Chapter 87 - Soul Mending Pill
Leon bid farewell and headed to the private room arranged for him as his mother stayed to accompany his father.
The room was simple and had a hint of both nostalgia and foreignness. One glance was enough to know that the room had not been in use for years, but it was regularly cared for.
The room had all the essentials items; tables and chairs, cups, teapot, candles, wardrobe, couch, but most importantly a... where's the bed?
Leon eyes glued blankly on the cot upon opening the door.
"Your highness? Is the room not to your liking?-" The young palace maid accompanying Leon stared inside and gawked at the cot. "I-I'm sorry, your highness, I will arrange a different room for you."
"There's no need. I like this room."
Leon waved her off.
"Y-Yes... then please enjoy your rest, your highness."
The palace maid bowed and retreated awkwardly.
Leon entered the room and locked the doors after him. he understood why the room felt both foreign and nostalgic. The room belonged to him. However, it was destroyed in the rebellion, before it was rebuilt in the same arrangement.
He didn't mind not having a proper bed since he would not be sleeping anyway. Sleeping was a luxury he couldn't afford and was a waste of time.
Leon sat on the flat wooden couch to in meditative posture and closed his eyes. He opened the Book of Life and sank his divine sense inside.
The Book of Life brought his consciousness into an empty world with bright stellar skies. His feet landed on a flat white and pristine ground that seemed to stretch for eternity. The white world was inestimably larger than the world space, but the knowledge he sought was nowhere to be found.
"The Book of Life was said to have recorded all the medical knowledge the Universe has to offer... but there's nothing too be found here..."
Just as Leon thought there was nothing, thousands of bookshelves suddenly rose from the original flat white ground all around him and shot towards the skies like skyscrapers. Each bookshelf was densely packed with books and the number of books could easily reach into the tens of millions of hundreds of millions. Seriously, there was too many to count.
"I stand corrected." Leon's mouth twitched at the sight.
"If these bookshelves were outside, any casual wind would enough to blow it over and rain books all over the capital…" Leon casually mused. He swore he never seen such towering bookshelves in his life.
How is he supposed to browse the books near the top? Is he expected to climb the bookshelf? Why can't the bookshelves be of standard height?
The thousands of skyscraper bookshelves suddenly dropped back down until it became 2-meter bookshelves the moment the thought entered in his head.
"Wow... that's very convenient. One thought to move the world. Interesting! I get it. The Book of Life is binded to my soul, making them one entity. This allows my thoughts to be easily sensed by the Book of Life and issued as commands to the world. That is to say… my will is like the mandate of heaven in here."
Leon felt his ego inflated at the discovery and feeling of omnipotence. The bookshelves continue to rise and fall as he played with the ability for a bit, before realizing its usage was limited and like an integrated search system. It's not like he could summon the winds and rains at his whims.
"Cough* I can't let it get to my head… Let's see what good pill recipes there are."
Leon coughed awkwardly. He made a casual grab at of the books in the bookshelf and gave it a quick scan.
[18 Ways to Refine the Divine Star Opening Pill]?
Leon shook his head and placed the book back. Even in his heyday, he had only reached the Divine Origin realm, the lowest of the Divine state, and an entire realm below the Divine Star Opening.
In order to reach the Divine state, he must subsequently break through the 5 Mortal realms; Body Tempering, Energy Condensation, Revolving Core, Heaven Ascension and Void realm before reaching Divine state.
For now, the Divine state was too far away from him. He needs to find a pill that could repair the king's soul and awaken him quickly, so he could focus on his own cultivation.
Thinking along the lines of soul-related pills, all the bookshelves disappeared into the ground before new ones rose again. The number of new bookshelves were significantly less than before, but they still numbered in the hundreds.
Leon mentally added; below tier 2 spirit pill and healing-related soul pills only.
The number of bookshelves disappeared into the ground once more before a single new one rose. However, a single bookshelf still holds hundreds of books.
"To think there would still be this many books related to tier-1 soul-healing pills…"
Leon sighed at the vastness and profundity of alchemy knowledge. There were still so many books remaining after narrowing down his search. There was no end to learning.
The pill recipes in the remaining books all produced the same effect. It just had a variation of core spirit herbs, supplementary herbs and methods of refining.
Leon carefully picked out one of the thinner books; [9 Ways to Refine Tier-1 Soul Mending Pill].
Leon was unable to estimate the time it would take to read all the books in the white world. 10,000 years might still be too short to read everything in the Book of Life. Just herbs and pill recipe books only were enough to drown him, and they only covered two topics. There were many topics related to the art of healing such as; how to discern illnesses, how to treat illnesses and techniques for treating illnesses were just one of the many other topics recorded in the Book of Life.
Even Leon himself does not dare to claim he had mastered all the basics after seeing the vast amount of knowledge stored. There wasn't enough lifespan in a human to read everything.
How can he comprehend the knowledge faster?
Poof... the [9 Ways to Refine Tier-1 Soul Mending Pill] book suddenly broke down into particles of light and disappeared into his head like a stream of information.
It took only a single moment for Leon to digest all the information, before his eyes lit up with an excited glint. All the information in the book was able to be transmitted to his brain directly. He could recall the information with picture-clear clarity. The heavenly treasure reacts to his thoughts so swiftly it almost seemed sentient.
"How convenient! Maybe I should move the rest of the books while I'm at it."
Just as Leon was about to follow through with what he said, he suddenly stopped and started sweating profusely.
"That was a very dangerous thought… There's a limit to how much information the brain could take in at once... wouldn't I stuff myself to death if I try move everything at once?"
"Luckily, I realized in time, otherwise I would have died a dog's death."
Leon shook his head. Like the old adage goes; don't bite off more than you can chew.
"Aish… It's like borrowing books from the library..."
Leon picked out a few more soul-related books until he felt his mind was loaded, before leaving to check on the world space.
"Good. The life energy is slowly but surely returning. I can soon plant more herbs."
Leon examined the state of the world space. It was recovering at a very slow rate. The spirit energy in the world was just too thin for the heavenly treasure to convert enough life energy, but Leon remained optimistic. At least his [Hegemony of Primal Chaos] did not require spirit energy to practice.
Leon wager he was even able to practice the [Hegemony of Primal Chaos] due to the thinness of spirit energy in the world. But even with such little spirit energy present, he still nearly failed. Although spirit energy was malleable, it didn't belong to any of 5 element and most likely interfered with the fusion of 5 elements by breaking its balance.
Otherwise, he really couldn't explain why he was the only one able to practice it. He had nothing special about him compared to the geniuses of the Divine Realm.
...
Leon proceeded to check on his herbs. The Tier-1 Soul Mending Pill required Tier-1 spirit herbs for both supplementary and main ingredients. He happened to have all the supplementary herbs needed, but the most important ingredient; the 7-Petal Frigid Agapanthus was missing.
Supplementary herbs could be substituted, but the 7-Petal Frigid Agapanthus could not and was irreplaceable. Without it, it was impossible to refine the Soul Mending Pill. It was the only herb with soul-healing properties. All other supplementary herbs are there to complement and enhance the soul-healing property.
The 7-Petal Frigid Agapanthus was a special mutated plant that only grows in cold and misty areas dense in yin energy. With such special conditions, Leon doubt the world space would be able to cultivate one on its own.
Hopefully the royal treasury will have everything he needed.