This palm moved according to Gang Xin's will. However, it was indeed difficult to control it's trajectory solely with his body movements. He also had to involve a bit of his mind.
However, this body's mind was incredibly weak. He couldn't use it to control outside qi at all, and he probably wouldn't even be able to if he had his own qi. Thus, he had to involve the supplementary refinement art Sealing Body and the Mind.
Now, just as Gang Xin was about to stop experimenting and start the real procedure, he suddenly sensed something.
"This!" he exclaimed. In front of his eyes, the palm that had been like a wooden puppet controlled by a few strings seemed to come to life. It was behaving almost similar to what he wanted it to do!
"I never knew combining the mind with the Sealing Body and the Mind could be this effective..." as it was a technique for only beginners, he hadn't delved much into it.
After all, he also had a pill furnace, and the technique wasn't much suitable for it. Without a pill furnace, there wasn't much to speak about refining good pills. Thus, he had forgotten about this.
After Gang Xin played around with the technique some more, he finally got serious.
'Let's begin' Gang Xin took out the two ingredients: one stalk of the Violet Yerin plant, and a pair of Fire Rooted Fox's eyes.
The Fire Rooted Fox's eyes were the crucial component to this concoction as it had a property of burning the inner part, or it can be said as cleansing the 'root' of a person. With its properties, he would be able to direct the energy to cleanse out his foundation accumulated in the tendons.
However, as it was a very violent energy, he also had to soothe out the remaining damage and harm with the stalk of Violet Yerin.
Well, the first step to alchemy would be to cleanse the ingredients. Only after doing that can he extract their energy, otherwise, there would be impurities contained within.
Thus, Gang Xin once again utilized the fire qi around him, except that this time, he also used his mind to pull in a bit of water qi. Because he only used his will, the water qi he attracted was a very very miniscule amount.
'It's so little, but it should be enough for my purpose' Gang Xin thought and then controlled a bit of fire qi to cover the stalk of Violet Yerin. Technically, he only had to burn off the outer part that has become spiritually dead.
And then, he controlled the even smaller water qi and then also covered it. This would result in a small amount of steam that would be able to serve the purpose of burning the outer part.
After a few seconds, bead was rolling down from Gang Xin's forehead. Adding to the higher number of fire qi around him which made the temperature go higher, the mental consumption he experienced made him sweat.
'Damn this body's weak mind' Gang Xin cursed silently. Fortunately, it didn't take much time before the Violet Yerin had been cleansed.
As for the Fire Rooted Fox's eyes, because it was already full of fire qi, he willed a few more water particles and ended the cleansing.
Even the cleansing part had already drained his mind. Now for the extraction, he had to pay even more attention. Because only his mind had been drained, he would be able to use his body to recuperate.
By utilizing his body's potential and then cultivating the Undying Phoenix technique, he could recover partially.
After recovering fully, he started the refinement.
...
'Form high temperature fire formed from fire qi, then use it to destabilize the whole ingredient.' Gang Xin no longer performed the Undying Phoenix and only did the Sealing Body and the Mind.
His palms raised, as his left pinky connected to his right palm's center. Then, the left palm rotated slowly as the left thumb also came out and connected with the right hand's ring finger.
The right pinky was raised to 90 degrees, a perfect right angle, as the remaining other 3 fingers connected with each other.
After he formed this weird symbol with his hand, Gang Xin closed his eyes, then began to breathe deeply. While he did this, his right leg also came out at an angle and slowly took a half sitting position.
Energy flowed through his body, and bundles of fire qi concentrated on the one pinky pointing out.
As Gang Xin willed, they seemed to trickle down from his fingers as it dropped on the stalk of Violet Yerin. It was like droplets of water that condensed from rain, sliding down a pipe.
Pss!
Instantly, the Violet Yerin started to burn, with pieces of charcoal falling from its body.
'While doing this, I must also be cautious and careful not to let any energy slip by else the quality drops.' What Gang Xin was doing now was stripping the spiritual plant's body, and extracting the pure energy from it.
While doing this, he formed another hand seal and then used it to also strip the energy from the Fire Rooted Fox demon beast's eyes.
Instantly, Gang Xin sensed something wrong.
"Shit…" as the pair of eyes were filled with dense fire qi, the fire qi he gathered wasn't able to break the structure of the eyes. He had to somehow get even more qi. However, he couldn't just perform the Undying Phoenix now.
That would make this refinement a complete failure.
After thinking for a while, Gang Xin steeled his mind.
'I guess I have no choice' he strengthened his thumb, and slid it across his chest, while willing the qi he sensed to force break the undeveloped merdian inside his chest.
This was a technique popular in the previous world. And in essence, he was forcefully using his meridian.
A person's meridians that allowed the storage and flow of qi would be undeveloped when they were born. This would hold true even if the person reached adulthood, or 60, being at the end of their lives.
Having qi go through this land would be akin to having an infant eat solid food - they wouldn't be able to process it at all. It would then result in withdrawal symptoms such as qi overflow, damaged meridian, and excruciating pain.
If he didn't have any more options left, he definitely wouldn't have resorted to this. After all, this concerned his future in cultivation. If he handled this badly, it was even possible for him to get crippled.
Fortunately, Gang Xin was knowledgeable about this. Unfortunately, even with all his experience, he couldn't guarantee a safe route out of this.
However, this had become his last option.
He had to unlock the meridian on his chest. Otherwise, he wouldn't be able to get this chance in the near future.
Sacrifices had to be made.