Cultivation Starts with Rejuvenation-Chapter 105 - 5: Steady Progress
Although I truthfully told Zhao Shuyao about my current alchemy skill and expressed my confidence that it would surely improve once I advanced to the Late Period of Qi Cultivation. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂
Li Ji'an didn't expect his employer to be so straightforward.
It was enough to show the employer's trust in Zhao Shuyao.
It also showed Zhao Shuyao's integrity over these decades.
She didn't even verify my pill technique!
However, Li Ji'an is confident he won't betray this trust.
After bidding farewell to the employer, Zhao Shuyao was originally about to take Li Ji'an downstairs to find Shopkeeper Wu for registration procedures, but the employer left her behind, sending Li Ji'an downstairs alone.
She not only doesn't understand Zhao Shuyao's affection for Li Ji'an, but also strongly disapproves.
The Cultivation Realm is inherently full of danger and challenges, ever-changing, and people's hearts are unfathomable; even a biological child cannot be sheltered forever in a greenhouse, let alone someone who isn't related by blood. Excessive kindness breeds trouble.
He's already twenty-six years old and not a child without the ability to fend for himself.
The main point is that Zhao Shuyao is the family's trusted maid, and her closest ties should be to our family.
Li Ji'an's thoughts are similar to his employer's; he understands the emotional support and affection Zhao Shuyao has for him but never feels justified in accepting or demanding it. After all, in his previous life, he didn't help them much, and value exchange is the basis for maintaining relationships.
This situation where he is from a younger generation feels like cheating.
After bidding farewell to the two, Li Ji'an went downstairs to register his identity and received his Nine Tripods Commerce Association Honored Guest Elder identity token.
With this identity token, he starts higher in the Immortal City compared to ordinary loose cultivators.
Before leaving, he casually purchased a batch of medicinal herbs.
After leaving the Commerce Association, Li Ji'an went directly to the residential area at the junction of the inner and outer city that he had set his sights on ten years ago.
The property rights here all belong to the Biyun Sect.
He eventually chose a newly vacated townhouse situated on an Upper Grade Spirit Vein in Tier One, with an annual rent of one hundred sixty spirit stones.
Though called a small courtyard, it's actually just two rooms with a roughly thirty-square-meter front yard.
However, this level typically requires a loose cultivator without dependents to accumulate decades of effort before they can comfortably rent it.
Insufficient skills and unstable income make the pressure of renting such a house very high.
The previous tenant was a tributor artifact refiner from another small family in the west, who, unsatisfied with skill improvement, left the family and drifted north, and now, over twenty years later, finally decided to retire in a small place.
After handling all the procedures, Li Ji'an closed the courtyard gate and released Gugu from the spirit pet bag, allowing it to dig a pond in the yard, while he immediately reported his safe arrival to Yan Qingwan and Zhang Tiezhu.
Yan Qingwan replied promptly, reassuring him not to feel pressured, as most elders in the family had no significant opinions and encouraged him to stay in touch. When the desert situation stabilizes, he is welcome back as a guest, and should the opportunity arise, she'd come to discuss alchemy skills together.
After responding to Yan Qingwan's message, he also sent Zhao Shuyao a message informing her of his address, subtly indicating that he would be focusing on his alchemy skill in the future with little time to accompany her; in truth, he didn't want her to spend too much time on him, as it might make things difficult for her with the employer.
"Phew~" After finishing the messages, Li Ji'an lay on the bed, feeling a sense of relaxation.
Fifty-seven years ago, in his first life upon entering the Cultivation Realm, he was unaware of the situation and unclear about the logic of the Cultivation Realm; he integrated himself locally and explored bit by bit, relying on his extraordinary comprehension to enter the Yan Family, making it safely through while accumulating more human connections and skills than expected in this life.
Then in the second life, he started benefiting from the Yan Family, especially receiving help from Yan Qingwan, which enabled him to nourish his spirit root within the Yan Family successfully, with his spirit root talent surpassing expectations, leading to unexpected connections with the sect, although he was indeed somewhat unprepared for this.
Due to his previous life having limited understanding of the sects at the top of the food chain in the desert, and hurriedly brought by Yan Qingwan to participate in sect trials, the process of engaging with the sect seemed a bit muddled.
But now, thanks to the human connections left from his previous life with the Yan Family, meeting his previous expectations of passing through the Middle Stage of Qi Cultivation in the Yan Family, he finally goes one step further and secures a position in the Immortal City.
Whether in broadening his horizons or resource opportunities, he starts several levels higher than in his previous life.
Stepping steadily forward, progressing life after life, one cannot rush, nor become chaotic.
After resting for three days, Li Ji'an commenced alchemy.
At the Qi Cultivation 6th Layer, yet never having consumed low-grade pills for accelerating cultivation, ensuring his dantian magical power remains pure and condensed, without any accumulation of pill toxicity, the pill fire he condenses is stronger than that of many at the Late Period of Qi Cultivation.
His pill technique has further improved on the foundation of previous lives, increasing the premium rate of mid-stage Tier One refined pills to seventy percent, and can ensure the high-grade rate of late-stage elixirs at sixty percent.
Once he advances to the Late Period of Qi Cultivation, if the pill fire further improves, then the premium rate of late-stage elixirs will also be at least sixty percent.
Three hours later, the first batch of mid-stage elixirs came off the line.
Compared to the practice-level medicinal herbs used at the Yan Family, this batch's herb quality is several times higher, costing ten spirit stones per batch, with a pill formation success rate of eighty percent, including five refined pills, one middle-grade, and two lower-grade pills.
A batch of medicinal herbs typically has a pill formation upper limit of ten pills.
According to the top-grade acquisition price for pills here, mid-stage Qi Condensing Pills, genuine lower-grade ones are two pills per spirit stone, middle-grade one pill per spirit stone, top-grade three pills per spirit stone, and premium five pills per spirit stone.
Generally, Tier One pill masters achieve a fifty percent pill formation success rate for mid-stage Qi Condensing Pills, which is considered proficient, but using such herbs mostly results in losses as they prefer refining ordinary pills with higher success rates.
Experienced pill masters have a pill formation success rate around seventy percent, with a sixty percent high-grade rate, and can achieve fifty percent profit in refining this batch of Qi Condensing Pills.
In Li Ji'an's case, the profits were more than doubled, with an additional fifty percent.
Moreover, with the honored guest elder status, pill acquisition prices rise, and herb purchasing discounts apply, making the profit per batch nearly double.
To ensure premium rates, they will maximize herb properties, so besides premium pills, other refined pills aren't particularly good.
As a Tier One pill master, earning twenty spirit stones per batch makes the earning potential formidable.
The most crucial aspect is that ordinary pill masters consume excessive magical power and divine soul in alchemy, usually refining once every three days, and diligent ones may refine every other day, but Li Ji'an has divine sense comparable to Early Period Foundation Establishment, allowing him to refine two batches in one day without issue.
However, his expenses are also high; at least in this batch of elixirs, he needs to consume two premium Qi Condensing Pills himself to enhance his cultivation.
Besides alchemy, he also needs to refine his talisman art further, and he can't neglect cultivation, so he plans to refine one batch per day.
Overall, he can earn over two hundred spirit stones monthly from alchemy, which basically covers his talisman art refinement costs, daily cultivation, and everyday expenses. If he puts in a bit more effort and refines a couple more batches, he can have surplus and provide Gugu with premium feed.
However, he doesn't aspire to work hard for prosperity but hopes that after advancing in Talisman Dao and breaking through in cultivation, he can achieve wealth through skill and quality.
A month quickly passed.
On this day, his honored guest elder identity token trembled.
Shopkeeper Wu's message carried a trace of peculiar emotion.
Normally, the bottom line for honored guest elder pill masters is to sell no less than three hundred spirit stones' worth of pills to the pill shop monthly, which also serves as an audit for alchemy skills, otherwise, they'll be dismissed.
"But there are still three days until the deadline." Li Ji'an raised his eyebrows slightly, yet understood as this is the first time, and they are unfamiliar with his alchemy skills.
