A thousand years ago, a disaster involving alchemical souls swept through the mountain gate of the Qingyun Sect.
When a pill reaches completion, it gives birth to a soul; a living pill has a spirit. Uncontrolled alchemical souls devoured the spiritual souls of countless alchemists. The sect burned its books, sealed the Pill Ruins, and imposed an ironclad rule: cultivators must never touch alchemical souls and may refine only ordinary soulless pills.
Lin Chen, an outer sect disciple of the Qingyun Sect, was born with an incomplete spiritual root. After three years of cultivation, he had made no progress and suffered constant abuse from his fellow disciples.
At death's door, he found an ancient pill furnace covered in dust and rust.
The furnace did not refine pills or purify spirit herbs. Its only power was to contain alchemical souls scattered throughout the world.
Broken pills, the remains of exploded furnaces, thousand-year-old medicinal ash... The trash everyone else discarded was a refuge for alchemical souls.
Using the rusty furnace, he could read the memories sealed within the alchemical souls, learn lost ancient pill recipes, and mend his damaged spiritual root.
But the alchemical souls carried the obsessions, madness, and regrets of alchemists from past generations.
Each time Lin Chen took in an alchemical soul, he had to endure an illusion of the spirit. The slightest mistake, and the obsessions of those who came before would consume him, turning him into a madman.
Deep within the sect, elders of the Seekers faction schemed in secret, searching for the ancient furnace and hoping to control alchemical souls to create living pills.
The favored geniuses each had their own motives. Some feared the calamity of alchemical souls; others craved their power to strengthen their foundations.
Within the sealed Pill Ruins, countless ancient alchemical souls wandered, while the truth of the disaster a thousand years ago lay buried beneath layer upon layer.
Others searched for spirit herbs and coveted medicinal treasures, competing on the martial stage.
Lin Chen traveled alone among ruins and ashes, capturing invisible alchemical souls and comprehending the pill arts of the ages.
The furnace holds alchemical souls; the heart holds fast to itself.
As the secret of the pill calamity, sealed away for a thousand years, rises to the surface once more, this rusty furnace will upend the order of the entire cultivation world's pill arts.
