Immortal Cultivation: Starting from a Pharmacy Apprentice

Chapter 207: Chapter 207: Searching and Exploring

The fire-starting Anomalous Lizard was butchered and preserved in jars.

Some of it even ended up in everyone’s stomachs. It tasted excellent, well worth its price.

But as for the Pill of the Five Viscera, Bai Mo hadn’t the slightest clue how to proceed.

And the Pill for his senior brothers from Divine Dao Mountain could be delayed no longer.

Bai Mo took out the Pill Formula and analyzed it word by word.

The Pill Formula wasn’t particularly complex. The difficulty lay in its ingredients, which were nearly extinct—the very reason the formula had been left to gather dust.

He had no idea how those senior brothers had managed to dig this Pill Formula out of a pile of old records.

Bai Mo was already familiar with the medicinal properties of many of the ingredients.

But now, determined to succeed, he pulled out numerous Pill Books, occasionally rereading their descriptions to ensure he hadn’t overlooked anything.

Ingredients were continuously brought into the quiet chamber by Qin Wen, and waste residue was carried out.

The sheer quantity of it all startled Qin Wen.

"What’s the value of the ingredients that have gone in?"

On one occasion, Qin Wen turned and asked Wei An.

Wei An shook his head.

"It’s already surpassed fifty. The Shopkeeper must be experimenting with a new Pill."

"The books say that when a Pill Master experiments with a new Pill, it often costs a great deal of Spirit Stones and ingredients."

Qin Wen, however, knew that there were no signs of Alchemy coming from the quiet chamber—just the processing of ingredients.

The masked man pushing the flatbed cart arrived again. He skillfully stopped at the shop’s entrance, peered inside, and sized up the Pills on display.

Qin Wen placed the bag of waste residue onto the cart, and the man snapped out of his daze.

"Your shopkeeper wasn’t like this before," he said with a sigh.

"In the past, Shopkeeper Bai would never waste so many good things. Even among his scraps, you could find treasures."

"Now, the land where your shop’s waste is buried has become so toxic that nothing grows for half a mile around."

"None of us dare let our poultry wander over there anymore."

Without saying much else, the man pushed his cart and left.

Qin Wen returned to the shop. Having not read many Pill Books himself, he asked:

"For those on the Alchemy Dao, how many Spirit Stones does it take to test a Pill?"

He had never paid attention to the account books, but seeing the outflow of Spirit Stones, he knew the shop didn’t have much savings left.

It seemed they were just barely breaking even.

Wei An still had five thousand Spirit Stones set aside—the shop’s emergency fund. This was the source of his confidence.

"That depends on a person’s luck and comprehension. Someone like me could spend any amount of Spirit Stones and still fail."

"But the Shopkeeper can definitely do it. Once he succeeds, the Spirit Stones will flow back in twofold!"

As they spoke, the conversation turned to the disciples from Divine Dao Mountain.

Ever since their visit, those disciples hadn’t shown up again, nor had they even asked about the progress, which was rather strange.

Two days later, the consumption of ingredients finally stopped.

Xu Ruyuan, who had come to deliver more ingredients, let out a huge sigh of relief and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

"Thank heavens. If you needed any more, I don’t know where I would’ve found them."

"Is Shopkeeper Bai concocting a new Pill?"

Wei An nodded and instructed:

"You should still try to prepare a few more batches based on that list. With this sort of thing, you never know..."

Bai Mo had grown even thinner.

He stood in the quiet chamber, strictly controlling the ingredients as he placed them into the Pill Furnace.

After several adjustments to the heat, he was surprised to find that a Pill had actually formed.

Once the Pill had cooled, Bai Mo reached out and took it. Its bright yellow body was perfectly round and vibrantly colored.

Bai Mo studied it for a moment, then shook his head.

’It shouldn’t look like this.’

’This isn’t what I expected.’

Seeing that he still had plenty of materials on hand, Bai Mo decided to strike while the iron was hot and refined two more batches.

Both attempts yielded Pills.

"This..."

Looking at the three Pills, each a different shade of color, Bai Mo felt he had truly run into a difficult problem.

’I need to think about this more.’

Feeling a bit dazed from his time in the quiet chamber, Bai Mo opened the door and stepped out, planning to get some fresh air with his hands behind his back.

He hadn’t been outside long before he ran into his senior brothers from Divine Dao Mountain, who had arrived looking travel-worn.

Nearby, Wei An and Qin Wen were about to move several large sacks the disciples had brought with them.

"Junior Brother, to see you expend so much energy on our Pill... we are truly moved."

One of the disciples was visibly moved upon seeing Bai Mo’s haggard appearance.

Bai Mo sighed.

"I’m afraid I’ve failed to live up to your trust. I’ll need to research this for a while longer."

The Divine Dao Mountain disciples exchanged a look, and one spoke up:

"Did something unexpected happen?"

Bai Mo took out the three Pills. Although their colors varied and they looked appealing, they were, in fact, failures.

"Senior Brothers, please look. These are the Pills I’ve managed to refine. Their effects all differ, and none of them are close to what I was aiming for."

One disciple took one of Bai Mo’s Pills, thought for a moment, and said:

"Part of the blame is ours. We gave you the Pill Formula, but we didn’t provide anything similar for you to use as a reference."

The Pill they wanted was quite peculiar.

It wasn’t meant to be ingested by Cultivators, but rather burned to produce a smoke that would attract unusual creatures.

This disciple took out a book and handed it to Bai Mo.

"On our mountain, we have many methods for luring such creatures."

"The closest thing to this Pill is the incense described in this book. You should take a look, Junior Brother."

They were accustomed to using the smoke of long incense sticks to communicate with ghosts and spirits, a principle remarkably similar to the Pill Bai Mo was trying to refine.

Bai Mo didn’t stand on ceremony and accepted the tome directly.

The disciple encouraged him further, saying:

"To have achieved this much in such a short time is already impressive. I’m sure you’ll succeed soon."

"We’ll take these three Pills. Once we’ve tested their effects, we’ll come back and let you know, Junior Brother."

Bai Mo nodded on the surface, but inwardly, he knew this wasn’t a problem that could be solved by sheer persistence.

Finding substitute ingredients and balancing their medicinal properties could be accomplished with enough time.

But he couldn’t even be sure what the current obstacle he was facing was.

If he couldn’t identify the key issue, spending more time would just be a waste of effort.

The disciples from Divine Dao Mountain were more optimistic. They took their leave and departed.

They had been in Celestial Barrier Mountain these past few days, doing who knows what, and looked quite weary.

Qin Wen spoke up, "The mountain goods the immortal masters brought are all quite rare. They would fetch a high price in the city."

Bai Mo waved his hand dismissively.

"Just keep these for ourselves to eat. It’s all good stuff. Don’t waste the kind gesture from our senior brothers."

He recognized these mountain goods. They could only be found deep within Celestial Barrier Mountain, and any Loose Cultivator who chanced upon them would be ecstatic.

He just didn’t know what his senior brothers were doing in the mountains. They had probably accepted a commission from Mountain View Tower.

Seeing that Bai Mo had no intention of returning to the shop and was instead heading out, Qin Wen quickly asked:

"You’re not going back in?"

Without turning his head, Bai Mo replied, "I’m going out to clear my head."

"Don’t bother making me lunch."

With that, he left Qin Wen and Wei An to deal with the sacks of mountain goods and went off on his own.

Immortal Arrival City was bustling.

More and more Cultivators were entering and exiting Celestial Barrier Mountain. Even those who didn’t normally venture there were making special trips into the mountains.

Recently, the Demon Hunting Teams had been very active, opening up many new areas and reaping unexpected rewards.

Others, green with envy, followed them in.

Wealth moves the hearts of men. Many, unfamiliar with the routes, lost their lives in the mountains.

Who knows if they had followed the tradition of leaving a grass knot on the large tree stump at the mountain’s entrance.

Bai Mo ambled along, his thoughts wandering freely.

When he came back to his senses, he was already on a road outside the city, surrounded by Cultivators preparing to enter the mountains.

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