Chapter 281 - 263: Interests and the Pill Recipe

Chapter 281: Chapter 263: Interests and the Pill Recipe

"What a shame."

Chu Mu shook his head. It was a real pity.

A Magical Treasure Prototype and dozens of rare Spiritual Materials... an opportunity like this was incredibly hard to come by.

He glanced around the grand hall. Not many Cultivators were left; most must have already departed.

He let out a soft breath and, without lingering, went straight downstairs. After exiting the Celestial Wind Pavilion and getting his bearings, he merged into the flow of people on the street.

This time, he didn’t leave the Marketplace, instead stepping directly into an inn by the street.

Compared to the long-term residences for rent in the Marketplace, temporary lodgings like inns were quite affordable. Moreover, they all provided a certain amount of Spiritual Qi.

Although the room came with simple isolating Restrictions, Chu Mu habitually laid down his own set as well before sitting cross-legged inside.

Holding the Jade Scroll he had received in his trade with Ji Ming, the Alchemy Inheritance within it unfolded in his Divine Sense Perception.

After so many years, delving into the art of Alchemy once more felt nostalgic. Chu Mu couldn’t help but feel how much things had changed.

Most importantly, in the past, he had to go to great lengths just for fragmented bits of alchemy knowledge, yet his gains were always meager.

But now, with a single exchange meet and one Puppet, he had obtained a fairly complete Alchemy Inheritance.

While there was a large element of surprise involved, it was undeniable: being on a different level meant having access to completely different things.

The Alchemy Inheritance recorded in the Jade Scroll wasn’t extensive, consisting of four main sections.

Spirit Medicines, Medicinal Properties, Fire Control, and Pill Refining.

Although they seemed to cover the entire Alchemy System, they only contained basic information and knowledge, not delving into anything advanced.

Clearly, Ji Ming had held something back from this inheritance.

Chu Mu didn’t mind, however. This foundational knowledge was exactly what he was missing.

As for advanced Alchemy Techniques, fire control methods, and other skills, those would just be icing on the cake for him.

Of course, for any Alchemist, the foundation was the most important thing.

After all, without a sufficient foundational understanding of the ingredients, it would be just like Artifact Refining—he would be forever stuck just blindly following a template.

Nearly ten days had passed by the time he finally put down the Jade Scroll.

The afterglow of his "Spiritual Radiance" still lingered. Chu Mu put the Jade Scroll away and, with a wave of his hand, dozens of Jade Boxes materialized before him. A flicker of his Divine Sense was all it took to open them all, revealing the Spirit Medicines nestled inside.

"Crystal Jade Grass, Moon Spirit Flower, Cold Sunflower Seed..."

He murmured the names of the medicines, comparing them one by one to the collection of Spirit Medicines he had amassed.

At the exchange meet, he had requested a Tier One to Tier Two Alchemy Inheritance. What he got from Ji Ming went right up to Tier Two Lower Grade.

It even included a Tier Two Pill Recipe to assist with cultivation in the Foundation Establishment Realm.

The Pill Recipe was for the "Gong Palace Pill." It was a strange name; in his judgment, it had to be an Ancient Pill Recipe.

After all, modern Pill Recipes would almost never call for such an extravagant combination of Spirit Medicines.

A mere Tier Two Lower Grade Pill Recipe daring to use three Spirit Medicines over five hundred years old? It was almost a joke.

However, Ji Ming had been decent enough to include a modified recipe for the Gong Palace Pill after the ancient one.

The combination of Spirit Medicines was still somewhat extravagant, but it was far more reasonable.

The main ingredients were a 320-year-old Crystal Jade Grass and a 300-year-old Changbai Ginseng. The remaining eight supporting medicines ranged from one hundred to two hundred and twenty years in age.

Because it was adapted from an ancient recipe, the required Spirit Medicines were much more valuable. Consequently, the Pill Recipe stated that once refined, the Gong Palace Pill’s effects would be significantly stronger than a typical Tier Two Lower Grade elixir used for supporting cultivation.

Of the ten Spirit Medicines required for the Gong Palace Pill, he had three. Furthermore, he had a decent supply of them—three or four plants of each.

He recalled that these Spirit Medicines were part of the spoils he’d gained from killing that Clan Cultivator at the bottom of Sword Washing Lake.

’I’m still missing seven Spirit Medicines...’

’And I also need to refine a Pill Furnace...’

Chu Mu gazed at the Spirit Medicines before him, lost in thought.

He much preferred refining the elixirs himself rather than buying or trading for them.

After all, having made his first fortune through Alchemy, he knew better than anyone just how large the profit margin on elixirs was and the huge price difference between raw materials and the finished product.

Besides, with his current skill in Artifact Refining, he could craft a superior Pill Furnace perfectly tailored to his own alchemy habits.

With that, and the help of his Spiritual Radiance Blessing, he could certainly increase his chances of producing a One-Patterned Pill Pattern Elixir. It might even be possible to refine Two-Patterned or Three-Patterned elixirs.

After all, back when he first started Alchemy, using a small, dilapidated Pill Furnace that couldn’t even be considered a Lower Grade Spiritual Artifact, he had still managed to refine large quantities of One-Patterned Grain Avoidance Pills and Vein Nourishing Pills.

Now, with more experience, a more complete system of knowledge, and a Pill Furnace perfectly suited to him, the probability would surely increase dramatically.

A Pill Pattern Elixir was an existence that surpassed the normal limits of its own medicinal properties.

Back then, he had relied solely on a Low Tier Vein Nourishing Pill to push his cultivation all the way to Qi Cultivation Perfection. The key had been the One-Patterned Vein Nourishing Pill.

Otherwise, the effects of a normal Vein Nourishing Pill would have weakened significantly after he entered the Middle Stage of Qi Cultivation. It would have been impossible to rely on it to stack his cultivation all the way to Qi Cultivation Perfection.

As his thoughts churned, he took out the Contract Contact Order and simultaneously dispelled the isolating Array Prohibition in his room. With a flicker of his Divine Sense, the shimmering screen appeared before him.

Inside the Contribution Treasure Vault, a dazzling array of items was clearly marked with their corresponding Contribution Points.

He browsed for a short while and managed to find a few of the seven Spirit Medicines he was missing.

Just then, a faint ripple of information pulsed through. He then clearly saw his Contribution Points on the screen, which had been zero, suddenly flash. A moment later, over six thousand Contribution Points were added.

Chu Mu was startled for a moment but quickly realized what had happened. ’This must be the payment for that batch of Magical and Spiritual Artifacts I refined.’

But then, a flicker of doubt crossed his mind.

’If this is the case, aren’t these Contribution Points a bit too easy to earn?’

’At this rate, if I just refined without holding back, getting one hundred thousand Contribution Points would take a few months at most...’

As his mind raced, the screen shifted, and lines of task information appeared.

He selected an Artifact Refining task and clicked on it. When he saw the details of the rewards and penalties, the corner of his mouth couldn’t help but twitch.

’That Xie Hui... he’s got some serious nerve!’

According to the task’s reward and penalty system, if the Artifact Refining failed, the refiner had to bear the losses personally.

To put it simply, for the hundred or so Magical and Spiritual Artifacts he had been tasked with, if the refining of even one failed, the person who accepted the task had to bear the cost of the lost raw materials.

For example, if the raw materials for a Magical Artifact were worth one thousand Contribution Points, the refiner would have to cover that one-thousand-point loss.

Based on the prices in the Contribution Treasure Vault and the rewards offered, if he failed more than twenty percent of the time on that batch of over one hundred Magical and Spiritual Artifacts, he wouldn’t just make no profit. He’d be lucky not to lose the shirt off his back!

"Absolutely audacious!"

Chu Mu exclaimed in amazement. Just then, the Sound Transmission Order in his robes vibrated slightly, and a message from Xie Hui came through.

Listening to Xie Hui’s message, Chu Mu was left a little speechless. One moment he was marveling at Xie Hui’s sheer audacity, and the next, the guy was already lining up more business.

He looked at the extra six thousand-odd Contribution Points on the screen, a hint of suspicion in his eyes.

’Does Xie Hui really have that much nerve?’

’Or do internal disciples like him get special treatment?’

After all, based on his recent calculations of the risks and rewards, what Xie Hui was doing couldn’t be called just audacious—it was more like he was putting his neck on the line.

After a moment of contemplation, he sent a reply via the sound transmission. Then, with a wave of his hand, he swept all the Spirit Medicines before him into his Storage Ring.

He left the inn and headed straight for Xie Hui’s Ore Materials shop.

Xie Hui was extremely respectful, handing over another Storage Talisman and a Jade Scroll.

"Internal disciples like you must get special treatment when you take on these kinds of tasks, right?"

Chu Mu asked casually, as if unconcerned, while inspecting the various Spiritual Materials inside the Storage Talisman.

"There’s no other special treatment, except that if Spiritual Materials are lost, we only have to cover fifty percent of the loss."

"However, if the number of finished products for a single task is less than half the value of the provided Spiritual Materials, we have to bear the full loss."

"As long as the success rate is over fifty percent, we only have to cover fifty percent of the loss for any failed Magical and Spiritual Artifacts."

Chu Mu nodded. If that was the case, then it all made sense.

The mercenary system was designed for the grunts doing the dirty work, after all.

It was only natural that the system for internal members of the Righteous Alliance would be different from the one for mercenaries.

A benchmark of just a fifty percent success rate for Artifact Refining was extremely generous.

After all, if an Artifact Refiner couldn’t even achieve a fifty percent success rate when refining dozens of identical Magical Artifacts, they might as well just go bang their head against a wall until they died.

Even without his Spiritual Radiance Blessing, his success rate for any Artifact Refining within his skill level was far higher than fifty percent.

And once that fifty-percent threshold was met, he only had to cover half the losses on any failures.

This way, as long as an Artifact Refiner’s skill was high enough, the potential for profit was still quite good.

It just wasn’t possible for anyone else to make the kind of terrifying profit he did.

In a single refining session, even after Xie Hui took his thirty percent cut, Chu Mu had still earned over six thousand Contribution Points.

With a near one-hundred percent success rate, he was raking it in. And clearly, the man standing before him, Xie Hui, wasn’t doing too badly for himself either.

No wonder he’d immediately taken on another job just a few days later.

"Oh, right, Senior. This is an Artifact Book on the Rune System that this junior managed to get from my Clan."

"Please take a look, Senior. If it’s of no use, this junior will try to find something else."

"Alright. Keep searching. I want Spiritual Materials and Artifact Books on the Rune System..."

"One month from now, wait for me at the Yuelai Inn."

Taking the Artifact Book, he stuffed it into his robes along with the Storage Talisman and Jade Scroll. After leaving those parting words, Chu Mu walked out of the shop.

"Take care, Senior."

Xie Hui followed closely behind, respectfully seeing him out.

...