A Talent for Alchemy
The three-year term turned out to be quite fruitful for me.
Let me start with my personal changes first: my physical growth had finally come to an end.
I had grown to a moderate height of about five and a half cheok, and everything else stayed much the same as before — though my curves had grown more defined and, with the last of the baby fat gone, I looked more mature overall.
Come to think of it, I seemed to have chosen my assignments remarkably well. Over those three years, I had racked up a considerable amount of merit points, along with various side earnings on top.
In the year after I took up my post, the Spiritual Herb Plantation enjoyed a harvest unlike anything in memory, yielding a bountiful crop of market-grade herbs.
Perhaps because of that, spirit beasts began intruding more frequently as well, and cutting them down gave me the chance to build genuine combat experience — with their byproducts as a bonus, no less.
Since this was the sect's home territory, any dangerous demon beasts were periodically exterminated, so the fields saw nothing worse than weak creatures at around the mid stage of Qi Refining, with only the occasional late-stage beast showing up now and then.
Thanks to that excellent track record, I earned additional merit points, which meant the next ten years' worth of tribute payments were already covered.
Of course, had it not been for Cheongryu standing behind me as my backer, none of that would have flowed my way quite so cleanly.
As I left behind the Spiritual Herb Plantation that had become so familiar, I sank into thought.
Once I'm back, I should learn alchemy.
They weren't high-grade herbs by any stretch, but working from the market-grade herbs and knowledge I'd gathered at the plantation, I found myself wanting to study the art of alchemy.
Above all, the fact that the inheritance of the Jade Soil included alchemy had been nagging at me, so I'd decided to use that as a clue and take up the craft.
That said, my three years at the Jade Soil vein formation hadn't been entirely without discoveries.
Thanks to the descriptions in the Moon-Drenched Jade Soil Record tying the vein to the moon, I ran a few experiments on nights when the moonlight was bright, and learned that cultivating beneath the moon reduced the spiritual energy consumed by both cultivation and spell arts.
Cultivation efficiency in particular doubled on average, and when the full moon rose, it climbed as high as threefold.
Maybe the Jade Soil's vein formation has some kind of effect on alchemy too.
If a Heaven-grade augmentation yielded nothing to be found, then it was as good as never obtained at all, wasn't it?
It was possible that the clue I needed was waiting for me in alchemy.
Besides, alchemy was counted as the foremost of the hundred arts of cultivation, so there'd be no loss in learning the basics, at the very least.
Before I knew it, I had arrived at Yeonun Pavilion and went to see Cheongryu.
"Master, I'm back."
"You've worked hard."
"Master, do you happen to know much about alchemy?"
"Alchemy? Hmm. I've never had much interest in that field, so I can't say I do. Has something caught your fancy about it?"
"Yes. I thought it would be nice to have at least one real skill I could put to use — and an alchemist is considered high-value talent even among cultivators, after all."
At my words, Cheongryu nodded.
Alchemy was, indeed, the art most intimately tied to cultivation, and skilled alchemists were always in short supply.
"Very well. I'll pull a few strings for you, so go and learn it."
With that, Cheongryu introduced me to an alchemist.
Truly, the reach of a Core Formation elder was formidable.
Not long after, a Foundation Establishment mid-stage cultivator came calling at Yeonun Pavilion.
Her name was Jeong Taeseo. She was quite petite in build — a full head shorter than me.
But her eyes were bright and her gaze vivid with life, so her small stature hardly registered.
"Hello, senior colleague. I'm Seol Jihwa."
"A pleasure to meet you. I heard word from the Pavilion Master of Yeonun. You wish to learn alchemy from me, I'm told?"
"Yes, I've taken an interest in it recently."
Crafts like this were normally passed down through apprenticeships and rarely taught to outsiders, but whether she had been promised some reward from Cheongryu, her expression was quite pleasant despite having been summoned here.
"Then let us begin at once. Where shall we work?"
I led her to the detached house Cheongryu had built for me.
The house was every bit as beautiful as the quarters where Cheongryu herself resided, distinguished by a coat of subtle, understated crimson.
"By the way — are you sure it's all right to just teach me your craft like this?"
"It's nothing compared to what I've been paid. The Pavilion Master was remarkably generous."
She waved it off as if it were nothing at all.
And so she took out the alchemy furnace she'd brought and began teaching me about the art.
"Alchemy is a battle against time. Which moment you add each ingredient, how you control the fire, and when you draw out the pill — that is what matters most. The mixing and ratios of the other ingredients are all written in the pill formula, after all."
Her explanation continued.
"That means alchemy depends on innate sense and experience. I'll demonstrate first — would you care to watch?"
With that, she pulled out a pill formula and handed it to me.
Then she laid out the ingredients, finished her preparations, and began the refinement.
The formula she'd given me was for a pill called the Qi Refining Pill, the most basic of the basic — a supplement taken by those in Qi Refining, usable only during that stage and with negligible effects, which was why it was never held in particularly high regard.
"You need to grind the qi-refining herb as finely as possible. People commonly assume it's about extracting plenty of juice, but pulverizing the herb's fibers into a fine powder matters far more."
She demonstrated by pounding the main ingredient, the qi-refining herb, in a mortar. Then she gathered the auxiliary ingredients together and shaped them into pill form.
Ten pills came out in total. She placed them in a vessel and lit the brazier.
"Now comes the crucial part: raising the temperature. There's an ideal heat for this, and you have to find it and hold it steady."
She dipped her hand into the alchemy furnace to check the heat, and once the right temperature was reached, she added the pills.
"Now timing is everything. This comes down purely to individual skill, and this is where quality diverges the most."
Had it been about one incense stick's worth of time? Suddenly, a fragrant aroma began to rise.
I sniffed at it, savoring the scent drifting from the furnace.
"...? Is something burning, perhaps?"
She tilted her head at my behavior, and a few seconds later opened the furnace and drew out the pills.
At the sight, a sigh of regret escaped me before I could stop it.
"Ah..."
The scent from moments ago had been unmistakably better — but in the span of a few seconds, the aroma had changed.
Yet regardless of my reaction, she seemed to have noticed nothing at all.
"This much would count as market grade."
Curious, I ventured a question.
"Is it possible to make something of higher quality than this?"
"Of course. Even I manage a top-grade batch from time to time. Though from there on out, it's the domain of luck."
So she answered.
"Now then, it's your turn to try."
With that, she handed me the mortar and pestle.
I took them and began grinding the qi-refining herb.
Grind it into a fine powder, she said?
Keeping her advice in mind as I worked, I ground the herb so thoroughly that not a trace of its original stem remained.
"Now shape the pills. Here you must use a scale to make them as uniform as possible."
She handed me the already-processed auxiliary ingredients, and I shaped the pills according to the ratios written in the formula.
"There are methods for measuring temperature, but we don't have one here, so I'll set the heat for you — try committing the feel of it to your palm."
Jeong Taeseo tended the brazier and heated the furnace. Soon she gauged the temperature from the heat against her hand and gestured for me to confirm it.
I memorized the warmth against my skin, then added the pills.
"From here on, timing is everything. The standard practice is to place a divine sense into the furnace to check, but since the state of the batch shifts from moment to moment, it's better to simply pull them out at the time you've committed to memory."
About one incense stick of time later, I caught that same fragrant scent from before.
I glanced at Jeong Taeseo — she still seemed to have noticed nothing. I decided to trust my own instincts and drew out the pills.
"Oh! Top grade. The beginner's luck, I suppose. You had a fortunate run of it."
She said so after inspecting the pills.
Could it be that this scent was the very standard by which quality was judged?
I lifted a pill and sniffed it — it was certainly different from the batch she had finished earlier.
"There's little point in sniffing at it like that. The medicinal essence is tightly bound within the pill's core, so no fragrance should be leaking out at all."
Jeong Taeseo told me my action was meaningless, but to me, the fragrance was unmistakably there.
Afterward, I received several pill formulas from her before seeing her off.
The formulas she'd given me were annotated in extraordinary detail with her own hard-won experience. Even though they were only formulas for basic pills, it was obvious she would never have willingly shared notes containing such trade secrets.
I couldn't help wondering what on earth Cheongryu had promised her.
In the days that followed, I practiced making the pills on my own, exactly as the formulas described — and even on my first attempts, the lowest-quality results were market grade, with most coming out top grade.
That scent was, without a doubt, telling me the right answer.
The only explanation that came to mind was, once again, the Jade Soil's vein formation.
If I could produce even high-grade pills at such quality, their value would be beyond all reckoning.
I found myself looking forward to what alchemy would bring.
And so, some time later, carrying the pills I'd made for practice, I set out for the marketplace in eastern Zheng Country.
The plan was to sell the pills and have my skills appraised — and, at the same time, to hunt down more pill formulas.