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48.13% Learning To Live As A Cultivator / Chapter 155: Chapter One Hundred And Fifty Five - My experiments produced something new

Chapter 155: Chapter One Hundred And Fifty Five - My experiments produced something new

Ursam's smile did not shrink a tad as he asked; "So what brings you gentlemen to my humble establishment? More pills to sell?"

At these words, the man's long suffering wife straightened her spine and shot Ursam a warning glance. It was very clear to her that these young men were students. Not that there was anything wrong with that, as it happened, the students of the institute were amongst their best customers seeing as their prices were more affordable to the general populace than say if one were to purchase from the Heavenly Pill Pavilion. But students often came here trying to sell their pills and frankly, most were not worth the herbs used to produce them. If it were up to her, no student made pills would ever grace her shelves. Unfortunately, Ursam tended to purchase things on a whim...

"Er.. well... n-not exactly," Leon stuttered, suddenly nervous of the cold aura of the woman. He had hoped to indeed sell the pills if they were worth selling, but he didn't want to make Ursam's wife unhappy. Didn't Mr Clawse say that the woman was an ordinary person, unable to cultivate? Then why was he terrified of her right now? "M-Mr Clawse said that I c-can have p-pills evaluated here?"

The cool aura retracted a little and Ursam looked at his wife fondly before beckoning the young men to the side room. Watching the boys follow her husband, the woman looked thoughtful for a moment before decisively deciding to close the shop for a short while. She just did not trust that man of hers...

Leon and Jin Li were seated upon stools opposite Ursam, whose face-splitting grin returned the moment he noticed that Jin Li's stool had been 'stealthily' moved closer to the small alchemist. Not that Ursam could blame him for this protective streak that seemed to have surfaced since he had first met these boys. Young Leon was quite the cutie. Those large black, innocent eyes were frankly dangerous.

"So, what would you like me to evaluate?" Ursam asked, curiously. Had the small alchemist found out about one of the other tricks of his trade? He'd been delightfully surprised to find that the youth had already figured out about the quality of Purple Spirit Grass. Perhaps this time, it was the Songmist moss secrets...

He looked on as Leon produced several jade bottles... nine in face and his eyes widened as he noticed pills that seemed unfamiliar amongst them. He unstoppered the bottle holding deep burgundy pills and sniffed the herbal aroma emanating from them. A frown marred his forehead and he poured one of the pills into his palm. "This smells like a Burning Energy Pill, but... did you alter the recipe?"

"N-not really," Leon replied, carefully thinking about his words. "It c-contains the same ingr...ingr... things as a n-n-normal b-Burning energy p-pill. As d-does this one." He pushed forward the jade bottle with vivid scarlet pills in its hold. Ursam popped the burgundy pill into its bottle before opening the other. It's scent was what he expected, but somehow more potent.

"He he," Ursam suddenly chuckled and shook his head, before leaping to his feet and running off into another room attached to this. He returned with a small golden device in his hand. It was about the size of Ursam's large fist, a tiny yellow jade cup sitting upon a platform of gold. Only when Ursam placed the small thing upon the table did Leon notice the intricate carvings on the inside of the cup. "You've probably not seen one of these things before; most alchemists don't use them, they claim that they are 'unreliable'. Actually, they are just really, really expensive! I happened to find one in a flea market a few centuries ago. The original owner didn't even realise what he had! This will reveal the secrets of your pills! Ah I don't mean how you made them, by the way, so I can't steal the method. It just lets me know what they can do."

And as he said these words, he popped a burgundy pill into it.

Alchemists did not like this device, for in their opinion, it was no better than the nose of a qualified alchemist and this was generally true. A qualified alchemist would be able to take Leon's ordinary Burning energy pills and declare that the pill was of average quality, that it could raise a primary cultivator's combat ability to that of a secondary level Cultivator for a temporary couple minutes, but would cause the Cultivator weakness afterwards. They could also add that the impurities within were about 30%. But a qualified alchemist would likely say something similar about the burgundy pill and the scarlet pill; Burning Energy Pills usually varied in redden shades, though never as extremely.

Ursam would have thought those insufferable alchemists were just covering their own ignorant butts.

The little device sent the information through Ursam's fingertips using his internal spirit as a medium, and thus the information he sought appeared in his mind. "This little pill is not as good at raising the combative ability of a primary Cultivator as a Burning Energy Pill, probably at best peak stage, but the effect would be longer, probably closer to ten minutes and the resultant weakened state would be greatly reduced." Ursam grinned. What an amazing thing!

Excitedly, he grabbed the scarlet pill and popped it into the cup after removing the other. He sent his energies into the golden device and felt it circulate the carved circuits before returning to his mind with enlightenment. "And this one will gift the consumer with a blast of ability for a few seconds, but it would be as if the Cultivator was peak secondary, perhaps even half-step into tertiary. However, it's cost is greater, the cultivator might even faint from exhaustion!"

"Oh," Leon sounded a little down hearted. One didn't provide the ability of a normal Burning energy pill and the other had an even more serious backlash. Didn't that make these experiments a failure? But then why was Jin Li smiling at him, an almost proud expression within his eyes? And why was Ursam laughing?

"My boy, do you have any idea about what you have done?" The (former) Martial Artist was slapping his thigh gleefully. "While they are not new pills, they certainly are acceptable variations!"

"B-b-but I thought that they were n-no g-good," Leon said, slightly confused.

"Are you kidding me??" Ursam bellowed, his grin revealing all of his white teeth. "Who wouldn't want a bit more strength without the flaw of feeling weak? Who wouldn't want a blast of energy at a crucial moment, potentially saving their lives, even if it meant collapsing afterwards? These pills are marvellous!"


Chapter 156: Chapter One Hundred And Fifty Six - We discuss plans over tea

The two variant pills were tentatively named the Smouldering Energy Pill and the Erupting Energy Pill. The prototypes were naturally of interest to Ursam, he even felt that the best place to sell these new pills might not be his shop, but the Treasure Pavilion Auction House. However, there were concerns that the impurities within them were too high and that might cause a low profit or worse, lack of interest. Thus the first thing was to lower these, which was within Leon's capabilities; these pills contained Purple Spirit grass from the school which could be substituted for a better quality of grass and he had also used no sunsweet clover which was known to reduce impurities.

But before Ursam could discuss terms with Leon, he realised that Leon had not finished surprising him yet. There were six other jade bottles before him. These contained the clear spiritual pill and variants and the Cloudy spiritual pills and their variants. The variations were not as exciting nor as dramatic as those of the Burning Energy Pills. The first variant was filled with gentle, pure energy that was also low in impurities, but the quantities were smaller than the standard pills. The other was filled with spiritual energy, but it was raw and potentially harmful to the meridians. Ursam felt that if Leon had the ability to refine the latter further, the improved pill would storm the market, much like the mysterious improved Blood Pills that Pharmacist Clawse had managed to obtain. It seemed that Ursam was not aware that Leon was responsible for those.

Leon said he would think over it more and discussions moved back to the Energy Pills. "Seeing as you have made changes to Cloudy Spiritual Pills," Ursam grinned and leaned forward as he spoke, "What are the chances of making variant Burning Blood Pills?"

Leon hadn't actually practiced making the standard Burning Blood Pill, but if he recalled, the main ingredient was still Mothtail leaves, thus altering them just as he had with Burning Energy Pills shouldn't be too difficult in the long run. But he would need to learn and practice making the original first. "I th-think it is p-p-possible," Leon replied, his heading nodding as he spoke.

His hands were grabbed by Ursam. "Adorable and talented! I like you!" The man teased, his eyes slyly sliding over to watch Jin Li's face turn rather sour. However, before the youth could physically express his displeasure, a black slippered foot squashed Ursam's nose flat and pushed him backwards.

Ursam's wife, Lia, stood in front of them, balanced upon her other foot and holding a tray with cups and a pot of tea. "My apologies," the woman smiled warmly at the two youths as she placed her foot back onto the ground and then placed the tray upon the table. "I'm all ou' of honey, so I hope you don' mind your tea plain."

"N-no, it's fine," Leon reassured her, taking the offered beverage.

"Thank you," Jin Li said politely.

Ursam counted the available cups. "Wife, where is mine?" He asked with a pouting whine.

"You know where the kitchen is," she told him bluntly, as she sat upon a free stool. He rose from his seat, grumbling and went to grab himself a cup. "Please excuse my husband, he was born with tha' condition."

"Wife, what are you saying?!" Ursam asked with a yell. A cultivator's hearing was much more developed than a normal person's and he could easily hear every word she said.

"I'm sayin' tha' you are a hopeless pervert," she replied, sipping her tea. "Don' you think I've forgotten how you were chasing after my brother when we happened to meet. Yellin' to him about wantin' to dual cultivate in front of our siblings an' everythin'!"

"Ah yes," Ursam mused as he returned to the room, cup in hand. "Seeing you charge fearlessly up to me with a plank of wood in hand and fury in your eyes, I fell for you completely." He sighed with a blissful expression as he rejoined them. Leon and Jin Li couldn't help but share a glance. "Ah yes, Wife, you probably know better than me, when is the next Grand Auction? I am thinking that Leon ought to showcase his pills there."

Her eyebrows rose as she both questioned her husband's words as well as thought them over. "I believe tha' would be in about a moon. Four ten days from now."

"After the Five School Market Festival," Jin Li mused aloud.

Ursam chuckled. "Well that's to be expected!" He informed them. "Several of the artefacts traded for amongst students will likely end up at the Treasure Pavilion."

"I d-don't understand," Leon's head tilted slightly to one side as he looked at Jin Li, who had nodded in agreement of Ursam's words.

"Not all students seek money for their wares," Ursam told him, "just as not all students can sell what they make. That and if there is inventory left over the students that made the things might seek to dispose of them. Are you two going to participate in the Festival?"

"This Lord is a First year," Jin Li admitted, but in truth, he wouldn't have bothered. It might be interesting to see what was available to buy, but as it was all in trade, he would need things to trade in turn. That seemed like much wasted effort to him.

"I d-don't kn-know yet," Leon hadn't thought about it much, but he had been approached by his Master's other apprentices. Teacher Sagi usually encouraged his students to create a stall together, so the likelihood of Leon participating was high.

"Well," Ursam said as he reached for the teapot, "I probably don't need to tell you to avoid trading with the variant pills!"

"I won't," Leon promised. Ursam grinned, more and more pleased with this cute alchemist, after all who didn't like good-looking and obedient things, even if they could only be business partners in the long run? He tipped up the teapot to pour the hot, flavourful liquid into his cup, only to find it empty. Ursam sighed and looked pitifully at his wife, whose only response was to say;

"Don' look at me."

With another pout of a long 'suffering' husband, he shuffled once more into the kitchen, to brew a fresh pot.


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