I stepped into the alchemist shop and looked around. The Ambassador was willing to delay talking with Mike for an hour or two while I got what I needed, as an extra hour of practice for them could mean the difference between success or failure, but talking with Mike an hour earlier wouldn’t change much.
I wanted both Five and her mother to learn alchemy as quickly as possible, so I would need to give them all of the supplies that they could use for the next few days. One of the main things that held people back in their studies, after all, was a shortage of resources. In this case, I actually could help the situation by throwing money at the problem, at least up to a point.
I thought about going to Ji Cha’s to get them a superior manual, as it would be poetic for a member of the Ji family to help them embarrass another member of the family, but I hadn’t seen any alchemist manuals there other than the basic alchemist path book, which only contained the basics and only allowed them to advance to level two in the field of alchemy, with no actual advancement techniques. This was similar to my own talismonger book, which only taught the common talismans that were in high demand, with none of them being over level two effects.
That made sense if you thought about it, though. While teaching people the basics would let the family find talented alchemists, they wouldn’t suffer a loss if they happened to miss one. If, however, they sold a lower grade version of their family technique, the person could learn much about their methods without joining the family, thus letting them lose some market influence. Instead, they would try to recruit anyone who performed well with the basic technique and would offer them a lower grade version of the family technique if they agreed to join for a long term contract or even join the family.
If I visited an alchemist shop, however, they would not only likely have the texts, but all of the supplies needed to make pills, like how the talismonger shops sold papers, ink, and other things needed to make talismans. This shop, the Blue Orchid, was also owned by the Mo family, a noble family that competed with the Ji family in the field of alchemy, but never had more than a few percent of the local market share. A woman that looked to be in her early twenties but was likely in her thirties, about my age, stood behind the counter. She seemed to be late level two in strength. I walked up to the counter and bowed. “Greetings. My name is Li Kev. I wish to ask about purchasing everything needed to learn alchemy.”
The woman bowed in return, “I am Mo Lin. ‘Everything needed to learn alchemy’ is a very large list. There is much variation in the field and, depending on what you wish to accomplish, you may need to develop your skills in very different directions. Can you be more specific? What is it you wish to accomplish?”
I nodded. “Then I shall be more forthcoming. I recently purchased two cultivator slaves from the Ji family, and placed a bet with them as to whether either of the slaves had alchemy talent. Because I hope to win the bet, I want to try and teach them everything they might need to know by eight in the morning, the day after tomorrow, when the test is scheduled. I know that likely isn’t enough time to learn to make pills, but I was hoping to get them close enough that they at least made a good showing.”
Mo Lin nodded. “Yes, the fastest I’ve seen someone learn the make pills was one week, and that was with my family’s entire resources behind them. Tell me, what do these two cultivator slaves already know about alchemy?”
I shrugged. “I’m not sure. I know the mother is currently studying the Chef’s path, and the daughter the Gardener’s Path. I also know that they both have decent fire control, as the mother taught the daughter well enough that the daughter dried my clothes using a frying pan and didn’t burn them. The mother has a fire root, and has learned from the Chef’s path how to control the flame directly with her qi.”
Mo Lin nodded. “That is good. It might not be quite as good as the fire control needed by an alchemist for the more complex pills, but that level of fire control is good enough to make most of the pills which they might be tested on, and fire control is something most alchemists struggle with when they first start learning to refine pills.” She nodded and thought for a few seconds. “If that is all they know, however, the mother will likely have a slight advantage, as the Chef’s path teaches one most of the skills needed to prepare pill embryos. The daughter might do well at growing medicinal herbs, but that will only help a bit with the herb knowledge part of the test, not the more important pill crafting sections.”
She went over to a bookshelf and grabbed a book on something called the ‘Taiji Refinement Art’. “This technique is much better than the ‘Qi thread refinement art’ taught in the Alchemist Path, but is a bit more difficult to learn. It is a Buddhist method which involves splitting the ingredients into those that are yin attributed and those that are yang attributed, mixing them separately, then merging the two sets of ingredients synergistically to create a superior quality pill. I’m not sure if they can learn it in time, but if they can, it should improve their pill quality significantly, and may allow them to make a wider variety of pills, though it won’t work with all pills. Most of the basic level one pills can be made using it, however, as long as you use the right ingredients. Those formulas aren’t as strict as those at higher levels.”
I nodded. “Do you have this technique in a jade form?” I asked. “My martial brother’s dao companion is an alchemist, and I believe she might also be interested in it.”
Mo Lin nodded. “Yes. It is common enough that I have jades of that book, and not just books. In fact, Jade form might actually work better for you, as they are faster to read.” She went behind her desk and opened a chest, then pulled out three jade slips. “I have it in High, Average, and Low grade. No Petty, as it isn’t normally something a beginner would want.”
“In that case, I will take a High and an Average. I will let them study with both, but take the High with me when I return home.”
She returned the Low grade jade to the box, but looked confused. “You won’t take your new slaves with you?”
I shook my head. “I need to prepare some things before I can make the most of their skills, so will be leaving them with a friend, who is a high elder in the White Tiger guild. The sect lacks an alchemist at the moment and the men of the family will make good manual laborers for helping them build the sect town.”
She nodded. “Understandable. Many independent cultivators purchase things with future plans in mind, but with people you can’t just put them in a storage bag or warehouse and pull them out once you can use them.”
“Well, technically I might be able to put them in a beast storage bag, but I would still need to take them out every few hours, and I don’t want to do that to such nice people.”
She smiled. “I have heard of people transporting criminal slaves to mines like that, as it allows them to prevent the slaves from knowing where they are going and how long it took to arrive, but it would be a bit cruel to do that for standard debt slaves.” She reached into the chest again and pulled out two more slips. “These are the Alchemist Herb Guides for level one plants, also in average and high grade. They will need those to have a better chance with the herb identity portion of the test.”
“Do you also have the level two herb guides?” I asked. “My Martial brother’s dao companion is about to advance to level two and is already competent with level one pills, so she can likely get some use from it.”
Mo Lin shook her head. “Only in Average and Low. I sold my last High quality to a caravan alchemist three weeks ago, and haven’t bought a replacement yet.”
I nodded. “Then, two Average quality ones will work. So, we have the herb knowledge and a superior refinement method. What else do we need?”
The Alchemy Path book, which I already had a copy of, had a good enough method for creating pill embryos, as they were little more than traditional medicine pills at level one and for most level two pills, so they didn’t need a new technique for that. They also both had good enough fire control, which they needed to adapt to alchemy, so for now a text on fire control techniques wouldn’t be needed and would just confuse them. Likewise, they didn’t really need a cultivation technique or the knowledge of how to make fire or medicine spirits, because those would be useful in the future, but just a distraction at the moment. If either of them proved to have a talent for alchemy I could bring them back here and buy them such things, but for now I didn’t need them.
Stolen story; please report.
What they really needed was practice. So I bought everything they would need to make the pills. First were the herbs, one hundred sets each of the ingredients for ten of the most basic pills, at one stone per set. These were the nine types of recovery pills, plus the chi recovery pills. She didn’t have enough demon cores in stock for so many recovery pills, but I could go and get those for them tomorrow by simply hunting level one Vrooshkin. Each set of ingredients could make ten pills, so that means that they could, theoretically, make ten thousand pills. For that reason I bought two crates, one hundred each, of porcelain bottles to put the pills in. High end pills used more expensive or harder to work with materials like Jade or spirit wood in their bottles to help preserve the effects, but level one pills didn’t benefit much from such storage methods unless you planned on storing them for decades.
I also bought a medicine board and two small stone cauldrons that could handle one small batch at a time. The first one, for the mother, could be controlled more easily with fire qi, allowing her to easily control the heat. The second one controlled the heat of the burning spirit wood by placing it in a sealed stone box underneath the cauldron and only opening a vent slightly to allow enough air that it can burn only as fast as the alchemist wanted it to. There was a method for controlling the wood’s burn rate using a wood root like Five had, but she already had too much to learn in a short time.
I also bought a bottle of ten average quality brain recovery pills, for when the mental stress got too strong, and a bottle of average quality chi recovery pills, for when they ran out of qi, thus allowing them to cram for a long period, possible overnight, before needing to rest. Before I finished the transaction I had one more thing to ask about. “Would it be possible to purchase your memories of preparing for the test, or even the memories of you using the Taiji Refinement Art or crafting level one pills? I think they would benefit greatly from first hand experience.”
The woman shook her head. “While I have heard of some masters teaching their disciples alchemy by directly sharing the memories of their experience, I lack the skill to place my memories within a Jade for that purpose. Furthermore, my experience and memories in alchemy is fairly personal and, while there are more personal things you could have asked about, I don’t feel comfortable sharing my experience with a stranger.”
I nodded. “I didn’t know that it was so personal. I apologize.” I said, and bowed. I would gladly sell my memories on talisman crafting if anyone asked for them, so I didn’t see the issue, but respected her opinion. After paying for everything I promised to return with the women if either of them passed the test and could become an official alchemist. At that point they could use a proper alchemist cultivation technique and not just whatever the family taught them to make the most basic form of advancement. At that point they would be worth investing more into, and even the Ji family would want them to have a descent technique, likely giving them a poor or low quality version of the family method.
I returned to the mansion and gave them everything I had just purchased in a storage bag, then gave them both small storage bags of their own, as the family hadn’t given them any when they were slaves. After teaching them the shrinking technique and having them practice a bit, I allowed them to pick from all of the empty bags I took off of the dead disciples. The mother got a large one that had simple cloud shapes on it, going for utility, and Five chose one with about as much space at her skill level with the shrinking technique as a backpack, going for looks. I then gave them the Layered Reading and Jade Memory Transfer Technique jades, teaching them the most basic form of the second technique so that they could get started.
I asked them to study as much as they could until the test, and explained the purpose of the pills I bought them as well. The mother, who I learned was named Qin Jiang, didn’t want to accept that I had spent over 1200 stones on their training, but I shook my head. “Don’t worry about it. I can sell any excess pills you make and earn my money back pretty quickly once you are good enough.” This seemed to calm her down and convince her to do her best to learn the process of alchemy.
After promising to get them some spirit wood for use in their cauldrons and some beast cores for making recovery pills, I went to find the Ambassador. The pills could technically be made without the cores, but would lose most of their ability to store qi, so they weren’t technically needed, and the family had plenty of wood which they would likely be allowed to use, but I didn’t want to take the chance that they wouldn’t be allowed to.
I escorted the Ambassador to meet with Mike, and they rented a private room at a nearby restaurant, as it was nearing lunch. After all of the food was served I put the seal plate on the door and activated it to prevent spying, then the Ambassador started trying to persuade Mike to help in the battle. They talked for over two hours, but in the end Mike only agreed to feed them intelligence on the three rival sects in exchange for spirit stones, something he was certain he could convince the council to accept.
To facilitate this, the Ambassador handed Mike the plans for a level five teleportation array. While it would cost over one million stones to build, would use massive amounts of qi to operate, and require a level five cultivator to activate for the first time, essentially holding a microscopic portal which the array expanded and shrunk, the Ambassador promised him a solution to all of those issues. First, the ambassador gave him two cubic meter blocks of smokey quartz, holding roughly one million four hundred and forty thousand stones of qi. These could easily be traded with rich cultivation families for the needed materials. Second, the array schematic had an optional array for gathering qi from a dragon vein to power it, and the sect base had a small one. While Mike had seen the calculations that it could release up to five billion stones of qi before reaching the same pressure as the outside, he didn’t want to waste the energy, so he would be limiting its use. As for the array needing a level five cultivator to create the initial portal, the Ambassador promised he had a way to solve that issue.
“I assume you’ll have Adams do it?” asked Mike, and the Ambassador shook his head.
“Actually, I will have Lindstrom do it. He may be on a mission right now, but by the time you finish building the array, I promise that he will be available to do so.” I wasn’t sure how he was going to do so, as Lindstrom had been incognito since almost dying in the first battle with the sects, but as an ambassador he might have special means to convince an Admiral.
While they talked I looked over the schematic. While most of the array looked similar to the level four transportation array at the Eastern Gate sect, only far more complex, there were sections reminiscent of the array at Fort Lindstrom, based on earth electrical and qi circuits. This had likely been designed to pass as a local array, but with the added security of an Earth device, allowing better filtering of what went through as well as both manual and automatic control once a formation control system from Earth could be installed, presumably after the war was over and the United States could start selling their wares on this world once again. I did my best to remember everything in the document, in case anything there could help me in the future. While I wasn’t a formation master, and couldn’t understand what the various parts did outside of a few common devices I had seen Dave, Liza, and Gabriel add to our products, I could memorize the layout and mostly replicate it later if I could find the specified materials.
After they finished the parts of their conversation that shouldn’t be heard by outsiders, I opened the barrier and allowed the waitress to clean off the table and bring in two bottles of fine spirit rice wine. They started discussing the trade of livestock. This was mostly to keep up appearances, but we actually could use the spirit beasts on Earth. After I explained to the Ambassador how much the eating spirit beast meat helped at the White Tiger Sect, the ambassador seemed interested in raising them to replace the meat in the military diet. I wasn’t sure how storing or canning the meat would effect the quality, but by studying the Chef’s path they might be able to devise a way to fully preserve and even amplify the effects of the meat, making spirit MREs available in a year or two.
The array could act as a level four transportation array as well, and be linked to any other level three or four transportation array that was within its range, so Mike would be using that feature to fake having only installed a level four array, something which was rare in small sects but not unheard of, as they usually installed level three arrays limited to two or three thousand li in transport distance. He could explain it away, however, as an outside investor, namely the Ambassador, wanting to be able to move goods and therefore being willing to loan the sect the twenty thousand or so stones it would cost to build one instead of the thousand or so of a level three array. The array would allow them to trade with High River and the Eastern Gate sect, which were both within range of a level three array, but would also allow them to connect to the Golden Saber Sect and Prajna Temple once Mike convinced them to allow the connection for trade purposes.
Once the discussions were finished, the Ambassador ordering over ten thousand stones of animals to be available in two weeks, we set out for the mansion once more. While the Ambassador had arranged for us to travel to Crystal Summit with the Ji family’s next caravan, a group that would set out the day after the alchemy trial, and I would be accompanying him, he had arranged for the animals to be placed in beast bags, which we would pick up on our way back. Mike then bowed and thanked him, and returned to the sale area, where Ben had taken over while he was in the meeting. Once they returned to the sect he would immediately be sending Randy out with a group of lesser elders and level two disciples to the Beast Valley to the north, so that they could gather the full order in time.
