For the next hour or so, Hou followed the instructions and made the lower grade Sun-Cloud healing pill.
He followed each instruction to a tee, from heating to special rituals. He might need to wave an ingredient in the air for a certain amount of time before putting it in. Some ingredients might need grinding up or chopped in half.
Hou did his best to do all these requirements while also maintained the furnace. All while he did this he needed to manipulate qi in order to control the inner chambers of the furnace and make sure it forms correctly.
This was easy for Hou since he had two consciousness', his and Yue's in the Celestial Ink. Not to mention the help the quasi-Nascent Soul had. He felt he could move with precision and manipulate everything perfectly.
Then the final step was needed, he needed to compress the atmosphere inside the furnace into a pill, by sealing it with barrier and sealing laws.
However since Hou did not have any, he needed to substitute it with premade barrier capsules. Small transparent capsules which you placed pills in and they seal them to finish.
Hou first used his qi and using it's overwhelming amounts and his control, pushed and compressed the atmosphere inside the furnace into a pin prick.
Then Hou opened the furnace and threw the two side of the barrier capsules. Using qi he placed them together around the pill. Then he let go of his qi and let the pill expand into the barrier capsules as it fell to the bottom of the furnace.
Then Hou sat down and looked up,
'That was not too hard but very time exhausting, is this what all alchemy is like? Or is it just because I'm a beginner?'
He sat back up and opened the lid to the furnace looking inside to see the pill he made. A small pill that could easily be hidden within the palm, the surface shimmering white clouds.
When glanced over the pill would look white but if you looked carefully, there was a surface of clouds which spun inside.
Hou picked it up and placed it in his robe, in one of the inner pockets. He then thought to himself,
'I'll cultivate after, first.....I need to sleep'
He then lethargically stood up and stammered through his house, into his bedroom. As soon as he fell onto his bed the sun dimmed and it became night-time.
He quickly fell asleep, recovering from any built up exhaustion and tension. When he woke the next day, he absorbed two of the food pills he had prepped earlier. They had already absorbed somewhat but he actively took a few.
Almost instantly, he felt much better. He had lots of energy and felt satiated. He stretched as he yawned then he jumped up awake.
He walked into his living room and then opened the door in the front. Then he sat in his patio, in the bright shining sun as he closed his eyes.
He was in a cross-legged position and he meditated, absorbing the sunlight laws around him. He didn't mean to but sunlight became one of his main laws despite having few uses other than basic expressions.
He used mental energy and absorbed the laws. He asked Yue to activate the extreme absorption that they could do with the Celestial Law Amplifying Physique.
Yue started to manipulate the body, the laws being attracted towards it. From the outside Hou looked like an orb of dimmed light, the speed of his absorption physically changing his light levels.
As he did this Hou thought of something, while letting Yue to take over mediation for a moment,
'Light... I've been ignoring it but light is one of the main components of the sun. Heat and light. I could use light for something else, I can feel it. Perhaps I can use it as a sort of movement technique since light is so fast? I'll have to think of this and make an impression at some point,'
As Hou was mediating and musing to himself, Mo Huai walked in. It had been a day since Hou had come back and a few hours of mediation.
Mo Huai walked through the clouds surrounding the world, stepping onto the grasslands How's house sat upon.
He walked across the grass and stealthily stood beside Hou as he was meditating. Just outside of the dome of dimmed light, he looked at the absorption,
'Very fast, is this the effect of the Celestial Law Amplifying Physique. I can already physically see the sunlight being dimmed, I should increase the sun intensity to make sure I don't bottleneck him...not that I need to when he leaves for the Sovereign Sect.'
Once he was fine thinking to himself, Mo Huai stepped into the dome of dimmed light surrounding Hou. Instantly Hou sensed his absorption was being restricted and opened one of his eyes.
He saw Mo Huai standing there and sat up, stopping his meditation and opened both eyes. Then he bowed slightly,
"Good morning master!" While placing his fists together with his palm.
"Morning, shall we learn about external cultivation now?"
Hou nodded and walked into his living room, out of the heavy sun. He took a seat on one side of a table and waited.
Mo Huai followed and sat on the opposite side,
"Right, so external cultivation. You already have some experience, albeit accidentally, with your imitation of a dragon, that teleporting move."
"Yes I do remember that, do I can use that without repercussions now?"
"Well not 'no repercussions' just much less. You will still lose those laws and possibly face some backlash. But that is to be expected with external cultivation."
"Yes, I remember that. External cultivation uses up the laws permanently, releasing them back into the world"
"You remember well, so without my help you should be able to do it really. Just think of the impression you want, change the expression and then simply release the laws. However, I feel I should teach you a few techniques, but first,"
"First?"
"Let's absorb all those spirits, you don't need anything now. They were already yours, now just absorb them into your Spirit Stone Soul."
'I have an atmosphere spirit, liquid spirit, growth spirit, and finally a healing spirit. But what should I do, I could do like Mo Huai said and absorb them into the Spirit Stone Soul but...I have two different cultivation methods going at once. Should I absorb them into the quasi-Nascent Soul? Would that help to form the real thing? Can I even use it as is right now or is it unusable to carry laws since it is quasi?'
Hou had a tough decision and needed to carefully decided what to do. If he chose wrong it could harm his current or future prospects... If the laws went berserk in the quasi-Nascent Soul it could kill him.