After leaving one Yellow Dragon Pill behind, Wang Tao returned the remaining eleven to Lu Qingfeng. "The Guild Master should be back in the next couple of days. If you want to refine pills, use these medicinal materials. But you'd better cultivate first. Once you have inner breath to control the pill furnace, refining pills will be twice as effective with half the effort."
"Then I'll listen to you, Senior."
Wang Tao had arranged everything well, and Lu Qingfeng had no objections.
"Just call me Old Wang. The Guild Master and Old Lu all call me that."
Wang Tao was quite forthright. He looked at Lu Qingfeng again and asked, "Do you have a cultivation method?"
"Yes."
Lu Qingfeng replied.
"Good. I'll have someone take you down to rest later. Spend the next couple of days familiarizing yourself with Mount Yuanyi. You can come to Old Yue's and my pill-refining room anytime. Once the Guild Master returns, we'll immediately build you a private pill-refining room."
"But there are a few things I need to make clear first. I'm guessing Old Lu definitely didn't explain them."
Wang Tao led Lu Qingfeng over to sit down. Lu Qingfeng naturally inclined his ear to listen.
Wang Tao said, "As you know, there aren't many players in the Yuanyi Guild. Including you, there are only seven of us. So the Guild Master gives players preferential treatment. For example, the moment we join the Guild, we become elders. The various Guild missions aren't mandatory either; they're entirely voluntary."
"If you have any questions about cultivation or pill refining, you can come ask us. All the pill formulas from low-grade to top-grade in the Guild, as well as basic cultivation methods, are currently available to players free of charge."
Lu Qingfeng could not help feeling delighted when he heard that.
This was quite good.
He looked down on basic cultivation methods, but the pill formulas from low-grade to top-grade were extremely useful to him. They could save him a great deal of expense while also sparing him the time and effort of collecting formulas.
Besides, becoming an elder of the Yuanyi Guild without being required to carry out Guild missions was also quite good.
At least joining the Guild was not as restrictive as Lu Qingfeng had imagined.
In Black Sand Town, players and natives were treated no differently, and there were no such benefits. But in the Bingling World, there were fewer than three thousand players in total. The Yuanyi Guild was merely gathering players in this manner during the early stages of pioneering.
Once the number of players in the Bingling World increased, players and natives would certainly be treated equally.
Lu Qingfeng listened silently. Seeing that Wang Tao had not finished speaking, he said nothing.
Wang Tao spoke freely without hiding anything. "Since you enjoy preferential treatment, you naturally have corresponding duties. You're skilled at refining pills, so completing the required pill-refining missions each month will be enough. The missions aren't demanding. With your refining speed, you can finish them by setting aside two or three days each month. The Guild will purchase these pills at eighty percent of the market price after deducting the costs."
"If you still have the energy, you can help the Guild train some apprentices. That can help you with your work, and if you teach an apprentice who learns pill refining, there will be corresponding benefits as well."
At this point, Wang Tao's lips moved slightly as he cast a voice-transmission technique. "I can tell you about the benefits in advance. I've been in the Yuanyi Guild for twenty-three years. In total, I've trained fourteen low-grade pill-refining apprentices and two intermediate-grade pill-refining apprentices. The Guild purchases the pills they refine at seventy percent of the market price after deducting the costs. That extra ten percent goes to us."
"So teaching a few more apprentices brings considerable returns in the long run."
After hearing this, Lu Qingfeng nodded.
Indeed.
The ten percent from one or two apprentices might seem insignificant, but Wang Tao had trained sixteen pill-refining apprentices. Added together, the returns were quite substantial.
Lu Qingfeng could not help feeling a little tempted.
In his previous life, he had taken apprentices to help with his work and had extensive experience teaching disciples. He had also trained seven or eight pill-refining apprentices. Now that he had entered the Yuanyi Guild, perhaps that experience could come in handy!
After chatting with Lu Qingfeng for quite a while, Wang Tao called over an apprentice to lead Lu Qingfeng to the residence that had long been prepared.
To Lu Qingfeng's surprise, it was actually a detached little courtyard, and there were dedicated servants attending to it.
These servants had only one point of Root Bone. They had hopes of cultivating but failed to meet the Yuanyi Guild's recruitment standards, so they could only start as servants. If the household they served was kind and gave them a little support, they would also have a chance to embark on the path of cultivation.
Thus.
When Lu Qingfeng arrived, the four servants in the courtyard—two youths and two girls—were all exceedingly respectful.
"Go about your own business. Don't approach the meditation room unless you have something to do."
Lu Qingfeng waved his hand and went straight toward the meditation room.
He had refined twelve Yellow Dragon Pills in Wang Tao's pill-refining room. Wang Tao had kept one and returned the other eleven to Lu Qingfeng. When Lu Qingfeng asked about it, Wang Tao only said that one Yellow Dragon Pill was enough to offset the cost of the materials used to refine them.
Lu Qingfeng had experience.
In his previous life, the cost of refining one Yellow Dragon Pill in Black Sand Town was roughly twenty portions of basic medicinal materials. The market price of an ordinary Yellow Dragon Pill was around fifty portions of basic medicinal materials.
The cost of the Yellow Dragon Pills Lu Qingfeng refined was also twenty portions, but their medicinal effects were greater.
Moreover, to raise one's cultivation by the same amount, taking fewer of the Yellow Dragon Pills refined by Lu Qingfeng meant accumulating less pill poison, so their price was around eighty portions.
By this calculation, the twelve Yellow Dragon Pills Lu Qingfeng had just refined had cost two hundred and forty portions of medicinal materials. Even at market price, one Yellow Dragon Pill was only worth eighty portions, so there was clearly still a shortfall.
Wang Tao must have made up the difference himself!
For a top-grade pill-refining apprentice, a hundred or so portions of basic medicinal materials naturally meant little. Wang Tao had not mentioned it, perhaps because of this as well.
But Lu Qingfeng could not fail to remember the favor.
Upon entering the meditation room, Lu Qingfeng began cultivating in this life.
The Azure Origin Sword Art had already been strengthened to the orthodox grade, making it one of the most supreme cultivation methods in the world. With dozens of cultivation experiences from his previous life, Lu Qingfeng was thoroughly familiar with entering the method's initial stage.
After swallowing one Yellow Dragon Pill, he circulated the Azure Origin Sword Art. Inside his body, it was like a great millstone grinding the pill's medicinal power into fragments and rapidly absorbing it.
Half an hour later.
The medicinal power of the Yellow Dragon Pill had been completely refined. Before he knew it, Lu Qingfeng's cultivation had reached the first layer of the Embryonic Breath Realm.
"An ordinary Yellow Dragon Pill gives 3 experience points."
"The Yellow Dragon Pills I refined have fifty percent greater efficacy, so they give 4.5 experience points."
Lu Qingfeng glanced at his experience points and continued refining Yellow Dragon Pills.
After two hours, Lu Qingfeng had refined three more Yellow Dragon Pills. At the same time as his level rose to Level 2, the meridians in his body became unable to bear the strain, and waves of stabbing pain appeared.
Only then did Lu Qingfeng stop cultivating. He rose and walked out of the meditation room, casually calling over a servant to lead him around Mount Yuanyi.
For the next three days.
Lu Qingfeng repeated this process.
He cultivated for two hours after rising each morning, then walked around Mount Yuanyi once to familiarize himself with the Yuanyi Guild's operations. In the afternoon, he went to Wang Tao's pill-refining room to refine Yellow Dragon Pills.
During this time.
Lu Qingfeng also met Yue Ran, the other top-grade pill-refining apprentice on Mount Yuanyi.
Yue Ran had a more mature appearance, looking around thirty years old. In reality, however, he was even younger than Wang Tao, who looked like a young man.
Unlike Wang Tao, whose handsome face concealed a rough and unruly nature, this top-grade pill-refining apprentice was steadier and taciturn.
His attitude toward Lu Qingfeng was neither warm nor cold.
However, according to Wang Tao, Old Yue was rather cold toward ordinary people! Lu Qingfeng spent time with him several times and found that it was indeed so.
Even when he was with Wang Tao, Yue Ran rarely spoke. Most of the time, Wang Tao was the one holding forth at length.
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