After taking the storage bag from Lord Yong, I went to the Assignment Hall to see about reserving an alchemy workshop. However, when I arrived, the attendant smiled and waved me away.

“Apprentice Fang, Pill Lord Yong has already made the proper arrangements. You will have exclusive access to the third floor’s fifth workshop for as long as you need it.”

While the attendant’s voice wasn’t overly loud, his words were clear enough that several nearby Disciples overheard him. They immediately shot me furious glares and began gossiping.

“Who does he think he is? How can some trash apprentice be worthy of one of the third floor’s best rooms?”

“I know, right? He might‘ve gotten lucky and been accepted as a Pill Lord’s personal disciple, but that doesn’t mean he should be allowed to break the rules.”

I did my best to simply tune these people out.

Generally, only full Disciple Alchemists were allowed to book workshops on the Hall’s third floor. Until I proved that I was capable of concocting at least a Mid-Purity Qi Gathering Pill, I should have been relegated to one of the shoddier workshops in the annex next to the servants’ apartment building.

Being the apprentice of a Pill Lord undoubtedly had its perks, but being given the third floor’s fifth workshop still felt like a bit much. The first five workshops on each floor were far more spacious and well-equipped than their counterparts, and they were usually reserved for the best alchemists in a given Rank. Even with a Lord’s backing, as a new apprentice, I should have been assigned to the worst of the workshops, not the best.

How many strings had Jon and Lord Yong pulled? Also, why? I might have been assigned to one of the best workshops, but that didn’t mean anyone would think I was actually worthy of it. Were they just trying to stoke the jealousy and envy of my peers?

Whatever their reasons were, unless I was willing to drop all pretenses of cordiality, openly going against Lord Yong’s arrangements wasn’t an option. So, I had no choice but to, again, accept their generosity.

I was starting to become slightly worried about allowing my nominal enemy, Jon, to continuously dictate the flow of events, but I didn’t even know for certain what game we were playing, so it was hard for me to take the initiative and counterattack.

Thankfully, with my millennia of crafting knowledge, I didn’t need to fear any of his petty tricks. His blessing might have ways to help him, but no blessing was all-powerful, not even mine. If push came to shove, then I would just have to show Jon what an ‘old monster’ was truly capable of.

Unlike the workshop that Lord Yong was using on the sixth floor, the third floor’s fifth workshop was set up more like an apartment suite. To the left of the entrance, there was a nook where one could sleep or cultivate. To the right, there was a table and chair where one could read books or drink tea. And against the far wall, there was the alchemy workbench, which had plenty of room for laying out and preparing one’s ingredients.

Upon entering, I first examined the room’s pill furnace.

Being quite a bit smaller than the one in Lord Yong’s workshop, this furnace had significantly fewer formations than its larger counterpart. For example, each side of Lord Yong’s furnace had separate sets of inscriptions that would allow assistants to view the contents of the furnace’s inner chamber. This one, however, only had a single set of these inscriptions, placed on the front face of the furnace, below the door.

Lord Yong’s furnace had been designed to allow a group of alchemists to work together as a team. This one was simpler. It had been designed for an alchemist who was working on their own.

Of course, even though it was simpler, as I had never worked with this kind of furnace before, learning to use it properly would still take time.

According to Lord Yong’s instruction manual, the basic furnace was equipped with five types of formations. One for letting the alchemist see what was in the furnace, one for holding the herbs in place, one for heating the herbs during the melting and melding phases, one for shooting out beams of concentrated energy, and one for focusing and targeting those beams of energy.

To make the most basic of Mid-Purity pills, one just needed to set the beams to the correct orientation, place the herbs into the furnace, and activate the formations in the correct order.

Using energy vision to study the device itself, I found that the only formations with any level of complexity were the vision formations. The ones for heating the furnace and sending out beams of energy were dead-simple energy circuits that simply ejected qi in specific patterns.

For a second, I had a hard time understanding why anyone would want to use such a monstrosity. Qi vision took time to develop, so I could see why someone might want a formation to supplement it, but why use these energy beam formations? They would just make it more difficult to precisely target pockets of toxins.

Then, I thought about the struggles that I had back when I had first become a Grandmaster Alchemist. These formations might be more difficult to control, but it only took a small thread of qi to activate them. Most of the energy they used came from the environment. Hell, if they were powerful enough, they might even allow a skilled Martial Disciple to make Rank 3 pills. Said Martial Disciple might not even need a spirit fire to do so.

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Of course, for a mere Disciple to be able to control such powerful beams of pure qi, they would need to have both a wealth of experience and exceedingly high affinities. This should be possible, but only a rare few would actually be able to manage it.

Setting these thoughts aside, I pulled out a set of herbs and attempted to concoct a Mid-Purity Qi Gathering Pill using the directions in Lord Yong’s instruction manual.

For this first experiment, I didn’t try to do anything fancy, and I ignored all my knowledge of how alchemy was supposed to work. I wanted to see what Lord Yong’s directions would produce when employed by a naive Disciple.

The results… weren’t great.

As I had expected, the uncontrolled beams tore up way too much of the medicinal energy, and they left behind large swaths of uncleansed toxins. The only saving grace was that the clumps of energy left behind looked like they would fit together properly. However, when it came time to condense the pill, I couldn’t do it.

I tried ramping up the heating formations and using the excess energy to force the energies together, but this just caused the medicinal energy to explode. At this point, my only option was to quickly vent the energy out of the furnace before it could cause any damage.

I had failed, but why? I wanted to blame Lord Yong’s instructions, but I knew things weren’t that simple. The technique might be part of the problem, but the larger part was me. I

hadn’t been able to condense the pill. According to the instruction manual, it should have worked, but I hadn’t been able to make it happen. Why not? The answer seemed obvious.

I needed an alchemy affinity.

Was this why Lord Yong had given me so many sets of ingredients? Was he expecting me to brute force my way through them until I finally developed a proper affinity? If so, then I would have to disappoint him.

Reaching into my inner world, I pulled out several sets of Nine Rivers herbs and began concocting Superior Qi Gather Pills. As a lowly Disciple 2, concocting just one of these pills should have used up all of the qi in my body, but thanks to the Hall’s nice, little pill furnace, this wasn’t an issue.

Using the formations along the top and bottom of the furnace, I flooded its inner chamber with fire qi. Then, I used my fire affinity to shape this energy into spears and needles that burned away all the toxins in my herbs.

I could have used the furnace's energy beams for this, but a quick experiment proved that I had more control when flooding the chamber with raw energy and molding it myself. For simple Rank 1 pills, the difference was somewhat negligible, but any advantage was important at the higher Ranks.

Once this was done, I melded the energies together and condensed them.

When the first pill dropped to the bottom of the furnace, I felt a shift in the world as I gained a low nine-star alchemy affinity. 7 pills later, it advanced to mid nine-star. Then, after another 16, it advanced to high nine-star. I then had to concoct another 37 Perfect Superior Qi Gathering Pills to raise my affinity all the way to peak nine-star.

From this, it was easy to see that the rate my affinity was growing was slowing down more than it should have. With each level I gained, Superior Qi Gathering Pills were having less of an effect on my affinity. So, if I wanted to push it into the eight-star range, I would need to start making better pills.

That could wait, however. For the moment, I wanted to see what my new affinity could do for me. I hadn’t been able to detect any changes when concocting pills with the Nine Rivers herbs, but hopefully, the Central Continent herbs would be a different story.

Tossing a set of Lord Yong’s herbs into the furnace, I once again slavishly followed the steps laid out in his instruction book. With the formations doing all the work, I didn’t notice any apparent benefits from having gained an alchemy affinity. However, when it came time to condense the pill, I wrapped my intent around the bundle of medicinal energy and felt a new series of sensations emanating from it.

Following my instincts, I took hold of various tiny threads of energy and twisted them together. The more threads I combined in this manner, the smaller the ball of energy shrank. Finally, it reached a critical threshold, collapsed into a pill, and fell to the bottom of the furnace.

After venting the furnace’s excess heat, it pulled out the pill and examined it.

Low-Purity Rank 1 Qi Gathering Pill, 46% Medicinal Efficacy. Value: 2 silver.

This was horrible, but it was a solid first step in mastering Central Continent alchemy. What truly surprised me, however, was the information that had been buried within the pill’s detailed description.

Estimated Maximum for Pill’s Starting Ingredients: High-Purity, 72% Medicinal Efficacy, 0 Patterns.

I examined one of the pills that I had made using Nine Rivers’ herbs and found that it lacked the line about 0 Patterns. Curious, I quickly concocted and examined a second Low-Purity pill.

Estimated Maximum for Pill’s Starting Ingredients: High-Purity, 78% Medicinal Efficacy, 0 Patterns.

I had watched Lord Yong concoct a two-patterned pill using these same herbs, so I knew it had to be possible. The herbs that he had used had definitely been of a higher quality, but these ones weren’t anywhere close to what I would consider ‘bad.’ Why would the System say they could only make a pill with a maximum of 78% efficacy?

On a hunch, I ran down to the Hall’s shop floor and bought five sets of herbs for Rank 1 Qi Gathering Pills. Like before, the Hall refused to sell the herbs individually—they had to be bought as a set.

Upon returning to my third-floor workshop, I tossed one of these sets into the furnace and quickly concocted a pill.

Mid-Purity Rank 1 Qi Gathering Pill, 68% Medicinal Efficacy. Value: 1 gold, 72 silver.

Estimated Maximum for Pill’s Starting Ingredients: High-Purity, 167% Medicinal Efficacy, 2 Pattern.

2 Patterns. Why were these herbs capable of producing a two-patterned pill when the herbs that Lord Yong had given me weren’t? Examining the herbs individually, I couldn’t find any differences that would explain this discrepancy. However, when I looked at them as a set, I found it.

It was all about the initial shape and condition of each herb. The reason the Hall of the Herb Lord would only sell herbs as a set was because someone had already done the hard work of matching the herbs together in a way that made sense. As these herbs could only produce, at most, a two-patterned pill, whoever had matched them was far from perfect. But, they had certainly done a much better job than randomly pulling herbs from a sack.

This showed me yet another new skill that I would have to develop, but thankfully, it was one that my new alchemy affinity could help with. Now that I knew what to look for, I could feel a slight tingling from my affinity whenever I saw certain sets that would work well together. It would take me time to develop this new sense, but time had always been the one thing I had in abundance.

My short-term goals were developing my alchemy affinity, learning how to best match herbs, and eventually, getting to the point where I could craft a one-patterned pill. Of course, as I did this, I would also continue opening one acupoint every two days to steadily advance my cultivation base.