The original repairer

Three months later, across from Shi Chen's shop, an identical plaque suddenly appeared. The inscription on it was identical to Shi Chen's, but the price was slightly lower. Refining ten furnaces of Qi-Nourishing Pills only required eight kilograms of Qingming Sand. Two other pills could also be refined: a Qi-Replenishing Pill and a Recovery Pill. While the Qi-Nourishing Pill required the Qingming Sand, refining the other two pills required consultation with the alchemist.

This method is really despicable.

Shi Chen was not panicked by this. He had anticipated it and had already thought of a countermeasure.

During these three months, he received 450 kilograms of Qingmingsha, which was halfway to completing the task.

After his business was taken away, he had no choice but to use the elixirs he brought with him to make pills every day.

Before coming to Qisha Market, Huang Qi prepared forty Qi-nourishing Pills, and purchased a hundred. Since arriving at Qisha Market, he'd never found the time to refine the elixirs. Now that he had some free time, he would refine two batches of Qi-nourishing Pills daily, while also studying the recipe for Qi-invigorating Pills, practicing spells, and improving his cultivation.

In less than ten days, more and more independent cultivators came to Shi Chen to find him to refine pills.

Upon inquiry, we learned that the shop owner across the street wasn't a true alchemist, but merely an apprentice. His success rate for refining pills was pitifully low. The success rate for the Qi-nourishing Pill was less than 30%, and the success rates for the other two pills were even more alarmingly low. He must have just started practicing refining.

Five days ago, a third-level Qi Refining cultivator brought twenty Qi-boosting pills to him for refining. He only managed three batches, with the most he could muster coming from a single batch, six pills. If it weren't for the Zhu family's protection, his shop would have been demolished long ago. It's now completely deserted.

Shi Chen returned to his daily routine of refining five batches of pills.

The good times did not last long. Just over a month later, new troubles arose.

Zhu Qinglang set conditions for entry and exit for independent cultivators, allowing them to enter and exit freely unless they were refining elixirs or trading spiritual medicines. However, trading elixirs or spiritual medicines required a mandatory market management fee of two spirit stones.

If anyone privately trades elixirs and spiritual medicines without paying the management fee, once discovered, they will be expelled from the market and permanently banned from entering.

After this regulation was introduced, Shi Chen's medicine refining business was affected again, and he even did not receive any medicine refining requests for many consecutive days.

He had to go back to the days of studying the elixir recipe.

This stagnation lasted for a long time. There were only two months left until the end of the year, and Shi Chen had only purchased 800 kilograms of Qingming Sand. If this continued, it would be difficult to complete the sect's mission.

Shi Chen and Huang Qi came up with a plan to deal with the situation. They hired some independent cultivators and asked them to go to a market a hundred miles away to buy three hundred to five hundred kilograms of Qingming Sand, the price of which was 20% higher than that in Qisha Market.

At the same time, Huang Qi, as the deacon of the sect's Alchemy Pavilion, submitted a letter of condemnation to the sect's General Affairs Office, accusing Qisha Market of a decline in sect medicine sales and difficulty in purchasing spiritual medicines due to the new market regulations. If this continues, the sect's medicine sales and spiritual medicine purchases this year are expected to fall short of targets, and he put all the blame on the sect's on-site management.

A month later, the sect sent a senior brother who was at the seventh level of Qi Refining to replace Zhu Qinglang as the resident deacon.

On the day the new deacon took office, he severely injured Zhu Qinglang and ordered him to return to the sect.

"You are Shi Chen. I heard that you are good at alchemy. You have one year to go to the Zhu family and accept the position of Zhu's guest official. Then the Zhu family will naturally transfer you to the sect." The new deacon said in a firm tone.

"I'm sorry, I don't accept the Zhu family's kindness. Please ask the deacon to convey it to the Zhu family for me." Shi Chen responded with a cold expression.

"I advise you to be sensible," the stationed deacon said with a gloomy face, "If it weren't for you, I wouldn't be sent to this godforsaken place. If you don't accept the Zhu family's invitation this year, don't blame me for disregarding the friendship between the sects!"

"Brother, are you threatening me?" Shi Chen asked coldly, "As long as I complete the sect's mission, if you threaten me, I will have no choice but to appeal to the sect's law enforcement hall."

"You'd better not worry about it. A menial disciple died outside, and no one would investigate. I've said everything, it's your choice."

At night, Shi Chen returned to Huang Qi's cave and told Huang Qi everything the on-site deacon had said today.

Huang Qi explained that the new stationed deacon was named Zhang Han, a member of the Zhu family, though merely a guest. He was sinister and ruthless, unscrupulous in his actions. He had injured many of the sect's early Qi Refining errand boys. He primarily fought for the Zhu family, acting as a lackey.

Shi Chen was helpless in this matter and planned to apply for arbitration from the sect's law enforcement department, but by then he would have completely broken off relations with the Zhu family and the war would continue until one side was dead.

Since the Zhu family will not let him go, they are likely to do something unpredictable.

To prepare for a rainy day, the only way to resolve this matter is to leave here, leave Qingxuan Sect, and go to another sect, market or fairy city.

He was only at the early stage of Qi Refining. Without the protection of a cultivator in the late stage of Qi Refining or a cultivator in the foundation building stage, it would be almost impossible for him to reach another market. Not to mention the monsters he might encounter along the way, those robbery cultivators were not something that a cultivator in the early stage of Qi Refining could withstand.

He would take things one step at a time. If he couldn't solve the problem by then, he would have to hand over the refined pills to Huang Qi and his sister, hide his identity, and follow the wandering cultivators to another market.

With only two months left until the annual sect settlement, Shi Chen still needed two hundred kilograms of Qingming Sand to complete his mission. The hired cultivators had already purchased five hundred kilograms of Qingming Sand from the Mucun Market and were currently on their way back, expected to reach the Qisha Market in about ten days.

After half a year of alchemy experience, Shi Chen's alchemy skills reached a proficient level. He refined ten furnaces of Qi-nourishing Pills and successfully refined nine of them. Three or four of them were able to produce full pills, and one or two furnaces were able to produce one or two medium-quality Qi-nourishing Pills.

Once the mid-grade Qi-nourishing Pill was refined, Shi Chen would use it during his evening training. Because of this, his cultivation level improved rapidly. If he could use the mid-grade Qi-nourishing Pill every day to aid his training, he would definitely be able to reach the third level of Qi Refining this year.

It took Shi Chen more than two months to refine all the elixirs for the Qi-nourishing Pill.

Occasionally, independent cultivators would come to refine pills for him. Shi Chen only received about thirty mid-grade Qi-nourishing Pills, but a large number of lower-grade ones. Including the pills he withheld, the total was 1,226. He gave 1,000 of them to Huang Qi to sell, and used the spirit stones he earned to purchase cultivation resources for Huang Qi and his siblings.

In the sect, the price of a bottle of low-grade Soul-Nourishing Pill is thirty low-grade spirit stones, while in the Qisha Market, a bottle sells for fifty low-grade spirit stones.

Huang Qi is the deacon of the Dan Pavilion. He can buy three bottles of Yunling Pills at the sect price every month, which is just enough for his own practice.

Huang Ziying also needs three bottles of low-grade Soul-Nourishing Pills every month, but she does not receive any discount from the sect and can only buy them at the market price.

One hundred bottles of low-grade Qi-nourishing Pills can be sold for five hundred low-grade spirit stones, which can buy more than ten bottles of Spirit-Nourishing Pills.

Over the past year, Shi Chen had thoroughly studied the recipe for the Soul-Enriching Pill and had gained some insights. It was time to begin refining the Soul-Enriching Pill. Before doing so, he would first raise his cultivation to the third level of Qi Refining, which would give him greater confidence.