Learning to refine medicinal pills

Xiao Mo froze. He could hardly say he had redeemed it through the system, could he?

He could only smile and say he had bought it outside when he went out that day.

Yao Lao's eyes shone, and he reached out and slapped him on the shoulder.

"That's my disciple! You certainly have a good eye. This is the Azure Purple Mystic Qi Furnace. Pills refined with this thing are sure to be much purer than those made in an ordinary Alchemy Furnace."

"With this, we'll get twice the results with half the effort. I'm confident we can refine pills of the utmost purity."

With that, Yao Lao immediately tossed them a list.

"Your Dou Qi has already reached the required level. What matters most now is the raw materials. Whatever your master already has here, you won't need to buy."

"You two can take mine on credit, but you'll have to buy the same materials later to pay me back. For now, focus on buying the materials I've written down for you."

Yao Lao checked the time.

"If you two hurry and get back before three in the afternoon, I should be able to teach you to refine at least one pill before midnight."

"As for the rest, I believe you'll be able to reproduce more tomorrow. It shouldn't take two days to make a hundred doses of Rejuvenation Powder."

Xiao Mo nodded, immediately grabbed Xiao Yan and the materials list, then turned and left.

Halfway there, he noticed that Xiao Yan's gaze kept settling on his waist, looking him up and down.

"..."

He hurriedly covered his lower back and gave Xiao Yan a wary look.

"What are you thinking, brat? Why do you keep staring at me there?"

Xiao Yan shook his head and looked at him in confusion.

"Senior brother, where exactly did you pull that Alchemy Furnace from? There's nowhere on you to hide a furnace, and you didn't buy one when we went out today..."

As Xiao Yan spoke, his voice grew quieter and quieter, until he turned his head and waved a hand at him.

"Senior brother, pretend I didn't say anything. I promised not to ask about your secrets. Unless you bring them up yourself, I won't pry."

Seeing Xiao Yan struggle to hold back his curiosity, Xiao Mo couldn't help sighing.

"All right, there's no harm in telling you."

As he spoke, he took out a ring and held it in his palm.

"This is a Storage Ring. I won't tell you exactly how I got it, but it has a separate space inside where you can store things."

With a wave of his hand, a medicinal pill appeared in it.

"I usually keep my things in here and take them out whenever I need them. That's where I took the Alchemy Furnace from earlier."

Understanding dawned on Xiao Yan, and the bond between them immediately grew a little closer.

Xiao Mo silently suppressed a flicker of unease.

Sorry, junior brother. I can't expose all my trump cards, much less tell you I have a system.

He raised his head and tugged at Xiao Yan beside him.

"Come on, let's stop wasting time here. We need to hurry and buy all these materials so we can start learning alchemy from Master."

The two hurried to the Market Fair and bought the items on the list one by one.

By the time they returned from the fair, both wore grim expressions.

Just that small bundle of herbs in their hands had wiped out all their money.

"Our money combined could have bought more than a dozen doses of Rejuvenation Powder. These herbs must be enough to make more than that, or they couldn't possibly cost so much."

He did his best to soothe Xiao Yan, though in truth, he was saying those words to reassure himself as well.

The two soon returned to the Back Mountain with the herbs, and the first thing Xiao Mo did was ask Yao Lao a question.

"Yao Lao, exactly how many pills can these herbs make?"

Yao Lao lowered his head to inspect the herbs they had brought back and answered casually.

"A few hundred. Is there a problem?"

"?!"

Of course there was a problem-a huge one!

The money spent on these herbs could only buy a dozen or so pills, yet they could actually make several hundred?

In an instant, both of their worldviews were overturned.

Xiao Mo stared at the pile of herbs with an unreadable expression. No wonder Xiao Zhan had hesitated and refused to sell the pills at cost.

Their production cost was actually this low. If the true cost were revealed, who would be willing to buy expensive pills in the future?

Perhaps the price of those pills would never rise again.

Seeing their dumbstruck expressions, Yao Lao gave them a disdainful look.

"That's using my method. I don't know the refining process your clan uses, so I can't say how many pills your method would produce."

"But with the most ordinary method, you might only get a few dozen. Your current market price is still normal."

With that, Yao Lao ignored their astonishment and continued carefully counting and checking the herbs on the ground.

"All right, there are enough herbs. Now you two will start learning how to refine medicinal pills with me."

Yao Lao quickly took out Dan Du, then added the herbs bit by bit according to the formula and swiftly heated them with a Dou Qi flame. That single batch yielded more than a dozen freshly refined pills.

When the two held the Rejuvenation Powder in their hands, they were both stunned.

"Damn, it's this pure?"

If their Rejuvenation Powder was a product of exceptional purity, then the Rejuvenation Powder sold at the Jia Lie Family's Market was their product diluted threefold with water.

The two products simply couldn't be compared, and theirs could even be sold at such a low price.

"Master, you're incredible! Even some of our top livestream sellers couldn't drive the price down as low as you have."

He sincerely praised Yao Lao's skill. Taking him as his master had truly been the right choice.

Yao Lao's face filled with surprise and confusion.

"What did you say? What top livestream sellers? What are you driving down? What are you talking about?"

Yao Lao had no idea what Xiao Mo was saying. He simply couldn't understand those modern terms.

Seeing the bewilderment on both faces beside him, Xiao Mo hurriedly swallowed everything else he had been about to say.

"Nothing, nothing. I meant you're amazing, far better than ordinary people. You have no idea how many people would go wild if you brought this stuff to market."

Yao Lao, however, dismissed it with disdain.

"I can casually refine hundreds of these things, and they're only effective for people at low ranks."

"As you cultivate your Dou Qi in the future, you'll need purer medicinal pills, not these elementary medicines. These things won't do much to repair your bodies."

"That's why I can't be bothered to refine pills like these. High-level alchemists also disdain selling this sort of thing."