After nearly two and a half months in the Hall of the Herb Lord’s third-floor alchemy workshop, I had advanced to Martial Disciple 3, and I was well on my way to Martial Disciple 4.

The herbs that Lord Yong had given me were gone. All that was left of them was a pile of pills that was locked away in my inner world. Even the dregs had vanished, as I had scattered them in a remote corner of my Plane of Wood to serve as fertilizer.

It was time for me to leave and gather new supplies, but before that, I needed to prepare. First, I had to get dressed.

Early on in my stint in this workshop, an attendant had come by and dropped off a richly dyed burgundy robe. The exterior of this robe had been embroidered with decorative gold and silver flames, and the interior had been embroidered with Rank 1 self-cleaning and self-repair formations. It reminded me of the first robe that I ever bought from the System—when I had asked it to give me the robe of a talented Disciple Alchemist.

The robe had come with a note from Lord Yong, instructing me to wear this new robe anytime I left the workshop. The man might have been trying to set me up, but this didn’t worry me. If these were the robes of a Disciple Alchemist, then they were the least of what I should be wearing.

After getting dressed, I turned my attention to the pile of pills in my inner world.

There were a handful of Mid-Purity pills, hundreds of High-Purity pills, and several dozen one-patterned pills. All told, Lord Yong’s 500 sets of herbs had been transformed into 458 pills—far, far too many for even the most talented of fledgling alchemists to have created.

After running some numbers in my head, I took out all the Mid-Purity pills and 78 of the High-Purity pills. Given what I now knew about how difficult they were to concoct, if I started waving around one-patterned pills after only a couple of months of practice, people would start asking the wrong kinds of questions. For a new Disciple, a nearly 20% success rate, with most of the pills being High-Purity, would still be staggering, but it would at least be within the realm of believability.

Finally, I took a moment to practice constricting my acupoints so that I could hide my new herbalism and alchemy affinities. Without an orb to practice on, I couldn’t be entirely sure of exactly how good a job I was doing, but after a few minutes of work, I figured it was good enough.

With everything taken care of, I left my workshop and went down to the Assignment Hall on the second floor.

My arrival didn’t immediately draw too much attention from the servants and assistants who were sitting around on the room’s benches. However, when I approached the servants’ counter while dressed in the clothing of a Disciple Alchemist, the room broke out in confused whispers.

The green-skinned attendant pretended not to notice this and accepted my identity jade without comment. However, after scanning it, he adopted an apologetic expression and lowered his head.

“Disciple Alchemist Su, I can only handle matters relating to the Hall’s servants. Please, step over to the desk for Rank 1 professionals, where a more skilled attendant will be able to assist you.”

Following the man’s gesture, I looked over at a more ornate counter where three attendants were reviewing paperwork while waiting for customers.

The attendant’s actions caused the crowd’s confused whispers to transform into hushed conversations.

“He really is a Disciple, then? But why haven’t I ever seen him before? Who is he?”

“Waaaait… Isn’t that the piece of trash that Pill Lord Yong took in?”

“You’re right! Is he really a Disciple now? How?”

Ignoring the chatter, I walked over to the desk for Disciple Alchemists and held out my token.

After scanning it, the attendant gave me a fractional bow of his head. “Ah, Disciple Alchemist Su, it is good that you’ve come. Pill Lord Yong has informed us of your rapid advancement, but there are still a few formalities that we need to take care of.”

Reaching under the desk, the attendant pulled out an affinity testing orb and placed it in front of me. “First, we need to register your current affinity levels.”

I smiled and obliged. While I hadn’t known that Lord Yong had planned to put me on the spot, it hadn’t been hard to guess that a former servant turning in nearly a hundred pills would result in some type of screening.

In truth, I didn’t mind if the Hall knew that I had a seven-star affinity. It was good, but not something that people would want to kill me over. However, as I had previously registered as having no affinity at all, jumping up all the way to peak seven-star so quickly was a bit unreasonable. So, I constricted my acupoints to show an affinity that was more in line with the pills that I was handing over.

The moment my qi entered the testing orb, it began to emit a dull, dark red glow. Less than a second later, this glow condensed into the shape of a pill furnace. As I poured in more qi, the image of the furnace condensed further, eventually increasing in brightness two times as I relaxed my hold on my acupoints.

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The attendant stared at this in shock. “High… High nine-star? You’ve increased your affinity all the way to high nine-star after only a single supply of training herbs? How…”

The attendant’s voice had been a bit too loud, and when the surrounding servants and apprentices heard his words, they instantly fell silent.

This shock lasted only a second. It was quickly broken by a gruff voice off to my right. “Hmph. I bet the Pill Lord let him participate in concocting some high-level pill. Lucky bastard probably got that affinity all at once and has no idea what to do with it.”

Several people in the peanut gallery seemed to agree with this assessment. However, when I reached into my storage bag and started pulling out one jade bottle after another, they fell silent once more.

Wordlessly, the attendant took the pill bottles and dumped their content into a chute on his desk. When they were all emptied out, he looked at me. “The total value is 729 gold and… 81 silver… As a registered Disciple, you are entitled to 20% of the profits. After deducting 50 gold for the training herbs, your total comes to… 135 gold, 96 silver.”

The room fell deathly still. Then… “WHAT!?”

The crowd of servants burst into animated chatter, all wondering how Pill Lord Yong had managed to turn me into an actual alchemist after only a few short months.

I tuned them out and stayed focused on the attendant in front of me.

“This… This qualifies you for an upgrade to the status of Grade 2 Disciple Alchemist. You may purchase any Rank 1 herbs at a 10% discount, and you will have full access to all Rank 1 alchemy books in the library.”

I rubbed my chin in thought. “What about books on herbalism? I found the foundational herbalism texts to be rather beneficial to my alchemy. Will I now have access to books of a higher level?”

Before the attendant could answer, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed several of the nearby servants dart out of the Assignment Hall.

“N… No. Sorry, Disciple Su. To gain greater access to information on other Rank 1 professions, you must be at least a Grade 3 Disciple Alchemist.”

I nodded. “What are the requirements?”

“2… 2,000 gold. You need to concoct pills with a combined value of 2,000 gold using only a single batch of training herbs.”

I furrowed my brow. “How will you know if they're all from a single batch? Will I need to concoct them in front of an invigilator?”

The attendant quickly shook his head and tapped on the chute where he had previously deposited my pills. “This is handled by our appraisal formations. If someone challenges your results, you may need to provide supplemental evidence, but that is… usually unnecessary.”

“So, 2,000 gold.” In truth, that wasn’t much. Each bag of training herbs contained 500 sets of ingredients, and I would be able to reach this target with only 20 to 30 one-patterned pills. The total value of what I had made from Lord Yong’s herbs far surpassed 2,000 gold. The only question was, how much was I willing to show these people?

“Alternatively,” said the attendant, interrupting my thoughts, “you could also… advance to the level of Master Alchemist. Master Alchemists have access to all Rank 1 books and all foundational Rank 2 texts. You need only… prove that you can concoct a Mid-Purity Rank 2 Meridian Builder Pill.”

That would indeed be much simpler, but concocting a Rank 2 pill as a Martial Disciple 3 who only had a high nine-star alchemy affinity seemed a bit much. Best to wait a bit.

“Alright. Then, are there any open commissions available? I would like to stretch my skill beyond just Qi Gathering Pills.”

“No… sir. The Hall only allows clients to commission patterned pills, so you will need to wait until you reach the Master level before they become available.”

Hadn’t Lord Yong told me not to return until I could concoct four-patterned pills? If most alchemists couldn’t concoct patterned pills until they ascended to Martial Master, did this mean that he had zero intention of providing me with the Rank 2 and 3 versions of the Writ of Pill Fire? If so, I might need to consider other ways of acquiring them.

“I see. Then, I would like to purchase another set of training herbs and as many sets of herbs as I can for whichever Rank 1 pills are in highest demand. These additional herbs should be of the highest quality available. Use all of the gold I’m owed on this.”

“Disciple Su, that will not be necessary. As a Grade 2 Disciple Alchemist, you are allowed to purchase 500 gold worth of herbs on credit.”

I waved this away. “Fine, but go ahead and add the gold I earned on top of that. Just give me 600 gold worth of herbs.”

“Very… Very well, sir. I will have them delivered to your workshop immediately.”

Upon returning to my workshop, I didn’t immediately dive back into alchemy.

Concocting one-patterned pills had been difficult. To go any further, I would need access to more power. Advancing my cultivation base could get me the power I needed, but I wanted to continue my slow advancement. So, instead, I needed access to an external power source.

My workshop’s pill furnace was decent, but I wanted something better.

Reaching into my inner world, I first pulled out a thread of spirit fire from the Three Thousand Flame fire and absorbed it into my body. Then, I took out a large block of hassium, a rather common Rank 3 metal, and a small pouch of kyanrolite powder, a Rank 5 stone.

While my body had little qi to speak of, using my mid three-star fire and metal affinities, I was able to control the spirit fire well enough to melt the hassium and shape it into a hollow cube. From there, I used a Profound-Rank metal-based spirit fire and my skills as a refiner to turn this cube into a blocky pill furnace.

I didn’t have any diagrams showing me what formations a typical pill furnace might include, and the only example I had to work from was the low-Rank furnace in my workshop. But, a quick trip to the library provided me with ample information on what formations one would expect in a high-quality pill furnace. So, using a combination of metal-based spirit fire, refining skills, and formation skills, I replicated these formations to the best of my ability. Then, when I was done, I coated these inscriptions with kyanrolite powder to prevent them from degrading.

A quick test proved that the formations on this new furnace were capable of producing as much power as a Martial King. Of course, this level of power was limited to an extremely small area within the furnace's inner chamber, and if it were used for any more than a second, the entire furnace would melt down into a pile of slag. This wasn’t exactly ideal, but it was good enough to make Rank 4 pills.

With my furnace complete, I went outside and retrieved the stockpile of herbs that was waiting for me. Then, I made a quick pill out of the high-quality Qi Gathering herbs, just to see what I was working with.

Estimated Maximum for Pill’s Starting Ingredients: High-Purity, 183% Medicinal Efficacy, 3 Patterns.

A smile spread across my face. I had a new target to shoot for.