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Reaching Martial Lord 4 was not too difficult. I had excess karmic energy after ascending to Lord 3, and gaining enough for Lord 4 only took a few short months. My bottleneck was once again my qi levels. I couldn’t cultivate qi fast enough to keep up with my karmic energy gains.

It took me three more months of long hours cultivating to scrape together enough qi to advance. I ascended to Martial Lord 4, but I knew these delays due to lacking qi would only grow longer. I needed a solution. I needed Rank 4 Qi Gathering Pills.

My alchemy skills were starting to grow quickly, at a far faster pace than I originally anticipated. Early in the process of learning Rank 4 alchemy, I had difficulty maintaining will-locks, and they would often cause problems with my control of qi and spirit fire. After creating a foundation with the Soil Enrichment Pills, though, things started to flow more easily.

The book Emperor Li left me was a big part of this rapid progress. I didn’t have to worry about large difficulty spikes when learning a new recipe because he laid everything out in an extremely methodical fashion. This not only allowed me to advance quickly, but it also meant I wasn’t wasting precious herbs by trying to make pills far beyond my abilities.

The more my alchemy progressed, though, the more lopsided the deal with the Situ Clan felt.

The arrangement I had reached with the Situ Clan was that they would provide me with an ample supply of the herbs that I needed to raise my skills, and in return, I would give them 80% of the pills I made with those herbs.

Early on, this arrangement seemed beneficial to both of us. I was wasting a significant number of herbs in the learning process, so to me, having the Situ Clan absorb the upfront cost of herbs was worth the excessive compensation in pills they received.

However, as I became more skilled, I stopped wasting too many herbs. The final pills weren’t always up to my standards, but they could almost always be sold for enough to cover the cost of ingredients.

At that point, the main benefit of working with the clan was that they provided me with access to a large number of herbs, but this benefit also began to fade. As I started needing more expensive and rarer herbs, the clan could no longer provide them in large quantities.

When the situation had nearly reached a breaking point, one of Mei’s Seeds intervened to help solve the issue.

The first thing she did was completely renegotiate my agreement with the clan. She established a complex percentage structure based on the quantity of herbs available, the rarity of the materials, the value of the pills produced, and several other factors. I didn’t understand how the math worked at all, but with some herbs, I had to pay 90% of the pills I produced while with others I only had to pay 30%.

After leaving the Situ Clan, she insisted we visit the Blue Wind Pavilion to begin negotiating agreements with other suppliers. Her main concern was contracting herbalists to provide large quantities of the herbs needed to make the Rank 4 pills I had already mastered. She wanted me to have as much access as possible to the most profitable herbs. She also wanted to begin negotiations with groups from other kingdoms to provide any rarer herbs that I might need.

She had already proven herself a far more capable negotiator than I was, so I decided to just let her handle everything. I offered her a percentage of my returns since she would be acting as my agent in these matters, but she turned it down, insisting that it was her duty as a Seed.

While my progress in Lord-level alchemy was swift, it wasn’t without problems. Even with increasing herb supplies, I was still unable to make decent Rank 4 Qi Gathering Pills.

I tried the recipe in Emperor Li’s book, but to purify the herbs without the medicinal energy dissipating, I needed to use my will-lock at full force. Because of this, when my qi and spirit fire entered the locked space to cleanse the toxins, I lost nearly all control over them. It took everything I had to move them the slightest bit.

I made several attempts at creating Qi Gathering Pills with the Cold Mountain Fire, but I eventually had to concede that it was futile. The best I had made was a Low-Purity pill with 60% efficacy. It was complete trash. To do better, I needed a better spirit fire.

I still had the Three Thousand Flames Spirit Fire that Emperor Li had given me, but I was worried about trying to use it. Whenever I opened its jade box, every fiber of my being screamed that it was something far beyond my ability to control. I could attempt to fuse with it, but if I failed, the best case was expelling the flame and letting it evaporate into the air. That was something I considered unacceptable.

I needed a Profound-Rank spirit fire. Something powerful enough to work through my will-lock while weak enough for me to control.

I had slowly built what profits I could from making Rank 4 pills, but I wasn’t having any luck finding a suitable one for sale that I could afford. Despite putting out feelers through the Pavilion, I had yet to hear any good news, so it came as a shock when a Seed approached me about a way to acquire one.

“Lord Su,” she said with a small bow, “there will be an auction in Moonlight Dew City next week. We have information that a wood-based Profound-Rank spirit fire will be up for auction and have arranged transport for you through the Pavilion.”

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If this information was freely available, why hadn’t I heard anything? Were my sources in the Pavilion less reliable than I had hoped? That was something to keep in mind for the future, but for now, I needed to get that fire.

“Understood,” I replied to the Seed. “Please leave me the details for the transport you have arranged.”

The trip to Moonlight Dew City was somewhat grueling. I expected it to be in Brilliant Sun or another neighboring domain, but it took a carriage pulled by Rank 3 wind horses six days to reach. I didn’t pay close attention to exactly how far we traveled since I spent my time cultivating, but we had to have crossed through at least one entire empire.

The Seed who accompanied me on this trip was extremely professional. The entire time we were in the carriage, she was reading ledgers and taking notes. I looked at her cultivation and saw that it was only a middle Grandmaster, so I expected her to cultivate more, but she was focused on her work. I was grateful to have someone like her looking after the city so I could focus more on my personal goals.

Moonlight Dew City was in the Cold Moon Empire. It was a small remote border town that must have only barely qualified for the title of city. Nearly all the buildings were dirty and ramshackle, and I had a hard time believing anything of value could be found anywhere in the place.

When we arrived at the auction house, I found that it was a dilapidated building that looked like it only rarely received any visitors. Inside, slightly more than two dozen people were sitting on dusty wooden chairs waiting for the auction to begin.

After the hall was about half full, a portly man walked up on stage to begin the event.

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Moonlight Dew Auction House. We have a very special treat for you today. A few brave cultivators from our fair city recently entered a Trial in an attempt to win its inheritance. They did not succeed, unfortunately, but they were able to bring out many fascinating treasures that I am sure will astound and amaze.”

He gestured off to the side. A homely young woman brought out a pedestal covered in a cloth and placed it in the middle of the stage.

“Our first item for today is something no cultivator can do without. It is a weapon of incredible power!”

The woman removed the cloth and revealed a chipped steel sword. It looked ancient and hadn’t been maintained in years if not centuries. Wondering what was so special about it, I looked at it in qi vision.

The sword had lines of metal energy running its entire length concentrated along the cutting edge. I wasn’t sure what they did, so I could only guess that they made it cut better in some way.

“As you know,” said the auctioneer, “refined weapons are extremely rare. Our appraisers have concluded that a Master Refiner took part in the creation of this blade, making it a priceless artifact. This may be the only chance you ever have to buy such a majestic weapon, so think carefully before letting it pass into someone else’s hands. The starting bid is 10,000 gold.”

I looked at the blade closely. I wasn’t sure how much a Master-level refined weapon was worth, but there was no way this blade was worth anywhere near that price. The lines of energy in the blade had gaps and gouges missing. I would be scared of the damn thing exploding if I hit anything with it.

The bids instantly flooded in, though. The final sale price was 32,500 gold. It was insane to pay so much for a shoddy blade, but there are always people with more money than sense.

Several other items went up for auction after the sword, but I ignored them. None of them would help me with my goals.

Slightly after halfway through, the auctioneer removed a cloth to reveal a worn and battered jade box. When he did, the Seed sitting next to me put her hand on my arm and squeezed.

“This box was found at the end of a dangerous corridor where one of our brave citizens risked his life to secure it. We haven’t been able to open it, so we cannot speak to its content, but any item guarded in such a way must be of great value. The starting bid is 100,000 gold.”

I was about to speak up when a young man in bright robes holding a colorful drink shouted. “500,000 gold.”

No one else bid, and the auctioneer was about to start counting down to the close, so I raised my hand. “600,000.”

The man gave me an evil look. “700,000.”

“Eight.”

“Nine!” he shouted.

“One million,” I calmly responded.

“This item belongs to the Wei Clan! Are you challenging the Wei Clan!?” he snarled. “One spirit stone!”

The crowd gasped at this. Most of them had never seen a spirit stone before.

“Five spirit stones,” I nonchalantly responded.

The man threw his drink on the floor. “You’ll regret this!”

The auctioneer looked worried but completed the bidding process. “Five spirit stones. Sold!”

I sat through the rest of the auction in case something interesting came up, but there was nothing useful. Mission complete, it was time to head home.

When the Seed and I stepped out of the auction house, however, a large gang was assembled and waiting for us with the young man from the auction at its front.

“That spirit flame belongs to the Wei Clan. Hand it over and we’ll leave you with a complete corpse.”

I looked at the men around me and saw that none of them were above Martial Grandmaster 1. I could kill them all without lifting a finger by simply locking them down with my will. I stepped forward to take care of them so that I could hurry back to start working on concocting Qi Gathering Pills with my new fire.

Before I could move, the Seed placed her hand on my arm and shook her head.

“Take out your Pavilion badge,” she told me.

Deciding to follow her lead, I reached into my storage bag, pulled out my red-gold badge, and held it up for all of the thugs to see.

The Seed spoke loudly so that everyone could hear. “You are threatening a Pill Lord who is a red-gold member of the Blue Wind Pavilion. Is the Wei family going to war with the Pavilion?”

The crowd immediately froze, and the Seed didn’t wait for a response. She pulled my arm and led me to our carriage at a leisurely pace.

After we were seated inside, she spoke. “They still may attempt to stop us. Probably not, but we should be safe. If they have spirit stones, it means they have a Lord backing them. I will guide the carriage so that we are not followed.”

I let her do what she felt was best. I needed to begin a more important task.

Opening the jade box was a simple process. I only studied it for a short time and was able to easily see through the locking mechanism using qi vision. I inserted my qi in the correct pattern and the lid popped open. I stuck my hand inside and quickly fused with the spirit fire.

After it was successfully absorbed, I began practicing. In the carriage, all I could do was get a basic feel for using it, but I gained an understanding of the differences between Yellow and Profound fires. The core of the difference was their power. Profound spirit fires had a higher quality of energy, and it made them much more difficult to control, but a Peak six-star affinity was just enough.

Once I returned home, I began the real work. With a proper spirit fire in hand, I started making Rank 4 Qi Gathering Pills. I couldn’t make Perfect ones, but they were near the peak of High-Purity. I generally disliked taking non-Perfect pills, but it was something that every cultivator did eventually.

Using the pills, I began to rapidly increase my cultivation base and reached Martial Lord 5 in short order.

Unfortunately, while I wanted to spend all my time in seclusion, there were other matters that also required my attention due to my position as city lord.