Opening the Furnace to Refine Pills
In fact, the low-level resources in Heavenly Ruins Lake were not of much use to the two of them. They were simply converted into Spirit Stone and contribution points and put into the clan treasury. When they needed Spirit Stone Spirit Stone, they could simply draw from the clan treasury.
For Jiang Linglong and Chen Nianzhi, the most useful resource was the Five Elements Essence.
After this great battle, the Heavenly Ruins Alliance has become the undisputed ruler of the Three Provinces. As the leader and deputy leader of the Heavenly Ruins Alliance, the two naturally enjoy special privileges.
From now on, whenever they need the Five Elements Essence, all the major Lineage and cultivators under the Heavenly Ruins Alliance will have to prioritize selling their Five Elements Essence to the two of them.
Moreover, this proportion should be no less than 50% of the output, and the price cannot exceed the market floor price, which is 8,000 Spirit Stone for 50,000 strands.
When Jiang Linglong had just Core Formation, the Five Elements Essence was in short supply in the Chu Kingdom. The two of them even had to pay an extra 14,000 Spirit Stone to buy 50,000 strands of Five Elements Essence.
With this guaranteed minimum price, the two of them will save up to a million Spirit Stone during their Golden Core stage, which is no small sum.
Moreover, this would allow the Heavenly Ruins Alliance to monopolize the trade of the Five Elements Essence in the Three Provinces, which would be excellent whether for storage or for sale.
The reason why the Five Elements Essence was priced higher in previous years was mainly due to the layers of exploitation by middlemen.
For example, when the Chen Clan transported the Five Elements Essence to Heavenly Ruins Mountain, the purchase price of 50,000 strands was only seven or eight thousand Spirit Stone, but the profit from selling them to Heavenly Ruins Mountain was as high as two thousand spirit stones.
In reality, individual Rogue Cultivator and Lineage didn't receive many Spirit Stone; more than half of the profits were taken by various parties.
For example, the Five Elements Essence produced by a cultivator from a Lineage is collected by the Lineage for five Spirit Stone, and then sold in the Marketplace for seven Spirit Stone.
After the acquiring Lineage paid the Marketplace taxes, the cost became eight Spirit Stone. Then, by selling it across prefectures and counties to the Purple Mansion cultivators or merchants who hoarded the item, the cost became ten Spirit Stone.
The price will increase by one or two coins after the merchant sells it to a high-level cultivator who needs it, and if a high-level cultivator urgently needs it, the profit will be increased by several percent.
Later, with direct acquisitions from within the Heavenly Ruins Alliance, all the middlemen were eliminated, allowing cultivators from various Lineage to sell their Five Elements Essence directly to the Heavenly Ruins Alliance, saving the two a large amount of Spirit Stone.
Achieving this is extremely difficult, requiring not only immense power to subdue local bullies but also a high degree of public credibility.
These local strongmen refer to the major Foundation Establishment Purple Mansion Immortal Clan. In fact, the Five Elements Essence business in each prefecture and county is basically controlled by the major Foundation Establishment and Purple Mansion Immortal Clan.
Although the annual profit may not seem like much—for example, after more than a hundred years of development, Yu Commandery's Five Elements Essence only generates 20,000 Spirit Stone per year—it becomes a two million Spirit Stone industry after a century of operation.
The profits from each link in the chain add up to at least hundreds of thousands of Spirit Stone. The major Purple Mansion Immortal Clan of Yu Commandery, Chen, Pan, and Meng all have a share of the profits. Although the Foundation Establishment Immortal Clan does not receive any profits, they can still get a share of the tax revenue.
This is only the territory of one prefecture. If we include the Three Provinces and nine prefectures, the annual business volume is at the level of 100,000 Spirit Stone. Over a hundred years, it would amount to 10 million Spirit Stone, with profits reaching millions.
This enormous profit and market were previously controlled by a dozen or so Purple Mansion Immortal Clan and hundreds of the Foundation Establishment Immortal Clan across the Three Provinces, with intertwined interests. Even the once-powerful Azure Sun Sect lacked sufficient credibility to secure this deal.
Therefore, these local bullies are very difficult to deal with; even Golden Core Immortal Clan would find it extremely difficult to intervene.
Fortunately, Chen Nianzhi and Jiang Linglong are now very powerful, and their reputation and prestige within the Heavenly Ruins Alliance are excellent. They have led the various immortal clans and Rogue Cultivator of the Heavenly Ruins Alliance to earn a great deal of benefits.
Elders like Xu Ganyang and Fang Qingmei, who were in the alliance but were not yet False Core realm, were still hoping for the two to Golden-Core Formation Pill.
Not to mention their lack of strength and limited influence, even if they break through to the Golden Core realm realm, they still owe Jiang Linglong and Chen Nianzhi a favor. After all, if Golden-Core Formation Pill were to be publicly auctioned, it could fetch at least hundreds of thousands of Spirit Stone at a premium.
The reason for prioritizing the sale to them at a price of two million Spirit Stone was simply because they were internal members of the Heavenly Ruins Alliance. Countless outside cultivators coveted them and wished they could take their place.
Meanwhile, after Chen Nianzhi and the Chen Clan cultivators had cleaned up the Foundation Establishment Purple Mansion Demon Beast in Heavenly Ruins Lake, she handed over the trivial matters to Xian Ling and the Lineage Foundation Establishment cultivators of the clan.
While ordering the acquisition of the Five Elements Essence, he and Jiang Linglong began refining various elixirs.
Jiang Linglong refined high-grade third-tier pills such as the Dharma-Origin Pill, while Chen Nianzhi refined Foundation-Building Pill and low-grade third-tier pills.
With his near- Tier 4 Alchemy Art, while his success rate in refining mid-to-high-grade third-tier pills wouldn't be too low, it certainly wouldn't be as high as Jiang Linglong's.
Over the years, he has assisted Jiang Linglong in refining many high-grade pills, so he no longer needs to use these mid-to-high-grade third-tier pills. However, he still needs to hone his techniques. If he really wants to improve his Alchemy Art, it would be best to refine Tier 4 pills.
Since there's no opportunity to refine Tier 4 pills right now, it's better to refine Foundation-Building Pill and low-grade third-grade pills to help Jiang Linglong share some of the burden.
During this Beast Turmoil, the Heavenly Ruins Alliance seized a total of sixteen Purple Mansion Great Demon Cores and also plundered five Purple Marrow Fruit from various Spirit Mountain.
In order to start refining these pills, Jiang Linglong transferred her External Avatar to Heavenly Ruins Lake to oversee the process, and the two of them specially returned to Azure Sun Mountain to refine the pills with the help of the power of the Tier-4 Subterranean Fire Vein.
Chen Nianzhi was in charge of refining the Foundation-Building Pill this time, while Aunt Qingwan and Chen Xianyan, two third-level low-grade Alchemist, assisted him in handling the auxiliary ingredients.
While refining Foundation-Building Pill, Chen Nianzhi shared her pill-refining experience with the two of them.
"This Demon Core Demon Core to the Red-Flame Python. It contains intense fiery spiritual energy, which is very harmful to cultivators during their Foundation Establishment."
"With my cultivation level, I can naturally Law Power to forcibly separate the spiritual essence of the flame, but your cultivation level is not high enough. If you want to use this inner core to refine a Foundation Foundation-Building Pill, you will need to neutralize the spiritual essence within it with Ren Water Essence or Kui Water Essence."
Chen Nianzhi paused slightly, then couldn't help but smile. He suddenly remembered that Jiang Linglong had said the same thing to him back then.
He shook his head and continued refining the pills.
With the help of the two, Chen Nianzhi was able to produce one batch of Foundation Foundation-Building Pill every three days, but it still took a full two months to complete the refining process.
After successfully refining the Foundation-Building Pill, Chen Nianzhi breathed a sigh of relief. After carefully counting, he discovered that he had refined one hundred and twenty-seven Foundation-Building Pill.