joined the group, he had never seen Medicine Master send such a long message, therefore he continued reading curiously.

His message was sent during wee hours.

"Simplified Body Tempering liquid recipe: Ginseng 150g, Wolfberry 215g, Morning Dew Mysterious Grass 50g, Rising Sun Stone 150g, Maiden's Fragrance 65g, Fresh Overlord Branch 50g, sliced Nine-Yang Scarlet Flame Bamboo 200g…"

A series of forty-five different ingredients—with the familiar ones such as ginseng, wolfberry, and such, and also uncommon ones like Rising Sun Stone along with a few ingredients that were totally unheard of such as Morning Dew Mysterious Grass, Fresh Overlord Branch, Nine-Yang Scarlet Flame Bamboo, and more.

"Following the ratios in the recipe, add the ingredients one by one into the furnace, simmer for five minutes; add the new medicinal ingredients, and continue to simmer for around five minutes. Do pay attention to fire's temperature! Repeat this cycle until the medicinal liquid becomes a paste. After that, the completed product should be black, transparent, and exude a strong smell."

That was easy to understand!

Out of the over forty ingredients' names, Shuhang only knew a few so he curiously checked up the rest on the net.

Within the recipe, more than thirty were all common traditional chinese medicine, the type used for replenishing qi and blood.

There were fifteen other ingredients such as Morning Dew Mysterious Grass, Overlord Branch, Scarlet Flame Bamboo and so on that were totally unheard of. Could it be that these were figments of the 'Medicinal Master' and the group?

'These few fellas have been manifesting hardcore delusional behavior, for them to even come up with a recipe... would there actually be someone who follows the recipe and consumes the medicinal paste afterwards?' Song Shuhang thought.

He was quite worried because food can be randomly eaten, but medicine cannot be randomly taken!

Furthermore, randomly consuming medicine would most probably cause death. Should he try to dissuade the chuunibyou-disease members of the chat? After all, he had been watching on the sidelines for more than ten days.

He couldn't bear for someone in the group to die due to randomly consuming medicine.

While he continued reading the chat, sure enough, someone had already followed the recipe to refine the medicine!

Unexpectedly, the person who did it was the most normal Spirit Butterfly Island's Soft Feather lady, at around 2 a.m.

Spirit Butterfly Island's Soft Feather: "Compared to the older version of body tempering liquid, several rare ingredients were removed and the concocting process has been simplified drastically. Senior Medicine Master, to what degree should the heat be controlled? I have just attempted it earlier on but failed during the process. Also, what's the difference in efficacy between the old and new versions?

"Effect 2:1," Medicine Master replied.

The medicinal effect was only half of the one before, after all many precious ingredients were removed. However, with such common and mass-orientated ingredients being sufficient to concoct a body tempering liquid, it was already worthwhile.

"Heat control and specific timing have to be grasped by oneself and can't be explained," once again, Medicine Master had sent another long text. It was only when questions regarding pills appeared that he would type more. "Also, if your heat control is lacking, it's recommended to use fire control treasures."

"Thank you, Senior, I shall try it again." Butterfly Feather sent a 😊 and went offline.

The last message sent by Spirit Butterfly Island's Soft Feather was at 2:30 am. If she had gone to concoct the pill, wouldn't she have already concocted several furnaces worth of pills after this much time passed?

Wouldn't this cause death? Originally, this group of chuunibyous was already super ignorant—if they were to randomly consume medicine, wouldn't they become extremely ignorant? Previously, they could still be rescued, but now, after eating the wrong medicine, they were basically incurable alright!

Finally, his conscience couldn't bear it and he started typing, "Medicine cannot be recklessly consumed!"

Just when he was about to press [send] and post his first message within the group, the chat window vibrated.

A 😄 popped up within the chat window.

This was from an administrator of the group—named Venerable Seventh Cultivator of True Virtue—that had yet to appear since Song Shuhang had entered the group. "This recipe is pretty good. I have consecutively tried out seven furnaces and successfully concocted it without much trouble, the success rate is also on the high side. Although the medicinal effect is roughly 50% of that of the old recipe, its difficulty has decreased by more than ten times. Despite this being the lowest-grade body tempering liquid, precious ingredients are getting scarcer and scarcer due to the thinning of world's spiritual qi and to us, this is a good thing. Medicine Master, continue to work hard. If you could simplify a recipe of third grade and above, it would really be a virtuous achievement.

P.S. "Most importantly, the concocting method's difficulty was greatly reduced, such that it can even be passed to trainees to concoct."

Venerable Seventh Cultivator of True Virtue was a renowned big senior within the group and his strength was a tier above True Monarch Yellow Mountain's. Furthermore, he had extremely deep attainments in concocting pills, therefore it could be said that he was an authority with regards to pill refining. Thus, his praise would naturally encourage a junior like Medicine Master.

"Thank you Senior, I shall work hard!" Medicinal Master excitedly typed a sentence of more than six words, furthermore with a fast speed.

The corners of Song Shuhang's mouth started to twitch. To think someone had already concocted and consumed that 'body tempering liquid'!