Chapter 1729: The Ability to Discern Herbs

As the disciples bowed and accepted the task, jade slips shot out in white streaks of light, accurately reaching every person. Li Yan caught his slip and immediately turned, walking toward his stone room at a brisk pace.

“This is the most basic of foundations. There are no coincidences here. This is a great opportunity to win back some ground. You must use your fastest speed!” Yan Qingchen and his five companions left at the same time. His voice reached the other five, calm and devoid of anger or dissatisfaction.

But the other five knew that the previous stage had been far too embarrassing, especially for the three who hadn’t made the top ten. Their faces burned with shame. Yan Qingchen didn’t say much; he only demanded they use their fastest speed to clear this stage!

After Li Yan entered the stone room, the door closed, and the formations activated once more. As the restrictions flared, the small teleportation array in the corner glowed brightly. Li Yan looked over and saw two storage rings. He walked toward the center of the room and gestured with his hand. The two rings flew over, and he came to a halt.

He sent a thread of Divine Sense into the jade slip. A quick scan showed that the contents were extremely concise: it merely listed the names of the fifty herbs, with no other annotations or explanations. After one glance, he had memorized all the names and set the slip aside.

Li Yan had seen the descriptions and names of these herbs in the pharmacopoeia. They were all in the sect’s basic pharmacopoeia. However, the number of herb species in that book was as vast as the sea. Even for an alchemist, knowing twenty to thirty percent of them was considered extraordinary.

Though these fifty herbs were in the basic book, they were quite obscure and rare. Li Yan had never actually touched most of them in person. Usually, obscure herbs didn’t appear in an alchemist’s daily work, so Li Yan suspected that even others might not have seen them all.

Fortunately, cultivators possessed eidetic memory; otherwise, Li Yan definitely wouldn’t have remembered the information on these obscure herbs, let alone identified them. Thus, to identify them in this assessment, they would primarily rely on their memories for comparison. Based on the diagrams, growth environments, functions, properties, and the textures of the roots, leaves, and stems they had seen before, they would meticulously screen each one.

Li Yan then scanned the two storage rings. One was empty, while the other was filled with a vast number of herbs. According to the rules, he had to put the identified herbs into the empty ring.

‘This isn’t just to clearly distinguish the results. It’s also a method for their final inspection. If the total number of herbs in the two rings doesn’t add up to three thousand, or if it exceeds it, there’s clearly a problem. If there are fewer than three thousand, Elder Liu will definitely ask for the reason for the damage. If your reason doesn’t match their verified result, you’re going to the Law-Enforcement Hall.’

Furthermore, when Li Yan scanned the herbs, he felt something subtle that didn’t belong to the herbs themselves. But he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was. However, it was easy to guess: some sort of identification markers had been placed on the herbs. This was to prevent any cultivator from swapping the herbs with ones they might have on hand. These faint markers felt as though they weren’t being hidden on purpose. This was likely a deliberate move by Huangqi Valley—a silent warning to the participants.

With his thoughts racing, Li Yan used his Divine Sense to pull all the herbs from the ring. Instantly, the void of the stone room was filled with a dense mass of herbs of all shapes and sizes. The smallest were as thin as needles and only a few inches long, while the largest were several feet long, with spiritual energy drifting from their stems…

What made Li Yan dizzy was that a single scan revealed a vast number of herbs that were nearly identical. Whether it was their shape, scent, or even the size of their flowers and leaves, it was almost impossible to tell the species apart.

But Li Yan knew they weren’t the same; they were just incredibly similar. In the natural world, similar-looking plants were everywhere. When placed together, most people couldn’t distinguish between different species. This was an expression of natural selection: many plants, often eaten by birds or beasts, slowly evolved to resemble poisonous plants over time. Their essence remained unchanged, but their survival rate multiplied. However, the actual effects of similar plants could be worlds apart.

Seeing the mass of nearly identical herbs and scents, Li Yan realized that only a portion of these existed in the real world. The rest were likely cultivated by Huangqi Valley themselves, making them look even more identical. Among each set of similar herbs, only one matched the name in the jade slip. The others weren’t “fake,” but they were different species entirely.

‘Fortunately, I took first place in the first stage. Compared to these true disciples of the alchemy path, I don’t seem to have much of a chance in this stage…’ Li Yan thought, sucking in a breath of cold air. This “identification” assessment was different from what he had imagined.

He had thought they would just give a dense mass of three thousand herbs, making it a test of speed and whether one had truly studied the basic pharmacopoeia. In that case, one could distinguish them through a solid foundation and quick, accurate recognition. But this test was clearly telling you that among these nearly identical plants, you had to identify one out of fifty, essentially distinguishing truth from mimicry…

While Li Yan was preparing, the disciples in the other stone rooms were also looking at the mass of herbs. Quite a few of them looked miserable after just a few scans. After confirming the fifty herb names, they had tried to start with the ones they found easiest to identify. But after several quick comparisons, they found they couldn’t even quickly find the “easiest” ones. This allowed them to easily predict the difficulty of identifying the herbs they were unfamiliar with…

In Yan Qingchen’s room, his movements were swift. He had already begun the identification. With a tug of his magical power, a dozen or so identical-looking herbs flew out from the mass and hovered in front of him. After just a few glances, he unhesitatingly picked one and tossed it into the empty storage ring. The remaining dozen herbs vanished as they flew rapidly into the other ring. Then, he raised his hand again, and another group of seven or eight similar herbs flew to him…

Ming Qi also moved quickly. In just half the time it took to burn a stick of incense, she had identified three herbs and stowed them away! Similar situations were occurring in other rooms, with some moving even faster. However, this speed wouldn’t last long; once they finished with the herbs they were most certain of, they would inevitably slow down…

After an hour had passed, Li Yan looked at the twelve identical herbs before him, and his brow furrowed. He had identified ten herbs so far, with about sixty to seventy percent certainty of their correctness. They had been given twenty-four hours, and finishing ten in one hour was already quite fast.

But now, looking at the twelve herbs in the void, he was deep in thought. They had tiny purple flowers the size of a fingernail and stems shaped like long poles. Li Yan had been motionless for a while, hesitating between four of them. He was looking closely at the flowers, trying to find subtle differences in the tiny centers.

He remembered that this herb, called Broadsilk Plant, was similar to another called Purple-Stalk Weed. They could be distinguished by a ring of fuzzy pollen on the flower’s center: one grew parallel, while the other tilted slightly downward after emerging. Even with this knowledge, it wasn’t easy to distinguish them accurately.

Li Yan managed to eliminate eight of them based on the pollen growth, but the pollen on the remaining four all appeared to grow perfectly parallel. Even from different angles, he couldn’t see any difference. Then, he focused his Divine Sense on the thin leaves, which resembled willow leaves. He tried to judge the age based on the texture of the veins and the thickness of the leaves, hoping to find a difference. Unfortunately, he still couldn’t tell them apart…

Time flew. After another half-incense-stick of time, Li Yan finally raised a hand. Four thin needles formed from his magical power appeared in the void and pierced the four herbs. Four drops of milky-white sap seeped from the stems. With a thought, the four drops flew to him.

Li Yan knew the properties of the Broadsilk Plant: the sap would cause numbness if it touched the skin. He immediately extended an arm, his sleeve sliding back to his elbow. The four drops were pulled by his sense and landed on his arm in a line. Li Yan completely dispersed the magical power on his hand, letting the sap soak into his pores.

A few breaths later, he felt numbness in the four spots, though the timing varied slightly. He watched his arm, staying motionless as the sap fully permeated his skin. Only then did he close his eyes. After about fifty breaths, he opened them again.

‘The fifty herbs to be selected were chosen with care. They’ve already cultivated many identical-looking ones. There might be some differences, but those might only manifest at a certain age or after the herbs have been refined into pills. Using the most common traits to test them only works for some; for most, it’s not applicable…’ Li Yan mused.

The internal selection assessment was indeed not something you could easily pass. The fifty herbs chosen were obscure to begin with, and they had added identical mimics. For a top alchemy sect like Huangqi Valley, this was far too easy; they had studied all sorts of herbs for countless years! These new mimetic herbs wouldn’t be in the basic pharmacopoeia, and they added many traits that couldn’t be distinguished.

While refining a pill could distinguish them accurately, there were three thousand herbs here. One could only refine a dozen or so in a single day, and they didn’t have the corresponding recipes, especially for these obscure ones.

Li Yan didn’t know it, but the number of herbs he had identified so far—ignoring accuracy—had already dropped him to twenty-first place.