Cultivating Immortality Begins with Rejuvenation.

Chapter 50 Joining the Alchemy Shop
In addition to condensing his own elixir fire, the alchemist also needs his soul as a guide.

The success rate and quality of the pills are also closely related to the pill formula, experience, understanding and the quality of the medicinal materials.

Fifty percent of cultivators who aspire to become alchemists are stopped at the stage of condensing the elixir fire, and the remaining ninety percent are tortured to death by the stage of soul and spirit.

Even those who have passed these two basic levels will still fail in the subsequent accumulation of alchemy experience and comprehension, and eventually become the lowest level alchemist, just getting by.

There is no other reason, it is just that in the path of alchemy, in addition to personal hardware, one must personally practice refining many times, gain one's own insights and accumulate experience, and it also has very high requirements for understanding and talent in alchemy.

This training process requires a large amount of medicinal materials and is expensive.

Li Ji'an already knew about these situations.

Even though he had a powerful soul and extraordinary comprehension, and had ten years of experience in researching medicinal materials in the Martial Academy Pharmacy in his previous life, he actually did not have much confidence in how far he could go in the path of alchemy in this life.

It is more for accumulation in the afterlife.

For all similar paths that require a large proportion of experience accumulation, his advantages will be more obvious.

If it doesn’t work in one lifetime, then it will work in two. If that doesn’t work, it will work in ten or a hundred lifetimes.

A pile of sand makes a tower, a piece of fur makes a coat, and trickles of water converge into a river. There will always be a life in which you can become a great master of alchemy.

Of course, it is also the most suitable way for him to make a living at the moment.

"First-level alchemy furnace, twenty spirit stones, fixed price!"

"The recipe for the Bigu Pill, handed down from our ancestors, has a concise and simple recipe, and the ingredients are cheap. It only costs five spirit stones."

"Finished medicinal materials for nourishing qi pills, high quality and low price, high yield rate, thirty spirit stones."

……

Li Ji'an silently wrote down the price without any disappointment on his face. His original plan was not to make the elixir behind closed doors.

This time I just understand it.

With insufficient qualifications, scarce resources, and no foundation, one would only start working on their own from the beginning if they had a problem with their brains.

Chen Qingling looked at Li Ji'an, but was disappointed again. He still had that calm and indifferent face, which made him even more annoyed.

"Should I give up now?"

"Humph, I told you you're dreaming. It's not that easy to become an alchemist. Even if you have enough talent, if you don't have a fortune of a thousand spirit stones, don't even think about getting in."

"Don't you see how much effort those immortal cultivation families put into cultivating a potential alchemist? And what's the result? How many families have actually managed to cultivate one? They still have to invite alchemists to serve as their worshippers!"

Li Ji'an didn't take it seriously and smiled slightly: "Where are the places that are recruiting Dan Tong?"

"..."

"Uncle! You're already thirty years old... and you still want to be a Dan Tong?"

"Do you think there aren't many people who want to learn the art of alchemy this way? To be honest, the disciples of those truly experienced alchemists are already packed with alchemy students. Do you know how much some people pay just to become one?"

"Some alchemists have higher requirements for recruiting alchemy students than the sects!" Chen Qingling was instantly even more shocked.

Li Ji'an was already used to his attitude and didn't care. He said calmly, "I don't need to find a senior alchemist, and I don't need to be an alchemist boy. I can just do odd jobs."

"You...you are so naive! Not to mention assisting the alchemist, even an alchemy student has to do odd jobs for three years and serve for five years before he can get some guidance from the alchemist. You are already thirty years old. Even if you really learn some basic skills, you will be in your forties or fifties. It will take at least another twenty years before you can really earn spirit stones by refining pills. By then...will it still make sense?" Chen Qingling was speechless.

"Does it make sense? Of course it does!" Li Ji'an smiled but didn't answer, just continued to look at him seriously.

Chen Qingling was stunned by his gaze.

"You...you really want to be a handyman for the alchemist?"

"Ah."

"..."

Chen Qingling felt that he had made his words clear enough.

“Never mind, never mind, it’s up to you, I really have tried my best, and if I try to persuade you again in the future, I will be a dog.

But remember, if you regret it in the future, don’t blame me for not reminding you. This was your own choice, and I did my best…” For a moment, he wasn’t sure whether he was touched by Li Ji’an’s tenacity or was completely desperate.

He had a vague feeling that this uncle in front of him, who was blessed with great fortune, might never return to the secular gathering area.

"Don't worry!" Li Ji'an nodded with a smile.

"If you really want to be an alchemist's handyman, don't look for one in the market stalls. The alchemists here are just looking for alchemy boys. Not only will they work hard and serve you like a real father, but they don't even need to pay you. Go to South Street." Chen Qingling turned around and walked away numbly. "South Street?" Li Ji'an remembered that South Street was full of family shops and branches set up by other local forces.

"Only those family-owned alchemy shops on South Street hire alchemists as servants."

"The eight major families here have not been established for long enough, and only one of them has trained an alchemist within the family. The other families involved in the sale of elixirs are all serving as external alchemists. We often see them posting notices recruiting alchemists for menial tasks." Chen Qingling explained weakly.

As for the reason, he naturally didn't think about it in detail.

However, after listening to his words, Li Ji'an quickly grasped several key words from this sentence.

"Offering."

"Foreign alchemist."

"Recruiting handymen..."

After seven steps, Li Ji'an raised his eyebrows slightly, already having an idea in his mind.

Previously, I lacked some basic knowledge about the cultivation world and was unable to make some correct judgments. I thought that with so many people in the cultivation family, there should be no shortage of people to work.

But now after listening to some of the information Chen Qingling told him, he understood.

The alchemist who offers sacrifices naturally wants to enjoy the offerings for a long time.

The family hopes to save this part of the expenses, and certainly hopes to train its own alchemist.

There is a way to reconcile natural contradictions. The alchemist promised to take in apprentices, but the number must be limited, and he will not pass on his most secret knowledge until the very end.

He would rather find outsiders to do some odd jobs than let the family assign someone from the family to do them.

After all, some keys to alchemy may be hidden in some subtle details.

"Okay! Let's go to the Danpu on South Street!"

In this context, his age and lack of qualifications actually became an advantage.

As expected, three shops on South Street were recruiting handymen, who were mainly responsible for assisting the alchemists. Two of them had age requirements. They did not want young people, but those who were obviously hopeless of becoming alchemists and were over 30 years old.

It seemed as if it was tailor-made for him.

"The Yan family of Lingzhu Mountain...a monthly salary of one spirit stone and fifty taels of spirit sand."

"The Wei family of Zizhu Valley...a monthly salary of one spirit stone."

"The Yinsha Lake Wang Family...a monthly salary of one spirit stone."

As expected, all three are family-owned alchemy shops, and the alchemists are all from outside.

The Yan family's serving alchemist is a first-level intermediate alchemist, about forty years old.

The alchemists enshrined by the other two families are all senior alchemists in the late first stage and are older.

After comprehensive consideration, Li Ji'an chose Yanjia Danpu.

"Li Changan? From the wasteland gathering area, thirty years old...first level of Qi training... um, good, good." The manager of the Yan family's alchemy shop on the second floor of the alchemy shop and the attendant Master Mo met Li Ji'an together.

Master Mo Dan was very satisfied.

Manager Yan Tong also breathed a sigh of relief.

As an outsider who was given the surname Yan and was valued by the elders and put in charge of the alchemy shop in the market, he was under a lot of pressure.

Especially when facing the worshiper Master Mo Dan, he did not dare to neglect him at all.

Today he finally found a servant that satisfied him, which solved his urgent problem.

"Chang'an, from now on you will follow Master Mo Dan and work hard. The shop will not treat you unfairly. If Master Mo Dan is satisfied with you, there is room for your monthly salary to increase."

Li Ji'an bowed and said, "Thank you, Master Mo Dan, and thank you, Manager Yan."

The two parties signed a soul contract and established an employment relationship.

Except for special circumstances, Master Mo opens the furnace once every five days, and each time takes less than two hours. Li Ji'an only needs to come to the shop two hours in advance when Master Mo is refining the elixir, prepare the medicinal materials according to Master Mo's requirements, clean the furnace, and do the cleaning and tidying up afterwards.

In this way, Li Ji'an could barely gain a foothold in the city, at least enough to pay the annual rent.

What surprised him a little was that Yan Tong came to his house while he was practicing that night...

(End of this chapter)