I Wouldn't Mind Giving Myself to You

"Mm, do you want it?"

Gu Cai Yi drank the tea Luo Chen had poured for her, and her willow-leaf brows could not help furrowing.

What kind of tea was this? It was far too bitter!

Across from her, Luo Chen's eyes shone brightly. His heart thudded wildly, beating several times faster than usual.

The Purple Cloud Copper Furnace, a standard alchemy furnace produced by the Ten Thousand Treasures Pavilion.

Its grade was not high, only Tier 1 Low-grade, but it was remarkably versatile.

It could accommodate more than half of the various pill-refining techniques commonly used in the Cultivation World.

Moreover, this furnace had a Fire Gathering Array inscribed within it, giving it unique advantages when it came to controlling the heat.

Novice Pill Refiners often failed to control the heat properly, ruining the prepared ingredients.

But with this array, as long as different amounts of spiritual power were injected beforehand, no matter how fierce the external flames became, it could regulate them with ease.

The Fire Gathering Array gathered and dispersed as one pleased; the Pill Fire possessed a spirit of its own.

Did she even need to ask whether Luo Chen wanted it?

Of course he did!

If he had an alchemy furnace like this, he would no longer be restricted to refining only one batch of All Wonders Pills a day.

In terms of efficiency, he could refine at least two batches of All Wonders Pills each day!

Staring at Gu Cai Yi with blazing eyes, Luo Chen suddenly reached out and grasped her slender hand amid her surprise.

"Cai Yi, are you giving one to me?"

"I can do it! As long as you give it to me, even if you make me give myself to you, I won't utter a word of complaint!"

Gu Cai Yi froze for a moment, then pulled her left hand free from his broad, solid palm.

"Get lost!"

"Who wants you to give yourself to me? Shameless bastard!"

She rolled her eyes and said seriously, "If you want it, you'll have to spend Spirit Stones to buy it."

"So that's how it is..." Luo Chen let out a despondent sigh. "If I could afford it, I would have bought one long ago."

"I'm not telling you to buy one from the Ten Thousand Treasures Pavilion." Gu Cai Yi could not bear to watch Luo Chen change faces so quickly. "Courtesan Xiang Xiang from the Heavenly Fragrance Pavilion is also a Pill Refiner. She has an unused Purple Cloud Copper Furnace. I asked her about it. If you want it, she can sell it to you a little cheaper."

Courtesan Xiang Xiang—of course he knew of her.

She was stunningly beautiful and exceptionally learned, with particularly deep knowledge of Water Techniques and the Alchemy Dao.

And the reason she was most famous was that she bore the title of Inner Disciple of the Joyful Union Sect.

But no matter how beautiful she was or how great her reputation, none of that had anything to do with Luo Chen.

What he cared about most was the price!

"A little cheaper? How much cheaper?"

"Three hundred Low-Grade Spirit Stones."

Luo Chen rejoiced inwardly, but his face still showed difficulty. "That expensive? Even secondhand ones only cost a little over two hundred."

"Then why don't you go buy one?" Gu Cai Yi chuckled. "Stop crying poverty. That price is only because you're my neighbor. If you truly want it, tell me."

Indeed, that price was very cheap.

The secondhand price Luo Chen spoke of was the buyback price offered by the Ten Thousand Treasures Pavilion.

Everyone knew that the Ten Thousand Treasures Pavilion was the worst kind of corrupt merchant.

A brand-new Purple Cloud Copper Furnace was priced at four hundred and fifty.

It was only slightly cheaper than a defensive Magic Tool, and far more expensive than other Tier 1 Low-grade offensive Magic Tools.

Moreover, since alchemy tools were not something rogue cultivators often dealt with, there were even fewer circulating on the market.

Now that he had come across one, and at such a cheap price, Luo Chen naturally would not let it slip away.

Luo Chen smiled awkwardly and hurriedly said, "Buy it, I'll definitely buy it. But it'll have to wait a while, until I've scraped together enough money."

"You're that poor?" Gu Cai Yi looked at Luo Chen in confusion. "Do you even earn Spirit Stones from refining pills?"

For a time, she had seriously wondered whether her neighbor would be thrown out of the Inner City in three months for being unable to pay his rent.

"You don't need to worry about that. When the time comes, I'll definitely show up at your door with Spirit Stones!" Luo Chen declared confidently.

In truth, he really could afford three hundred Spirit Stones.

To say nothing else, he currently had more than four hundred Spirit Stones in his pocket!

The Flying Swallow Sword had sold for one thousand one hundred. After purchasing Qi Nourishing Pills and five spells, four hundred remained.

Adding the twenty-odd scattered Spirit Stones he had before—

At this point, Luo Chen could not really be considered particularly poor.

The reason he was not immediately buying that alchemy furnace was mainly because he had no use for it yet.

The current batch of ingredients had all been specially processed for his Iron Pot.

If he used an alchemy furnace to refine the remaining ingredients, adapting his methods would be one issue. The firewood required and the time needed to form the pills would also have to be prepared anew from top to bottom.

So he planned to use up this entire batch of ingredients first, recover all the funds, and only then consider buying an alchemy furnace.

Damn it!

If only there were interest-free, high-value Spirit Stone loans for aspiring rogue cultivators.

This Cultivation World controlled by the sects was simply too cold-hearted toward rogue cultivators like them!

Refining pills, taking medicine, practicing spells, studying techniques—his days passed one by one amid such orderly arrangements.

Luo Chen adjusted the time and frequency of his spell practice.

He had previously retained the habits he formed while living in the Outer City, only sampling his spell practice lightly each day.

It was only recently that he realized the Inner City was already quite safe. There was no need to keep his Mana at peak condition every moment of every day.

Thus, he could use more Mana to become proficient in those newly learned spells.

During his idle moments, he would chat with Gu Cai Yi about matters in the Cultivation World.

He had actually found it strange that he never saw Gu Cai Yi cultivate.

Only after Gu Cai Yi explained did he suddenly understand.

It turned out that Gu Cai Yi usually cultivated at the Heavenly Fragrance Pavilion, where a Spirit Gathering Array had been set up that could raise the spiritual energy concentration by an entire level.

Of course, the spiritual energy concentration of a First-Order Spirit Vein was limited. If some people gathered spiritual energy, others naturally could not enjoy the concentration they were supposed to receive.

Mm, the latter referred to rogue cultivator tenants like Luo Chen and the rest.

So the Jade Cauldron Sword Sect was also a huge corrupt merchant. What happened to the premium housing with a First-Order Spirit Vein they had promised?

After all that, the spiritual energy they absorbed was merely what others had left behind after filtering it.

During this time, he occasionally ran into Bai Mei Ling, that round-faced little woman.

It did not happen often. Hundred Herbs Hall seemed to have been busy lately. People from the Medicine King Sect had arrived to inventory their stock, intending to transport a batch of spirit herbs gathered by Hundred Herbs Hall back with them.

As for the other tenant living in this courtyard, Luo Chen had not seen her even once.

"Fu Xiu Xiu is the manager of the Divine Talisman Pavilion. She usually lives over there. And I heard her Talisman Making is very skilled, with a great chance of entering the Divine Talisman Sect."

That was what Gu Cai Yi told Luo Chen.

After hearing it, Luo Chen was deeply envious.

Being able to join a sect was an immortal opportunity countless rogue cultivators desperately sought but could not obtain.

He did not know whether he himself would ever have a chance to join a powerful sect.

He was not asking for much. A sect like the Joyful Union Sect would do.

Back at the market, he told everyone he met that Cloud Crane Supreme was his idol.

And so, Luo Chen worked overtime and pushed himself hard, using up all the materials on hand before the grand market arrived.

The final results left him extremely satisfied!

Of the final twenty-five portions of ingredients, he had successfully refined five batches.

This meant that his success rate in refining All Wonders Pills had risen from the initial one in ten to two in ten!

From the standpoint of cost control, it was a qualitative leap.

At first, fifty Spirit Stones' worth of ingredients could make ten batches, with one successful batch sold for fifty Spirit Stones—neither profit nor loss.

Oh, no, that was wrong. It was actually a loss.

If he had spent those months refining Grain Avoidance Powder, he could have earned at least several dozen Spirit Stones.

So back then, he had truly been losing money.

Now—or rather, in the future—

With the same fifty Spirit Stones' worth of ingredients, he could successfully refine two batches out of ten. He could sell them for one hundred Spirit Stones, for a net profit of fifty.

With such a profit margin, as long as he was willing to invest the capital, Luo Chen could count Spirit Stones until his hands went soft.

"This is only at the Proficient Level. What if I advance to Mastery level, Perfect Grade, or even Grandmaster Level?"

Luo Chen looked forward to it immensely.

Then, on a gray dawn, he rushed straight toward the Southern City Rogue Cultivator Market like a vegetable farmer rising early to sell produce.

Today would be a day brimming with harvests!