A faint grinding came from the alleyway as Baiyun got to work. It was a strange pce for such a sound to be emanating, but perhaps it was why no one bothered him.

  He used a mortar and pestle to grind ironwood and red grass into paste before pouring them into a gss beaker and adding a spoonful of iron salt and silver dust.

  The Iron Strength Pill.

  This was a recipe for a pill of this world, but he had added some new ingredients due to his inability to create alchemic spell particles. His new additions would react and get rid of certain unnecessary essences as an alternative, though it was crude and awkward, as if someone had substituted chili fkes in a dish with bck pepper.

  The mixture slowly began to turn grey as it bubbled and popped.

  Such reactions often took hours at minimum but he didn't particurly mind right now. Baiyun happily took out Qinghe's textbooks and resumed his reading, though every few minutes, he'd give the bottles a good shake.

  The noon sun intensified as hours passed by, but the alley remained well shaded.

  Baiyun put his book aside as he noticed the mixture had gone ft from the corner of his eye. He opened his cauldron and took out the mole, pcing it in a wooden bowl and tossing a rag over it. Its muffled squeaks of anger echoed beneath; it did not understand why its nice sleeping spot had been taken away!

  A few soft ccks echoed in the alleyway as firewood was stacked neatly by deft hands.

  Baiyun sighed. Alchemists were supposed to summon alchemic fires they could perfectly control with unique properties. Different pills would benefit from different types of fme and he had studied over a hundred different alchemic fmes in his past life.

  And here he was, forced to use firewood of all things. It wasn't as bad in the prison because he was using an ordinary pot to cook his "qi pebble" back then. But now that he had an actual alchemy cauldron, it felt almost as if he were sullying it.

  Hah... what nonsense was he thinking? If anything, he was cleansing it!

  The reason why the cauldron had been sold for cheap was due to the bckish-blue stain that contaminated it. It was of metal origin and technically a good quality essence, so he pnned to absorb it into the Iron Strength Pill.

  It seemed almost too simple for the stain to be removed in such a way, but his knowledge of alchemy made him able to choose ingredients perfectly suited to neutralising and absorbing it.

  Getting rid of a problem by turning it into a boon. Now that was what efficiency was! Baiyun nodded to himself, pleased, until it occurred to him that absorbing an old stain into his pill was actually quite revolting.

  He spped his forehead and sighed deeply.

  The cauldron had heated up sufficiently by now, so he poured the mixture from the beaker in. Despite the thick consistency of the paste, not a droplet stuck to it. Qinghe's beakers and bottles were not ordinary containers. They were made of gloss gss, a cheap aquaphobic alchemic gss with qi-proof properties.

  Hot steam billowed out from the cauldron as the paste sizzled and crackled, the intense smell of herbs and a metallic scent that almost felt like blood filling the alley.

  Baiyun grabbed the handles of the cauldron and awkwardly shook it, doing his best to mix it eventually. The paste slid freely within and did not cling to the walls. He wished Qinghe had sold him some sort of non-stick dle to go with it, but normal alchemists would use qi sense for mixing instead of such an awkward method.

  The paste began to turn into a thick slop as more and more steam escaped. Sweat dripped from his face as he did his best to lift the heavy cauldron.

  "Hah!"

  Baiyun shouted as he flicked the cauldron upwards in a swift and violent motion. The slop inside flipped in the air and spttered on its other side as if it were a pancake in a wok.

  ...he began to question himself and wonder what poor decisions led him to this moment.

  And he had plenty of time for that, for the process was slow and tedious.

  Baiyun's arm muscles screamed in pain and the heat made him feel as if he were being boiled alive. If not for the Rock Ginseng pill's permanent effects, he was certain he would have passed out from heat stroke and exhaustion.

  The substance continued to shrink within the pot until it began to solidify. He took a deep breath as he finally smmed the pot onto the ground beside the campfire. His muscles sighed with relief, finally free from the burden of tossing a heavy cauldron like a wok.

  Baiyun took out a long metal spoon and applied a thin yer of lubricant onto it. He reached into the cauldron with the spoon and struck the mass, splitting it into small chunks of equal size.

  He smacked each chunk from every direction until they were forced into spherical shapes, then picked up the cauldron and tipped it over.

  The grey orbs tumbled out of the cauldron and into a bowl lined with a thin yer of silver dust.

  Baiyun's first proper batch of pills! They were not elegant, in fact, they were ugly and slightly misshapen and stained by burnt oil lubricant.

  The crude mortal methods used to refine them were practically an insult to alchemy. But he could not help but smile.

  He took a quick peek into the cauldron and checked on the stain. It was now gone, repced by a splotch of white grey. Still ugly unfortunately, but it would no longer interfere with non-metal pills.

  Baiyun waited an hour for the pills to cool before swallowing the most misshapen of them. Urgh... it tasted of burnt oil. But he nodded in satisfaction as his body absorbed the essences.

  He slowly channeled the essences into his bones as the pill slowly dissolved; it would probably be about 10 hours before it was fully digested in his stomach. Metal bones and earthen flesh was a cssic of the earth body path. Other than choosing to fully focus on their best element, cultivators could also cultivate supporting elements with compatibility with each other.

  The best path for an alchemist was to cultivate pure qi that could be converted into any element. But that wasn't practical for his current self unfortunately, so it was best to stick to what worked best with his servant constitution.

  Baiyun took out a knife and slowly began to shave off the surface of the pills. Rough uneven surfaces and burnt lubricant stuck to their outsides simply would not do. As the outer yers fked off from the knife scrapes, slowly, they began to shine a brilliant silver sheen.

  The pills that previously resembled stones now looked like orbs of silver! There was still a slight graininess to the pills, but Baiyun was satisfied. He swallowed the pill shavings so as not to waste them, absorbing their essence as well.

  It was now time for another meeting with Qinghe.

  ...or maybe he could read a little more? Baiyun wandered back and forth in the alley indecisively until he finally caved and reached for the textbook. Reading a little more wouldn't hurt.

  He reached into his bag for his favourite stool then remembered he had lost it against the tussle with the beetle. Unfortunate. He sat back down in the alley and mused to himself as he read and read with glee.

  Hours and hours passed by...

  Ah.

  Baiyun pried his eyes away from his book and looked up suddenly. The skies were now pitch bck; it was now night.

  Drat.

  He tossed the mole back into the cauldron and hurriedly rushed back to the inn, running upstairs and knocking on Qinghe's door. A minute of silence passed before she finally opened the door with a scowl.

  "You again? Why are you bothering me at this hour?" she harrumphed.

  Baiyun grinned as he held out his bowl of freshly refined Iron Strength pills.

  "I made some pills. Care to take a look?"

  Qinghe furrowed her eyebrows and looked at him with doubt. But she sighed and beckoned for him to come in.

  Baiyun was surprised to see her windows were open and letting moonlight in. He expected her to close them immediately after he left.

  He reached for the string switch of the qi-light atop the ceiling, only for Qinghe to suddenly stop him.

  "Don't. I'll really get angry this time." she gred.

  ...was this girl allergic to light?

  Qinghe picked up one of the pills and raised it in the moonlight, feeling its smooth texture and sensing its insides with qi sense. A little puzzlement graced her face and her forehead creased slightly.

  "What are these supposed to be? I can sense they are proper pills but..."

  Baiyun smiled.

  "There are Iron Strength pills. I modified the recipe slightly."

  "Huh? But those are double yered pills! Yours are a homogeneous mass, you can barely even call it the same pill anymore at this point!" Qinghe huffed.

  Double yered pills involved forging an inner pill, then adding new ingredients and refining a 2nd yer of different pill matter around it.

  Qinghe closed her eyes as she channeled more qi sense into it, doing her best to sense its essences. The senses of a qi gatherer were weak, so she was only able to obtain a small amount of insight, unlike Baiyun's divine sense.

  "Well... I can sense you got some of the essences right, but the ingredients are off... hm..."

  Her eyebrows seem to crease deeper and deeper. Baiyun didn't feel like waiting for her to finish reacting, so he grabbed one of the pills and tried to toss it into his mouth as a demonstration. But Qinghe snatched it out of the air and stopped him.

  "Don't be rash! These are unknown pills, you can't just eat them randomly! Let me test it first."

  Baiyun was speechless. Well, at least she was concerned about his safety.

  Qinghe reached into one of her many storage pouches and rummaged for a moment. A little squeak came out from within and she pulled out a little creature! It was a strange little hamster with shiny metallic fur, with chunks of white metal crystals jutting out of its back.

  The rodent sniffed around and paced on her hand as if looking for a treat.

  She seemed quite pleased with herself as she presented it to Baiyun.

  "Do you know what this is? It's a-"

  But Baiyun was already staring at it with fervor. A pill testing beast of metal element!

  Pill beasts were animals specially bred to react strongly to pills. The higher grade they were, the stronger their reaction to alchemic products.

  Most pill beasts were massive creatures with mighty bodies that could endure even the most disastrous pills. In his past life, Baiyun owned a Rank 15 Cauldron-shelled Dragon Turtle. Its size was that of a small mountain, and its body exaggerated the effect of pills by a 100 times!

  Small pill beasts that could survive spatial environments were a luxury. Due to their tiny stature, any mishaps with powerful pills were often lethal and the alchemist would need to prepare many repcements. The only reason for their existence was portability, for alchemists that often went on long trips.

  Now that he thought of it, its spatial properties...

  He suddenly noticed Qinghe was grinning at him and paused.

  "It's cute, huh?" she smirked. "Were you even listening to what I said?"

  Baiyun coughed. That wasn't the reason but whatever.

  Qinghe passed the hamster one of the iron pills. It stared at the orb with big round eyes, sniffing and licking it, then paused as if contempting.

  "If he refuses to eat it, then it's poisonous! Yinyin has a really sharp nose." she said.

  She named it? Baiyun raised an eyebrow.

  The eyes of the hamster suddenly lit up. It held the pill to its mouth and began to furiously nibble! Each bite was small but fast as lightning; not even 10 seconds had passed by the time the pill was fully annihited! Somehow, it managed not to drop even a single crumb.

  "Squeak!"

  Yinyin shut its eyes and clenched its little paws into fists. A crackle sounded out as metallic grey crystals sprouted out of its back and mixed into the midst of the white crystals.

  The hamster leapt from Qinghe's hands onto a table and began to run in circles excitedly. There was no need for her to expin; the pill was a success!

  "This..." she mumbled. "Let me have a moment to myself."

  She pulled out a small chisel from the bag and turned towards the hamster, who sat down obediently at the sight. Slowly and carefully, she chipped away at the crystals and removed them from the hamster. It looked quite strange with a bald and hairless back, but it began to roll around on the table on its back, as if happy to be free from its burden.

  Qinghe slowly examined the grey crystals with thoughtful eyes. It seemed that converting metal pills into crystals made it easier for them to be examined with qi sense. But at the sight of the hamster's antic from the corner of her eye, she smiled and rubbed its exposed belly.

  Baiyun could only shake his head internally. For her to be so attached to a small pill beast was ill advised. Even with its sharp nose, sooner or ter, he was certain it would meet its end from ingesting a pill it underestimated. The only outcome he could foresee was that of heartbreak.

  Qinghe put the hamster back in its pouch and examined the crystal for another minute before finally speaking.

  "I'm surprised. These are genuine Iron Strength Pills and of quite the high quality. Did you really make these? You didn't use any rare and expensive ingredients, did you?"

  Baiyun coughed.

  If Qinghe knew the "rare ingredient" used was the stain at the bottom of her old cauldron, what would she think? If not for that, he would only have been able to create Iron Strength pills of inferior quality.

  "Yes, I can assure you I made them. But my methods? That's a secret, at least for now." he smiled. "I wanted to show you my capabilities and make a deal with you!"

  "Huh? Well, I suppose I can hear you out."

  Qinghe seemed slightly baffled.

  "I want to showcase more modified pill recipes, but I don't have the herbs for them. Lend me 10,000 tokens, so I can purchase them and show you the results!"

  Baiyun spped his hands onto the table as he spoke, doing his best impression of a confident youth.

  He hoped her curiosity as an alchemist would convince her. If he was in her position, he knew he would. To a young master like her, it was but pocket change, a trifling sum for something so intriguing!

  But Qinghe frowned.

  "I refuse. Pay up."

  Baiyun spped his forehead. Why did this girl have to be so stingy?

  "Don't give me that attitude." Qinghe said. "I'm still not fully convinced you made those pills. And besides, why would I expect you to succeed on your first attempts with new recipes you haven't tested?"

  Well, those were good points. But she was still a miser!

  "Fine! You can have some of the bck mugwort then!" Baiyun sighed.

  He previously had no idea about the value of herbs, but Qinghe's textbooks had given him a rough idea of their valuation. But they were old textbooks so there was a chance market changes would affect them, so Baiyun chose a herb that was rare and only grew in the wild. Bck mugwort also didn't have many essences useful to him.

  Baiyun reached for his cauldron and opened its lid, revealing the mole inside. It raised its head in confusion and paused, then suddenly let out a furious warcry!

  "KRRRRRR!"

  It's cws ctters as it rushed and did its best to lunge out, but it only slid around awkwardly in the slick walls of the cauldron.

  "...why is it in the cauldron?" Qinghe asked.

  "Uh. Don't ask." Baiyun coughed.

  He colpsed to the side and pretended to be unconscious before the mole could realise they were in cahoots.

  Qinghe sighed. She poured a small vial of elixir into the cauldron and shut its lid. She opened it a minute ter, the mole now fast asleep again.

  "I'll take some extra as reimbursement. I didn't charge you the previous time I used sleep medicine."

  "Right..."

  Baiyun didn't feel like arguing at this point.

  He reached for the mole's herb pouch and pulled out several clumps of bck mugwort, letting her choose the specimens she liked.

  Well, while he was at it...

  Baiyun gnced at the mole and made sure it was truly asleep, before taking a few extra herbs from its pouch and pcing it into his bag. He did feel a little guilty, but with Qinghe as the scapegoat, he fell to temptation.