Pill Fragrance Fills the Air

The Black Market's opening hours were the exact opposite of daytime.

It opened at the hour of Xu and closed at the hour of Mao.

Naturally, Fatty and the others rushed in as soon as the market opened.

It had been less than half an hour since they arrived.

Lu Cheng had them wander around first, then return once there were more people to pose as buyers and stir up the atmosphere.

Afterward, he had Old Pi prepare a wooden board and set it up before the shop.

At the very top, it read:

Blood-Activating Powder, one tael six qian. Refined personally by an Alchemist. Contract guaranteed by the Black Market.

Below that was a more detailed explanation:

Collect in five days, price: one tael six qian (limited to one hundred portions);

Collect in ten days, price: one tael five qian (limited to one hundred portions);

Collect in one month, price: one tael four qian (one hundred portions delivered every five days; first redeemed, first served; limited to two thousand portions).

At one tael four qian, aside from those bloodstained goods, there would not be any Blood-Activating Powder this cheap anywhere in Yang City.

This price was even lower than the cost incurred by the Huang Family's Alchemist!

Once the sign was set out, Lu Cheng began refining medicine.

After all, even with a Black Market contract, he still needed to prove the Alchemist's ability.

And Blood-Activating Powder was precisely the best proof.

Second floor of the stone house.

Lu Cheng sat before the pill furnace.

Behind him were piles of Blood-Activating Powder ingredients that had undergone rough preliminary treatment.

Ever since he finished refining the twenty batches of ingredients Old Pi had bought last time five days ago, Lu Cheng's [Pill Refining: Blood-Activating Powder] skill had reached Mastery.

[Pill Refining: Blood-Activating Powder]

[Grade: None]

[Realm: Mastery (50/400)]

At this realm, there was no longer any need for meticulous processing of the medicinal ingredients, greatly reducing the preparatory work.

Otherwise, processing three hundred batches of ingredients alone would have taken several days.

Other than that, how much Blood-Activating Powder Lu Cheng could refine at once depended entirely on the size of the pill furnace.

In theory, Lu Cheng could refine all three hundred batches in one go.

But with such a large pill furnace, the limitation lay in the furnace fire.

It could be said that, in terms of refining Blood-Activating Powder alone, there was likely no second person in all Dongyang Prefecture with such a level of skill.

After all, the requirements for an Alchemist's talent were far too harsh.

Those with poor talent could refine for years without breaking through their bottleneck.

And those with good talent—how could they possibly keep refining Blood-Activating Powder forever?

"Hmm, I could try controlling several pill furnaces at the same time."

But it was only a passing thought. For now, things had not reached the point where supply could not meet demand.

Gathering his thoughts, he lit the furnace fire.

Once the pill furnace heated up, Lu Cheng began tossing in handful after handful of medicinal ingredients.

For the very first furnace, Lu Cheng intended to fill it to the brim.

There was no time to take things slowly.

Besides, only batch refining could keep the costs down for something like Blood-Activating Powder.

Because there were too many ingredients, Lu Cheng even had to get up and move around.

At that moment, Lu Cheng could not help recalling a storybook novel he had read in his previous life.

Other than the line, "Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river," one of the protagonist's initial martial skills had also been exceedingly tempting.

"Seems like they were called 'Sucking Palm' and 'Fire-Blowing Palm'?"

"They'd be unbelievably convenient for refining pills. Sit in front of the pill furnace, and suck over whatever ingredients you wanted."

As the ingredients within the furnace increased, Lu Cheng gradually immersed himself completely in the process.

Melting the ingredients, controlling the furnace fire, blending the medicinal properties...

As Lu Cheng refined without pause, the skill level of [Pill Refining: Blood-Activating Powder] began rising at a tremendous pace.

As Lu Cheng produced furnace after furnace of finished medicine, the medicinal fragrance in the room grew increasingly rich.

It first spread from the second-floor room down to the first floor.

Then it continuously drifted outside.

In the end, anyone who came within two meters of the stone house could clearly smell the medicinal fragrance.

Even across an entire street, one could occasionally catch faint wisps of the scent.

People nearby began searching endlessly for its source.

In the end, they discovered it was actually Old Pi's shop.

On normal days, the Black Market would only gradually begin to bustle after opening at the hour of Xu and continuing until the middle of the hour of Hai.

But today, before the hour of Hai had even arrived, Old Pi's shop was already surrounded by people.

Everyone looked at the sign outside the shop and discussed it animatedly.

With the Black Market contract and the medicinal fragrance constantly wafting out, no one doubted the medicine's authenticity or origin.

A legitimate channel, and a cheap price.

Those two things alone were enough to attract people.

Quite a few people asked Old Pi about the details, clearly tempted.

Within the crowd, Fatty and the others, wearing animal masks, stood separately in different positions.

Each of them had a transaction contract for ten portions of Blood-Activating Powder tucked into his clothes.

Although even now they had not understood exactly what Lu Cheng's plan meant.

That did not stop them from eagerly anticipating the scene to come.

Only Old Pi, though he had guessed Lu Cheng's plan wrong, could roughly understand what Lu Cheng intended to do.

As he patiently explained things to those asking questions, he kept looking upstairs.

He waited anxiously for Lu Cheng to come down.

Yet neither Old Pi nor Fatty and the others noticed that among the surrounding crowd stood quite a few people who were unusually calm.

These people looked at the wooden sign ahead, then at the second floor where medicinal fragrance kept leaking out. Their gazes held an indescribable gloom and viciousness.

But Lu Cheng did not notice the commotion downstairs.

He did not know which furnace it was, but at the instant the pills emerged, golden light suddenly burst forth within Lu Cheng's Consciousness Sea.

A pillar of light reaching the heavens scattered countless vast principles and laws.

Within it, the black silhouette representing [Pill Refining: Blood-Activating Powder] sat cross-legged before a pill furnace.

Together with the pill furnace before it, even the furnace fire flashed continuously with light.

Finally, with a bang, everything exploded into countless fragments.

The fragments split into two parts.

The larger portion scattered throughout Lu Cheng's entire Consciousness Sea.

Methods for processing each and every ingredient of Blood-Activating Powder, methods of identifying their medicinal properties, continuously flooded into Lu Cheng's memories.

Insights into refining, regulating medicinal properties, and controlling the heat emerged one after another as well.

Lu Cheng swiftly digested and absorbed them.

The remaining smaller portion transformed into a streak of light.

It shot into the golden pillar of light, into another mass of shifting black mist that had yet to take shape.

This black mist was precisely the [Alchemy] that had remained in a state of "currently deducing."

[Pill Refining: Blood-Activating Powder]

[Grade: None]

[Realm: Perfection (Cannot be improved)]

[You have mastered every key point in refining Blood-Activating Powder. From selecting ingredients, processing, combining, and controlling the heat, to collecting and storing the finished medicine, there is nothing you do not excel at. The medicinal efficacy of the finished powder has reached its utmost limit.]

(A furnace of ten batches gleams silver in hue; its medicinal strength runs deep through the meridians. Spicy as it enters the throat, it stirs sinews and bones; a hundred days of work are achieved without effort. In refining Blood-Activating Powder, you are a grandmaster among grandmasters.)

The refinement skill for Blood-Activating Powder reaching Perfection was something Lu Cheng had expected.

Thus, the changes in his Consciousness Sea only distracted him for a brief instant before he continued refining Blood-Activating Pills.

But with that moment of distraction, the noisy clamor outside immediately entered Lu Cheng's ears.

The medicinal fragrance filling the room seemed to be scattered by the uproar as well.

Lu Cheng frowned and looked outside, a few traces of irritation rising in his heart.

During the subsequent pill refining, all kinds of sounds kept drilling into his ears, and he found himself turning to look around every so often.

Under such circumstances, though Lu Cheng's technique remained superb, he could not help being greatly distracted.

By now, more than two-thirds of the three hundred batches of ingredients had been refined.

The ceramic jars behind him were more than half full as well.

After the furnace of medicine in his hands emerged, Lu Cheng simply stopped refining.

He picked up paper packets and began portioning out the medicinal powder.

One qian per packet. Before long, fifty fresh packets of Blood-Activating Powder were ready.

Lu Cheng took a deep breath and walked down the stairs.