Chapter 92: Chapter 93: If Others Can Do It, Why Can’t I?

Chen Che waited in the courtyard until late at night, but Li Hong never returned.

No matter why he suddenly changed his mind, this Li Hong, who appeared rough on the outside, was by no means the fool one might imagine. On the contrary, he was exceptionally vigilant.

That made sense.

After all, anyone who could set up such a chain of schemes couldn’t possibly be an idiot.

"That’s what makes it interesting."

Although the ambush had failed, Chen Che wasn’t disappointed.

After all, prey isn’t always caught on the first try.

Perhaps when he reached the Seventh Layer, he could kill Li Hong in a frontal assault within moments, leaving no loose ends.

Before leaving, he searched the house.

Under the sweep of his Divine Sense, almost nothing could hide. In the end, Chen Che found two chests in a cellar.

Returning to his Cave Mansion, he finally opened them to inspect his spoils.

In one chest were several thick rolls of Bamboo Slips. He casually opened one and saw it was a Pill Book. Flipping through them, he found they were mostly for Tier One Pills, with a small section on Poison Pills.

’Not very valuable.’

"This trash, and he treated it like treasure."

Chen Che sneered.

’It figures,’ he thought. ’If Ji Xianlong really had anything good, his business wouldn’t still be so small after more than a decade, confined to the Jinyun Valley Market. To ordinary Loose Cultivators, he might be a Local Bully, but to me, he’s just a slightly larger earthworm.’

CLICK!

He casually shut the chest, then opened the second one and began to take inventory.

Ten Middle-Grade Spirit Stones, three hundred Low-Grade Spirit Stones, and on top of that, a Spirit Stone deposit slip from the Mountain and Sea Commerce Association for a full fifty-odd Middle-Grade Spirit Stones.

"All together, this is worth at least six thousand Low-Grade Spirit Stones. He probably stashed half his life’s fortune here."

One Middle-Grade Spirit Stone could be exchanged for over a hundred Low-Grade Spirit Stones, with slight fluctuations depending on the market.

Over six thousand Low-Grade Spirit Stones in total.

Currently, Chen’s Pill Shop only had a net monthly income of eighty Spirit Stones. It would take a full seven years to earn six thousand Spirit Stones.

And that was without even factoring in costs...

’His assets probably don’t end here. A portion must be in the Pill Shop,’ Chen Che mused.

Anyone running a business had to keep a large amount of capital in the store. Even if not half, at least thirty or forty percent of this amount would be there.

But it didn’t matter.

It wouldn’t be long before Ji’s Pill Shop disappeared from the Market for good.

...

WHOOSH!

Inside the Cave Mansion’s Alchemy Room, Chen Che sat cross-legged before the Chixia Tripod. He activated his True Essence to its limits, and the furnace’s flames billowed and surged, casting flickering shadows all around.

’True Essence is the key!’

Chen Che focused most of his Divine Sense inside the Pill Furnace as his True Essence poured into it in a torrent.

With every increase in a Pill’s Grade, the difficulty of refining it rose by another level.

This difficulty manifested in many ways.

Beyond proficiency, technique, and mastery of pharmacology, the higher the Grade, the more the complexity grew, almost exponentially. One had to rely on a massive amount of practice to master the knack. This time, with no one to guide him in refining the Leopard Embryo Strengthening Pill, he could only rely on his prior knowledge and slowly feel his way through.

FLUTTER~

The sound of flapping wings came from outside the Cave Mansion.

He didn’t need to look; it had to be the Little Chick returning.

He had been busy refining the Leopard Embryo Strengthening Pill for the past few days and had barely fed it, so whenever it got hungry, it went out to hunt for itself.

’An Yin Ruins Snake! It actually caught a Demon Beast and brought it back!’

Watching the Little Chick rush into the Cave Mansion, struggling to drag a long, green snake behind it, Chen Che’s eyelid twitched.

The Yin Ruins Snake was over a zhang long and caked in dirt, as if it had been dug out of some hole. Its body was still frozen stiff. In the warmth of the Cave Mansion, it quickly revived and immediately tried to coil itself around something.

But the Little Chick pinned it firmly under its claws and pecked its head to a pulp on the spot.

Then, the Little Chick dragged the Yin Ruins Snake over and presented it to Chen Che as if offering a treasure.

"You can eat it yourself!"

The corner of Chen Che’s mouth twitched. Not daring to be distracted for another moment, he focused all his attention back on the Pill Furnace.

Because most of its materials were sourced from Demon Beasts, each batch of the Leopard Embryo Strengthening Pill cost more than five Spirit Stones.

In just three short days, he had already ruined over thirty batches. If he hadn’t made a windfall off of Ji Xianlong, he really couldn’t have afforded to be so extravagant.

Moreover, the most unfortunate part was that he couldn’t ask Ding Dawei for help with this Pill.

Because out of the seventeen ingredients in a single batch, twelve were from animals protected by the Immortal Sect.

If he were back on Earth Element Star, he’d be the lead special guest on a crime show the very next day. He would also end up in textbooks; until a more heinous student appeared, he would absolutely be the number one cautionary tale told by every major academy, teacher, and parent.

「A moment later.」

He lifted the lid of the Furnace Cauldron. The bottom was empty, save for a puddle of Pill Mud.

’I’ll continue tomorrow!’

Chen Che fell straight to sleep.

...

After a night’s rest, he was full of energy the next day.

The Little Chick was not in the Cave Mansion; it had clearly gone out to hunt again.

Arriving at the Market, he heard another commotion.

He found Ding Fei standing in front of Ji’s Pill Shop, cursing up a storm, while the apprentices inside the shop trembled in fear.

"The Head Shopkeeper felt that reselling to unfamiliar faces was too slow, so he decided to just transfer our shop’s materials directly to them. But they’re making excuses, saying the shop doesn’t have enough Spirit Stones and they can’t pay for the materials. So now they’re just wrangling," Zhao Deyou glanced at Chen Che and explained in a low voice.

"After you went out for a walk that day, Ji Xianlong disappeared. For the past few days, there’s been no one in charge at their shop."

"If they have no Spirit Stones, have them pay with Pills. If they have no Pills, have them pay with the shop. Ji Xianlong isn’t here and no one can make decisions? Then pick someone who can. Business is ultimately about integrity, isn’t it?"

Chen Che lifted his Spirit Tea, blowing on the hot liquid.

"If they refuse to accept them, hire a few dozen Loose Cultivators to stand at their door and force them to make a decision."

The marketplace is like a battlefield; there’s almost no difference.

’If Ji Xianlong and Li Hong could do it, why couldn’t I?’

’If I hadn’t dismantled their chain of schemes, the fate of Ji’s Pill Shop would have been my own.’

Zhao Deyou had a sudden realization and immediately ran off to inform Ding Fei. Sure enough, not long after, dozens of Loose Cultivators were seen blocking the entrance to Ji’s Pill Shop.

After making the arrangements, Chen Che collected more materials for the Leopard Embryo Strengthening Pill, returned to his Cave Mansion, and began his Alchemy once more.

The Spiritual Fire danced and leaped. Batch after batch, the materials were gradually consumed. In the blink of an eye, only enough materials for one last batch remained...

Beads of sweat formed on Chen Che’s forehead, his Divine Sense highly focused.

PFFT~

The flame flickered a few times and silently went out.

"I finally managed to make one," Chen Che sighed in relief.

Four days. Forty-seven batches in total, and he had only succeeded in refining this one Pill.

Still, the first step is always the hardest. As long as he’d made one, the rest would be easier.

’I wonder how effective it is!’

Exhaling a breath of turbid air, he lifted the Pill Furnace’s lid and saw a lumpy, pitted Pill lying at the bottom. He picked it up and examined it closely.

’Logically speaking, the deductions were correct, and the refining process was correct, so there shouldn’t be any problem with this Pill...’

He scraped off a bit of powder with his fingernail and flicked it into his mouth.

Then, he sat down cross-legged and carefully sensed the changes within his body.

As a Pill Master, he naturally had to have the ability to appraise his own work. Taking only a little powder would minimize the risk of Pill Poison entering his body, and even if an accident occurred, he could deal with it promptly. To prepare for refining the Leopard Embryo Strengthening Pill, he had readied several types of Antitoxic Elixirs.

It wasn’t until late at night that Chen Che finally opened his eyes.

"The Pill is fine. All that’s left is to see its effects."

He opened his Micro Crystal Brain. The mirrored surface flashed, and data appeared:

[Name: Chen Che]

[Age: 17 years old]

[Realm: Qi Refining Sixth Layer (51.3%)]

[Qi and Blood: Qi Refining Sixth Layer (72.7%)]

[Divine Sense: Foundation Establishment Second Layer (23.3%)]

[Right Leg: Meridian Progress (64%)]

Without the slightest hesitation, he tilted his head back and swallowed the Pill whole.