Easy and Simple Elixir Making [However, No Mercury]

"God, I'm dead tired."

This was the most exhausted he'd ever been in his life. What he really wanted was to collapse right there on the floor and sleep, but there was still work to be done.

"Alright, up we go."

He pulled out the Solitude jar that had been pierced through with the Demon-Slaying Sword. Its surface was plastered with talismans of all different kinds. Since these were talismans he'd never seen before, he figured it counted as study and snapped a few photos, planning to look them up on Dongbin's Dao Study Room whenever he found some free time.

"Inside there's... just ash, huh. Well, I guess everything burned."

The Vairocana Mantra Barrier, reinforced with his covenant, had burned away not only the curse the Solitude spewed out but everything inside the jar as well. He was dumping the ash out onto the ground without much thought when—

Thud.

"Hm?"

A USB drive dropped out of the ash.

"...What's this?"

Of everything inside that Solitude jar, only this USB drive had come out unscathed. No wait—why was something like this even inside a Solitude jar in the first place?

"...Should I hold onto it for now? I don't sense anything dangerous from it."

He tucked the USB into his pocket and went back to Tsukumo Momo.

"Momo, hey, Momo. Wake up."

Though the Solitude inside her was gone, Tsukumo Momo wouldn't regain consciousness no matter how much he shook her. Wondering what to do, he decided to take her wrist and check her condition. Honestly, he had no idea what he was doing—he'd just seen martial artists in wuxia novels grab someone's wrist and probe their energy, and tried it on a whim.

And then—

I can feel it!

The moment he took her wrist, he could actually sense the energy flowing inside Tsukumo Momo's body.

At this point, even I'm scared of my own talent!

While entertaining such pointless thoughts, he examined her energy to see if any of the Solitude's curse still lingered. Thankfully, he sensed none of the curse or any other sinister energy. With the Solitude's main body reduced to cinders, the thing that had been gnawing away at Tsukumo Momo seemed to have vanished as well.

The problem was that it wasn't just the sinister energy that was gone—her own energy was barely detectable either.

"...That's not good."

Worse, her weakened energy appeared to be dissipating in real time. Apparently, just because a curse was gone didn't mean a body ravaged by that curse would simply snap back to health.

As he pondered what to do, an idea came to him.

If I started this the wuxia way, I should finish it the wuxia way!

He squeezed out some do-ryeok and sent it flowing through her wrist—a attempt to pump energy into her like a qigong master from a martial arts novel, filling in what she lacked.

"Ugh...!"

"...Yeah, that's not gonna work."

He hastily retracted the do-ryeok. Her body couldn't withstand it.

After racking his brain, he settled on spreading a very thin layer of do-ryeok, so slight it wouldn't burden her body, over her to bind the energy that kept trying to scatter.

"...Well, that puts out the immediate fire, at least?"

Thankfully it worked; her energy stopped dissipating. But this was only a stopgap.

"S-Sensei, is Momo going to be okay?"

"I'm afraid not really."

"Should I call 119?"

He shook his head at Kim Han-soo's question. Where Tsukumo Momo was injured wasn't her body—it was her soul. Even if she were hospitalized, there'd be nothing they could do for her there.

"There is a way. The stopgap measures are in place for now, so let's head back to Seoul."

After that, they loaded the still-unconscious Tsukumo Momo into Lee Ha-ram's car and returned to Seoul.

"I need a space where I can work without worrying about prying eyes."

"I know just the place."

The spot Lee Ha-ram led them to, calling it a perfect fit, was a warehouse on the outskirts of Seoul. "Warehouse" was a generous term, though—the interior had been converted for living, and it felt less like storage and more like a secret hideout.

"This is pretty sweet."

"Hehe, it's been my dream since I was a kid. It doubles as the studio I use for indoor streams sometimes."

They laid Tsukumo Momo on a bed in the back room, and he set to work in earnest. First, he took the golden rope left over from wrapping the mansion, formed a mudra over it, and sealed the warehouse.

There it was again—the site owner's hatred of mercury. Seriously, he wasn't an idiot; who would actually eat mercury or rub it on their skin, necessitating all these warnings splattered everywhere?

Scrolling past the site owner's mercury phobia, he moved on to the list of elixirs that replenished energy. There were quite a lot of them, but he skipped over most.

"A two-hundred-year-old wild ginseng? How am I supposed to get that right now—pass. A white snake's shed skin? Pass. Shark tail, pass. Elephant tusk, pass. Pass, pass, pass..."

After filtering out elixir after elixir that required all manner of absurd ingredients, one remained.

"Ryokseondan, the Green Immortal Pill. Let's go with this one."

He chose the Green Immortal Pill because it was the one elixir made from ingredients that were, relatively speaking, easy to obtain.

Screech.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Just then, a taxi pulled up in front of Lee Ha-ram's hideout and Choi Eun-ha stepped out. On the drive back to Seoul, he'd called her to tell her what had happened at the mansion and that he was taking her to Lee Ha-ram's hideout instead of a hospital. He hadn't expected her to show up this fast, though.

So they really ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠were balls-deep[?] close friends, just like she'd said—knowing each other since middle school.

"Ji-soo... she's going to be okay, right?"

"Did you forget?"

"Forget what?"

"I'm a man who delivers value for the money."

With that, he left the nursing duties to Choi Eun-ha and stepped outside with Lee Ha-ram and Kim Han-soo. That was what he'd told her, but judging by Tsukumo Momo's condition, the time she had left wasn't long. He needed to hurry.

"Sensei! What can I do to help?"

"I'll help too."

Thankfully, Kim Han-soo and Lee Ha-ram volunteered. The Green Immortal Pill might have been the elixir with the easiest ingredients to source, but it still called for a great many of them, and a few were quite tricky to track down. This was a situation where he should have been the one asking for help, so having them offer first meant a lot.

"I'll give you the list of ingredients we need."

The three of them scoured every corner of Seoul gathering materials, and thankfully managed to collect everything faster than expected. A great deal of the credit went to Lee Ha-ram and Kim Han-soo. Lee Ha-ram put the instincts he'd used to dig up dirt on the mansion's owner to work, hunting down every shop in Seoul selling the required materials and even brokering deals with private sellers when needed. Kim Han-soo, for his part, sent DMs out to the fanbase he'd built up through steady social media activity and pulled in the missing information.

With every ingredient gathered, they returned to Lee Ha-ram's hideout. There, he processed and combined the materials according to the prescribed method, added honey, and rolled the mixture into the round pill shape that came to mind whenever anyone said the word "elixir."

The next step was the paoje—a process of amplifying the medicinal properties and energy imbued in the pill through sorcerous post-processing. The paoje method for the Green Immortal Pill was simple: arrange a number of ritual vessels in a prescribed formation, place the pill at the center, and let the natural energy of the world gather into it of its own accord.

Looking at the principle, it was essentially the same as the formations in wuxia novels.

So when the big sects in wuxia novels whined about how long it took to brew spirit elixirs, it was the paoje that ate up all the time, huh?

Of course, the Green Immortal Pill wasn't quite a true spirit elixir, so the paoje didn't need to take that long. Still, to properly amplify its potency, it required a minimum of one week.

But we don't have that kind of time right now.

So he laid a covenant over the formation. The terms were simple: instead of drawing in outside energy, it would siphon his do-ryeok. Injecting do-ryeok directly would be too much for Tsukumo Momo's body to endure, but this way it could work.

"I figured it'd take a lot, but it's sucking up barely a thimbleful?"

It had drained only the tiniest sliver of do-ryeok, and yet the Green Immortal Pill's paoje was complete. Presumably because do-ryeok was overwhelmingly denser and more potent than any ordinary spiritual energy.

Where the pill had originally been yellow, it had now turned green. That vivid green was proof positive that the paoje had succeeded and the Green Immortal Pill was finished.

"Eun-ha, open Momo's mouth for me."

"Okay."

He placed the Green Immortal Pill in Tsukumo Momo's mouth. Then he pinched her nose and covered her lips, and the still-unconscious girl reflexively swallowed the pill down.

"Mmm..."

The effect was immediate. Less than five minutes after taking the elixir, Tsukumo Momo opened her eyes. Grabbing the wrist of the groggy, half-lucid girl, he checked her energy—and found it had recovered to nearly normal from what had been a dangerously low level.

Killer effects, huh?

If it worked this well, he'd have to brew up a bigger batch later, just in case.

When it comes to portable potions, the more the merrier!

"Waaaah, Ji-soo! I thought you were going to die, I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠swear I—"

Choi Eun-ha, who'd been fretting over Tsukumo Momo at her bedside the whole time, threw her arms around her newly woken friend and burst into sobs. He watched the scene with a warm smile, then handed out Green Immortal Pills to Lee Ha-ram and Kim Han-soo as well.

"You two should take one too."

"S-such a precious thing..."

"Do we need to take them as well?"

"Yes. You two weren't hit as hard as Momo, but the Solitude's curse will have damaged your energy all the same."

And so the aftercare for all three victims of the Solitude came to an end. After that, they decided to spend the night at the hideout. It was already well past midnight, and even though the elixir had replenished their energy, they'd all been cursed and touched by the uncanny, so the idea was to stay inside the golden rope's protection for a day or so.

Naturally, he planned to spend that day at the hideout with them.

"Let's eat first, for starters."

It was the middle of the night, but everyone had either been nursing Tsukumo Momo or running around gathering ingredients ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠all day and had gone hours without food, so he decided to feed them something, anything. It felt a bit awkward ordering delivery while a barrier against misfortune was strung up around the place, so they bought a meal kit from a nearby mart and cooked up a pot of gamjatang, pork-backbone stew.

The five of them sat around the table and ate. Maybe the food loosened everyone up—Lee Ha-ram stole a glance at him and popped the question.

"I don't think I'll ever forget today... Sensei, do you run into this kind of thing often?"

"Not often, but now and then."

Come to think of it, it had only been about two weeks since his breathing practice opened his spirit eyes. In just two weeks, he'd dealt with a hair-witching demon and a Solitude living in the corner of a room.

The difficulty setting on this life is one stupidly brutal mode.

Once Lee Ha-ram broke the ice, Tsukumo Momo and Kim Han-soo stole their own glances and fired off questions in turn.

"Um, Yi-yeon, what do ghosts actually look like? Do they appear the way they did in life?"

"Would it be too much to ask you to properly teach me how to use talismans later on...?"

Like high schoolers peppering a career-day guest speaker with questions, the three of them unleashed one question after another. Kim Yi-yeon answered as best he could while sweating inwardly: Do these guys think I'm some big shot in this world or something?

And watching all of it, Choi Eun-ha felt a pride she couldn't quite put into words. It was close to the satisfaction of seeing an indie band you'd been rooting for before they made it finally hit it big. The joy of knowing your eye hadn't failed you—and that you'd recognized their worth before anyone else. A kind of intellectual vanity, and pride.

And she wasn't the only one feeling it. The difference was that where Choi Eun-ha only wanted to show off her intellectual vanity within her small circle, this other person went a step further—projecting her ego onto the object of her pride and actively proselytizing.

"Hey, Yi-yeon, have you ever thought about streaming online?"

"M-Momo, suggesting something like that to a man like Sensei is an insult."

"What do you mean, 'something like that'? Chaser and me and ClapClap all do it for a living, don't we? And these days there are tons of shamans who stream! It's free publicity, it spreads your name—what's not to love?"

"Well, people like that are mostly—"

Lee Ha-ram, about to say frauds, caught himself when he looked at Kim Yi-yeon. Until now, he'd assumed every one of those streams was a scam, but having met the genuine article, he could no longer declare them all frauds with a straight face.

"If you streamed, Yi-yeon, you'd blow up for sure! Bigger than the three of us here combined! And why wouldn't you—you're a real psychic!"

"Hmm..."

In truth, Kim Yi-yeon had gotten curious the very day after the abandoned-house stream ended and looked up the three streamers' annual salaries. The figures had made his jaw drop—sums Kim Yi-yeon had never laid a finger on in his entire life.

At that kind of money, I could clear out the debt that bastard of a father left behind in no time.

But streaming online came with its own gains and losses. The biggest advantage was name recognition. The greatest obstacle to making money with psychic abilities was having no pipeline into the industry. But if he got famous as a streamer, the work would come find him, pipeline or not.

The problem was that the more famous he got, the more likely he was to get entangled with the Paranormal Administration Bureau and other psychics.

Best case: I raise my profile while looking like a con man to the Bureau and the real professionals. Some delicate, ambiguous line to walk, then.

Tsukumo Momo, sensing Kim Yi-yeon wavering, delivered the finishing blow.

"Yi-yeon, do you know the easiest way for a rookie streamer to succeed?"

"What is it?"

"Collabing with a streamer who's already big."

"That would definitely speed things up."

"Which means the moment you open a channel, Yi-yeon, you could grow it in the blink of an eye."

Tsukumo Momo—no, the million-subscriber mega-VTuber Tsukumo Momo—said it with her chest puffed out.

"I've thought and thought about how to repay what I owe you, Yi-yeon. And then it hit me: maybe this was destiny."

Tsukumo Momo's eyes sparkled with fervor.

"Destiny?"

Kim Yi-yeon answered while discreetly averting his eyes, finding her gaze a little too intense.

"Yes! The fact that I started streaming! The fact that I went to that abandoned house for my million-subscriber special! The fact that my idol debut failed! The fact that I asked Eun-ha to introduce me to someone with connections! No—even the fact that I was born in Korea at all, it was all for this very moment!"

Kim Yi-yeon thought to himself: I thought her doomer-girl thing was just a bit?

"Yi-yeon! I promise! I'll make Channel Kim Dosa the biggest occult channel in all of Korea!"

"...The channel name is already decided as 'Kim Dosa,' is it?"

"Of course! You already showed up as Kim Dosa in the collab, so we've got to carry that recognition forward!"

"...Good grief."

Kim Yi-yeon bitterly regretted having carelessly given his name as Kim Dosa on that stream.