An Old Fox Angling for Pill Recipes for Free: An Yi and Elder Huo's Fourth-Rank Recipe Tug-of-War

The Alchemy Department's Underground Medicine Vault.

Less than ten days later, An Yi stepped inside again to deliver his goods.

More than three hundred crystal-clear jade bottles stood in neat rows across the long wooden table.

There were three pills each of every basic first- through third-rank variety-over a thousand pills in total!

Elder Hu, who managed the Medicine Vault, stared blankly at the mountain of jade bottles before him. His composure crumbled completely, and even his lips trembled slightly.

"You... you've finished refining them already?"

These were over three hundred different kinds of pills, each with different effects and medicinal principles!

For the Alchemy Department's students, that thick stack of recipes was enough to fill several years of grueling coursework!

Even Elder Huo, the department head, had initially believed that the medicinal principles and heat adjustments involved in those three hundred-odd basic pills would keep even a genius like Nangong Yi toiling over a Medicine Cauldron, covered in soot and dust, for at least half a year!

And what had happened? It hadn't even been ten days!

An Yi gave a languid yawn. "Most of them only took a glance and half an hour at most to learn. Only a few obscure third-rank recipes took a little longer."

With trembling hands, Elder Hu uncorked several jade bottles, still scarcely able to believe it.

A rich, pure medicinal fragrance immediately assailed his nose.

He poured out a few pills and examined them closely. They were round and lustrous as pearls, with full, vibrant colors and even faint halos-all flawless, supreme-quality pills!

An Yi spread his hands and explained, "The average-quality ones I made while I was still learning went to Instructor Ruo Lin and the others as payment for helping me test the pills. The ones I brought in