Clad in black robes and trousers, his head covered by a black veil mask, Luo Chen stepped through the courtyard gate and cast a cautious glance behind him.
The dim, secluded alley was completely silent.
Luo Chen moved behind the door and stood in silence for a while.
"No one is tailing me."
Confirming that he had not been followed home, Luo Chen let out a sigh of relief.
Low-level cultivators actually possessed very few methods of concealment, and tracking techniques were even scarcer, usually requiring the aid of talismans or magical artifacts.
Thus, as long as one was careful, it was fairly easy to notice whether anyone was following behind.
Now that he had drawn the attention of the Great River Gang, Luo Chen resolved that whenever he went in or out from now on, he had to be careful, careful, and careful again.
Just as he turned around, his entire body suddenly froze, the hairs on his arms standing on end.
Over in the corner of the wall stood a quiet figure dressed in white, waist-length hair cascading down her back.
Luo Chen swallowed hard. It couldn't be a ghost, could it?!
But soon, he relaxed.
It was a person!
"Why hasn't it sprouted even after two months?"
The woman in white seemed to be talking to herself.
"Could it be that the herb gatherer gave me fake Purple Sun Flower seeds?"
"Ahem."
A cough sounded from by the door, and the woman turned around.
"Fellow Daoist Luo Chen?"
"Fellow Daoist Fu Xiuxiu?"
"Mhm."
So it was his neighbor from the east wing!
Luo Chen walked over to her side and asked curiously, "What are you doing?"
Fu Xiuxiu said ruefully, "I spent a spirit stone on some Purple Sun Flower seeds and planted them two months ago. Coming home this time, I thought I'd see some sprouts, but there's nothing at all."
Luo Chen followed her gaze and looked suspiciously at that corner of the courtyard.
Wasn't this the exact spot where he usually practiced his Fireball Art and Entangling Art?
Seeds?
He had scorched and replaced the dirt and stones here dozens of times!
With a dry chuckle, Luo Chen said lamely, "Maybe the soil and climate just didn't suit them!"
Fu Xiuxiu sighed and gave a helpless nod.
"The yin energy around here is a bit heavy, and quite a few plants I potted haven't grown well either. On top of that, I'm rarely home, so they're all practically dying."
Luo Chen blinked. "Is that so?"
"That should be why. I really ought to bring them out to get more sun." Fu Xiuxiu sighed.
Moving past the topic, she eyed Luo Chen's outfit curiously.
"Fellow Daoist Luo, what were you doing dressed like that?"
"Just call me Xiao Luo! I wasn't up to anything special in these clothes; I'm just used to wearing black."
Hearing a ninth-layer Qi Refinement cultivator call him "Fellow Daoist" with every other breath still made Luo Chen feel rather awkward.
Seeing that Luo Chen was unwilling to elaborate, Fu Xiuxiu did not press the matter.
She glanced at the night sky and extended an invitation to Luo Chen.
"It's rare for me to come back, so I'm planning to host dinner for the neighbors. Xiao Luo, would you like to join?"
Someone offering a free meal? There was such a wonderful thing?
Then he, Luo Chen, was naturally bound by honor not to refuse!
Having changed into fresh clothes, Luo Chen sat on the child-sized swing in the courtyard, waiting for Fu Xiuxiu to prepare dinner while pondering his upcoming plans.
The raw ingredients costing four hundred spirit stones were by far his largest investment to date!
This time, failure was not an option.
Therefore, before refining the pills, every single detail had to be carefully thought through.
First was the new pill refinement equipment—the Purple Cloud Bronze Furnace.
Switching from a spirit iron wok to a magical artifact cauldron would undoubtedly involve major differences.
He first needed to familiarize himself with the Purple Cloud Bronze Furnace so that if any errors arose during refinement, he wouldn't be unable to salvage the batch in time.
Second was the processing of certain raw ingredients.
He could no longer rely on his old methods.
The spirit iron wok was small and could not withstand extreme heat, so he had been forced to refine with relatively low heat. With less heat, the process naturally took much longer.
Over lengthy refinement times, the herbs had to be processed more conservatively.
But the Purple Cloud Bronze Furnace came with no such concerns; being a magical artifact, it could easily endure blistering temperatures.
That meant he could be far bolder in how he treated several of those raw materials.
Lastly was the construction of a pill refinement room.
Indeed, Luo Chen planned to partition off a refinement chamber inside his rented reverse-facing room.
The Purple Cloud Bronze Furnace had a large footprint, and burning firewood would require a dedicated fire pit, lined with heat-insulating bricks at the bottom to prevent heat loss.
The surrounding walls would ideally be built with cloud sand bricks for good breathability.
Otherwise, if medicinal fumes leaked, he might well be knocked out and poisoned right where he stood.
Pondering every single one of these tasks gave Luo Chen a slight headache.
He was certainly going to have his hands full!
"Hey!"
A petite figure suddenly bounded in front of him.
Luo Chen gave a helpless greeting. "Miss Xiao Ling, you're off work?"
Wasn't that stating the obvious? The person was standing right in front of him.
Yet in real life, greetings often went like that.
Someone eating would get hit with, "Having a meal?"
Someone finishing a shift got, "Off work, huh?"
The worst was bumping into a friend in a public restroom only to have them ask, "Taking a dump?"
No shit, what else would someone be squatting over a stall for!
Bai Meiling naturally had no idea Luo Chen's mind was wandering off into such absurdities. She held out a fair, tender hand.
"What?" Luo Chen asked, puzzled.
"Where are the pills you refined? Let me see if they're some demonic dao pills!"
"You sure poke your nose into everything!"
Bai Meiling put her hands on her hips. "As your seventh-layer Qi Refinement neighbor, can't I keep an eye on you?"
Damn it, what I hate most in this life is people flexing their cultivation realm over me!
Luo Chen took a deep breath, put on an obliging smile, and brought out a pill.
Bai Meiling took it with curiosity. "A Fasting Pill? No, wait, it's Fasting Powder. The quality is decent, though—superior-grade, even."
She looked Luo Chen up and down for a moment and couldn't help nodding.
"You might be a quiet fellow, but you're actually pretty capable. A pity, though—if you had the recipe for Fasting Pills, with a little practice you could easily turn it into a livelihood."
Luo Chen had originally intended just to humor the woman and get it over with.
But hearing her say that, his interest was instantly piqued.
He had always known that the Fasting Pills he made were actually only Fasting Powder.
Otherwise, why would five bottles of Fasting Powder—a full fifty pills—fetch only a single low-grade spirit stone in total?
A genuine Fasting Pill was a Tier 1 pill on par with a Qi-Nourishing Pill.
A bottle of ten sold for a hundred spirit stones—now that was true, immense profit!
If he knew how to refine real Fasting Pills, wouldn't he strike it rich?
"Do you have the pill recipe for Fasting Pills?"
Facing Luo Chen's thirsting gaze, Bai Meiling spread her hands.
"Of course I don't! Recipes like that are held tightly by the great sects. How could I possibly have one?"
Luo Chen rolled his eyes. Then why did you even bring it up?
He wasn't particularly disappointed, though.
Or rather, he had never harbored much hope when it came to recipes for mainstream pills.
Not only in Dahe Market, but across the entire Jade Cauldron Domain and even the Far East Six Domains, the recipes for mainstream pills were strictly controlled.
At the slightest leak, sect cultivators would use every means at their disposal to recover them.
They would buy them out, seize them by force, or recruit the alchemists capable of refining them into their own ranks.
To this, Luo Chen's verdict was: Damn monopolists, may they die a miserable death!
In truth, he could understand the sects' rationale.
This world was exceedingly rich in resources. Whether in the territories inhabited by humans or the wild mountains and great marshes teeming with demonic beasts, there were countless natural treasures.
When raw materials could not be restricted, controlling pill recipes became the best leverage.
That way, mainstream pills could only be refined, allocated, and sold by the sects.
Through this, the great sects could ensure their profits far surpassed those of cultivation clans and rogue cultivators.
If not for that, where would the great sects get such lavish benefits, freely distributing magical artifacts, Daoist robes, and even precious storage bags to their disciples on a whim?
"Xiao Ling, Xiao Luo, dinner is ready."
A gentle voice drifted over. Luo Chen hurried into the east wing, which was Fu Xiuxiu's home.
Bai Meiling followed behind him, but after taking a couple of steps, she sensed something was off.
"Fire hound whip can be used to refine Fasting Powder too?"
Chapter 38