Benton enjoyed his encounters with Kang Ya-Ting. The man was a cultivator elder through and through, always working the angles and trying to find advantages for himself, his family, and his sect. Typically, that trait would be one that Benton could understand but not really respect.

    The way Kang Ya-Ting went about it was refreshing, though, bringing a level of openness to their dealings. Benton couldn’t help but wonder if the man was just less inclined to be sneaky than others in his position or if he was simply not very good at hiding his intentions. Either way, Benton had no problem with someone who looked out for their own self interests as long as they weren’t duplicitous. Like Kang Ya-Ting’s “ten percent commission.” The overcharging was so obvious that it had to be meant for Benton to see.

    With their business finished, he said his goodbyes and teleported back to his sect, arriving in the Alchemy Pavilion in lieu of his office. His next task, after all, was the creation of pills. A lot of pills. Thousands.

    In preparation for that task, he’d purchased three ranks of techniques each for Alchemy knowledge, herb preparation, and pill creation. Mastery of the first rank brought him to Apprentice as an alchemist, the second to Journeyman, and the third to Expert.

    Though he didn’t have a way to recoup those Sect Points, producing the pills himself would save him hundreds of Shop Points in the short term and thousands or tens of thousands or more in the long term. Since the latter was so much harder to acquire than the former, he felt that the expenditure was well justified.

    There was one problem with his plan, though—pill toxicity. The ones purchased from the System were one hundred percent pure, meaning they possessed zero toxins. In contrast, an average low level pill like Minor Healing or Qi Condensing produced by a Journeyman would have a purity percentage in the low eighties. An Expert Alchemist would normally produce similar pills in the ninety-five to ninety-nine percent range, occasionally achieved perfect purity.

    Benton would prefer not to have his sect members consume any pills that weren’t one hundred percent pure. His hope was that, since System purchased techniques were simply better than the techniques used by most sects and factions, he’d be able to consistently make perfect pills.

    He wouldn’t truly know until he tried, however.

    The room he’d popped into was one of the single-person labs, and he made sure to secure the door before beginning work. Not that anyone would intentionally disturb him, but teleporting to random locations did come with the unfortunate side effect of people not knowing that the sect leader was making use of that location. A simple unintended interruption at the wrong time could cause an alchemist to mess up an entire batch, which was why the room’s doors had locking and silencing arrays built into them.

    After a bit of consideration, Benton decided to start with creating the Minor Healing Pills. They were a bit more complex to make than the Qi Condensing Pills and an order of magnitude easier than the Major Healing Pills. He was positive, however, that his first few batches, at the very least, would be his worst in terms of purity, and he wasn’t nearly as opposed to letting a sect member use a medicinal pill with a bit of toxicity than one intended to help with cultivation.

    By starting with the Minor Healing Pills—five hundred of them!—he hoped to gain the experience needed to hone his purchased Mastery of the techniques. Thus, by the time he got to the Qi Condensing Pills, producing high-quality ones should be easy as pie.

    Hopefully.

    Benton’s new cauldron was rather large, capable of processing up to twenty-five pills at once, and typically, it wouldn’t be advisable to use one that large to produce a batch of less than ten and certainly not just a single one. Because of the superior craftsmanship that went into creating the cauldron, however, he felt very comfortable with its ability to do just that.

    Thus, he began by laying out the herbs for one Minor Healing Pill on the preparation portion of the table. The first step, identifying the parts to be trimmed, was pretty easy. His superior spiritual sense, augmented both by his Analyze skill and herb preparation techniques, made the areas of the plants that contained toxins stand out to his sight as if they glowed.

    The next step was to actually cut the bad parts away. Benton didn’t have a blade skill, and for a moment, he considered purchasing one. Honestly, though, Qi Condensing and Minor Healing Pills were both Apprentice level products. Even Major Healing Pills were only at Journeyman level. Considering his Nascent Soul level agility, his Platinum Body Cultivation, and his Mastery of Expert herb preparation techniques, he shouldn’t need an additional technique simply to trim a plant.

    Luckily, the cutting went as well as he had expected. His blade was sharp and the movements of his cultivation-enhanced body sure. The good parts of the herbs were soon separated from the bad, the former going into the cauldron and the latter being swept into the drain to be consumed by Void qi.

    He smiled at his addition to the room’s design. Void qi really was quite handy for disposal. Much better than leaving a sludge of waste toxins to be disposed of somewhere.

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    Of course, his trimming hadn’t been perfect. Minute portions of good material had remained attached to the parts he’d gotten rid of. For an Expert level pill, not having those tiny amounts would have affected the quality of the final product, meaning if he ever decided to prep materials for such a thing he’d definitely need a blade technique.

    For his current purposes, though, he was fine.

    Toxins present in the plant were not the only source of pill toxicity. The refinement process also had the possibility of introducing undesired types of qi. In fact, for a normal Foundation Establishment realm alchemist, the mixing stage was the biggest factor in pill purity.

    In contrast to those cultivators, Benton’s spiritual sense was sophisticated enough to detect any qi element in the surrounding air, and his Mastery of pill creation techniques gave him enough skill to ward away any motes he didn’t want in the final product.

    Presumably.

    Again, he wouldn’t really know until he tried.

    With the cut herbs resting at the bottom of the cauldron, Benton fed Fire qi into the plant matter, heating it evenly from the bottom up. The heated air rose, driving away stray motes of qi as it did but only for certain areas. At the same time, the displacement created a pressure difference, pulling ambient air down in other locations. That downflow was a major source of impurities.

    He carefully injected pure Wind qi, neutral to the Fire qi saturating the mixture, to repel the errant elements and stabilize the pressure differences.

    Since he possessed Concepts for both elements, his control over them far exceeded anything any alchemist lower than the middle of the Golden Core realm could achieve. As he monitored the slowly melting mixture, though, he frowned. His control was not as perfect as he’d hoped. Not nearly.

    Many stray motes had crept in. His first pill absolutely would not be a perfect success.

    Ugh.

    Benton shrugged off the failure. It was okay. He hadn’t honestly expected a different result for his inaugural attempt. Even though he’d purchased the various alchemy related techniques to Mastery, he hadn’t truly mastered them. To do so required practice, though the tiniest fraction of what would have been required to reach the same level of experience naturally.

    He continued in order to get practice with the rest of the procedure.

    While the mixture was still in the process of melting, the next step was stirring it. For an alchemist who did not have access to Wind qi, that phase was problematic. Obviously, mechanical objects like a spoon simply weren’t okay. Nothing besides qi and the surface of a meticulously crafted cauldron were allowed to touch the mixture prior to pill formation. And Fire, the most common element for alchemists, was horrible for stirring.

    Such alchemists had to seek devices to fill their needs. Which wasn’t a horrible thing. There were many Master Alchemists who used devices. It was just that anyone who possessed an aspect utilizing both Wind and Fire had such a tremendous advantage in terms of ease and expense.

    Benton, of couse, simply used his pill creation technique to apply Wind qi along the curved surface of the cauldron, creating a rotating effect. Eventually, the mixture congealed into a homogenous mass, ready to be turned into a pill.

    The final step was somewhat weird to watch. First of all, the mass in the bottom of the cauldron seemed like way too much material to be contained in a single pill. Even the largest one Benton had ever downed on Earth would have only held a fourth of the mixture.

    Benton just shrugged, though. In a lot of ways, qi was magic beyond understanding, able to break physics at will. If it wanted to fit a lot of material in a container too small to hold it, it just did it. sea??h thё N??elFirё.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

    Second, the mass was homogenous, a fact confirmed by his spiritual sense. So where then did the outer coating for the pill come from?

    He had no idea, but when he used Gravity to coalesce the mass from all directions, it shrunk into a perfect oval and a light blue shell appeared on the outside. When finished, the pill flew into his hand, and he used Analyze on it.

    Ninety-two percent.

    Yuck. He tossed it down the Void drain. One hundred percent purity was his preference, but he’d accept a healing pill at ninety-five in an emergency. There was no way, though, that he was giving any pill that possessed more than five percent toxicity to any of his sect members.

    Well, on the plus side, he’d made his first Minor Healing Pill, even if he did discard it. He only had two thousand four hundred and ninety-nine more to go. Of course, that quantity wasn’t as bad as it sounded. Once he perfected his technique, he’d be able to make batches of twenty-five at a time.

    Until then, though, it would be a grind.

    It took him two more attempts to reach ninety-five percent purity, another three to reach ninety-seven, twelve after that to get to ninety-nine, and two dozen more to finally reach one hundred.

    As soon as he hit that mark, he switched to batches of five. The first set of pills were all in the ninety-six to ninety-eight range, and it took him another three batches to get two out of the five pills to one hundred percent. Eventually, though, all five come out perfect, so he increased the quantity to ten per batch.

    By the time all five hundred sets of herbs for the Minor Healing Pills were used, his batches of twenty-five almost always had all the pills at one hundred percent purity. When he did fail, it was only a single pill, and it only had a point or two of toxicity.

    Feeling pretty confident in himself, he moved on to Qi Condensing Pills, experimenting with a single one at first. One hundred percent. Perfect.

    Even using his Time Aura, the creation of all the pills took all night. When he finished, though, he was quite satisfied. All but fourteen of his Qi Condensing Pills turned out perfect, and every one of his Major Healing Pills, done in batches of five, were also one hundred percent pure.

    The experience had been a tedious grind, but it was worth it. Not only did he have pills to provide his sect members that didn’t cost a single Shop Point, but he also felt comfortable enough with his alchemy skills to begin preparations for producing qi sources.

    Benton still needed to return to Vermillion Incomparable Rain Town at some point soon to create a formation for the palace, but other than that, he could finally turn his attention to acquiring the materials he needed for qi sources. He couldn’t help but grin at the thought of all his sect members cultivating in Time Chambers that increased their advancement speed by ten times.

    He''d be at Nihility before he knew it.