The next morning, Su Bai returned to Verdant Peak with a renewed sense of purpose.

The pill dregs from yesterday wasn’t quite enough to shatter the final bottleneck. He needed more capital to max out his current realm.

As Liu Meng happily greeted him at the entrance and led him toward the Alchemy Hall, Su Bai mentally opened his interface to claim his daily reward.

"System, sign in."

[Ding! Signed in at Verdant Peak (Alchemy Hall).]

[Reward: The Lost Cold-Forging Alchemy Manual]

Su Bai’s footsteps faltered. He was genuinely stunned.

He had read tens of thousands of jade slips in the sect’s Grand Archives, yet he had never once read a single reference to "Cold-Forging." He quickly checked the item’s description.

[Description: An ancient methodology of alchemy. Instead of utilizing violent thermal expansion (Yang Fire) to force impurities out of medicinal herbs, this technique uses absolute zero (Yin Fire) to halt cellular decay. It preserves 100% of the medicinal efficacy in a state of quantum spiritual suspension.]

Su Bai’s eyes went wide. His corporate heart hammered against his ribs. This technique wasn’t just compatible with his freezing Heavenly Fire, it was specifically designed for it!

"Junior Sister," Su Bai said as he tapped Liu Meng’s shoulder gently. "I need to borrow that private chamber again. Just for a moment."

Liu Meng blinked. ’Senior Brother is having another sudden Daoist epiphany?!’ She quickly nodded and ushered him into the warded room.

Su Bai sat cross-legged on the mat and extracted the ancient, icy-blue booklet from his system inventory. He opened the first page.

The manual began with a single, profound line of text:

"To forge life with fire is the Dao of Mortals. To halt death with frost is the Privilege of Heavens."

Su Bai continued reading, completely engrossed.

Normally, an alchemist used extreme heat to violently melt the herbs and boil them down to forcefully compress their life force into a pill. It was, essentially, high-stakes cooking.

But this manual outlined an entirely different manufacturing process. It detailed how to use an Extreme Yin fire to instantly "snap-freeze" the herbs at the exact microscopic fraction of a second their life force was highest.

This wasn’t "cooking." This was industrial freeze-drying.

Su Bai’s breath hitched as he realized the massive advantage. In standard alchemy, boiling away impurities inevitably destroyed roughly 30% of the raw material’s medicinal efficacy just to finalize the shape. Cold-Forging, however, locked the molecules in place, retaining a 100% profit margin on the raw materials’ value!

’My Ashen-Frost Blight Flame is the perfect hardware for this software,’ Su Bai gulped. ’I don’t need to cook. I just need to be a freezer.’

After fifteen minutes of intense reading, Su Bai stepped out of the chamber. His white robes fluttered as he beamed with sheer executive confidence.

Liu Meng who was waiting outside, practically bounced on her heels with curiosity. Before she could ask what profound truth he had realized, Su Bai gestured toward their workstation.

"Come, Meng," Su Bai said mysteriously. "I’ll show you something."

They walked back to workstation number four. Liu Meng immediately reached down to activate the standard Earth Fire array beneath the floorboards, but Su Bai gently caught her wrist.

"No need for the arrays this time," he said.

Su Bai raised his right hand. With a soft whoosh, the terrifying Ashen-Frost Blight Flame flickered into existence above his palm. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

Instantly, the temperature in the Alchemy Hall plummeted. A pale, ghostly ash-grey mist rolled off the flame. It swirled around Su Bai’s pristine white robes.

Liu Meng’s eyes widened to the size of saucers. She instantly recognized the terrifying density of the energy. "Heavens... Senior Brother, is that a Heavenly Fire?!"

But before she could celebrate, her professional alchemy knowledge kicked in, and her face turned incredibly sullen.

"Senior Brother Su... as expected of your talent, you actually subdued a Heavenly Fire," Liu Meng said. Her voice was then suddenly laced with pity. "But... it’s an Extreme Yin flame. It is completely incompatible with alchemy. If that freezing fire touches a herb, it will kill the plant’s life force and rot it into dregs."

Su Bai offered her a gentle, knowing smile. "Under normal operating procedures, yes."

Liu Meng was confused. But seeing Su Bai’s absolute confidence, she couldn’t help but smile too. She leaned in, watching attentively. Part of her even wondered if he was just trying to show off a new, fancy way to intentionally fail his batches so she could meal-prep more toxic dregs for him.

But then, her face suddenly changed as Su Bai went to work.

He didn’t toss the herbs into a hot cauldron. Instead, he laid the raw materials out and let his Ashen-Frost Blight Flame surge over the workstation.

Liu Meng was utterly mesmerized. The freezing, ash-grey mist perfectly complimented Su Bai’s detached figure. He looked like an immortal descending from the moon.

Su Bai, on the other hand, was frowning in deep concentration.

Cold Forging required infinitely more timing and precision than normal alchemy. Fortunately, his ’Dead Wood’ root was the ultimate diagnostic tool. It allowed him to monitor the internal cellular decay of the herbs.

’Wait for it... wait for it...’ Su Bai analyzed the spiritual structure of a Blood-Clotting Grass.

Now.

He unleashed a burst of the Ashen-Frost Flame directly onto the herb.

CRACK!

Instead of burning, the herb was instantly encased in a microscopic layer of spiritual permafrost. The sudden, absolute-zero flash-freeze caused the brittle and chaotic impurities within the plant to instantly shatter into harmless dust, while the core medicinal essence was perfectly preserved in a state of cryogenic stasis.

He repeated the process, rapidly flash-freezing ingredient after ingredient. Then, using localized freezing pressure rather than heat, he forcefully compressed the crystalline herbal powder into a sphere.

At last, the mist cleared.

Hovering above the freezing cauldron was a newly condensed pill.

It was a Lesser Qi-Gathering Pill. The exact same item he had successfully cooked yesterday.

But this one looked entirely different. It wasn’t pale-yellow like the normal one. It was semi-translucent, resembling a sphere of polished glass. It emitted a freezing, milky-white mist. Furthermore, jagged, beautiful silver "Frost Veins" were trapped deep inside the pill’s core.

Because the pill was completely sealed in spiritual frost, absolutely zero vapor escaped. It emitted absolutely no scent.

Liu Meng stared at it. She was completely baffled. She was a prodigy alchemist, but she had never seen anything like this in her life.

Even Su Bai was confused. He gently plucked the freezing pill from the air.

"I don’t know how Quality Assurance is supposed to grade this creation," Su Bai murmured as he inspected the silver veins.

"A flawless grade."

A cold, crisp voice suddenly echoed from the shadows of the nearby pillars.

Su Bai and Liu Meng both jumped. They hadn’t realized there was a third person standing by their workstation, silently watching the entire process.

Stepping out of the shadows was a stunningly beautiful young woman wearing an icy-blue dress. Her expression was utterly stoic.

It was Ji Ruyue.

Her piercing eyes were locked entirely on the freezing, translucent pill in Su Bai’s hand.

"Can you let me try that one, Junior Brother Su?" Ji Ruyue asked.