LunaTheGhost

  "Here." Qinghe said. "Open your bag."

  Baiyun nodded as she held out a pouch and dumped an assortment of copper and silver tokens worth 10,000 in total. Then he put away his bag wordlessly.

  "You're not going to count them?" she asked.

  He shrugged.

  "Is it wrong to trust you?" he smiled.

  "Oh?" Qinghe mused.

  Those were just pleasant words. Of course he didn't fully trust her after she tried to gouge the price of the mole's herbs! If not for Mohei, he would have been at a heavy disadvantage.

  Baiyun had already scanned the bag with divine sense and confirmed he received tokens worth exactly 10,000, or he would be riffling through his bag and counting them one by one.

  "Qinghe, I still have another offer," he said.

  "What is it?"

  Her tone was still a little snarky, but having done a few good trades with Baiyun, she didn't seem annoyed anymore and was perhaps even a little amused.

  "I can't exactly get all the herbs I need from the town marketpce, so I'd like to buy them from you instead." Baiyun said.

  There was a limit to what mortals in such a remote town sold after all. If anything, it was impressive they provided such a wide variety.

  "Sure."

  The two of them negotiated for the next hour. Baiyun asked for specific herbs, the names of which he learnt from the guide and textbooks. Qinghe was quite the rich young master and had most of them, but she didn't have 40% of the herbs he wanted, so plenty of substitutions had to be made.

  He frowned slightly however.

  "Qinghe... you're overcharging aren't you?"

  Baiyun didn't know exactly how much over the market price he was paying. But having read a few textbooks, he was beginning to get a vague feel for how much the people of this world valued various herbs.

  Qinghe ughed softly and wagged a finger.

  "I'm the only one who has the herbs you need. And once you return to the sect, you'll be busy with servant duties. Only now do you have the time for practical alchemy. Be grateful I've only marked them up by 20%, I know you'd still buy them if they were double the price."

  Tsk!

  Baiyun hated to admit it but she wasn't wrong. Managing to spin herself marking up the prices as if it was a favour for him... What was she, an alchemist or a merchant? He rather despised merchants due to various events from his past life.

  "Fine, fine!" he sighed. "You win. 3500 tokens? Just take it."

  Qinghe held out her hand gleefully and made a beckoning gesture as he pced 35 silver tokens onto her palm.

  "Pleasure doing business with you!" Qinghe grinned.

  "Yeah, whatever."

  Baiyun grumbled slightly as he got up, ready to leave. But Qinghe suddenly called out.

  "Wait!"

  Hm? He turned around and watched as she pulled out an artefact from her bag and presented it to him.

  It was a brazier made of steel bars, with intricate mechanical parts on its bottom that adjusted the angle of the bars. Such a design allowed it to accommodate cauldrons of varying sizes.

  "I'll lend this to you for a while. Don't damage it, you don't want to know how much it costs." she said.

  "What's the monthly fee?" Baiyun asked with wary eyes.

  "You... Don't worry, I'm not charging you for it. Think of it as the reimbursement for the markup." Qinghe huffed. "Ah, but if you break it, be prepared to go into debt for the rest of your life."

  Baiyun was genuinely taken aback and widened his eyes.

  "...Oh. Thank you."

  He coughed.

  Perhaps he had been a little too critical of her. While she haggled with him and tried to take advantage of his ck of knowledge, it might have been for survival to some extent. Was her cn not providing her proper allowance? He was used to young masters relying on monetary support from their parents.

  The loss she made lending him the artefact for free surpassed the value of the 20% markup and was no small favour.

  Wait. It wasn't going to break the moment he turned it on, was it? Baiyun quickly scanned it with divine sense a few times to be sure, then coughed again.

  Qinghe waved nonchantly.

  "No need for thanks. I prefer when people show their gratitude with actions, not words."

  ...a little pretentious.

  Baiyun nodded as Qinghe gave him some brief instructions on how to use the artefact. She then shooed him out, shutting the door right behind him.

  He returned to his room. Right now, he still had some more herbs he wanted to buy, but the town folks were still asleep. On his previous trip to the market, he had already memorised the herbs for sale. After all, any herb he could source from elsewhere would save him from Qinghe's markups.

  A night was a short wait and an opportunity to continue studying the textbooks however; Baiyun was happy to oblige.

  The hours rushed by in an instant and it was soon morning.

  Baiyun was still deep in thought as he read, but a shrill cry from the cauldron snapped him out of his trance. He opened the lid and looked inside, where the mole hugged its pouch with tearful eyes.

  "Hah..."

  He sighed and spent a few minutes to console the mole as best he could, before picking up the cauldron and leaving the inn.

  It was still dawn when Baiyun entered the marketpce. Many of the stall owners were still setting up for the day and not expecting customers at this hour, much less one buying in bulk.

  They stared at him as he went from stall to stall, buying all sorts of strange herbs in rge quantities, heaps of rge gss jars and all sorts of strange miscelneous items like crystals. His eyes suddenly lit up as he saw a discount sign in the distance, and he rushed over to buy a gigantic pile of rancid-smelling grass that was slightly slimy and definitely past its due date.

  Some of the nosier merchants began to whisper to each other as they pointed at him.

  Baiyun nodded in satisfaction from his haul. Truthfully, he wanted to buy herbs in rger quantities, but he only had 1050 tokens left. He couldn't spend his funds to the point of bankruptcy, in case there was something else he needed ter on.

  Hah... money was always spent in an instant. He shook his head, leaving the marketpce before he could be further tempted. Money was better put to good use than left to rot away, he told himself. Or perhaps it was just self consotion.

  Baiyun returned to the inn and spent his day processing the various ingredients. He didn't need to use the cauldron yet, so there was no worries of burning the floorboards.

  The sound of chopping and grinding came from his room as he cut and mashed piles and piles of herbs. From the outside, one might even mistake it for the sound of a kitchen.

  Bottle after bottle of extracts and herb mixes began to pile on his table one after the other. All sorts of strange effects were dispyed; some bubbled, some darkened and clumped, some had substances that floated or sunk, and there was even one that glowed faintly.

  These giant bottles were mostly purchased from the town's market and didn't have the hydrophobic and qi-proof properties of Qinghe's gloss gss bottles, but he had no choice. From the sheer volume of the herbs he was processing, he needed many more containers.

  Baiyun would have liked to have more alchemic gss, but he didn't have the luxury of buying more expensive equipment from Qinghe with his current funds.

  As the st corner of the table was flooded with bottles, the skies grew dark. The nocturnal mole finally roused and stared at the strangely coloured bottles in befuddlement.

  Baiyun ughed lightly at its reaction as he stuffed the bottles into his bag, the faint sound of clinking gss echoing. Spatial environments would degrade active essences to some extent, but the damage would be minor in such a brief period.

  He grabbed the mole and headed to the town's canal. It was fairly devoid of people at this hour and provided him with a steady stream of water; he quite liked the sound of the flowing river as well.

  Baiyun retrieved the artefact brazier and took out a strange metal rod. It had a qi stone crudely affixed to its tip and had been passed to him by Qinghe. She said a mortal wouldn't be able to use qi sense to activate the artefact, so she fashioned it for him on the spot as a temporary solution.

  It was unwarranted because he had divine sense, but he was still grateful. He would py along and use it, in case someone was watching.

  Baiyun prodded at its formation core and a fme sprouted in its midst; with a few more pokes, the modest fme turned into a small inferno. But the cauldron absorbed the heat well and kept the heat from dispersing into the air.

  Good fmes! He nodded in satisfaction. It was nearly 50 times stronger than what paltry fmes his firewood could produce.

  He filled an ordinary metal pot with water and tossed it onto the fmes. Not even half a minute passed before it began to boil violently. He quickly prodded at it with the qi stick until the fmes lowered considerably.

  Baiyun poured the contents from various bottles into the pot and dyed the boiling water a deep dark green. A nauseatingly overpowering scent of herbs and earth filled the air, so much that even the mole peeked out of the cauldron to the side; only to duck down and sm the lid over its head with a horrified squeak.

  Faint green fog billowed from the bubbling liquid into the air, but he took a deep whiff and let out a content sigh. Ah... such a nostalgic scent.

  It was the infamous Vital Heart Brew. Well, albeit slightly modified to account for missing essences and his earthen constitution.

  Back in his old world, young disciples beneath the age of 20 would be forced to drink this every morning. Such was its repugnance that even the strongest willed of youths would scrunch their face into prunes at the taste of a single droplet.

  At that time, he too was one of the disciples who would practically scream at the sight of it. He remembered running away, only for the elders to tie him down and force feed it to him. But after over a hundred years of consuming it, he somehow began to find a strange beauty in its taste.

  The Vital Brew was made from a cheap blend of herbs, simple enough that anyone could dump the ingredients into boiling water to create it if they had the recipe. But despite its simplicity, it aided the growth of a young body tremendously, leading to significantly stronger physiques, stamina and overall health.

  As one of the pilrs of his old sect's success, it was a tightly guarded brew they monopolised; leaking its recipe was punishable by death.

  Baiyun tied the lid to the handles with rope and cranked up the fmes, overheating the pot for a few minutes until its bottom turned red before pcing it to the side.

  "Kr?"

  The mole filed slightly as he lifted it out of the cauldron and pced it to the side. He passed it a few of the iron strength pills and let it acquaint itself with them. It only sniffed them and tilted its head however.

  Baiyun washed the cauldron in the canal before tossing it onto the brazier. He cranked the heat to the maximum; the remaining water turned into boiling steam instantly as golden fmes erupted from the steel bars and seared the very air. It had overwhelmed the cauldron's capacity to absorb heat!

  He quickly backed away with the mole as the heat scorched the faint hairs on his arm. But the cauldron was far superior to the metal pot and did not grow red hot even under such fmes. Baiyun reached into his bag and tossed a handful of crystals into the cauldron from a distance.

  Loud crackles rang out as the crystals shattered, before melting into a molten red substance.

  Baiyun wiped the sweat off his face as he nodded. With the might of such alchemic fmes, it made his job processing essences so much easier! If he knew Qinghe would lend it to him from the start, he would have bought herbs from her that could better take advantage of the fmes.

  He jumped into the canal and let the water soak into his robes to protect himself from the heat, then marched over with a bottle of Yellow Earthroot and dumped it in. The liquid instantly exploded into a bst of steam, turning into a mix of ashes and yellow powder.

  Baiyun hurriedly turned the fmes off before his wet robes steamed. The surrounding air quickly cooled as the cauldron finally managed to absorb the heat fully. After confirming the handles were safe to touch with divine sense, he grabbed them and shook the pot, doing his best to mix the molten liquid.

  He took out a metal tray with a series of 12 deep circur dents neatly arranged in a grid, lubricant preemptively smeared on. It had been purchased from a cooking stall in the market, seemingly some sort of fishball mould.

  Baiyun poured the molten red liquid from the cauldron into the moulds carefully. First "cooking" and now what felt like smithing... he began to wonder why nothing he did felt like alchemy. He sighed as he shook the tray and rolled the molten spheres into orbs.

  He returned his attention to the steel pot and opened it as steam billowed, scooping some of the Vital Heart Brew into a bowl.

  "Ahh..."

  Baiyun rexed. The comforting taste of home. It could use some Bckearth and about 10 other missing essences, but it was close enough for him. His stomach warmed as he drank two more bowls of the brew and he resumed work.

  The molten pills in the fishball mould had begun to stabilise, so he tilted the tray and let them roll into a bowl of clean sand.

  Crystal Earth pills, complete!

  For the rest of the night, Baiyun continued to work hard as the mole watched. He would push bowls of newly made pills before it every now and then, letting it examine his handiwork.

  Mudroot fasting pill!

  Grass raising pill!

  Wilting grass pill!

  Burning dust pill!

  Heatstone pill!

  Baiyun began to grin like a maniac as he produced all manner of pills. The mole almost grew dizzy from the assortment of pills shoved before its face, each batch with a stranger scent than the st. The medicines seemed random and nonsensical, but he had chosen them carefully.

  The first batch from before was the iron strength pills, absorbing most of the metal stains and improving their own quality. The contamination was rgely resolved at that point and turned into grey splotches, but he didn't appreciate it marring his cauldron.

  The Crystal Earth and Mudroot Fasting pills were forged next, which mixed earth essences into the stains.

  It was followed by the Grass Raising pills, a recipe from his old world that had quite the odd effect. It was poisonous and not meant for consumption. Instead, it was meant to be buried in fields of grass as fertiliser.

  The grass would be sent into a frenzy, and it could continue to grow endlessly for days until it exerted itself to death! The end result would be a giant heap of dead grass, each bde measuring up to 2 metres long.

  Perhaps if it worked on spirit pnts, it would be useful to cultivators, but it only seemed to work on mortal grasses. It only seemed useful for hay production or for making grass-woven products. But Baiyun had a feeling he could find an actual use for it in the future.

  Wood absorbed the metal tinged earth, and fire came after with the Burning Dust and Heatstone pills, setting the wood abze. The grey splotches slowly grew fainter with every batch.

  Baiyun picked up the cauldron and stared at its inside with satisfaction. It was now spotless and free from any aesthetic blemishes! Even if the essence contamination issue had already been solved, what good alchemist would allow their prized cauldron to be marred?

  A few eyes from the shadow put a slightly damper on his mood however. Jingfeng and Mohei... those two kids had been sneaking around and whispering to each other for a while now. He supposed it was their attempt to keep an eye on him.

  He wished they would leave him alone and go to sleep like children should at this hour, but all he could do was ignore them and continued to work the cauldron.

  Beast Repulsing pill, Wood Rotting pill, Qi Replenishing pill... another qi replenishing pill and another...

  He originally intended to make a greater variety of pills, but he noticed a massive deposit of stale qi grass on sale for a huge discount. Just yesterday, the owner stubbornly insisted on selling it at full price, but he didn't expect her to finally cut down its price by half!

  It was a massive opportunity. Baiyun forked up nearly 3000 tokens and bought the full stock without hesitation.

  Most of the grass essences had already degraded, but what was most important was the qi content. His cultivation had been stagnating ever since his encounter in the mushroom caverns, and he finally found a good quantity of qi-dense consumables.

  Having honed his confidence through the production of various other pills, he began to produce Qi Replenishing pills in bulk and let them pile up.

  Faint golden light shone from the skies as the first traces of sunrise appeared.

  The whole night had gone by in a fsh as Baiyun indulged in his pill-making frenzy. He looked down at the circle of bowls surrounding him, the assorted pills within numbering more than a hundred, though most of them were Qi Replenishing pills.

  He stared wistfully at the sun rising from the clouds. He should be happy, yet it felt strangely hollow. He sighed.

  The mole flopped on its back zily with crumbs of iron strength pills around its mouth, having gobbled all of them all up. Baiyun wanted to eat a few as well, but he saw it as an opportunity to fulfil the dao contract so he held back.

  "So, what did you think of the pills?" he asked with soulsense approximately.

  But the mole only waved a cw in disdain.

  Effective? Perhaps a little. But they were merely good snacks. The herbs it produced were obviously way better!

  Baiyun's eyes twitched. This bastard... it showed no appreciation even after brazenly eating the pills it fancied, even calling them "snacks"!

  The mole was cultivating high grade herbs while he was making pills from subpar methods and using ingredients even mortals sold. Of course their effects would be comparatively weak!

  He shook his head in frustration. It seemed he needed to follow his original pn after all.

  LunaTheGhost