You're Not a Drug Rep?

After class.

The cultivators filed out of the classroom.

Time was money, and no one wanted to waste it.

Even Wang Heng merely shot Chen Zhuo a furtive glare before hurrying off to throw himself into cultivation.

In the back row, Liang Ningwan packed up her things and was about to leave when she noticed Chen Zhuo walking straight toward her. He sat down beside her.

She frowned slightly. "Chen Zhuo, did you need something?"

Chen Zhuo smiled. "Liang Ningwan, I have a few questions I'd like to ask you. Do you have time?"

"Uh..."

Liang Ningwan hesitated for a moment and sized him up.

Qi Refining Second Layer in three months, and he even managed to suppress Wang Heng, who's at Qi Refining Fourth Layer, in a real fight. He took a few shortcuts, but he's still worth getting to know.

After thinking it over, Liang Ningwan saw no problem with it and nodded. "Go ahead, Chen."

If someone else had asked—Meng Yan, for instance—

She would have charged him!

Despite her privileged background, Liang Ningwan was still exhausted from having to earn money to support her own cultivation.

Her mother had secretly transferred her some Spirit Stones out of concern, but that was a drop in the bucket.

Liang Ningwan had dreams of her own!

Her Lineage offered little help. Her younger sister, in particular, had been born with a Spiritual Root. Her Spiritual Qi perception was only 28, but that was still a stroke of good luck.

Yet these days, her sister sat at home watching livestreams, obsessed with something called the "Female Cultivators' Rights Alliance." She watched a Golden Core cultivator called "True Person Que" stream, showered her with gifts, and went on about how sorry she felt for the True Person and how female cultivators needed to stand strong.

Liang Ningwan was simply exhausted.

You're a Qi Refinement cultivator. Instead of figuring out how to cultivate, you're feeling sorry for a Golden Core cultivator?

When it came to her family, Liang Ningwan wanted nothing more than to escape.

Chen Zhuo glanced around. Seeing that the classroom was empty, he lowered his voice. "You come from a Foundation Establishment family, so you know much more than an ordinary student like me. I wanted to ask about the pill toxins in failed pills. Teacher Qin wasn't very clear earlier, and there were a few things I didn't understand."

At that, Liang Ningwan's brow eased.

So he wanted to ask about cultivation.

She considered it briefly, then got straight to the point. "Modern immortal cultivation is very different from the old ways."

"Pill toxin is a term for a phenomenon in modern cultivation. It isn't actually the same as pill toxin in ancient cultivation."

She went on, "In the Ancient Immortal Realm, their techniques were crude and outdated. None of their pills underwent further purification, so every pill retained some toxin."

"Taking a few, or even a few dozen, wouldn't cause trouble. But if you took too many, Pill Toxin gradually built up and damaged the circulation of Spiritual Qi. That made breakthroughs especially difficult, sometimes requiring even stronger medicinal effects to push through."

"And after a breakthrough, Pill Toxin accumulated all the more. That's why so many Qi Refinement cultivators in the Ancient Immortal Realm needed Foundation Establishment Pills to reach Foundation Establishment. Without medicinal power to force their way through, their toxin-clogged meridians simply couldn't withstand the surge of Spiritual Qi."

Liang Ningwan paused. Seeing Chen Zhuo listening closely, she continued. "But in modern society, pill-refining technology has advanced. Most powerful medicines have been made into injections. They enter the body through a subcutaneous injection, avoiding the Pill Toxin buildup that occurs during gastrointestinal absorption. So modern pills that meet the standard contain no Pill Toxin."

"Take Foundation Establishment Pills, for example. They've now been refined into 'Foundation Establishment Solution' and 'Realm-Preserving Injections.' Taiqing Pharmaceutical, Shangqing Pharmaceutical, Yuqing Pharmaceutical, and even the pharmaceutical companies on the demonic path's side all have different versions. They aren't cheap."

"The remaining pills made by hand using ancient methods mostly contain Pill Toxin, though the amounts vary."

"Some are high, some are low. That's why students in our appraisal department test the pills. We experience their effects firsthand and submit reports assessing their Pill Toxin content to determine whether further refinement is worthwhile. If a pill contains too much Pill Toxin, there's no point refining it."

Understanding dawned on Chen Zhuo.

So that's how it works!

This information was enormously useful to him!

The Spirit Pearl World was clearly an Ancient Immortal Realm.

If he had taken pills from that world without knowing this, accumulated Pill Toxin could have caused him serious trouble.

But...

A thought suddenly struck him.

Could I sell Waste Pills to cultivators in the Spirit Pearl World for physical Spirit Stones, then exchange those for virtual Spirit Stones to buy better equipment?

Delight surged through Chen Zhuo, but he kept a straight face. "I see. Thanks."

Liang Ningwan nodded and was about to get up when Chen Zhuo changed the subject. Lowering his voice, he asked, "Do you have any Spirit Coins on you?"

Liang Ningwan: ???

What do you mean? Are you asking to borrow money?!

She immediately grew wary and took a step back. "Chen Zhuo, I don't lend money."

Chen Zhuo didn't seem surprised. He smiled faintly, glanced around to make sure no one was there, and said quietly, "You've misunderstood. I'm not asking for a loan. I..."

"I've got goods!"

"Interested in some cultivation resources?" Chen Zhuo whispered. "Ninety-nine percent pure. They're how I reached Qi Refining Second Layer so quickly!"

The look Liang Ningwan gave him changed at once.

Whoa!

You deal in black-market goods too?!

Ninety-nine percent pure?

Could he mean smuggled medicinal Needles?

Her heart began to race. "This isn't the place to talk. Let's go outside!"

She had no objection to that.

In the Immortal Estate, there were three things a cultivator could never escape in their lifetime.

Cultivation, loans, and the black market.

What a joke. With the Immortal Estate's prices, how else was anyone supposed to make money without a little black-market business?

That was how the underground medicine trade worked!

Plenty of high-level cultivators secretly used laboratory resources to make extra medicine.

For instance, a senior cultivator tasked with making one injection at one hundred percent purity might let greed get the better of him, skim off some materials, then secretly make another injection at twenty or thirty percent purity to sell on the Black Market.

It happened all the time, despite repeated attempts to stop it.

At Alchemy College, it was even more common!

Even pills with relatively low Pill Toxin content sometimes ended up there.

Any pill assigned for testing was a Waste Pill.

But what were all the cultivators who couldn't afford injections supposed to do? Give up medicine altogether?

As if!

The mighty Immortal Estate naturally intended to harvest money from everyone, from Qi Refinement cultivators all the way up to Nascent Souls.

Thus, some pills with Pill Toxin levels below five percent were sold openly as standard medicine. Qi Refinement and Foundation Establishment Cultivators relied mainly on those pills.

Drug reps loved them too, and often smuggled in slightly substandard batches, such as pills with Pill Toxin levels below ten percent.

They still contained Pill Toxin, but after taking enough of them, you could simply get a shot of "Detoxifying Agent."

So Liang Ningwan's mind immediately raced through the possibilities. Chen Zhuo must have made a connection with an alchemy student who had been enrolled for at least ten years and become his drug rep.

Well, well! Why didn't you say you had a channel like that?

Delighted, Liang Ningwan grabbed Chen Zhuo and pulled him toward a small grove.

Chen Zhuo was dumbfounded.

Why does it feel like...

Liang Ningwan knows this business better than I do?

Once they reached the grove and confirmed it was outside the surveillance cameras' range, Liang Ningwan's eyes shone. "Chen Zhuo, show me your goods! I'm warning you now: if the purity's too low, I'm not paying!"

Chen Zhuo took out a stone that glimmered faintly with spiritual light and held it up in front of her.

The moment she saw it, Liang Ningwan froze, then blurted out:

"You're not a drug rep? Then why did you make selling a Spirit Stone sound so shady?"