Chapter 147: Pill Refinement

Outside a tall building on the main street of Westfall, Ryu and Chi stood outside the gate looking at the newly finished guild house. "Isn't this a bit big?" Chi asked as she looked at the tall ten floor building. It had easily become the tallest structure in the city!

"Well..." Ryu began as he scratched his head. "I figured since I had the money to go with the most expensive one, I might as well do so. But this is also good because we now have a floor for each trade skill. The building itself comes with over 200 rooms. Just by having the Vaughan family for backing allowed us to make this building."

"But still..." Chi felt like they had suddenly become the biggest tycoons in the city. Compared to the other buildings, this one was like a skyscraper. It even came with a rooftop garden.

"Anyway, I need you to go check on the other guild houses and see how things are going. I need to head to the palace a bit to make a copy of that cultivation method. Only then can we truly become a powerful force." Ryu needed to do two things before he logged off for the day. First was to make it so he could easily pass out cultivation methods to his guild members, and he also needed to make pills to boost WhiteLotus and the other's cultivation speeds. 

After giving Chi a kiss goodbye, Ryu entered the palace and was instantly slammed into by a small black figure. "Meow!! Meow!! Meow!! Meow!! "

"Nergal! You finally wish to speak to me?" Nergal let out another cry and did not hesitate to take his rightful place on top of Ryu's head. He curled into a ball and went right to sleep. 

Ryu was unsure if he should laugh or cry at this. The cat got mad at him for getting to resummon him, and now he was acting as nothing had happened. "Well, whatever..." 

Ryu was happy that Nergal was back to normal. Now in a good mood, Ryu went to work. First, he made a handwritten copy of the cultivation method he got as a reward. When he got the notification saying he could now mass produce them, he made over three hundred of them using up all the ink and paper he had in the room. Ryu stuffed all the cultivation methods into his ring and went to the alchemy room. "It has been a while since I have been here..."

"Let's see..." Ryu looked through some of the recipes in the room and found one called: "Low Tier Qi Quenching Pill… Oh? Only needs such common materials?"

[Low Tier Qi Quenching Pill]

[Helps speed up cultivation by 20% for 5 hours.]

"Let's see here, ten stalks of blue grass and three stalks of soul grass. Once I have these, I need to extract the essence from each one… In order to do that, I need to feel the essence inside the herb and use my soul qi to pull the essence out...  Let's give this a try." Ryu already knew all things had a certain soul essence to them since he entered the soul sensing realm. Luckily he has already reached the proper realm, or he would never be able to refine pills. 

After a few minutes of getting the right feeling for the essence inside the blue grass, Ryu extended his soul qi out of his body and wrapped the blue grass in it. He then pictured his soul qi slowly extracting the soul essence from it. This part took a bit of trial and error, but after an hour, he finally succeeded in extracting the first bit of soul essence. 

"Yes now... I need to place this inside the cauldron." After placing the soul essence inside the cauldron, he went right to work doing the rest. Once he was finished he was ready for the last two parts. The mixing and merging and finally pill formation. 

This part consisted of using your soul qi like threads and slowly mixing the different soul essences together. First, you had to mix the same types, and once they were mixed, you merged them into the other herb essences. Only then could you begin the formation process.

*Boom!*

"Meow!!!"

"Fuck! It exploded!" Ryu yelled out. Nergal, who was sound asleep, almost jumped out of his skin due to the sudden explosion. Black soot covered Ryu's handsome face. But this did not deter him. He quickly got more materials and went right back to work. 

Two hours went by, and ten explosions later, Ryu finally merged the ingredients together. "Now pill formation." This part consisted of forming and solidifying the soul essence into a pill and was even harder to do than merging the essences together.

*Boom!*

"MEEEOOWWW!!!!" 

Nergal this time, was the one who got the brunt of the soot that flew into the air since Ryu lowered his head to cover his face.  "Meow! Meow! Meow! Meow!" Nergal's disgruntled meows rang out on top of Ryu's head as he dug his claws into Ryu's scalp.

"Alright, I'm sorry! I will make sure to be the one to get hit by the soot! Enough with the claws already!" Ryu yelled out. 

"Meow!" It was quite the comical scene watching one man and one cat yelling back and forth at each other. 

In the end, after much trial and error, Ryu finally formed his first pill. But he did not stop there. He continued to practice for a few more hours, and by the time he stopped, he was able to form three pills at once. "I now have one hundred pills. I will keep 20 for  Chi and I and then pass the rest to FingerSandwhich, GreenHat, the numbers, and the girls. Pills will only go to them for now, and then later, I will have to distribute batches out to those who are loyal. This way, I will not see my pills being sold on the marketplace." 

Ryu hated to think like this, but that is a possibility he had to accept when dealing with others you don't know well. In order to not have such a thing happen, he would distribute pills slowly until he had a firm core team for the guild.

"Now then…" Ryu reached up and pulled Nergal into his embrace. Nergal did not even wake up and subconsciously snuggled into Ryu's embrace. Ryu smiled warmly as he petted the little guy. 

"Let's head out to the new guild house in Westfall. I am sure you would like to do some sightseeing after being locked up in the palace all this time." Ryu said as she stood up and teleported out of the palace. He arrived back in front of the main gate and walked into the guild house main doors. He already saw someone very scary standing there with a big smile on his face.

"Darling~!" Margie, the big burly flamboyant man, was all smiles when he saw Ryu. "Darling~, Margie hasn't seen you in ages!"

"I have been busy. How are things going with the guild?" Ryu asked.

"So far, I have organized all the armament trade skillers based on skill level. And the ones that have a better idea of what they are doing are helping those who wish to learn." Margie explained.

Ryu was quite surprised that Margie was doing so much. He could already guess that WhiteLotus must have put him in charge of the armament trade skillers. Ryu pulled out a cultivation method, and after some thought, he also took out a pill and handed it to Margie. "Take this. Use the pill to boost your cultivation. Don't let me see any post up for sale anywhere. I am the only person in Soul Fusion Online who is able to make this pill at this time. So I will know if it was you or not." 

"Darling~ you need to trust your Margie. Margie will never betray the trust of someone as handsome as you! Chuuu~!" Margie said while blowing a kiss at Ryu. 

Ryu chuckled and gave the pill to Margie. He only did so because he could see how much Margie was doing right after joining the guild. When someone is so willing to help out without asking for anything in return, that tells one a lot about their character.

"Margie, where are the others?" Ryu asked.

"About this… There was a bit of an issue with one of the new recruits, and Little Chi Chi~ and Little Whitey~ are over at the alchemy house in Flim Village trying to deal with it." Margie replied. 

"Alright, keep up the good work. If you work hard, I will make sure to reward you properly. Just don't do anything that will make me lose trust in you." Ryu said this before heading to the teleport room. Unlike the smaller guild houses, this guild house had its teleport room inside. 

When Ryu reached Flim Village, he heard a familiar yet annoying voice echoing throughout the area. "Why can't I join this guild!? Did I do something wrong to not be able to join it!?"

Ryu quickly ducked behind a bush to see That girl Beauty  standing in front of the gates with her arms crossed across her chest and her foot tapping off the ground. Her expression was one of anger as she looked at WhiteLotus and Chi.