Chapter 352 – Life 92, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

I froze up.

Who was this ‘Jon’? The architecture and naming conventions of the green- and brown-skinned ‘Hall’ people were different from what I was used to, showing that they came from an entirely different culture. Was this ‘Jon’ the same? Was he just a poor farmer who had been raised in some different culture? Maybe, but I couldn’t make myself believe that.

Had he, like me, been brought here from another world? After all, if it could happen to me…

Why was he here? Was it a coincidence? Were reincarnated travelers between worlds so common that I had just happened to randomly bump into one? Did his blessing bring him here? Or… did the Earthly Dao place him here? Was there even a difference between those two?

More importantly, how should I respond? Should I make it clear that I was a ‘traveler’ as well? No. If he was a traveler, then he almost certainly had a powerful blessing. Revealing too much too soon would be a colossal mistake.

All these thoughts flashed through my mind in only a moment as I stared down at Jon’s hand.

Having reached my decision, I lifted my right hand in a halting, jerky manner, doing my best to show that my hesitation had come from a lack of familiarity with the concept of a handshake.

Jon reached forward, grabbed my hand, and shook it vigorously.

I dropped my head. “I’m… I’m Su Fang.”

“Great! Fang—Can I call you Fang?—Fang, it’s good to meet you.”

I glanced around anxiously, doing my best to put on the act of a poor local who was overwhelmed by Jon’s exuberant personality.

Jon didn’t seem to mind. “How much do you know about all this alchemy stuff? I just arrived here yesterday myself. Barely had any time to get settled in before being sent off to this class! Not a clue about what you all have been up to here. Can you tell me anything about it?”

So, Jon had been brought here after me. To arrive here after only a month, he would have needed to have started near the city, but I had given the System a bit of freedom in choosing where to teleport me. It had likely placed me near Jon intentionally.

Not wanting to give anything away, I shook my head. “N… No. I… This is my first month here as well.”

“That’s a shame. Would have been nice to have a leg up, ya know? But, it shouldn’t make too much of a difference. This alchemy stuff shouldn’t be too complicated. After all, it’s just throwing a few herbs into a pot and watching them cook, right? How difficult can it be?”

I looked up and blinked at him. He couldn’t actually believe… No. Looking at his face, I was certain. He definitely didn’t believe that. But then why…

Jon’s eyes darted around the room, and I followed them.

His voice had been overly loud—loud enough for all the nobles in the room to hear what he had said. Now, they were all staring at Jon with scorn, derision, and disdain. Had this been his goal? Was he trying to get the nobles to hate him? Why?

Jon wrapped an arm around my shoulder and pulled me in front of a workbench. “Do ya know if there’s anything special about this small cook pot they’ve given us? Think it’s a magical artifact?”

For the next several minutes, Jon prattled on, asking random, inane questions that only made the nobles around us mock him—and mock me by association. Eventually, though, our instructor came in and broke things up.

This lesson wasn’t about alchemy, not directly. Instead, it was a skills lesson focused on improving our ability to control qi.

After explaining a few of the basics, the instructor passed out a few sheets of paper to everyone in class. These papers were pure white, with each one having a series of black lines scribbled on it. They were almost exactly the same as the index cards that I had used while in the Twin Mountains Sect.

The instructor held one up to demonstrate. “You only need to inject your qi into the ink, and it will burn away, no matter what flavor of qi you cultivate.”

Demonstrating, the instructor circulated his qi and stabbed it into a line of ink, making the ink burn away without harming the paper. “You must be precise with both the power and accuracy of your qi. If you are not, then you will damage the paper, and, perhaps, destroy it entirely.”

The instructor looked around the room. “Would anyone like to step forward and demonstrate for the class?”

All the nobles immediately looked at the same young man. Smiling, he stood, walked to the front of the room, and held up a sheet of paper. Then, under our watchful eyes, he controlled his qi to burn away the ink, slowly and methodically. This took several minutes to accomplish, but once he was done, he was left with a perfect white sheet of paper. The instructor clapped once in congratulations.

“Excellent job, Disciple Naren. If you can just improve your speed a bit, then you will be ready to advance to the rank of apprentice!”

Naren bowed his head in acceptance of this compliment. And as he did, I noticed him glancing at Jon. “Thank you, teacher, but I am afraid there is someone who must be even more skilled than I am.”

“Oh?” The teacher looked genuinely curious.

“Yes, before you arrived, one of the new students was talking about how all of this was child’s play. I must admit, I am envious. I can only hope to reach his level one day.”

The teacher furrowed his brow and followed Naren’s gaze to Jon.

“Could we please ask Alchemist Jon to demonstrate for us?”

The teacher was about to respond, but Jon stood up before he could say anything.

“I would be glad to! I’m always willing to help out the less fortunate.”

Naren's smile morphed into a murderous sneer, but Jon didn’t seem to notice. He just confidently walked up to the front of the room and held up a sheet of paper.

“As the teacher said, your control is good, but you’re just too slow. You need to work on that.”

Then, channeling his qi, Jon sent multiple streams of energy to strike multiple points on the paper simultaneously. In an instant, all the ink flashed and disappeared.

As the nobles stared on in shock, Jon gave a smug, self-confident smile and started walking back to his workbench.

Halfway there, he stumbled and began muttering to himself. “What? Only B+? How? He’s the best student, isn’t he? What did you want me to do, slap the face of the teacher? And what the hell do you mean by permanent? Were the others not permanent?”

---------------------------------------------------

After the lecture was over, I did my best to disappear as quickly as possible. Jon’s words had scared me, and I didn’t want to spend any more time around him than necessary—not until I had a better idea of how to handle him. This also led me to choose not to visit the Hall for the next several days. I had no desire to be assigned a cleaning task where I might find myself alone in a room with the man.

Still, I had more than enough work to keep me busy. I needed to learn more about how both alchemy and affinities worked on the Central Continent.

Sitting alone in my room, I began subvocalizing. “System, how much would it cost to permanently raise my alchemy affinity to low nine-star?”

Processing… Knowledge of the cost to increase to host’s affinity. Cost 10,000 credits.

I snorted. As usual, the System didn’t like giving away information for free. “Purchase it. Also, automatically purchase any similar information for the remainder of the day—as long as the cost is below a million credits.”

Purchase confirmed.

Cost of permanently improving host’s alchemy affinity to low nine-star: 877 credits.

I let out a rueful laugh. So, yes, I could improve my affinity through the Hall’s tasks, but doing so was painfully slow. At this rate, raising my affinity to just low nine-star would take six or seven more months.

Reaching into my inner world, I pulled out a pill furnace and a blue peony. Using this peony, I made a portion of Qi Gathering Powder. Then, I checked the price again.

Cost 869 credits.

I made another.

Cost 858 credits.

Roughly ten credits per portion of Qi Gathering Powder wasn’t much, but concocting them was both fast and easy. Making enough to raise one’s affinity would only take a few days of work.

Next, I made a basic Pill Qi Gathering Pill.

Cost 808 credits.

Then, I made a Superior Qi Gathering Pill. As I had yet to start cultivating, I had to use qi directly from the environment for this, but with my three-star fire affinity, this wasn’t a problem. When a Perfect Rank 1 Superior Qi Gathering Pill clinked to the bottom of my furnace, I checked the price once again.

Cost 308 credits.

A peak nine-star affinity would cost 16,000 credits. With Perfect Rank 1 Superior pills being valued at 500 credits each, I would be able to get there after only 32 pills. That seemed… fast. Too fast. If earning an alchemy affinity was so easy, then why wasn’t everyone an alchemist?

Though… what was even the point? The Hall of the Herb Lord seemed to value a person’s alchemy affinity, but… why? What did it actually do?

A suspicion popped into my mind.

I ran back over to the Hall and visited their shop floor, where I purchased five sets of ingredients for Superior Qi Gathering Pills. These herbs were 10 times more expensive than I was used to, with each set costing 5 gold, and the attendant refused to sell me just the peonies—I had to buy complete sets.

Once back in my room, I tried to use one of the peonies to make Qi Gathering powder.

As I had noted when cleaning pill furnaces, the physical shell of this herb didn’t evaporate. It instead sloughed to the bottom of the furnace.

After it was gone, I applied an even heat to the herb’s energy and burned away all the toxins. Then, I released my hold, allowing the medicinal energy to condense into a powder.

It didn’t. Instead, the medicinal energy just evaporated. I tried again, and again, I failed.

After a failed attempt, I had to concede that either there was some trick to working with these Central Continent herbs, or these peonies just couldn’t be refined into powder.

Next, I tried making a Basic Qi Gathering Pill. Everything up to and including the purification process went smoothly, but when I tried to condense it into a pill, the energy imploded. When I then tried to make a Superior Qi Gathering Pill, the result was the same.

This gave me a lot of valuable information.

First, using Central Continent herbs was… different. Either an alchemy affinity was required, or additional techniques were needed. Likely both.

Second, Nine Rivers herbs still worked normally on the Central Continent, and an alchemist could use them to improve their affinity. That… That made them incredibly valuable. Each herb shipped from the Nine Rivers to the Central Continent was basically free affinity points. Clearly, this was why the Li Clan had been sending so many of them back through the portal each year.

Finally, I checked the price of raising my affinity and paid the cost of having checked so many times.

Cost 287 credits.

Transaction complete. Cost 87,000 credits. 237,965,112,181,273 credits remaining.

Attempting to concoct an herb and failing could raise my affinity, but doing so was both slow and incredibly expensive. This was no doubt why so many had chosen the path of performing menial tasks around the Hall of the Herb Lord.

So, with all of this in mind, what should I do? Should I start using my stored herbs to raise my affinity as fast as possible?

Maybe…

A month ago, I wouldn’t have hesitated to do so, but now… Now, I had to consider Jon. He was a wildcard, and until I knew more, I didn’t want him to know what I could do.