Alchemy

Xu Yuan had wavered between the two again and again, but in the end, he had still chosen Pill Cultivator.

Law Cultivator sounded powerful, but the one he had encountered didn't practice "Dao Method" properly. Instead, he insisted on pursuing some crooked "Merchant Law," making it easy for others to exploit loopholes.

By comparison, Pill Cultivator was all about tangible ability.

Pill Cultivators practiced Inner Pill and Outer Pill.

The Outer Pill was for use; the Inner Pill was the foundation.

There was a saying among Pill Cultivators: "Borrow from external things to fortify oneself." They pursued the ultimate "Golden Pill."

Moreover, Pill Cultivators had the broadest range of cultivation methods. They could circulate qi, gather and refine materials, or practice Bait/Food, among other things.

So after Xu Yuan's belly acquired that ball of fire, he felt ravenously hungry.

He searched all around, but there was nothing in the mountains to eat.

And even when he spotted wild fruit or the like, Xu Yuan didn't dare eat it. Could you just eat whatever you found in Ghost Witch Mountain?

Xu Yuan suddenly noticed the money pouch in his hand and swallowed.

Those gold, silver, and copper coins... Maybe they weren't inedible after all.

Xu Yuan tried swallowing a Silver Bean first. As it slid into his stomach, the "Inner Fire" began to refine it.

This was Bait/Food.

Most Martial Cultivators, for example, also used the "Bait/Food Method" as a supplementary practice.

They ate copper and iron to strengthen their skin and bones.

That was where the saying "Bronze Skin Iron Bones" among Seventh Stream Martial Cultivators came from.

The Silver Bean was refined quickly. Xu Yuan's hunger barely eased, so he immediately ate several more pieces of silver.

Then came the copper coins. Before he knew it, all he had left in his hand was that gold ingot.

At last, Xu Yuan felt "full."

And so he understood: this was the limit of his cultivation for now.

All this Life-Buying Money had been made by a Nine Streams Law Cultivator. Xu Yuan's Pill Cultivator level hadn't even Entered Stream yet, so refining this much was already no small feat.

Xu Yuan went to the place where he gathered firewood, raised his axe, and began chopping.

An hour later, Xu Yuan suddenly felt that the Inner Fire had completely refined all the Life-Buying Money.

He stopped on the hillside, opened his mouth, and spat. A pill glimmering with gold and silver shot out from his belly, whizzing straight toward a tree as thick as a bowl.

Crack!

The tree snapped cleanly in half.

Xu Yuan beckoned, and the pill spun around and flew back, landing in his palm and twirling there.

It was heavy in his hand.

All the silver and copper coins he had eaten before had been concentrated into this single pill.

But there hadn't been all that much to begin with, so the pill was only powerful enough to break a tree in half.

Yet the pill had also condensed the Merchant Law of buying lives from those silver and copper coins.

Pill Cultivators could condense "things" into pills, and they could also condense "laws" into pills. So ordinarily, these should have been refined into two separate pills. But Xu Yuan hadn't even Entered Stream yet, and lacked the skill to do anything so precise, so he had mixed them together.

Once he had condensed this pill, Xu Yuan was "hungry" again.

So he took out the gold ingot and swallowed it too.

Before nightfall, Xu Yuan returned to town with a bundle of firewood on his back.

The Yi Fang Ting inn stood in the middle of town, right beside the main road.

Master Qiao had naturally claimed the best spot.

As he passed Zhao's Furs Shop at the eastern end of town, Xu Yuan instinctively glanced up at the second floor. The windows were shut.

Several people stood behind them, watching Xu Yuan through the cracks.

When Xu Yuan looked up, they nimbly darted out of sight.

"Only that kid came back," Zhao Yong, the fur shop owner, said in a low voice.

Everyone understood what that meant.

"Did he take out Huang Wanliang and Fatty Bao?"

"There's something seriously wrong with that kid!"

Huang Wanliang was the Law Cultivator.

Zhao Yong thought for a moment. "I'll go inform Saint Aunt."

Zhao Yong didn't use the front entrance. Saint Aunt had told him not to expose the relationship between them.

Zhao Yong was a Martial Cultivator, nimble as a monkey. He easily climbed up the outer wall and reached the window of Saint Aunt's room.

The window was open, and the sound of splashing water came from inside.

Saint Aunt was bathing.

Zhao Yong quickly pulled his head back from the window.

Saint Aunt's delicate laughter drifted out. "If you want to look, then look."

Zhao Yong repeatedly murmured, "I wouldn't dare."

It wasn't that he didn't want to look. He truly didn't dare.

"You useless coward, all lust and no guts."

Zhao Yong reported in a low voice, "Huang Wanliang and Fatty Bao haven't returned."

The splashing stopped. After a while, Saint Aunt said, "I understand. Go back for now."

Zhao Yong answered, "Yes," then slipped back down and returned to the fur shop. Not long after he went inside, night fell completely.

From the bathtub, Saint Aunt ordered, "Have Wu Haishan give him a dose of medicine."

Wu Haishan arrived soon after. "You can't give him that medicine. He took out Huang Wanliang and Fatty Bao, so he must be a cultivator. My medicine only works on ordinary people. If a cultivator takes it, it'll backfire on me."

Saint Aunt angrily waved him away.

Wu Haishan left drenched in sweat.

He was only a Ninth Streams Pill Cultivator, but Saint Aunt always brought him along when she went out, because he had a dose of medicine that could make people obey her unquestioningly.

If that medicine no longer had any value to Saint Aunt, then neither did he.

After dismissing Wu Haishan, Saint Aunt dried herself and got dressed with the maid's help. Then she ordered, "Go find out just how capable that kid really is!"

The maid bowed to accept the order. After a moment, she tried to dissuade Saint Aunt. "Saint Aunt, the bait will arrive tomorrow. That kid may have a few tricks, but shouldn't we focus on the bigger plan?"

Saint Aunt said coldly, "I know what I'm doing!"

The maid didn't dare say another word. She walked to the candle. Beneath its flame, her shadow swayed—then suddenly broke free from her body and drifted away, slipping through the cracks in the wooden floor. Avoiding every patch of light, it sped toward the rear courtyard.

In the rear courtyard, the shadow rose up along the wall. Suddenly, a pair of blood-red eyes opened.

The maid controlled the Yin Soldier as it began searching the courtyard.

In a large room near the kitchen, the fat cook reeked of booze, his snores thundering through the room.

The Yin Soldier instinctively loathed the stench of alcohol. It only peeked inside before shrinking back, then followed the base of the wall to the second room and sniffed. There was no human scent inside.

So it slipped outside the third room and squeezed through the crack in the door. Inside were two broken plank beds, but only one had someone sleeping in it.

The maid frowned. She knew this man. She had delivered food to him twice. He had leered at her both times. Sooner or later, he'd end up as food in Saint Aunt's mouth.

There were no other rooms in the rear courtyard. Where had that kid gone?

Saint Aunt asked, "Well?"

"That kid isn't in the rear courtyard."

Saint Aunt flew into a rage. "How could that be? Night travel is forbidden today. Even if he's a cultivator, he couldn't have left the property."

The maid was a Divine Cultivator. Even after nightfall, she only dared send out the Yin Soldier; she didn't even dare leave the property herself.

"This servant will search again."

The Yin Soldier sniffed around Er Liang's room. Sure enough, there was only one person's scent.

It drifted out and slipped into the kitchen, where there was no human scent. It even checked the stove and chimney, but still found nothing.

At last, it could only slip into Uncle Rong Kui's large room.

The heavy reek of alcohol made the Yin Soldier want to sneeze. The loud, drawn-out snores made its head feel as if it were being pounded.

Still, it forced itself to search the entire room.

"He really isn't here..." The maid was baffled too. Saint Aunt had already figured it out. "Can't find him? Could that kid be hiding in an empty room at the inn?"

The maid immediately called the Yin Soldier back and searched the rooms one by one. She kept at it for more than an hour, but still came up empty-handed.

"Enough." Saint Aunt covered her mouth with her delicate hand and yawned. "Let's leave it for now. We'll rest tonight."

The maid felt ashamed at how poorly she'd carried out her duty. She shrank her Yin Soldier down and hid it in a clay jar in the rear courtyard.

Tomorrow morning, she'd find out where that kid had gone!