Successful development

One month later.

Over that month, Xiao Yu repeated the same routine every day: refining pills, recording changes, making improvements, and trying again.

He used up one set of medicinal ingredients a day, spending an average of five hundred gold coins daily. In a place like Wutan City, that was an enormous sum.

The Xiao Clan's annual profit was only a hundred thousand gold coins, so it was easy to imagine how alchemists truly burned through money.

This is my last attempt. Hopefully, nothing will go wrong.

Today, Xiao Yu would refine his final set of ingredients. A thick stack of papers lay on the stone table behind him, containing all the data he had recorded on changes in the ingredients during his month of pill refining.

He recorded every attempt in exhaustive detail, never letting even the smallest change slip past him.

This also deepened his understanding of Lightning-Fire Pill Refining with each passing day.

The refining began. Xiao Yu skillfully extracted the essence from each ingredient. Under his precise control of the heat, the qi-gathering grass, qi-circulating fruit, spirit-tempering crystal, and first-rank fire-attribute magic core were all fully refined in less than two hours.

Then lightning flashed throughout the Medicine Cauldron, and the essences began to merge. They fused slowly, but Xiao Yu continued controlling them with utmost care.

This step was crucial. Without patience, failure was inevitable. Patience was the one thing no alchemist lacked, especially higher-ranked ones. After all, some advanced pills took days to refine.

Two hours later, the essences had completely merged into a new mass. Xiao Yu carefully controlled the flames to heat it, then gradually lowered their intensity.

The temperature inside the Medicine Cauldron slowly fell as well. The pill began taking shape, finally solidifying completely.

Seeing this, Xiao Yu slapped the Medicine Cauldron, and the resulting force sent the pill flying out. He reached out and caught it. A round, plump pill with a faint glow appeared in his hand.

Xiao Yu smiled and took a jade bottle from his robes, placing the pill inside. An identical pill already lay within it.

He set the jade bottle on the stone table, then took out another jade bottle containing a single pill and placed it beside the first.

Looking at the two jade bottles before him, even the usually composed Xiao Yu could not stop himself from smiling with delight.

Of the two bottles, the one containing two pills held pills that accelerated cultivation, while the other held a body-tempering pill.

They were the fruits of Xiao Yu's month of effort. Though few in number, they did nothing to dampen his joy.

His only regret was that he had failed to produce the Dou Qi-restoring pills he had attempted at the beginning. After all, he had only had four sets of ingredients.

Yet those four sets had given Xiao Yu a foundation in pill refining, allowing him to luckily produce one pill from the six sets of body-tempering ingredients.

Xiao Yu also privately indulged in a little vanity. With talent like his, even Gu He probably fell short.

Thirty sets of ingredients, three pills-a success rate of one in ten, while developing pill formulas, all in just one month.

If Yao Lao found out, he might swallow Xiao Yu whole and skin him alive. Damn it, what kind of talent was this? It surpassed even Yao Lao's talent for alchemy by a fair margin, and Yao Lao had come from the Yao Clan, with a solid foundation to begin with.

Putting away the jade bottles and neatly organizing the pile of refining records, Xiao Yu prepared to return to his room for a good sleep. It might still be noon, but after refining pills for an entire month, surely he deserved a proper rest?

He planned to sell the three pills tomorrow for gold coins and look for pill formulas while he was at it. Developing formulas was truly exhausting, and he had no desire to relive this past month anytime soon.

The next day.

Xiao Yu did not wake until noon. He had slept for twenty-four hours, making up for the mental exhaustion accumulated over the past month.

"Ahh, that was a wonderful sleep."

Stretching, Xiao Yu got up and washed. After taking ten minutes to get himself ready, he left his little courtyard and headed for the Mittel Auction House.

The sooner he sold the pills, the sooner he would have the money to begin refining the pills he needed. With pills to aid him, his already monstrous cultivation speed would climb to another level.

Without lingering along the way, Xiao Yu soon arrived at the Mittel Auction House.

Recognizing him as the young man who had bought a Medicine Cauldron over a month ago, a maid in the hall led Xiao Yu to a lounge and summoned Manager Liu.

"Well, if it isn't young Brother Xiao! It's been a while. What might you need this time?"

Manager Liu greeted him warmly the moment he arrived. He was no fool; a future alchemist was worth such enthusiasm.

Xiao Yu was no naive youngster either. Mentally, he was twenty-six, and naturally understood why Manager Liu was so eager to befriend him.

"You're too kind, Manager Liu. I'm not here to buy anything this time, but to sell something."

Xiao Yu smiled, then took out the two jade bottles from earlier and handed them to Manager Liu.

"Oh? To sell something?"

Manager Liu accepted the jade bottles, curious about what Xiao Yu could offer the Mittel Auction House.

But once he saw their contents clearly, his expression shifted slightly. He asked cautiously, "Young Brother Xiao, are these... pills?"

Still smiling, Xiao Yu glanced at him and nodded.

"Gasp!"

Manager Liu sucked in a breath of cold air, his eyes filled with shock. He could hardly imagine a young man becoming an alchemist in just over a month.

Seeing his reaction, Xiao Yu naturally knew what he was thinking and explained, "Please don't misunderstand, Manager Liu. I didn't refine these. My master did. I'm still unable to refine pills."

He did not want anyone to know he was an alchemist. If someone dug deeper, it would mean trouble. There were only a handful of fifteen-year-old alchemists in the entire Jia Ma Empire, and he still did not know the grade of his pills. If they turned out to be top-quality first-rank pills, things would really get interesting.

Aside from the many people who would investigate his background, if the Xiao Clan's higher-ups learned that he could cultivate again and was also an alchemist, they would pester him to death. He rather liked his current life and did not want to disrupt it just yet.

As he had said, he did not want to show off. Unnecessary trouble was best avoided.

Only then did Manager Liu regain his composure, thinking, I thought as much. How could there be an alchemist so young?

Suspecting nothing, Manager Liu nodded. "I see. However, if you wish to sell these three pills, young Brother Xiao, you'll have to wait a little."

"Since I'm not an alchemist, I cannot identify the pills, so I'll need to invite Master Gu Ni to appraise them."

This was standard procedure. Xiao Yu nodded. "Please go ahead, Manager Liu. I don't mind waiting."

Manager Liu instructed the maid to attend to Xiao Yu, then rose and left the lounge.

Before long, Manager Liu returned, followed by an elderly man in blue robes whose hair had begun to turn white.

The old man's face glowed with health. Though his blue robes appeared ordinary, a faint light flowed across them. Clearly, the garments had been imbued with some form of magic core protection. An unmistakable trace of arrogance marked his otherwise unremarkable old face.

Xiao Yu swept his gaze over the old man before stopping at his chest. An emblem resembling a medicine furnace was embroidered there, with two silver ripples shining nobly upon its surface.

So that's the insignia of a Second-Rank Alchemist? It looks pretty nice. Tsk, tsk, Xiao Yu thought.

These alchemist robes were probably the exclusive attire distributed by the Jia Ma Empire's Alchemist Association to every alchemist who had registered and had their rank assessed there. Their quality was indeed quite good.