Alchemist

A striking woman in a red dress, radiating seductive charm, stood among a group of attendants clad in green.

By instinct alone, Chu Yang concluded that the beautiful woman was Ya Fei, and that these attendants were likely from the Miel Auction House.

Without even needing to ask, Chu Yang could guess that Ya Fei had brought people to Green Mountain Town this time to do business with the mercenaries and herb gatherers here.

If these people obtained high-grade monster cores in the Monster Mountain Range, rare medicinal herbs, or some other treasure, the Miel Auction House would buy them up at the first opportunity and put them up for auction afterward.

At that moment, looking at Ya Fei's group and considering the trade industry in Green Mountain Town, Chu Yang seemed to come up with a plan.

"I can sell something to a major customer like Ya Fei and earn a huge pile of Gold Coins! Aren't I worrying about money right now?"

Muttering to himself, Chu Yang flashed into a corner.

He entered the system mall that belonged exclusively to him.

He had one thousand check-in points. He planned to use those one thousand check-in points to buy a treasure from the system mall, make a deal with Ya Fei, and exchange it for Gold Coins to resolve his pressing need.

What could one thousand check-in points buy? What could he take out that would capture Ya Fei's heart in one stroke?

Without question, Ya Fei was a true businesswoman. If he wanted to move her, he could not rely on the usual crude methods for dealing with women.

Thoughts flashed through Chu Yang's mind. His gaze swept over the treasures in the system mall that cost exactly one thousand check-in points. After skimming through them, he began to examine them carefully.

Soon, Chu Yang's attention settled on a medicinal pill called the "Qi Gathering Pill."

The Qi Gathering Pill immediately reminded Chu Yang of the medicine Xiao Yan had first encountered after transmigrating to the Dou Qi Continent in Battle Through the Heavens—the Qi Gathering Powder!

Qi Gathering Pill and Qi Gathering Powder differed by only one word.

As for the connection between them...

After reading the system mall's introduction to the item, Chu Yang learned that the Qi Gathering Pill was an upgraded version of the Qi Gathering Powder. They served the same purpose, but the Qi Gathering Pill was more advanced!

How should this be explained?

On the Dou Qi Continent, if one wished to become a true Dou Practitioner, the first requirement was to condense a Dou Qi vortex within one's body.

However, condensing a Dou Qi vortex carried a considerable chance of failure. Once it failed, one's Dou Qi would drop to the eighth stage. Those with poor luck might need to attempt it more than ten times before succeeding. Yet repeated attempts would waste a great deal of training time and severely harm one's future prospects.

The Qi Gathering Powder could allow someone at the ninth stage of Dou Qi to successfully condense a Dou Qi vortex in a single attempt.

This effect made countless people eager to become Dou Practitioners covet it endlessly, dreaming of it day and night.

Speaking of the Qi Gathering Powder, one could not avoid mentioning its creators: alchemists!

On the Dou Qi Continent, there was a profession that stood above Dou Practitioners, and people called them—alchemists.

As the name suggested, alchemists could refine all kinds of miraculous medicinal pills that helped people increase their strength.

Every alchemist would be desperately courted by countless factions, regardless of the cost. Their status was extraordinarily distinguished!

The reason alchemists enjoyed such treatment was naturally tied to their rarity and usefulness. However, the requirements for becoming an alchemist were exceptionally harsh.

First, one's natural affinity had to be fire. Second, within that fire affinity, there also had to be a trace of wood energy, which could be used to catalyze the refining process.

One had to know that on the Dou Qi Continent, a person's elemental affinity was imprinted upon their soul. A soul could possess only one affinity and could not be mixed with others. Thus, it was practically impossible for one body to possess two different affinities of equal strength.

But nothing was absolute. Among billions of people, there would always be some with mutated souls, and those with mutated souls had the potential to become alchemists.

However, merely possessing a soul with fire and wood affinities was still not enough to be called a true alchemist, because alchemists required another indispensable condition: spiritual perception, also known as soul-shaping power.

Refining medicinal pills required three conditions: ingredients, flame, and spiritual perception.

Ingredients were naturally all kinds of heavenly treasures and rare materials. Alchemists were not gods; without superior ingredients, even the cleverest housewife could not cook without rice. Therefore, good ingredients were extremely important.

Flame referred to the fire needed during refinement. Ordinary flames could not be used to refine medicinal pills. One had to use Dou Qi flames generated by stimulating fire-attributed Dou Qi. Of course, the world was also filled with Heavenly Flames. Some powerful alchemists would use them instead. Refining with Heavenly Flames not only greatly increased the success rate, but also produced pills with far stronger medicinal effects than those refined with ordinary Dou Qi flames.

Furthermore, alchemy was a lengthy process. Long periods of refinement consumed enormous amounts of Dou Qi. Thus, every outstanding alchemist was also a powerful fire-attributed Dou Practitioner.

The final condition was spiritual perception.

During alchemy, controlling the intensity of the flames was of utmost importance. Sometimes, if the flames were only slightly too strong, an entire furnace of medicinal pills would turn to ashes, causing all previous effort to be wasted. Therefore, mastering flame control was something every alchemist had to learn. Yet to control the flames properly, one needed powerful spiritual perception. Without it, even if the first two conditions were met perfectly, it would all be useless effort.

Under such harsh requirements, those qualified to become alchemists were naturally as rare as phoenix feathers and qilin horns. With so few alchemists, those miraculous medicinal pills were naturally even scarcer. Rarity bred value, and this was why alchemists possessed such noble, even somewhat abnormal, status!

Chu Yang knew that even someone like Xiao Yi Xian, who specialized in the study of medicine, fell short of becoming an alchemist because of certain conditions.

Like Xiao Yan, he too was a transmigrator. Now that he possessed something as miraculous as the system and held such an enormous innate advantage, he could break through the harsh restraints required to become an alchemist.

Even if he completely lacked the conditions necessary to become an alchemist on the Dou Qi Continent, with the Medicine Emperor System in hand, he would have everything he needed!

After explaining the noble status of alchemists on the Dou Qi Continent in detail, the matter returned to the Qi Gathering Pill and the Qi Gathering Powder.

Chu Yang saw that the Qi Gathering Pill in the system mall bore pill patterns, while the Qi Gathering Powder, according to what he knew, did not.

That was merely an outward difference, but of course, the most important thing was to verify whether the Qi Gathering Pill from the system mall truly had better effects than the Qi Gathering Powder of the Dou Qi Continent.