Early the next morning.
Luo Chen rose early and packed the pills on the chopping board into five jade bottles, ten to a bottle.
Dressing in his only presentable low-grade robe and carrying his low-grade flying sword, he hurried out the door.
He had to enter the city early. Once daylight broke, all the better stalls in the rogue cultivator area would be taken.
Perhaps because of the downpour that had lasted all through the previous day, the roads in the outer city were quite muddy.
The closer he drew to the center of the outer city, the thicker the stench became—a foul blend of excrement, urine, medicinal herbs, and the mingled odors of humans and demon beasts.
Laced with the damp, earthy reek of mud, the smell was truly sickening.
Yet Luo Chen was already used to it.
Two hours later, he arrived at the city gate.
Stepping into the inner city, Luo Chen could not help but take a deep breath.
Sure enough, the inner city's air was simply wonderful!
"I've heard the inner city was built atop a tier-one spirit vein, which is tremendously beneficial for Qi Refinement cultivators."
"Once I have the money, I must buy a house in the inner city!"
Silently encouraging himself, Luo Chen headed straight for the rogue cultivator area in the southwestern corner.
Before a large bluestone slab, yellow talisman paper and beast hides covered more than half the surface. An old man was busily setting things in order.
Having arranged the beast hides, he stood up, stretched his back, and caught sight of Luo Chen approaching.
"Fellow Daoist Luo, you're a bit later than me this time."
The old man was named Chen Xiuping, a cultivator at the sixth level of Qi Refinement and a long-time resident of Dahe Market.
He had lived here for decades, making a living by drawing talismans, and possessed a decent craft in tanning talisman hides as well.
With his level of income, he could actually afford to scrape together rent for a place in the inner city.
However, the old man was rather stingy. He would rather live in a wooden shack in the outer city for one low-grade spirit stone a month than pay ten times that to rent a stone house in the inner city.
In fact, even when it came to setting up a stall to sell goods, he calculated every last scrap.
Stalls in the rogue cultivator area required paying rent to the market administrators.
Each stall cost one spirit stone a month.
The stall was a good two square meters, and if arranged tightly, laying out his talismans and talisman hides still left nearly half a square meter free.
So he had simply sublet that corner to Luo Chen, and the two split the monthly rent down the middle.
Did Luo Chen get the short end of the stick?
Not necessarily. If he were to rent a stall of his own, it would cost a whole spirit stone every month.
Besides, few cultivators liked sharing a stall with others.
Thus, while Luo Chen hadn't really lost out, Old Daoist Chen was undeniably making a profit.
After exchanging a brief greeting, Luo Chen laid out his wares.
Twenty bottles of Fasting Pills!
Seeing the quantity, Old Daoist Chen couldn't help but look surprised. "Fellow Daoist Luo, your alchemy skills have improved again recently!"
Small wonder he remarked on it.
Luo Chen usually came to tend his stall once every seven days, four or five times a month.
Each time, the number of Fasting Pills he brought to sell hovered around fifteen or sixteen bottles.
Yet this time, he had brought out a full twenty bottles!
It was evident that he had made considerable strides in refining Fasting Pills.
And in fact, that was indeed the case.
Over a seven-day cycle, setting aside one day for tending the stall and purchasing ingredients, three of the remaining six days were spent processing materials, and the other three on alchemy.
In other words, he had only three days of actual pill refinement.
Previously, even when Luo Chen pushed himself to the limit, he could only produce two batches a day, yielding about five bottles of Fasting Pills in total—the rate of ingredient wastage had simply been too high.
Yesterday, however, his Fasting Pill refinement technique had advanced from Perfect proficiency to Grandmaster rank.
That final batch alone had yielded five bottles!
Combined with a stroke of good luck earlier that kept his losses exceptionally low, he had managed to put together twenty bottles this time.
"You flatter me, it's merely practice making perfect!" Luo Chen offered a modest smile, though a hint of pride lingered in his eyes.
Having just attained Grandmaster proficiency in refining Fasting Pills was, after all, something to be proud of.
Chen Xiuping shook his head. "There are a few other fellows selling Fasting Pills around here, but none of them can turn out twenty bottles in five days like you."
With that, he reached toward the nearest bottle.
"You didn't mix in flour to pad the count, did you? As your senior, I'll have to inspect them for you—can't let you ruin the reputation of our stall."
Luo Chen watched him with a chuckle, his own hand already lifting a talisman drawn with dense red lines.
"I heard that last time someone bought your Qi-Concealing Talisman, it failed to work and a demon beast bit off half his rear. Why don't I take one back to study it for you? We wouldn't want to ruin our stall's reputation either!"
Old Daoist Chen panicked. Forgetting the pill bottle in his hand, he hurriedly snatched the talisman back from Luo Chen.
"Five bottles of your Fasting Pills only sell for a single spirit stone, and you have the cheek to trade for my Qi-Concealing Talisman that costs three spirit stones apiece?!"
"Give it back! Give it back!"
Luo Chen smiled broadly as he watched the old man gingerly place the talisman in the most prominent spot on the stall.
The Qi-Concealing Talisman was Old Daoist Chen's flagship product!
Among his assortment of low-grade talismans that usually sold for one spirit stone each, it was the priciest, starting at three low-grade spirit stones.
In fact, the market demand for Qi-Concealing Talismans was also the strongest, especially among cultivators venturing into the mountains to hunt demon beasts.
A talisman capable of concealing one's blood-qi for two hours could save a life at a critical juncture, making it no less valuable than most defensive talismans.
At times, Luo Chen truly envied Old Daoist Chen.
Selling any random talisman brought in at least one spirit stone; in a month, the old man easily netted over a hundred!
Unlike himself.
Previously, working himself to the bone would bring in twelve spirit stones a month, which left only six or seven after subtracting material costs.
Deduct half a stone for house rent, half a stone for the stall fee, and one stone for daily food and drink, and he was left with merely four or five stones.
And that was only after grinding relentlessly for a full year since transmigrating.
It was hard to imagine the kind of miserable life the original owner had lived before him.
Still, that envy was fleeting.
Luo Chen knew very well that among the four traditional immortal arts, each had its own hardships.
Pill refinement relied on volume and brought greater profits, but the difficulty lay in mastering recipes; going from novice to proficient with any single pill meant wasting countless cauldrons of ruined materials.
Talisman crafting relied on quality; every single talisman demanded the full concentration of the cultivator's essence, energy, and spirit while drafting, and a single slip of the brush meant total failure.
What was more, talisman masters often had rather short lifespans, for reasons unknown.
Take Chen Xiuping: he looked decrepit, yet was only in his sixties—well, that actually was rather old.
Still, Qi Refinement cultivators could theoretically live to a hundred and twenty or thirty, so sixty-something could still be considered "young."
Switching over to talisman crafting was out of the question; there was no way in this life he would spend every day essentially doing homework.
He would much rather brew medicine and roll little pills.
Besides, Luo Chen knew his own circumstances best. Reaching Grandmaster proficiency in refining Fasting Powder would allow his future earnings to double.
Though a net income of ten stones a month was still far from enough to support a path to immortality, things were at least heading in the right direction.
And on top of that, he would soon be able to start a new project, wouldn't he?
Just as Luo Chen was indulging in rosy hopes for the future, Old Daoist Chen tugged at his sleeve.
"Customers are here!"
Chapter 2