A few moments later, Shun Long returned back to his room and sat cross-legged on the bed with his eyes closed as he imagined himself entering the foggy space in the 'Stone of Time'.

Although he hadn't said anything about it, Shun Long knew that the Dao oath that Jiang Tianfang had just sworn wasn't something to be taken lightly.

After all, Dao oaths were the most weighty types of oaths that a cultivator could take and couldn't be violated, or the heavens themselves would punish the violator.

In the most mild scenarios, the person being punished would simply be unable to advance in their respective Dao in the future, while in the more severe cases, the heavens themselves would eradicate that person's body and soul.

As for Jiang Tianfang's oath, his oath was actually one of the heaviest oaths he could possibly take, as the heavens would truly hack his soul in a million pieces if he went against it.

In fact, Shun Long knew that a normal cultivator could only swear, at most, 3 Dao oaths before they ascended to the Immortal Dimension, so for Jiang Tianfang to use one of his Dao oaths like this showed how serious he was about this matter.

A few moments later, inside the foggy space in the 'Stone of Time', Shun Long opened his eyes and turned his gaze towards the black jade box in his hands. Staring at the small, 7-petaled flower inside it, the look in his eyes gradually turned serious as he took out the flower from the jade box and buried it inside his herb garden.

Naturally, the first thing that he was planning to do before concocting a 'Heavenly purity pill' was to create a few more 'Golden light flowers' first.

However, the 'Golden light flower' was still a rank 7 medicinal herb and an extremely rare one at that. Even after going all-out for 5 days while using his qi to speed up the flow of time inside the herb garden, Shun Long had yet to see any signs of another 'Golden light flower' appearing.

10 days had passed in the blink of an eye before a second 'Golden light flower' finally began to appear next to the first one, allowing Shun Long to heave a sigh of relief as he had almost fully depleted his qi by now.

Closing his eyes, Shun Long then spent the next 3 hours replenishing the qi inside his qi balls, while Little Black and Little Silver were both sitting by his sides casually munching on a few stalks of 'Dragonblood grass' while they observed the scene in front of them.

3 hours later, once he could feel that both his qi and his spiritual strength were in their peak state, Shun Long snapped his eyes open and mumbled to himself in a low voice

''Refining a star-rank pill huh... let's begin then.''

A moment later, an alchemy cauldron along with a dozen rank 5 and rank 6 medicinal herbs appeared on the ground around him, filling the air inside the foggy space in the 'Stone of Time' with the pure scent of medicinal herbs.

Of course, Shun Long had already found all the supplementary medicinal herbs that he needed to refine a 'Heavenly purity pill' long ago. The only things that he had been lacking all this while were the 'Golden light flower' as well as the earth flame itself.

Without any hesitation, Shun Long then summoned the purple-colored earth flame and used it to warm the cauldron, before he turned his attention towards the scattered medicinal herbs on the ground around him.

Barely a moment later, tens of sizzling sounds could be heard from the cauldron, as Shun Long had already tossed in the rank 5 medicinal herbs inside, all at the same time.

In reality, even Shun Long was slightly surprised with the result, as the resistance of those rank 5 medicinal herbs was practically nonexistent in front of the purple-colored earth flame.

The medicinal essence of the rank 5 herbs immediately turned into a puddle of multicolored liquid that was guided by Shun Long's soul sense as it swirled inside the cauldron, slowly taking the form of a round object that resembled a pill.

A minute later, Shun Long tossed in the rank 6 medicinal herbs inside the cauldron as well.

However, unlike the rank 5 medicinal herbs that were refined almost instantly, Shun Long had to exert quite a bit of spiritual strength to refine the rank 6 medicinal herbs.

Regardless, with the power of the earth flame, even the most durable rank 6 medicinal herbs could only last for a few minutes at most, before they turned into pure medicinal essence as well.

A few more minutes quickly passed before the embryonic form of a pill that was almost complete could be seen swirling inside the cauldron.

And yet, if an experienced alchemist laid their eyes on this pill, they would immediately be able to guess that something was actually missing from it, and that the pill wasn't truly complete.

At that moment, the look in Shun Long's eyes suddenly turned serious as he waved his hand, before a small, 7-petaled flower appeared in his palm.

Staring at the rank 7 'Golden light flower' in front of him, Shun Long narrowed his eyes momentarily before he calmly plucked the first of its 7 petals.

The aura of the 'Golden light flower' immediately started to weaken the moment that Shun Long plucked its first petal, looking like it was about to wither in just a couple of seconds.

And yet, Shun Long didn't seem to care about the flower's transformation as he calmly tossed the petal inside the cauldron.

Without any hesitation, Shun Long then plucked 2 more of its petals before he tossed them inside the cauldron as well.

At that moment, a surprised look flashed inside Little Black's bright blue eyes, as Little Black noticed that the 'Golden light flower' in Shun Long's hands seemed to have truly withered and 'died'.

Even the remaining 4 petals that were left on the flower didn't seem to have any medicinal essence inside them anymore.

-

Author's note: As you guys have noticed, during the past few months the release rate has been wildly inconsistent, with the last 2 months being in the worst state possible as I was struggling to write even a single chapter. This is because during the past 5 months I had to do my mandatory military service which meant that I had to enroll in the army without an option to refuse.

In the first couple of months, it wasn't too bad as I could still do my best to write at least 1 chapter a day if not 2 of them, but in the last couple of months, it was nearly impossible to write even a single chapter, both due to the lack of available time to work in the army as well as a lack of sleep.

This is why the release rate has been so horrible lately. Normally, people would be allowed to leave the camp once every 2-3 days, but that was only for half a day to a day at most.

6 days ago I went to the garrison headquarters to ask for an early release so I could cut my military service short, but I was told to go back on Tuesday since the people present were unable to help.

Thankfully, I managed to come to an agreement with the people in charge yesterday, allowing me to return back home early and continue to slave away writing.

Thank you for your patience during the past couple of months, and especially this month where I know you guys have been completely starved out of chapters.

I will do my best to make up for the lost days, slowly but surely.

Zeus.