Elixir Pavilion

At present, the Immortal Wine Pavilion sold only two kinds of spirit wine. One was made by Wang Hong soaking purchased worldly strong liquor with spirit herbs, then storing it in the space for a hundred years. Its cost was low, and it had only reached low-grade first rank, making it the most basic kind of spirit wine. Each bottle contained half a jin and sold for thirty Spirit Stones.

The other was spirit rice wine brewed from Spirit Rice and stored in the space for ten years. It was mid-grade first rank. Each bottle contained one liang and sold for twenty Spirit Stones.

Though the two kinds of spirit wine were not of high grade, they were reasonably priced. Cultivators formed a pyramid-shaped structure: the lower the level, the greater the numbers. These two wines catered to the greatest number of cultivators, those in the early and middle stages of Qi Refinement, so their sales were naturally enormous.

Since opening, the Immortal Wine Pavilion had enjoyed booming business. It earned a profit of twelve thousand Spirit Stones in its first month alone, equivalent to Wang Hong's previous yearly profit.

Of the more than ten subordinates Wang Hong had stationed at stalls in the market, he kept only a few stalls for purchasing spirit herbs. He withdrew the rest to brew spirit wine.

The purchase of spirit herbs could not be stopped. On one hand, it replenished his sources of spirit herbs and allowed the herbs produced in the space to mingle among them, concealing the truth beneath the sky. On the other hand, they sometimes truly did acquire rare spirit herbs that Wang Hong did not possess.

Once the spirit wine business had stabilized, Wang Hong handed it entirely over to Skinny Monkey to manage. He himself began cultivating in seclusion and refining pills.

He was still refining Qi Gathering Pills. This time, he prepared one thousand portions of spirit herbs. Aside from the necessary pill-taking and cultivation each day, he spent all his remaining time refining pills.

This time, it took him a full half year to refine all one thousand portions of spirit herbs. At the same time, the harvest was immense.

Wang Hong's pill yield for refining Qi Gathering Pills finally reached forty percent. Each portion of spirit herbs was worth twenty Spirit Stones, while each Qi Gathering Pill sold for ten Spirit Stones. A twenty percent yield merely broke even; a forty percent yield meant that he could earn twenty Spirit Stones from every furnace of Qi Gathering Pills.

Moreover, Wang Hong obtained one bottle containing eight mid-grade Qi Gathering Pills. Every kind of pill could be divided into several grades: low, mid, high, and supreme.

The pills commonly seen in daily life, when no grade was specified, were all low-grade pills. Mid-grade and high-grade pills could only occasionally be produced, one or two at a time, by alchemists with superb skill.

Ordinary alchemists generally kept them for their own use. Even those they did not need would be held onto and privately exchanged for desired items. Only a very small number of mid-grade pills ever found their way onto the market.

Compared to low-grade Qi Gathering Pills, mid-grade ones contained fewer impurities and far more immense, refined spiritual power. Their effects were several times greater than those of low-grade pills. They were also of considerable help to cultivators breaking through bottlenecks. If taken over a long period, they brought many more benefits.

After refining this batch of pills, Wang Hong rested for several days and relaxed his mind.

Over the past half year, the Immortal Wine Pavilion's business had been blazing hot. After all expenses were deducted, it brought in more than ten thousand Spirit Stones each month.

Wang Hong scattered the tens of thousands of Spirit Stones he had earned into the land of the space. At this rate, in another two or three months, the space's land would reach three mu.

Now, one mu of land in the space was planted with materials for Qi Gathering Pills. The original Spirit Grains and spirit wheat had become too crowded as the plants grew larger, so Wang Hong transplanted them all out, where they occupied two fen of land.

Wang Hong also planted some Iron Thorns, which were covered in seeds. These thorns bore seeds once every ten years and could be used to cast the Wood Element Entanglement Technique.

The Azure Spirit Peach Wang Hong had planted grew extremely slowly. It took nine years in the space just to sprout. By now, it had grown for several decades and was still only a little over a foot tall. Its stem was crystalline green like jade, while its emerald leaves bore faint white patterns.

The Solomon's Seal he had planted earliest had also begun to mutate. Golden markings had appeared on its originally emerald-green leaves. The mutation had only just begun, and he did not know what it would eventually become. His heart was filled with anticipation.

After resting for several days, Wang Hong once more embarked upon the great undertaking of pill refinement. He did not know what standards those sects required when recruiting alchemists, so he could only strive to do his best.

This time, however, he was refining Barrier Breaking Pills. Their main ingredient, Crimson Blood Ginseng, was exceedingly rare to others. Wang Hong had grown a vast patch of it in his space, and it was inconvenient to sell it in large quantities, so it was perfect for practice. In any case, with his poor aptitude, he would probably need this pill in the future.

With his previous foundation, after refining only one hundred furnaces, he raised his Barrier Breaking Pill yield to forty percent.

Over the next half year or so, Wang Hong refined several kinds of first-rank pills. He refined more than a hundred furnaces of each kind, raising every one of their pill yields to forty percent.

By then, Wang Hong had accumulated more than ten thousand first-rank pills. He could not possibly use so many himself anytime soon. Letting them pile up in his hands was too wasteful of resources.

If he sold them to pill shops, the quantity would be too great and would easily attract attention. It would be better to open another Elixir Pavilion.

Doing business by opening a shop in the cultivation world was vastly different from the mundane world.

The mundane world was rich in goods, and what it sold were all ordinary mortal items. Goods were abundant, so one needed to work hard to attract business, and competition was fierce.

But in the cultivation world, all kinds of resources were scarce. As long as one possessed spiritual items, there was no need to worry about being unable to sell them. What major merchants competed for most fiercely were supply channels, sources of goods, and every kind of resource.

Thus, competition in the mundane world lay downstream, making it a buyer's market. Competition in the cultivation world lay upstream, making it a seller's market.

Spiritual items needed during the Qi Refinement stage could barely still be bought from major shops with Spirit Stones. Spiritual items needed for Foundation Establishment became scarce. The spirit pills consumed by Foundation Establishment cultivators could no longer be bought at any time like Qi Gathering Pills. By the Golden Core Stage, the appearance of almost any spiritual item would provoke conflict.

The scarcity of resources was the foremost reason why high-level cultivators were so few.

Opening an Elixir Pavilion required two main conditions. First, one needed a stable supply of spirit herb resources. Spirit herbs needed for pill refinement often required medicinal ages of several decades, and the demand was immense. The pitifully small amount of spirit herb resources found in the wild was simply not enough.

Most Elixir Pavilions possessed their own herb gardens. Some also established stable supply relationships with spirit herb suppliers.

The other requirement was that an alchemist had to oversee the shop. An Elixir Pavilion without an alchemist could not last long. But training an alchemist cost far too much. Alchemists trained by cultivation lineages had to serve their own Lineages, while Rogue Cultivators struggled even to obtain cultivation resources in their daily lives. How many could be like Wang Hong and have vast quantities of spirit herbs to practice with?

Take the Wan family, for example. It possessed a ten-mu spirit herb garden and its own alchemist. Only then could it support an elixir shop in Qingxu City.

At present, Wang Hong's space contained three mu of land, with time flowing thirty-two times faster. One hundred thousand Spirit Stones could expand the space by one mu, and every additional mu increased the flow of time by another factor of one. Supplying one Elixir Pavilion would not be a problem.

As for pills, since he needed to refine large quantities while studying alchemy anyway, it made no difference. He felt that his forty percent pill yield was still too low and required further practice.

All that remained was to rent another shop. Renting a good storefront was also no small expense.

Wang Hong had always wanted to buy a house in Qingxu City and purchase several plots of spirit farmland. Yet Spirit Stones were never enough. Though he had earned quite a few Spirit Stones over the past years, the expenses of more than forty people were not small either. Then there was the space, that great Spirit Stone-devouring beast. The space was the foundation of all his development, so he could only prioritize it first.

After all these years, he did not even possess a few decent magic artifacts. First, he had not found any particularly suitable artifacts. Second, he truly had no spare Spirit Stones.

He wanted every Spirit Stone to be spent on the blade's edge, bringing out its greatest value.

Wang Hong called Zhao Ning over and handed this matter to him. Zhao Ning was now at the first level of Qi Refinement and rarely showed his face. This Elixir Pavilion would be opened under Zhao Ning's name.

Ten days later, a shop named Zhao's Elixir Pavilion opened for business. It primarily sold pills and spirit herbs, and all pills sold within were first-rank pills needed by Qi Refinement cultivators.

This time, Wang Hong did not inform anyone. He wanted to dilute the connection between this shop and himself. He would only act as the hidden boss behind the scenes.

As a Qi Refinement cultivator without any backing, possessing one Immortal Wine Pavilion was already startling enough. If he owned another Elixir Pavilion as well, people would likely set their sights on him before long.

Possessing immense wealth without the corresponding strength was extremely dangerous.