"Did you need something?" Tang Mo asked with a smile.
"I came to repay your kindness." Ning Rongrong wore a sweet smile. "Grandpa Bone said we could pay you in gems and rare metals for teaching me your Self-Created Soul Skill, big brother."
At her words, Hu Liena stepped forward and shielded Tang Mo behind her, looking rather like a mother hen protecting her chicks.
"Your Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect is up to no good." Hu Liena indignantly reached out with both hands and pinched Ning Rongrong's cheeks. "We have no way to turn those things into Gold Soul Coins. In the short term, they'd just be decorations."
"Hmph! You nasty old woman!" Ning Rongrong slapped away the hands pinching her face and planted her hands on her hips, looking thoroughly unconvinced. "Our Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect just has a temporary cash-flow problem. If big brother wants Gold Soul Coins, it'll take some time. That's why Grandpa Bone said we could settle the debt with gems and rare metals."
Ning Rongrong's brazen confidence despite having no leg to stand on nearly made Hu Liena laugh in anger. The Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect had a cash-flow problem? What kind of joke was that?
Even if the Heaven Dou Empire temporarily couldn't pay its civil officials, the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, whose wealth rivaled a nation's, couldn't possibly have cash-flow problems.
"All right, senior sister." Tang Mo took Hu Liena's hand and pulled her to his side, signaling for her to keep quiet for now.
Hu Liena gave a soft huff and turned her face away, wearing a look that said he didn't appreciate her good intentions.
Once Hu Liena had settled down for the moment, Tang Mo said to Ning Rongrong, "I do need some metals and gems, but I don't know their exact names, only roughly what properties they have. Rongrong, could you ask the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect to help me look for them?"
"Leave it to me." Seeing that Tang Mo wasn't displeased with her proposal to settle the debt with metals and gems, and had even made a request of her, Ning Rongrong immediately patted her chest and declared that she could handle it.
Time flew, and a month soon passed. Tang Mo settled temporarily in Vast Sea City, concentrating on processing the whale brain and equipment-refining materials.
As the saying went, lone yin could not give birth, and lone yang could not grow. Whale brain was supremely potent and yang in nature, making its consumption no small trial for the human body. He therefore recalled the medicinal formulas in his mind and soon settled on an extremely ancient one.
The medicine recorded in the formula was called the Crimson Yang Pill. It required a supremely potent, yang-natured medicinal ingredient as its principal component, supplemented with other medicines to balance it. The mixture would finally be rolled into pills the size of parasol tree seeds and swallowed with dew gathered from a hundred flowers in the early morning as the medicinal catalyst.
Rolling the pills was very easy. The greatest difficulty was that the entire process of simmering the medicinal decoction took a full day.
During the day, it had to be exposed to sunlight while the heat was adjusted. The stronger the sunlight, the higher the heat; the weaker the sunlight, the lower the heat.
After nightfall, the heat had to be gradually reduced under the moonlight, then immediately lowered to its minimum as sun gave way to moon.
When the moon reached its zenith, the heat had to be extinguished immediately, allowing the decoction to cool naturally. Before a streak of fish-belly white appeared on the horizon, the decoction had to be brought into a dim room untouched by sunlight, warmed to room temperature over low heat, then immediately mixed with yam powder and honey and kneaded into pills.
Only then would a batch of Crimson Yang Pills be complete.
Because the preparation was complicated, and supremely potent, yang-natured medicines had grown increasingly rare, the Crimson Yang Pill had become a legend.
Now that he had supremely potent, yang-natured whale brain on hand and had found affordable substitutes for all the other medicines, Tang Mo naturally wanted to try making Crimson Yang Pills.
The Crimson Yang Pill's effects were gentle. Like boiling a frog in warm water, it could slowly improve a person's physique, and prolonged use could even improve their cultivation aptitude.
But it was no miraculous elixir, after all, and the formula's account of its effects was somewhat vague. Tang Mo therefore couldn't be certain how far prolonged use of Crimson Yang Pills could improve a person's aptitude.
During this time, Ning Rongrong and Qian Renxue did not leave Vast Sea City. Instead, they used the channels of the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect and the Heaven Dou Empire to find metals, gems, and medicinal ingredients for him.
Under Xue Qinghe's name, Qian Renxue urged Xue Ye to cultivate friendly relations with Tang Mo. Although relations between Spirit Hall and the Heaven Dou Empire were somewhat strained, with swords drawn and bows bent, as long as Spirit Hall had not become the Spirit Hall Empire, the two sides remained allies on the surface.
Thus, after only a little hesitation, Xue Ye agreed to Qian Renxue's proposal. He even sent over a precious treasure the Heaven Dou imperial family had obtained by chance: the Vast Sea Cosmic Shroud.
The Vast Sea Cosmic Shroud sounded imposing, but the Heaven Dou imperial family actually had no idea what it did.
Its true name was the Sea God's Heart, and it counted as one of the tokens the Sea God had left for his successor. In earlier years, it had drifted across the sea, constantly changing hands. It was only because its holders had never received the Sea God's recognition that no one had ever mastered the power of the Vast Sea Cosmic Shroud.
Qian Renxue looked at the Vast Sea Cosmic Shroud lying inside her Storage Soul Tool with a peculiar expression. Its purpose was unknown, and supposedly, while it had been drifting at sea, no sooner had someone obtained it than they met an unnatural death through one circumstance or another, and the faction they belonged to vanished like smoke.
For a moment, she couldn't decide whether Xue Ye had sent it to win Tang Mo over or hoped to use its ill fortune to kill him, eliminating one of Spirit Hall's prodigies ahead of time.
After hesitating briefly, she took the Vast Sea Cosmic Shroud to a residence beside Vast Sea City's Spirit Hall.
In sheer size, this residence was second only to the city lord's residence and Spirit Hall in Vast Sea City. It was the private home of Kasait, Vast Sea City's Cardinal.
However, the residence now belonged to Tang Mo and his companions. Kasait's entire family, and even his servants, had moved into Spirit Hall.
In the rear courtyard of Kasait's residence, Tang Mo stood in the center, with a huge iron pot set up in front of him. Beneath it sat a temperature-controllable Soul Tool that closely resembled a gas stove.
Supposedly, Kasait had bought it at auction for a high price and ordinarily used it for cooking. It was easy to imagine how much he had pocketed over the years-even cooking required a Soul Tool stove that flaunted his status as Vast Sea City's local emperor.
Now, however, this Soul Tool belonged to Tang Mo. He had originally been pondering how to regulate the heat better, never expecting Kasait to have something so useful.
At that moment, he held a large wooden ladle made from the bamboo-like Blue Silver Grass he had wheedled out of Tang San, constantly stirring the decoction in the iron pot.
After a morning of sunlight and Tang Mo's uninterrupted stirring, the decoction in the iron pot had changed from the same deep yellow as the whale brain to a gilded gold, with hints of red gradually emerging within it.
A properly finished Crimson Yang Pill was reddish gold, a color produced by blending vermilion and gilded gold.
The changes in the decoction meant that Tang Mo had made no mistakes in his preparation. Now all he could do was wait through another afternoon and an entire night. As long as nothing went wrong in between, the Crimson Yang Pills would be ready.
When Qian Renxue arrived, she saw Tang Mo standing beside the iron pot, constantly stirring with his wooden ladle.
Nearby, Hu Liena was propping up her chin and watching Tang Mo in utter boredom. Upon seeing Qian Renxue arrive, she immediately gestured for her to be quiet.
And so, besides Hu Liena, Qian Renxue joined the spectators watching Tang Mo refine pills.
As the minutes and seconds ticked by, the moon soon reached its zenith. Tang Mo turned off the heat and stopped stirring.
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