Yuan's POV Qi stirred within the cauldron, its contents bubbling and frothing more like a witch’s poison, than any life saving elixir. I stirred the liquid lightly, as I kept adding my own Qi to the mixture. The smoke from the potion stung my eyes as it started to gush forth, the herbs letting their essence out as they began to mix into the solution and turn homogenous. I continued my stirring, keeping my speed even. This was my sixth recipe to make a Qi Refilling elixir, as I'd shifted my focus from making pills to an elixir. I’d found that the saturation point of water for Qi was much higher than that of spirit herbs. Which was a bit strange since herbs should naturally contain a lot of water in their cells, but leaving that aside for a moment. In just a cup worth of water, I could drain all of my Qi and the water would hold it, so long as I didn’t boil it away. Unlike water, steam sucked at holding my Qi whatsoever. I didn’t have any ice to test with, but I suspected the sa

Flee squeaked in my pouch, and I nudged his nose, trying to get him back in as I made my way. For some reason, Flee had been refusing to leave my side for a few days. He’d climb on my body or my shoulder, or even sit on my head sometimes as I went through my notes. I hadn’t been able to tell why he was doing so, so far. Nothing other than luring him with a pill or spirit herb would get him to leave me alone. I ducked my head, keeping my eyes on the ground as a cultivator walked by. I wasn’t particularly afraid of the disciples in the outer sect, but I still preferred not to stand out or be remembered by anyone if I could help it. The fewer people knew me, the easier it would be to leave the sect when I had enough money. I smiled at the thought, patting my other pouch containing the spirit pills I’d agreed to give to Su Lin, in exchange for spirit herbs and a 3/4th share of what he got from the pills. The reason why I was even doing so, despite having Flee, was threefolds. First

A quick glance had him looking back at her, with a very awkward smile that he sent her way, that made the answer obvious to her. This man seemed to show almost next to no interest in her. Yan Yun wasn’t arrogant enough to believe herself the most beautiful person around, but both her bloodline and her high cultivation meant her youth were captured at their peak. She knew that she was not the most beautiful one around, yet she was still quite beautiful. It wasn’t something she took pride in, and if Yan Yun could trade her beauty for a quiet life, she’d do it in a heartbeat. Her beauty had made her the target of many young men’s courting attempts and not all of them had been civil with their attempts. It had forced her to be better than her peers at all times, to remain a step ahead, as no man wished for their wives to be stronger or smarter than them. It had forced her into cultivating against her wishes, and live through the heavy expectations of her grandfather, as he imposed less

The sound came as Flee ran into the room and rushed up my leg. “Whoa whoa whoa, calm down little buddy,” I said, as Flee clung fiercely to my body.I turned to look at the direction he’d come from, to see what exactly had scared him so much. A ginger cat walked closer, staring with wide eyes at me, not expecting to see something five times its size around.“Ah a cat, that makes sense I suppose. I’d expect a spirit animal to be fine though,” I said, scratching Flee’s head as he squeaked, his voice still nervous.I waved the cat away from my chamber, receiving a hateful glare from the animal. “I can’t let you eat my assistant and spirit herb detector just like that,” I said to the cat as it turned its butt towards me, walking away.“You really need to stop getting into so much trouble, Flee,” I said, as Flee calmed down a bit.I extended my palm and Flee climbed on my arm and sat there. I smiled. The week after the encounter with the strange cultivator girl, I’d decided to train Flee a

I’d come to realise something. Qi Gathering Pills, and Qi refilling pills were the one and the same. The Old Man has just used an uncommon name for the pill. I was a bit ashamed that it’d taken me this long to realise despite the recipe being almost identical for both of them. Way to confuse me, Old Man. I sighed, taking my brush, as I began to write down the new results from my last batch. So far I'd succeeded in making three pills quite consistently. Qi Gathering Pill: Cost of Production: 1 Silver 7 Copper Cost of Sale: 5 Silver Effectiveness Increase: 9% -> 11% (Roughly) Cost Reduction: 3.2% I had been a bit stumped at first at how I would be able to get any kind of measurements when I'd found a simple solution for the basis of the numbers. I had used spirit stones and the Qi amount present in one as a baseline and measured the amount of time a pill took alongside the amount of Qi produced to check the effectiveness baseline for the original recipe. The rest was just