Wei Yuan bowed to Zhidan Sanren and said, "Fortunately, I have not failed my mission!"
Zhidan Sanren remained silent for a moment before turning to Xu Henshui. "You provide the critique."
"Me??" Xu Henshui's mind was utter mush. How on earth was he supposed to critique this? Was he supposed to comment on whether the posture Wei Yuan took when he sauntered over at the very end to sprinkle karmic luck looked pretty?
Steeling his nerves, he spoke with solemn gravity: "Nephew Wei's mastery over human karmic luck and primal chaos qi has reached the realm of consummate perfection—truly worthy of admiration. What makes this cauldron of pills so remarkable is its consistent quality, uniform from pill to pill, coupled with a higher yield. In my view, it is slightly superior to my own batch."
"Martial Uncle Xu produced one more two-veined pill. Martial Uncle clearly has the edge!" Wei Yuan hastened to feign modesty.
Old Daoist Zhidan delivered his final verdict: "The two of you are evenly matched, but in bringing forth the new from the old, Wei Yuan takes the lead."
Once Zhidan Sanren spoke, naturally no one objected. Though Xu Henshui had altered the recipe, Wei Yuan's method was unmistakably more shocking—it bordered on sheer heresy.
Xu Henshui quietly let out a breath of relief. At least it was a draw this time; at least he hadn't disgraced himself...
Yet an instant later, he realized something was terribly wrong. Aside from that final flourish, Wei Yuan hadn't lifted a finger! Didn't that mean Wei Yuan could throw together a few random puppets to refine pills and still fight him to a draw?!
In their previous two defeats, he had at least lost to Wei Yuan himself.
The more Xu Henshui thought about it, the more horrifying it became, his face turning an alternating green and pale. Wei Yuan, meanwhile, paid him no mind, watching Zhidan Sanren with eager, expectant eyes as he waited for his reward.
Zhidan Sanren proved straightforward enough, saying, "Your performance this time was beyond expectations. A reward is certainly due. What do you want?"
Without a moment's hesitation, Wei Yuan asked, "Can I have another fifty sets of ingredients for the Great Sun Morning Splendor Pill?"
Zhidan Sanren was taken aback. "Our stock of Huiyang Grass is running low. Where would we find fifty sets? The monastery only has twenty sets left, and the next replenishment won't be for another fifty years, so those cannot be given to you. You may choose some ancient formulas or herbs."
Wei Yuan pondered for a moment and asked, "Do you have materials for various Body Casting pills? Like Origin-Nourishing Pills, Blood Splendor Pills, and such?"
"Of those, naturally we have plenty."
Wei Yuan was overjoyed. "Then could I have a thousand jin of each?"
The disciples of the Monastery of Creation nearly fainted on the spot. A thousand jin of assorted medicinal ingredients was enough to refine a hundred thousand Origin-Nourishing Pills and ten thousand Blood Splendor Pills! What did this Wei Yuan think he was doing?
Zhidan Sanren said, "A thousand jin is naturally out of the question, but a hundred jin of each is no issue and can be granted as your reward. If you want more, you must exchange merits for them."
Wei Yuan had just been fretting over how to spend his mountain of merits. He immediately redeemed a thousand jin of each kind of herb. Combined, it came to nearly thirty thousand jin, yet cost only thirty thousand merits. Wei Yuan decided on a steady, gradual approach: he would test whether his ideas were viable with this batch of herbs first before making further moves.
Seeing that Zhidan Sanren had no other business, nor any intention of offering an immortal plant or something similar, Wei Yuan—busy as he was lately—did not linger and took his leave.
Once he was gone, Old Daoist Zhidan remained seated motionless in the main hall, and none of the other disciples dared stir.
Before the old Daoist rested two platters of pills: one with Xu Henshui's twelve, and one with Wei Yuan's eighteen.
"All of you speak up. What did you see?"
The disciples of the Monastery of Creation exchanged glances. Finally, the eldest among them spoke: "Wei Yuan's technique of using karmic luck to catalyze the pills is refined to perfection; we disciples truly fall far short. It is only unclear where he obtained that primal chaos qi. To use it to catalyze Great Sun Morning Splendor Pills seems somewhat wasteful."
Another disciple chimed in, "As a Domain Lord who has waged war year after year, it is exceedingly easy for Wei Yuan to gather human qi, whereas we have no means to acquire human qi through such methods. In my observation, the way Wei Yuan wields karmic luck is extraordinary; I fear even the Great Perfected Persons of the Hall of Heavenly Secrets are merely on par with him. It is simply beyond our reach."
With someone breaking the ice, the other disciples voiced their opinions one after another, all prostrating in admiration before Wei Yuan's final technique of catalyzing pills with karmic luck, feeling thoroughly ashamed of their own inadequacy.
Some also questioned the source of the primal chaos qi. While its grade approached that of immortal materials, it was not exceptionally rare—merely difficult to preserve, typically harvested for immediate use.
Zhidan Sanren remained silent. Only after all the disciples finished speaking did he say slowly, "All you saw was the catalytic infusion of karmic luck? Have you ever stopped to consider what would have happened had Wei Yuan not used karmic luck to catalyze the pills?"
The disciples looked somewhat bewildered, but cold sweat suddenly broke out across Xu Henshui and another young disciple.
Old Daoist Zhidan murmured, "Not bad. At least two of you understand. Let me spell it out for the rest of you: if Wei Yuan had not catalyzed them with karmic luck, there would not have been a single one-veined spirit pill in that furnace, and the final yield would have been sixteen pills."
The disciples suddenly realized the implication and drew in a sharp breath of cold air.
Each Great Sun Morning Splendor Pill was worth fifty thousand taels of immortal silver. A single batch of ingredients ranged roughly from sixty to eighty thousand taels, and what the Monastery of Creation provided was naturally top-grade material, totaling well over eighty thousand.
Wei Yuan's furnace had produced sixteen base pills, amounting to a total value of eight hundred thousand taels of immortal silver—ten times the cost of the materials. By the standards of the Monastery of Creation, five times was the passing threshold for disciples, while ten times was solidly upper-middle tier, placing one securely in the top twenty percent.
The problem was: if you disregarded the karmic luck catalysis, Wei Yuan hadn't intervened at all!
Furthermore, Wei Yuan's Dao Foundation warriors were puppets, not genuine cultivators; their spiritual aptitude couldn't compare to a true cultivator in the slightest. In other words, Wei Yuan merely rounding up a few dozen soulless puppets to brew medicine was enough to wipe out eighty percent of the disciples in the Monastery of Creation?!
Of the dozen or so monastery disciples present, only three dared claim they could surpass those lay puppets.
If even puppets could refine pills, and refine them better than they could, what did the world need alchemists like them for?
And who knew how many puppets Wei Yuan possessed? What if he had hundreds? The Monastery of Creation only needed so many pills refined each year; once there were puppets, what need was there for alchemists like them?
Seeing the expressions on his disciples' faces, Zhidan Sanren finally said, "It seems you have finally understood. Once you return, think long and hard about your future path. If you cannot stably produce one-veined spirit pills, what use are you?"
Zhidan Sanren turned and left. The disciples stood dazed for a while before dispersing as well.
The most talented young disciple walked alongside Xu Henshui and whispered, "Senior Brother Xu, are the good days of us alchemists coming to an end?"
Xu Henshui's face was equally grim. He sighed. "I fear it is worse than that. I'm afraid an entire era is passing us by."
The young disciple managed a strained smile. "At least we still have a bit of room to survive."
"Mere lingering on the verge of death, that's all."
...
Wei Yuan was in high spirits at this moment. Inside the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, things were also boiling with excitement—some summarizing data, others refining optimization.
Even more were strategists who had already begun envisioning a future where they swept clean the entire alchemy industry, drove every alchemist to extinction, and left the whole world dependent on Qingming's medicine alone. Then Qingming could sell remedies for common headaches and fevers for a hundred taels apiece, guaranteed to fleece everyone down to their last copper.
Reviewing these reports, Wei Yuan actually realized it seemed completely feasible, which brought a sheen of cold sweat to his back. If he truly did this, regardless of whether cultivators rebelled, even immortals might come knocking at his door with murder in mind. Therefore...
One still had to be brimming with martial virtue.
Taking his thoughts a step deeper, Wei Yuan felt that if his blades were not sharp, he would merely be saving money on someone else's behalf. Expecting those mighty, high-cultivation immortals to reason with you? Wei Yuan considered that pure naivety; if he himself became an immortal, he certainly wouldn't bother reasoning with anyone either.
Wei Yuan pondered over and over, while the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World turned out over a dozen versions of proposals before finally settling on a viable plan. What Wei Yuan initially planned to target was the Origin-Nourishing Pill—the very pill he had consumed countless times in his youth, and had once presented to Bao Yun as a precious gift.
Even now, Wei Yuan vividly remembered how he had clutched those Origin-Nourishing Pills, feeling brimming with sincere goodwill as he paid her a visit, only to step through the gate and find a thousand-year Celestial Star Nightshade planted merely as an ornamental tree in her garden.
The mere thought of it made Wei Yuan feel awkward from head to toe. Though many years had passed, he still wished he could find a crack in the ground to crawl into.
He suddenly realized something was amiss with his Dao heart, but now was not the past—Wei Yuan already possessed a solution. With a flicker of his figure, he appeared in Bao Yun's room in the blink of an eye.
Bao Yun was meditating. Seeing Wei Yuan enter, a smile unconsciously spread across her face. But before she could speak, Wei Yuan swept her into his arms, gave her two resounding smacks on the backside, and vanished.
Bao Yun was utterly bewildered, having no idea what kind of madness had suddenly possessed Wei Yuan. Still... as long as this fellow was willing to take the initiative to come see her, that was a good thing.
Bao Yun was in no hurry. Her net remained spread wide. For now, the prey was merely prancing along the edges; sooner or later, the day would come when it jumped straight into the center of the web to court its own doom.
Having done that, Wei Yuan's Dao heart was finally clear and unburdened. Naturally, wild horses could not drag the reason out of him in front of Bao Yun.
Only when the day came that Wei Yuan ascended to an immortal throne could such anecdotes be brought up in casual conversation; people would merely remark that even an immortal had once had such down-to-earth moments.
Thus, whether a matter was noble or embarrassing was never fixed—it depended entirely on where that person was currently sitting.
Having finished his antics, Wei Yuan continued formulating his plan for the Origin-Nourishing Pill.
The Origin-Nourishing Pills of the Palace of Grand Beginning had exceedingly potent medicinal power and could only be ingested by those with extraordinary bone structure. The Body Casting practitioners in Qingming had mediocre aptitudes; swallowing a single pill would undoubtedly cause their bodies to explode and kill them.
Wei Yuan calculated the medicinal potency and judged that if diluted to one percent, ordinary folk in Qingming taking one pill a month would suffer no harm, while saving a month of grueling cultivation.
In this way, the progress through the initial Sinew and Muscle Realm of Body Casting could be doubled in speed, while allowing those who originally had no chance at Body Casting to step through the threshold. And there were plenty of such people.
Taking Qingming as an example: out of ten thousand people under normal circumstances, a little over three thousand could achieve Body Casting, only a dozen or so could form a Dao Foundation, and not a single one would reach the dharma idol stage—one appeared only out of several hundred thousand. In other words, if Qingming developed steadily for several decades, perhaps four or five dharma idol cultivators might emerge naturally.
However, if there were enough Origin-Nourishing Pills, an additional two thousand out of every ten thousand people could step past the threshold of Body Casting to catch a glimpse of the cultivating world's scenery.
Upon mastering the rudimentary Sinew and Muscle Realm, a mortal would gain several hundred jin of raw strength out of thin air, able to carry a hundred jin of heavy cargo while walking briskly, or pull a wagon weighing thousands of jin. If there were enough Body Casting cultivators, there would be no need for draft beasts in the fields.
Wei Yuan promptly resolved to optimize the refining process of the Origin-Nourishing Pill, reducing each pill's efficacy to one percent of the original. In the Palace of Grand Beginning, an Origin-Nourishing Pill was priced at one hundred twenty taels. Wei Yuan's version ought reasonably to be priced at one tael; after all, as a Qingming product, it should carry a discount.
Naturally, Wei Yuan couldn't actually sell it for one tael—cultivators in Qingming were dirt-poor. And so Wei Yuan found himself torn: the price couldn't be too steep, yet room had to be left for the future, and foreign merchant caravans couldn't be given too wide an arbitrage margin either.
This was a complex dilemma. Wei Yuan pondered earnestly for a long time, unable to decide how many multiples of profit would be ideal.
Conscience wished to speak up, but it found that it did not belong to Wei Yuan.
Chapter 654