Chen Xuan turned his attention to Alchemy.
There were quite a few useful pill formulas in it... things like the Longevity Pill, Spring Rejuvenation Water, and Great Strength Pill. Just from their names alone, they clearly had market potential. Take the Great Strength Pill, for example. According to Alchemy's description, it could instantly increase a person's strength by five or six times. If a weightlifter took one, the results would be unimaginable.
As for a heaven-defying pill like the Longevity Pill, which could genuinely extend one's lifespan, it would probably spark a frenzy among the world's wealthy.
However, the materials they required came in all sorts of strange varieties.
Nine Heavens Spirit Flower, Moon Guiding Vine, Dragon Blood Grass... there simply were no corresponding materials in this world.
That was perfectly reasonable.
There was clearly a discrepancy between the two worlds. It would be strange if the formulas could be used without modification.
But that did not mean Alchemy was useless.
It was essentially a specialized field of study. Adapting to local conditions and prescribing the right remedy was the underlying principle. If he encountered medicinal ingredients not recorded in Alchemy, he could record them himself.
Chen Xuan rummaged through the tea cabinet and found a packet of Goji Berries, then poured out two and put them in his mouth.
That was right... the core technique of Alchemy was Tasting a Hundred Herbs!
As long as he ate something, Liu Shuyue could roughly identify its Five Elements properties and medicinal effects. Now that this ability had become entirely his, he should be able to do the same.
The facts proved that his guess was correct.
"Hmm... three parts blazing yang, one part rending metal, no medicinal properties, no spirituality... medicinal value... inferior ninth-grade supplementary ingredient."
The instant he bit into the Goji Berries, Chen Xuan immediately understood the properties of this "medicine."
The absence of medicinal properties meant it could not serve as a main ingredient.
The absence of spirituality meant it was basically unusable for pill refinement.
Although Goji Berries were no good, he had at least confirmed that this method worked.
With his plan set, Chen Xuan immediately hailed a car and had it take him to Hundred Herbs Hall, the largest herbal pharmacy near his residential complex.
The shop stood beside a hospital that combined Chinese and Western medicine. Not only was it located on a bustling street, but six stone lions also guarded its entrance. Inside, the buildings had red brick walls and green tiled roofs, while wisps of smoke curled from incense burners, making the place look exceptionally grand. The center of the main hall was a medicinal herb display area, with thousands of Chinese herbs arranged in glass boxes, clean and pleasing to the eye. Rows of chestnut-colored wooden cabinets stood around it for the staff to retrieve medicine from.
There were also quite a lot of customers buying medicine. At a glance, there were at least thirty or forty people, and long lines stood before both the cashier and the decoction room.
"Hello, do you have a prescription?" A sales assistant approached him with a smile.
"No." Chen Xuan shook his head. "Do I have to have a prescription to buy medicine?"
The sales assistant looked puzzled, but she still replied politely, "Otherwise, we can't exactly let patients prescribe their own medicine, can we? If you're unsure what medicine to get, you can consult one of our resident doctors."
"Then... can I taste some?"
This time, she froze. "You mean, have us prepare a packet so you can test the effects?"
"I want to taste the raw herbs directly... like the ones displayed in those boxes."
The smile disappeared from the sales assistant's face. "You're joking, right? Medicinal herbs need to be decocted before they can be taken. How can you eat them raw? You could get poisoned."
Chen Xuan was not too disappointed. He had known this would not go smoothly.
"Then can I buy one piece of each?"
"Sorry, but we can't price them that way."
"Fine. I'll look around myself first."
After saying that, Chen Xuan walked off to the side and pretended to admire the rows of medicine cabinets.
After dawdling for nearly five minutes, the sales assistant finally stopped watching him and turned to attend to other customers. He knew the opportunity had arrived. He immediately raised his right hand and gently placed it against a wooden cabinet labeled Dahurian Angelica. Then he curled his middle finger slightly, pressed its tip against the cabinet panel, and silently used the Spirit Sword Technique!
An almost imperceptible streak of white light shot from his fingertip, easily piercing through the one-centimeter-thick wooden board and entering the medicine cabinet. This sword qi was about as thick as an injection needle, so there was no visible sign of damage on the outside. The sword qi continued forward, soon touching a piece of medicinal herb and piercing through it. Since the sword qi was hollow in the middle, it naturally scooped out a piece of "flesh" from it.
Chen Xuan pulled his finger back, and a piece of Dahurian Angelica smaller than a sesame seed was drawn out through the tiny hole by the sword qi and fell into his palm.
Since it could not be priced by the slice, this tiny bit of herb could at most count as wastage, right?
Chen Xuan swept his gaze around the hall. Not a single person present noticed his sleight of hand.
Though the herb was tiny, it was still enough to taste.
Chen Xuan lingered before the medicine cabinets for twenty minutes, tasting more than thirty kinds of Chinese herbs.
Yet to his disappointment, not a single herb met the standard for pill refinement. Not only did they have zero spirituality, their medicinal properties were practically nonexistent as well. At best, they could serve as supplementary ingredients for adjusting the Five Elements.
How could this be?
Chen Xuan could understand the lack of spirituality. According to Alchemy's records, spiritual herbs were long-lived beings that absorbed the essence of the sun and moon, some so old that they could even gain sentience. The herbs in the shop, however, were semi-finished products that had been dried and processed, so their Spiritual Energy had naturally dispersed completely.
But the lack of medicinal properties came as a surprise.
It was not that Hundred Herbs Hall sold fakes—these Chinese herbs could certainly be brewed into medicinal decoctions—but they could not pass Alchemy's appraisal.
"Still haven't made your choice?" The sales assistant came over again and said somewhat impatiently, "Why don't you try the store next door? They offer samples there."
She was practically driving him away.
Chen Xuan could not be bothered to argue over her attitude and walked straight out of Hundred Herbs Hall. Back on the street, he casually glanced at the Ability Store next door. What he saw made him laugh.
The neighboring shop was actually a fruit store.
That sales assistant really had taken him for an idiot.
But after sneering twice, Chen Xuan suddenly stopped. He thought for a moment, then walked into the Fruit Store and pointed at some sliced watermelon. "Can I try this?"
"Sure. The toothpicks are on the table," the clerk replied absentmindedly.
He stabbed a piece of watermelon, put it in his mouth, and savored it carefully. To his surprise, his tongue received the corresponding feedback as well—two parts water, one part flourishing wood, no medicinal properties, one part spirituality.
That was it! I had been wrong from the very beginning!
Chen Xuan suddenly saw the light.
The medicines sold in herbal pharmacies had all been selected based on this world's medical experience, while Tasting a Hundred Herbs in Alchemy used an entirely different set of standards. By focusing only on ready-made medicinal herbs, he had artificially limited the ability's potential.
Any plants or fruits that could be eaten might possess the potential for pill refinement!
And if he added the two conditions of "freshness" and "great age"... the place he should go was not a pharmacy, but the wilderness, where all kinds of natural plants grew!
There happened to be such a place nearby: Foothill Mountain.
Though it was not a particularly famous mountain, its vegetation and trees received proper protection, and some ancient trees there had lived for thousands of years. At the same time, it was a scenic area, making it very convenient to hike. He did not need to risk his life venturing deep into the mountains like ancient herb gatherers in search of rare medicinal herbs.
No sooner said than done, Chen Xuan hailed a car straight to the foot of Foothill Mountain. Then, as he followed the winding asphalt road up the mountain, he picked and ate as he went. Flowers, grass, vines, bark, leaves—if it was a plant, he tossed it into his mouth. Of course, in order to follow the rules of protecting nature, he took no more than a fingernail-sized amount each time.
"Mom... that man is eating grass..." A little girl tugged on her mother's hand and shouted.
"Shh!" The woman hurriedly pulled her child far away. "Be careful. There's something wrong with his head."
Chen Xuan did not know whether to laugh or cry.
But his curiosity had been completely stirred. No amount of attention from others could stop him now.
He spent the entire day tasting.
It was not until the sky was completely swallowed by night and the time reached 8:30 that he stopped by an empty roadside.
The next second, he was back inside that magical little store.
It really was forced clocking in...
At least it saved him the fare for the trip back.
Chen Xuan dumped all of the day's gains onto the table—two mineral water bottles stuffed full of grass and leaves, with several crawling insects visible at the bottom. Some of the leaves came from Camphor Trees, some from Ginkgo trees, and some from nameless weeds by the roadside. They were not rare, but they met the medicinal property requirements for pill refinement. He had also made an additional discovery: even leaves from the same kind of apricot tree could differ in quality. Just because the leaves from one tree were useful did not mean those from another would be.
He rubbed his hands excitedly. Now that the medicinal ingredients were ready, he could finally begin refining pills!
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