I had been sent a letter with the details of the Quest involved with Yi Liuxiang. I still had a day left, and I decided to use my time to sort through my notes.
Sect Task: Gather the twelve essence spirit lotuses near village Taizhou and look into the rumblings and rousing spirit beasts near the village, scouting the area for the presence of abnormal activities. Two or more third realm cultivators are required.
Disciples will be rewarded with six sect tokens upon completion of the task.
I needed to prepare my batch of pills for my next trade with Su Lin as well. With my own spirit herb garden, I had a lower need to rely on Su Lin, allowing me more freedom in how many spirit herbs I could use up for experiments.
I opened my notes, a bundle of over three stacks of parchment filled with messy writing in the jumble of theories and ideas that I’d collected, with one solely dedicated simply towards the many questions that I wanted to eventually answer.
I definitely needed a decade or two already to go through all of this work, and it would probably only get worse as time passes. I was so glad to have relatively good recall on almost all relevant information that I needed.
The sad part, that I regretted, was not lightly reading through everything I had around me. Even a light read would give me a basis to recreate and rediscover things. But things I didn’t know, I’ll simply never know about.
Yet despite that, I had read my fair share of books. And if you didn’t know how to take notes, then college was going to be a rough time. Both factors helped in what I could shamelessly proclaim to be my research manual.
The first note was filled with my progress on my pills, and the newer pills that I’d been creating and experimenting with. I’d changed the notations I used to represent the improvements slightly more accurately.
Qi Gathering Pill: (Per batch of ten pills)
Cost of Production: 1 silver 7 copper → 1 silver 3 copper
Cost of Sale: 5 silver
Cost Reduction: 3.7% decrease
Success rate of production: 80%
Profit (Success rate 100%): 3 silver 97 copper
Adjusted Profit: 2 silver 97 copper
Qi used in creation: 0.5 spirit stone (rough)
Qi output initial: 1.5 spirit stone
Qi output: 1.725 spirit stone (rough)
Effectiveness Increase: 111% → 115% (Rough estimate)
The pill that I’d worked the most on. I’d learned how to gain more accurate readings on the Qi output and input in terms of spirit stone. I’d found that using water at atmospheric pressure and temperature worked as well, but I hadn’t been able to find a way to accurately measure the amount of Qi being sent into a litre of water. Just getting a precise amount of water needed a lot of weights and measurements even when I knew the density of water and could calculate the rest from that.
Another thing I eventually planned to establish better as it’d allow me to create a universal measurement for Qi. The amount of Qi a litre of water held at atmospheric pressure and temperature could serve as a unit.
For now, I was going to have to stick to spirit stone as a measurement.
Body Purification Pill: (Per batch of ten pills)
Cost of Production: 2 silver → 1 silver 97 copper
Cost of Sale: 7 silver 10 copper
Cost Reduction: 1.5% decrease
Success rate of production: 75%
Profit (Success rate 100%): 5 silver 13 copper
Adjusted Profit: 3 silver 35 copper
Qi used in creation: 2 spirit stone (rough)
Qi output initial: 2.5 spirit stone
Qi output: 2.75 spirit stone (rough)
Effectiveness Increase: 103% → 104% (Rough estimate)
Having to deal with fraction usage of spirit stones used per pill was a hassle of its own, as the values would vary due to many factors and would depend on both how I used my own Qi and how many pills I successfully created per batch, making putting any numbers that much more difficult.
For now, I could get up to a single decimal point of a spirit stone’s measurement accurately by sensing the amount of Qi. Yet the factor of human error present there was something I definitely disliked.
Qi Reinforcement Pill: (Per batch of ten pills)
Cost of Production: 6 silver
Cost of Sale: 15 silver
Cost Reduction: None
Success rate of production: 33.33%
Profit (Success rate 100%): 9 silver
Adjusted Profit: -3 Silver
Qi used in creation: 5 spirit stone (rough)
Qi output initial: 8 spirit stone (rough)
Qi output: 8.1 spirit stones (rough)
Effectiveness Increase: 101.25% (Approx)
Qi Reinforcement pills would be the highest value for time and money. If it wasn’t for the fact that I failed them even two out of three times. A lot better than the 10% success I’d started with but the end result was still a net loss for me.
Qi tempering pill (Per batch of ten pills)
Cost of Production: 11 Silver
Cost of Sale: Null
Cost Reduction: Null
Success rate of production: Only one successful batch yet. (Not yet sold)
Profit : Null
Qi used in creation: 12 spirit stone (rough)
Qi output initial: Unknown
Qi output: Unknown
Effectiveness Increase: Null
Qi tempering pills were another thing that stumped me, as the pills were not potent enough to have any effect on a third realm cultivator, and so far, the single pill I’d made, I’d hesitated over giving to Labby, as I couldn’t ascertain if it would be harmful or not, deciding against it in the end.
There was also the Grenade/Moltov pills I’d created as well.
Grenade/Molotov pills (Per batch of ten pills)
Cost of Production: 15 Silver 30 copper
Cost of Sale: No.
Cost Reduction: None
Success rate of production: 66.66%
Profit: Let’s not become a firearms dealer just yet okay?
Qi used in creation: 20 spirit stones (really not sure)
Qi output initial: 50 spirit stone (Dunno)
Qi output: 50 spirit stones.
Effectiveness Increase: 100% (No improvements)
I should probably put this pill in another notebook of its own, but I was hesitant to create an explosive entry just yet. I swear I wasn’t trying to create bombs! I’m innocent!
There was also the fact that this pill was expensive. Ridiculously so. I’d only made three batches, and with two successes I had around twenty of these pills, with seventeen or so remaining after testing. If I made any more, I’d be making a loss from these. Science needed a lot of money, a lot more than I’d anticipated. Perhaps I should look into a buyer for these.
Shaking my head, I had a look at the total amount I’d made in the last, two months. I sat silently for a moment, realising that it was already been a whole two months since I’d arrived here. Not something I’d been expecting.
I’d increased the amount of pills I was giving to Su Lin from a measly five to around forty to fifty or so pills each week. Something I’ll probably increase even more as I had my own spirit garden now.
Even with a 75% cut of the sales, the total amount I’d made had been more than Lu Jie had ever got to see in his entire life. Just under two months.
Month 1:
Week 1 income: 1 silver 3 copper
Week 2 income: 4 silver 30 copper
Week 3 income: 10 silver 50 copper
Week 4 income: 12 silver
Total Income (my share): 20 silver 87 copper.
Around this time was when I’d spend a big part of what I’d earned to get the spirit herbs and my new cauldron. The numbers spoke for themselves on whether it was worth it or not.
Month 2:
Week 1 income: 15 silver 61 copper
Week 2 income: 24 silver 72 copper
Week 3 income: 21 silver 10 copper
Week 4 income: 38 silver 57 copper
Total income (my share): 75 silver
Total Income: 95 silver and 87 copper
Expenditure: 18 silver 25 copper
Remaining: 77 silver 62 copper
Around nineteen gold coins more, before I had enough to get my own Lab. Staring at my goal, I closed the notebook, breathing a sigh. There was a lot of work to be done and not nearly enough time to do all of it.
I put the note away, picking up my other book. This was the one I’d filled with my speculation and ideas for how Qi worked. There were many different observations. A list of Qi pressure based on the amount of Qi being used, which was far too vague and not yet working.
Creating a whole new branch of magic science was difficult, anyone who said otherwise needed a punch or two to the face.
The more fun part had been the theories and possible ideas to test them. One of the biggest theories I had was on how Qi worked in cultivation. Not exactly a theory but so far, from what I had learned from the various textbooks, the process could be defined as internal alchemy to create Qi.
A cultivator would absorb the Heavenly Chi from the world around them, and then refine it in their dantian, converting the Chi to Qi, which was what the cultivator could control, sense and use.
The two terms were somewhat interchangeable, with Chi just meaning dormant Qi that wasn’t tied to the cultivator. I could flex my own Qi, yet the Qi in the air around me, I had to pull towards my body and cultivate it first, before using it.
Thus the distinction.
So the dantian was essentially a storage and refinery two in one duo that produced the fuel needed to allow the various arts and superhuman activities. A book guiding the meridians across the body and the pathways had shown me the presence of a system in the body of a cultivator dedicated entirely to the process of taking Qi around them.
This led me back to Su Lin’s crippled brother. The lack of Qi in his body made sense with how his dantian, which produces and stores Qi, was in shambles. What Su Lin was doing - feeding him Qi - would be absorbed by his body before it escaped, keeping him alive.
I couldn’t really say much more without having to actually go check on the guy, but the ideas made sense in theory. The possible solution was to simply fix his Dantian, or create him a new one.
My gaze went to my notes, highlighting the spirit herb cultivation method I had as being a chain of external dantians linked to me. Which was essentially what the method did. I used the spirit herbs as an extension of myself to draw in the Chi from the air and send Qi towards my dantian.
The questions that I needed to answer were the how and the why? Something I hoped I could get some insights on with the second layer of the library.
From what I’d read, the higher realm you were the greater your control on your Qi. Eventually, ascension would have you able to freely manipulate Chi around you. If there was anything that came close to a god figure, it’d be a person capable of doing that.
“Master! Labby has done the “addition” questions! Can she get a treat?”
Labby squeaked, coming closer to me as she dragged a sheet of parchment over. I’d taught Labby how to use her paws to write on the parchment, which had worked pretty well, and now, I’d been giving her questions and finding out that Labby was most certainly smarter than most children. I’d put her at around the intelligence of an eight to ten-year-old, but the rate at which she was learning was extremely fast.
I smiled, petting her head, as I handed her a single Qi gathering pill which she greedily began to eat. Never change Labby, never change.
Shaking my head, I set my notes and set to work. A day remained before I headed to the quest with Yi Liuxiang.
I just hoped I wasn’t pulled in some cultivator bullshit.