The original repairer

Wild mushrooms need to be identified with caution. There are about a hundred species of mushrooms in the mountains and forests. Shi Chen knows about thirty species, and there are only a dozen non-toxic ones. He teaches a few people step by step.

He Laosan and Qingqing quickly learned how to remove the bitterness and poison from fresh bamboo shoots.

The method of making refined salt is also very simple. As long as you follow the steps and operate in the correct amount, the final product will not be much different. If the final salt still has a slightly bitter taste, continue to operate again until the bitterness is removed.

More than ten days passed, and Shi Chen hadn't taken the shaved dried mushrooms, bamboo shoots, and refined salt to the town to sell. After all, he had bought quite a few things the last time he went, and he still had a lot of money left over, about three thousand copper coins.

Now that we have more than enough supplies and some floating wealth at home, we are not in a hurry to exchange for more money.

Since buying fine grains, Shi Chen has resumed eating three meals a day, and will stir-fry a side dish and add bacon at noon and in the evening.

The improvement in food made He Laosan and his two children, who had been skinny as sticks, gradually regain their plump complexions. Life had hope, and He Laosan's family also had something to look forward to.

On the tenth market day, Dazhuang and Sangou came once and asked if he needed help carrying the goods. Shi Chen declined, saying that he had no goods to sell and he would hire them next time he needed them.

During this time, Shi Chen instructed He Laosan to refine the 30 kilograms of salt ore he had purchased into refined salt. The output was approximately 22 kilograms, which were packed into seven bamboo tubes, each weighing about 3 kilograms.

Refined salt is very expensive, mainly because it removes the bitterness and the gritty feeling.

The store owner Zhang offered a price of three hundred copper coins per catty. Dried bamboo shoots were only fifteen copper coins per catty, and dried wild mushrooms were fifty copper coins per catty. The last sale brought in more than six thousand copper coins.

After more than ten days of breeding, the wheat seeds have germinated and are growing well, with tender shoots about three inches long already.

A bag of wheat seeds weighs ten kilograms. After breeding, it can produce about forty kilograms of malt.

Chop the malt, mix it with water, wrap it with a cloth and rub it to extract the juice. Add two to three times the amount of starch as much as the malt, stir thoroughly, and leave it for two to three days to saccharify.

Filter out the juice, boil in a large pot until thick, pour into a wooden basin and let it cool to lukewarm, rub into long strips as thick as fingers, separate and place until cool and firm.

The last time the villagers gathered to go to the town, Shi Chen and He Laosan did not go. They just asked someone to buy 50 kilograms of taro powder. This taro powder was the material Shi Chen used to make malt sugar. The proportion was not very matched. 40 kilograms of malt was added to 50 kilograms of taro powder, and they were made in batches. It took six days to make more than 30 kilograms of malt sugar.

Refined salt is so precious, so sugar should not be worse than salt.

When they tasted the sweetness of malt sugar, He Laosan, Qingqing and Shitou's expressions were wonderful. They had never eaten anything so sweet before, and it made them burst into tears. They were excited, thrilled and happy.

On the fourth market day after arriving in the fishing village, Shi Chen had no plans to go to town to sell goods. He wanted to use the time interval to let Zhang, the shopkeeper of the grocery store, know that these secret refined salts took a long time to make, the process was complicated, and were not easy to produce.

As for the newly made malt sugar, it cannot be sold all at once. Thirty-three pounds can be sold in ten installments to show that it is not easy to obtain.

It has been one and a half months since Shi Chen came to this world, and his understanding of seeking immortality is still limited to what He Laosan has told him. In more than two months, an immortal will come to test him, and he wonders if Shi Chen is old enough to participate.

Another market day has arrived. Yesterday, He Laosan had already told Dazhuang and Sangou that he wanted to hire them to help transport goods today. The two of them came to wait outside He Laosan's courtyard early in the morning.

There was a lot of cargo to carry today. Both of them carried about 50 kilograms of dry goods, and Shi Chen himself carried three tubes of refined salt and a can of malt sugar, weighing about 16 or 17 kilograms.

Shopkeeper Zhang received Shi Chen warmly, and even ordered the cook to prepare three side dishes and bought a pot of wine to entertain Shi Chen. During the banquet, he looked around and tried to find out how to make refined salt. Finally, he offered a generous condition, wanting to hire Shi Chen to open a salt workshop.

Shi Chen politely declined, explaining that the production process was complicated and the materials needed were hard to find. They had to go into the mountains and rivers to collect them. The output was too low and the missing materials were hard to find, so opening a workshop would not be worth the effort.

Finally, Shi Chen took out malt sugar to sell. Manager Zhang looked at Shi Chen and was shocked.

Although the molasses that Shi Chen took out was not as sweet as insect honey, it did have a pleasant taste.

However, insect honey is hard to find. A pound of insect honey can be sold for one gold coin in the provincial capital, and there is no market for it. In the capital, there is a saying that one ounce of gold is worth one ounce of honey. Although this is an exaggeration, it is a legend.

Finally, Manager Zhang bought Shi Chen's malt sugar at the price of ten silver coins per pound.

This substance is hard and as sweet as insect honey, so it is named rock honey.

Shi Chen didn't sell much rock honey, just a few pounds. Shopkeeper Zhang said that these pounds of rock honey would be handed over directly to the boss. If he could find more rock honey, the price would be negotiable and Shi Chen would be guaranteed to be satisfied.

Shi Chen could only say that he was lucky, as he stumbled upon it in the mountains and gained very little.

"Manager Zhang, do you know the way to immortality?" After the transaction was completed, Shi Chen asked casually.

"Hmm," Shopkeeper Zhang hesitated for a moment before saying, "Brother Shi, are you unable to cultivate immortality and want to seek the path to immortality?"

Shi Chen knew that he had asked the right person. Manager Zhang should know a lot about cultivation.

"If you have a destiny to become an immortal, you must indeed seek the immortal path and walk on it." Shi Chen replied.

Shopkeeper Zhang smiled and said, "Then you've asked the right person. This shop is owned by the Song family, one of the three major families in town. The Song family has a foundation-building immortal who manages the Renfang Market in the Immortal Sect. The family has a inherited cultivation method."

"I wonder how I can obtain the qualification to practice?" Shi Chen asked.

"Under normal circumstances," Shopkeeper Zhang said, "you must first join the family and become a guest official. Only after you make contributions to the family can you exchange them for cultivation techniques. Last year, I saved enough contributions to exchange for a place for my son to do menial work in the Immortal Sect. If Brother Shi needs it, I can nominate me to the family and become a guest official first. Once you have made sufficient contributions, you can exchange them for the cultivation inheritance."

"Don't people from the Immortal Sect come to test their spiritual roots every few years? If they meet the requirements, they can join the sect, right?" Shi Chen asked.

"Oh!" Shopkeeper Zhang sighed, "It seems that Brother Shi is just wishful thinking. First of all, the Immortal Sect requires extremely high spiritual roots and an age of fifteen to recruit disciples. Secondly, even if you can enter the Immortal Sect, you will only start as an outer sect disciple. If you fail the annual assessment, you will be transferred to an outer sect servant. The outer sect servants also have annual assessments. If you fail again, the Immortal Sect will expel you and drive you out of the sect, leaving you to fend for yourself."

Shi Chen continued to inquire, "Shopkeeper Zhang's son is currently in the Immortal Sect. Shopkeeper Zhang should know a lot about the sect. I wonder if someone like me, in my twenties, has the opportunity to join the Immortal Sect?"

"According to the second elder of the family," Shopkeeper Zhang said slowly, "the immortal sect's criteria for accepting disciples is based on spiritual roots. If your spiritual roots are of high quality, they will make an exception and accept you as a disciple. If your spiritual roots are not good, there is no hope."

"Thank you, Shopkeeper Zhang, for clearing up my confusion," Shi Chen said, bowing to Shopkeeper Zhang. "I'm trying to find the path to immortality, but I don't know where to start. Thank you, Shopkeeper Zhang, for your guidance."