Inside the seclusion chamber, Ding Yun, aside from symbolically igniting the fire beneath the cauldron and brewing a few bowls of chicken soup, mainly spent her time copying martial arts manuals. After all, to achieve a Golden Core, one needed Golden Fruits, and to obtain Golden Fruits, one had to plant martial arts manuals.
Copying the manuals had left her mentally exhausted and her hands aching. She deeply regretted not thinking of stuffing a few printers into her soul space. She hadn't even collected any copy paper. If she had copy paper, she could have saved half the time.
Fortunately, the sect leader, True Person Fei He, had only brought her thirty portions of medicinal ingredients. Ding Yun also didn't expect to succeed every time she refined a batch, considering a seventy percent success rate quite generous. Therefore, she only needed to copy twenty-one manuals. For fairness, she copied ten copies of the Yu Hua Treasure Codex, six copies of the Purple Cloud Scripture, and five copies of the Mixed Jade Art. This quantity and proportion of manuals were likely to be proportional to the number of people practicing the respective martial arts. The Yu Hua Treasure Codex might have slightly more. However, since she herself cultivated the Yu Hua Treasure Codex lineage, not siding with her own people would be seen as betrayal. Thus, she had no choice but to proceed this way.
After the manuals were copied, the subsequent steps were much simpler: planting and keeping the skill fruits, while compressing the inner strength fruits into Golden Cores using mental power. The only inconvenience Ding Yun felt was that the golden inner strength fruits from any manual looked almost identical, and after being compressed into Golden Cores, the difference became even less apparent, only recognizable to her. If they were accidentally mixed together, taking the wrong one would likely result in inner strength conflict, causing damaged meridians and the complete loss of martial arts at best, or instant death at worst.
To avoid this problem, Ding Yun kindly took out some non-fading edible pigments from her soul space and dyed the Mixed Jade Art Golden Cores a white-gold hue, while the Purple Cloud Scripture Golden Cores were naturally dyed a purple-gold. This made differentiation much easier.
Once all the pills were prepared, Ding Yun deliberately stayed in the seclusion chamber for a few more days reading novels. Only after half a month did she discreetly emerge, bringing the freshly made twenty-one bottles of Golden Cores to the sect leader's hall to deliver them.
However, this was merely her own perception of discretion. In reality, countless people were watching the door of her seclusion chamber. As soon as she came out, disciples quickly relayed messages to their respective masters. Then, the various elders located at their respective peaks arrived at the sect leader's hall to collect the pills, each arriving less than a stick of incense after Ding Yun. The elders from the other two factions were the most excited. They believed that Ding Yun likely hadn't refined Golden Cores suitable for them, so they planned to use the sect leader's inability to use the sect's medicinal ingredient reserves to profit specifically for those who practiced the Yu Hua Treasure Codex. They would then use this as an excuse to find ways to make the sect leader and Ding Yun agree to develop pills for them.
However, before they could even speak upon arriving at the sect leader's hall, the sect leader, True Person Fei He, directly said, "I know your intentions, but there's no need to rush. Junior Sister Fei Xia is indeed considerate of the sect and also considers the well-being of the senior brothers and sisters who cultivate the sect's other two core techniques. During this seclusion for alchemy, she has not only successfully refined many Golden Cores but has also solved your problems. She has improved the medicinal formulas and refined suitable pills for you. Although the number of Golden Cores refined is a bit small, the number of people cultivating the other two techniques is also smaller, so it's enough for you. Therefore, calm yourselves and let's have a good chat. According to the regulations and requirements I discussed with you last time, let's see who is qualified to receive the pills. Those who are not qualified must continue to work hard!"
"Sect Leader Senior Brother, in my opinion, since these pills have already been refined, it would be a waste to let them sit idle. Why not give those senior brothers and sisters who are not qualified, or even the junior disciples, an opportunity? Let them owe merit points first, and after consuming the pills and breaking through to the Innate realm, they can repay the debt by completing sect missions. This way, not only will our sect quickly have a batch of Innate Grandmasters, but they will also be safer when undertaking missions. Isn't this a win-win situation?"
Ding Yun's words had already been discussed with True Person Chang He beforehand; the two were purely putting on a show. Firstly, the pills Ding Yun had refined this time were plentiful – twenty-one bottles, nine pills per bottle, totaling nearly two hundred pills. Their sect's peak experts numbered only sixty-three in total. Even if divided equally, each person would receive three pills, so there was no fear of insufficient supply. Secondly, most of the older elders were qualified to exchange for pills. Those who were not qualified were the relatively younger elders who had spent all their time cultivating. For these young elders, breaking through to the Innate realm an earlier day would increase their chances of reaching the Grandmaster realm, or even the Heavenly Human realm. Even for the sake of a possibility, True Person Chang He was unwilling to delay them. Therefore, he and Ding Yun had discussed this, and they presented a united front to achieve their goals, while also fostering goodwill and gratitude towards Ding Yun.
What happened next unfolded largely as Ding Yun and True Person Chang He had predicted. Upon hearing Ding Yun's words, the elders gratefully nodded at her and immediately voiced their agreement. True Person Chang He then reluctantly agreed, and the distribution of pills began.
This was followed by a sect-wide lockdown, strict information blockade, and all of the sect's peak experts taking one or two pills to step into the Innate realm. Several exceptionally talented young disciples, who had reached the first-rate realm before the age of sixteen and were expected to break through to the Innate realm on their own before the age of thirty, were also given three pills each under Ding Yun's strong recommendation, bypassing the peak expert realm and directly entering the Innate realm. The reason was simple: if they became Innate Grandmasters at the age of sixteen, they would undoubtedly achieve Grandmaster, or even Heavenly Human, status in the future. True Person Chang He also felt this was logical. Most importantly, two of the four people Ding Yun mentioned were his direct disciples, so he readily agreed.
After this series of maneuvers, one hundred and three pills were consumed. Their sect now had sixty-seven new Innate Grandmasters. Coupled with the original nine Grandmasters, and the eight Grandmasters who broke through to the Innate realm with Ding Yun's first batch of pills, along with Ding Yun herself, the number of Innate Grandmasters in their Yu Hua Sect reached a staggering eighty-five.
What did this mean? The combined known number of Grandmasters among the three top sects was only fifty-two. If their hidden reserves were added, it would be roughly comparable to theirs. The only drawback was that most of these Grandmasters had just broken through and were slightly inferior to some veteran Grandmasters. In one-on-one duels, they might not be opponents to some veteran Grandmasters. However, they made up for it with their sheer numbers. If one-on-one duels were not enough, then they could gang up. Two were not enough, then three; three were not enough, then four. Eighty-plus Innate Grandmasters charging in unison would surely lead to the downfall of not only Grandmaster experts but even Grandmasters themselves. Even Heavenly Humans would likely struggle to withstand such an onslaught. If Ding Yun hadn't insisted on seeking revenge herself, True Person Fei He would have immediately led the eighty-plus Innate Grandmasters to avenge her son, Lu Dongtian.