V3C10: Needing to Prove One’s Ability

By the next day, both Wei Yi and Min Lian would have been greatly exhausted if one wasn’t a cultivator with a powerful physique and the other wasn’t a hatred avatar that did not need to eat, drink, sleep or rest in any way to maintain her state. The latter had reached the state of the first realm of planar cultivation, Energy Gathering, and was roughly in the equivalent of the fifth stage, while Wei Yi had relayed the relevant memories for using the Cherry Revolving Blossom Art to her, meaning that she would be able to either assist in the process or perform parts of it herself, although she would need to recover to the point of the second realm to truly complete even a single pill on her own.

That would take some time, but before then, she would do just fine in her act as a servant, especially with how much training she had in that field.

On that note, she had also browsed through Min Lian’s memories again during the process, and discovered a few more things to add to her general knowledge… and less general knowledge, as the assassin had an incredible vastness of training, from typical servitude, acting as a maid, groundskeeper, guard and even a bed servant.

‘Why her master in the Scorching Blades wasn’t more explicit, I’ll never know…’

Unfortunately, not every memory had been fully recovered, likely due to it being entirely wiped out between her death and pseudo resurrection and being entirely unrecoverable in her rough restoration of the memories. These memories tended to be those that would reveal the location of the Scorching Blades, the exact identity of her former masters, and those of her fellow assassins, although the latter wasn’t a concern to her. Wei Yi had already integrated the techniques of her assassin organisation into the cosmic energy she used, and so she should not be automatically targeted without some confirmation from them.

Even any word about the potential link between the Scorching Blades and the Blood-tinged Church had been lost, which was truly disappointing due to the research that had been done by that group into blood and bloodlines, and what they had been able to accomplish with the Lady of Ashes.

If some of their knowledge could be taken, it would not be impossible for Wei Yi to figure out the reason behind her blood-type planar energy appearing different to common human blood, and perhaps even discover some way of using her powerful physique energy to suppress the negative effects of bloodlines and instead use them to amplify her abilities with little cost to her body, mind and reasoning, unlike those who had previously attempted the same thing.

“Well, whatever. With how many possibilities are present, I am bound to encounter one of them eventually,” she muttered to herself, following Min Lian out of the residence.

The sun was just rising as they travelled towards the Chu Alchemical Store, to check whether any purchases or requests have or will be made in the near future, and to acquire a few ingredients to produce some more valuable pills to then sell for similarly low, yet sufficient prices to earn some coin from them while inching her way into the market.

When they entered the building however, she saw three people – one woman and two men, all three of whom were in pristine white clothes and with the badge of a three star alchemist upon their chest – standing beside the front counter, speaking to the reenergised receptionist with a variety of emotion.

One of the men was mostly conversing in a curious tone, inquiring as to the nature of the treatment that saved her from her previous predicament, while the woman was much more pushy and aggressive, with a few questions about the new pill refiner that had put lowered prices on their goods and the true worth of those pills. The other man, with grey hair and black eyes that meant that he was likely closely connected to the main Ning family, was focused purely on that latter topic, constantly pointing to the products listed in the books and trying his best to find out as much as he could.

Although the receptionist had no reason to refuse most of that information, nor did she seem intent on doing so while she was still on her high due to finally being able to do whatever she wanted without the restraint of her lacking energy, with three people seeking different answers at the same time, she had only been able to provide Wei Yi’s general appearance and nothing more.

Thus, when the aggressive woman, whose straight hair and narrow eyes were equally brown, turned around in a huff after failing to get an answer immediately, she quickly recognised her target of inquiry.

“You! Right after you enter the city, you attempt to screw with the market? Do you think you can get away with doing whatever you want?” the woman whose surname was likely to be Chen exclaimed, pointing a finger at her.

That caused the other two, including the business-focused man who had a bushy black beard, chest-length hair, yellow eyes that meant that he was descended from the Chao family, which focused on body cultivation above all else and managed to wear off on him in the form of a strong, brawny form uncommon for those specialising in pill refining and similar fields, to turn towards her and similarly recognise her quickly. When combined together, her attire, lack of a pill refiner’s badge, unusually fit form and lengthy crimson hair made her rather memorable and recognisable.

“Are you saying that I should have stayed out of here entirely just due to your personal interests – before even knowing about them?” Wei Yi spoke before the others could, folding her arms and allowing the sleeves of her robes to slip to reveal the toned muscle on her arms, “That’s not how the district nor this establishment work.”

“You are Wei Yi?” the yellow-eyed man slipped into the conversation, “I would be very interested-”

However, the business-focused grey-haired man did not allow him to continue, stepping forward with a significantly louder voice, “I am Ning Fangtie. Based on your pricing, I must assume that you’ve seen my listings as well, and I find it strange that you priced a similar product that low. Tell me the truth.”

“Shut it! I, Chen Shujin, have plenty of experiences with your kind. You’re selling something of lower quality just because you cured this woman, who is now hiding information from me as a favour-”

“Alright, since everyone is interrupting one another, I shall do the same,” Wei Yi used the implicit ability of the Lion’s Roar ability to force her voice above the others, instantly silencing even the ill-tempered Chen Shujin, “First of all, a few things need to be set straight. The woman you are speaking to was indeed cured by me, but the appraisal of my product was done by a separate party. As such, my selling price and product are unrelated to her. Second, are you three accusing me of forgery, deception, trickery or anything of the sort?”

“No, no, I – Chao Juzan – am not doing that,” the yellow-eyed man quickly shook his head and retreated, “I was simply curious to know how you succeeded in curing something that I could not. I have no grievance with you.”

The other two, however, nodded, one staring at her in anger while the other looked upon her in suspicion.

‘Here’s what I get for attempting to do things smoothly and calmly. None of these three have likely tried the very simple items that I have created, and the two that are actually coming against me are probably doing so to either get me out of the competition, or to learn my secrets. Neither option is acceptable, but I believe that there is a certain ritual of sorts amongst competing pill refiners that might be able to settle this nicely-’

“For this reason, I want to challenge you to a Refiner’s Duel! What say you?” Ning Fangtie proposed.

‘Oh, there it is. A Refiner’s Duel involves no actual combat most of the time, revolving around the creation of a particular pill in front of an audience of both experts and normal citizens to prevent any kind of cheating or trickery. Since refining techniques, like those of the other great arts, cannot be learnt through witnessing them once or twice – not even a million times, due to the complexities that typically go on under the surface of both the pill furnace and the energies within – this is generally ineffective as a method for stealing techniques and methods, and is thus considered safe to participate in. However, that is common sense for most people. I have perfect, eidetic memory thanks to the Ascendant’s Library, spiritual perception that is unnoticeable even to most arrays, and more than enough experience in replicating techniques,’ Wei Yi quickly recalled and summarised the situation to herself while she glanced at Chen Shujin with a raised eyebrow, her question being obvious.

“Indeed, I wish to participate as well. I have always wanted to prove- I mean, compare my abilities with a fellow talented refiner, and display the folly of…” she paused while she desperately attempted to guess the age of the muscular woman before her, “… youth?”

“In that case, I will not object. Since you believe me to be some kind of trickster, I shall show you and anyone in this district that wishes to appear that I am the most capable out of you lot,” Wei Yi shrugged, “Do any of you have the intention of making a bet? I wouldn’t mind being rewarded for wasting my time with you.”

Both of these people clearly believed her to be less competent than she appeared, while one was simply acting with an incredibly short fuse, so she decided to get the most out of the situation.

As expected, the two struggled to propose their overly confident bet first.

“Since you’ve agreed, I hope you intend to respect the custom of equivalent bets. I know who you truly are, so I put my own techniques and recipes on the line. If you win, I will give you my primary refining technique and fifteen of my two-star recipes, as well as five of my three-star recipes,” Ning Fangtie said, suddenly turning to look eagerly towards Chen Shujin.

“Hmph, you think you can best me in this? Same bet, then!” the woman stated.

Both turned to face Wei Yi, as, whatever their rivalry against one another was, they both wanted to benefit from whatever knowledge they thought that she did actually possess.

“In that case, I will do the same. My refining technique, and my pill recipes,” Wei Yi said, as she did not want to mention a specific number of recipes due to the lack of significantly unique ones within her possession. Most of her recipes originated from the basic pill refining books she had read early on in her journey in cultivation, and the only exception were the Cherry Revolving Blossom Art and the variations that it contained, which were not typically considered sufficient to be completely individual recipes worth competing for. However, she did not intend to lose, and she would thus not need to reveal the deception of her words.

It would be difficult for her to fail to begin with, purely due to the way that pill refining functioned. Whenever a pill was refined, it would need to reach a certain quality to even function. A one star pill needed to reach roughly ten percent of its possible quality, a two star pill would need to reach twenty percent, and so on.

While it is difficult to go beyond that quality, once a one star pill reaches twenty percent quality, it nearly doubles in effectiveness for the same ingredients, and is thus significantly more valuable than normal pills while also being far cheaper to produce than the vast majority of the time. This was an area that Wei Yi had an immense advantage in, as the ability to ignore the cleanliness of a cauldron, the element of her energy and the impurities that the planar energy of others usually contained instantly brought the quality of her creations up by ten percent or so, which, when combined with the refining methods of the fifth realm that had once belonged to Chu Ling, meant that the only way for anyone to beat her while only at the level of three stars would be to utilise some incredibly uncommon methods, such as forbidden arts or overly expensive ingredients to make up for their lack of mastery.

As a result, she was mostly confident about this Refiner’s Duel, as it would net her some benefits regardless of the outcome, and, as she had intentionally left the quantity of recipes unspecified and had a refining method that relied on a cultivation of killing will that all other lacked, would not result in the loss of much more than a fragment of her knowledge, which would mostly be useless to everyone but her.

“I-In that case, everyone, why don’t you allow us to organise it?” the receptionist suggested, shifting all focus from Wei Yi to herself, “If you don’t think that I am reliable, I can bring the suggesting up to the local manager, who you should be familiar with.”

“We are, even if the fraud is not. He will be able to officiate fairly,” Ning Fangtie agreed, not actually bothering to even glance in Chen Shujin’s direction to judge her opinion.

“You… Tch. I agree…”

“Great!” the receptionist exclaimed, getting up and waving them away, “I’ll introduce Wei Yi to what’s going on, so you can go on and prepare! The pill you’ll be working on will be decided by him later on, so make sure to practise as much as possible! Alright, go away now, I’m not going to repeat myself again!”

The two sent one last glare towards Wei Yi and did as they were told, departing the Chu Alchemical Store with angry faces. Chao Juzan stepped aside, to allow her to have her discussion with the receptionist calmly, although he remained in the corner of the main room so that he would be able to return to his previous attempt at inquiry as soon as he could. As he appeared to have no particular malicious intent towards her at the moment, Wei Yi did not bother too much about him and turned to the receptionist woman.

In just one night, she had recovered greatly from her previous state, the bags under her eyes vanishing almost entirely despite seemingly receiving very little rest today.

“Tell me, does this kind of thing happen often around here?”

“Yeah, it happens every now and then, you know? That lot in particular is very competitive amongst themselves and tend to pull in others to make their competitions less dull, if I understand their actions correctly. They haven’t actually tried anything from you – giving you money wouldn’t be in their interests, of course – so I’m sure that they’ll be greatly disappointed when you beat them and get all of their things!” she replied with a great deal of excitement and energy that still seemed to actively pour from her, “Oh, and don’t worry about the manager. He’s a great guy who won’t try to steal your knowledge or allow the wrong people to win… by the way, how did you make any pills in my house-”

“Alright, that’s enough. If you want me to respond to anything you say, you should give me the time to do so,” Wei Yi interrupted her, “I would prefer that we get straight to the point and either see that manager, or you give me the list of ingredients on offer and allow me to purchase some.”

“Ah, sorry. My apologies. Okay, let’s go!”

She nearly dragged her all the way to their destination again, but as Wei Yi refused to appear before whoever was in charge while being pulled along by an overexcited woman due to how bad of a look that would be to a serious, stern individual that she was attempting to portray herself as, she pulled herself free and followed the receptionist normally, heading through the door behind her desk and upstairs, past a few rows of doors leading into various offices before stopping at the last door at the very end of the corridor.

The door was labelled with the name of ‘Chu Huazhi’, which only made sense due to the name of the establishment. Based on the chattering of the receptionist in the minute that it took them to get there, Wei Yi learnt that the Chu Alchemical Store was present in multiple locations and each one was managed by some distant member of the Chu family, created as a way to spread the mastery of their family to other districts and locations.

As a result, Chu Huazhi, received plenty of support from the family, even if not directly. The label on the door was golden, the wood used for the door and the entire structure was clearly of a high quality and highly expensive, still shining with value and extensive amounts of cleaning and polish… although that might have just been the receptionist spending her energy in a productive manner at night.

“Alright, here it is. You can step in first, I’ll prepare the ingredient listing for you! Which kinds of ingredients are you interested in?”

“One and two star-quality herbs for restorative and enhancing pills. Some random ingredients to stabilise those would also be necessary, as well as a few to counteract their extreme elemental contents. I can go through a large quantity of information quickly, so feel free to leave in whatever you want. I’ll handle it and may even discover a few things I hadn’t anticipated needing,” Wei Yi said, waiting for her to confirm her understanding before glancing to Min Lian and knocking on the door.

“Come in,” a voice replied from the other side.

She opened the door and stepped inside, allowing her subordinate assassin to shut the door behind her.

The office of the local manager was similarly expensive and luxurious, with a central desk that appeared to be carved not from wood, but from the bone of some enormous creature – one that fortunately lacked the same killing intent as the Beast, meaning that it did not immediately shatter the other furniture placed around it. Two chairs were placed in front of it, both made from wood and with comfortable cushions placed on the seats, and one occupied chair was placed at the back, ornate armrests supporting the arms of a man in green robes, long brown and grey locks flowing down from his head and covering much of his face, besides the green eyes.

Much of the room was similarly decorated, with several large paintings of landscapes and creatures that might have existed somewhere in the Planar Continents, but that Wei Yi was personally unaware of and unfamiliar with. Several cabinets on the left housed bottles of dark authamite wine, with one of the bottles placed atop the desk to display the magnanimous artistry on its side.

“Chu Huazhi?”

“That is I. I hope that you will forgive me for hearing some of your previous conversation,” the brown-haired man said, his slight movement as he leant back showcasing the four-star badge on his chest.

“I was well aware. There are countless observation arrays all over this structure, to the point that I am surprised that you have not yet gone deaf from every sound and voice that must be transmitted to you.”

“You are familiar with arrays? Well done.”

“Is it not only natural? Every single one of the great arts connects closely to the other, such as blacksmithing involving a great deal of inscription, refining and talisman creation in its own ways. For me to learn of arrays was an obvious choice, and one that benefitted me greatly,” Wei Yi stated, not intending to hide her understanding of the many great arts due to the inconvenience that would cause her in the future, “In fact, you appear to have done that exact same thing, have you not?”

“While I have recruited others to complete most of the work for me, I have indeed studied these arrays quite a lot, in the case that I have to maintain them without support,” Chu Huazhi replied, “Now, the Refiner’s Duel. Is that something that you believe that you can manage? Do you think you have a chance of victory?”

“I would not have accepted if I did not. Why? Do you have some interest in my victory or loss, perhaps to make a bet?”

“No, not at all. As my receptionist has told you, I wish to ensure that everything is fair. If you were coerced by the two troublemakers and lacked the confidence to deny their invitation to the duel yourself, I could call it off and refuse to organise it for any number of reasons.”

Wei Yi shook her head, “No need for that. I am not some coward.”

“Very well. If there is anything else that you would like to discuss, then we could do so now. Otherwise, I shall begin to consider which pill you three will be able to compete over. Any preferences?”

“None at all.”

Oculus