Chapter 85: Life 61, Age 27, Martial Grandmaster Peak

A dozen new potential clients coming to my door the day after the new King was appointed made me feel like these were not clients I would be particularly happy about having. Instead of meeting with them on an individual basis, I entrusted Manager Bai with handling most of these requests with a direct rejection. While they might be interested in having me make pills for them, if they were poised to make an offer as generous as the Hu Clan, they wouldn’t have ignored me for several years. She wasn’t exactly happy to be delegated these responsibilities, but she still accepted the task. With the pettier parties taken care of, she gave me a rundown of some of the bigger clients available. We set up a meeting to discuss these offers in detail before entering negotiations, but when it came time to decide how to proceed with these negotiations, it was not Manager Bai who came to talk to me. It was Alchemist Li who I hadn’t seen since my registration exam when I first entered the city. “Su Fang, how have you been? Has Eight Flower been treating you well?” he asked in a grandfatherly manner. “Alchemist Li.” I bowed to the older man. “Thank you. I have been very well.” “Come and sit, let’s talk about your future,” he said, guiding me to sit in one of the conference rooms. “I have been paying close attention to your progress. It seems you have made great strides in filling those gaps in your knowledge.” “Thank you, Alchemist Li.” I cupped my hands in salute to him. “I have done my best to learn what I can here. There are many new herbs to explore.” The older man took out a small pill bottle, poured out the pill inside, and held it up to the light. “You have indeed been progressing very well,” he said in admiration. “I must admit, your ability to mend medicinal energy has even surpassed my own, and I’ve been studying for centuries.” That comment made me wince internally, but I tried to hide my reaction. “So, what are your plans?” he asked. “You’ve reached the peak of Grandmaster Alchemist, and you are only a few decades old. How do you plan to move forward?” This was something I had thought about for a long time, and while I had made my decision, it still made me anxious. “I’m going to compete for the position of Water Groom.” Alchemist Li stroked his beard in thought. “Your friend is the Water Flower, right? It’s not a terrible choice. You will have a solid position as a Lord, and with your skills, you may reach Peak Lord by the end of your term. As long as you are willing to do the necessary work, that is.” I wasn’t sure how to reply to that, so I kept my silence. “There are other paths open to you if you wish to take them,” he said meaningfully. “Yes,” I agreed. “Manager Bai has informed me of the new King’s offer. I would become his direct subordinate, and in return, he would use a special technique to share a portion of the karmic energy he receives. allowing me to ascend to Lord.” Alchemist Li nodded. “The new Eight Flower King is a powerful alchemist in his own right. He isn’t quite as skilled as you are, but his blessing more than makes up for his deficiencies. Right now, he is only a Grandmaster like you, but with the karmic energy of his new position, he will quickly rise through the Lord realm and ascend further. I doubt his alchemy skills will keep pace, I expect him to stall in the mid-Pill Lord stages, but if you prove yourself a valued ally, you may be able to ride his coattails during the next King selection in twenty years.” “It’s not the right fit for me,” I stated firmly. “I’ve looked into the man. His connections are all downward, to people below him. Following him will only be placing chains on myself that won’t allow me to rise beyond early Lord.” I was confused, but I was willing to follow his command. I balled a first and punched directly at his chest. Halfway to its target, my fist froze in the air. I could neither move it forward nor backward. “This is the difference between a Warrior and a Ruler,” the old man said. “After forming a core of karma, the Ruler is connected to the world on a fundamental level, and this provides them with some amount of control over it. I am not using qi to hold you in place. I am using only my will and my connection to the world. To be a Pill Lord, you will need to be able to impose your will onto herbs while concocting to prevent them from dispersing. Otherwise, you will never be able to make anything beyond Rank 3.” I looked at the ruined herb that was still sitting in the cauldron. If he could use his ‘will’ to lock my body in place, then he could also use it to lock down the medicinal energy and keep it from dispersing, but wasn’t there another way? “Won’t high enough affinities be just as good?” I asked. “If it’s just a matter of keeping the medicinal energy from dispersing, affinities should also work.” Li rubbed his hands in excitement. “Yes, they should, but that’s its own problem. From my tests, I estimate you need a Peak five-star affinity for Lord-level pills, Peak four-star for King-level, and Peak three-star for Emperor-level, and not just for fire affinity either. You will need this level of affinity for each element of medicinal energy you want to be able to use. Far easier to just raise your cultivation, wouldn’t you say?” In the short term, I couldn’t help but agree he was right, but long term? Affinities were something I could have from the beginning, long before I could raise my cultivation level to match. “My second gift is this,” he said, pulling out a thick, worn book. “It has many of my thoughts and recipes regarding Rank 4 alchemy. It should be of great help to you in the near future.” My eyes widened in shock. “This is too precious. I can’t take it.” “Then throw it away. I no longer have need of it, and I am giving it to you,” he said, placing the book on the table and dismissing it from his thoughts. Both reluctant and greedy, I picked it up and carefully placed it into my storage bag. My only regret was not being able to carry such an important text with me into future lives. Since it was Rank 4 knowledge, my mental library couldn’t store it, and the book was far too large for the limited storage space in my soul. “Finally,” he said, taking out a jade box and placing it on the table, “to do proper alchemy you need a proper spirit fire. It will take some adjustment to get used to a simple spirit fire instead of that seed of yours, but you’ll find this one to be much more suitable. It’s the fire-based Three Thousand Flames Spirit Fire. With this, you won’t be able to pull off some of the tricks you can with your earth and water flame, but you also only need to worry about finding a way to improve your fire affinity.” I stared at the box. “What level is this spirit fire?” I had to ask. Alchemist Li just gave me a simple smile, stood up, and began to leave the room. Before he did, he turned back and tossed a small coin at me. “If the time is ever right, come to the Pavilion’s main branch in the central region. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be around, but when you do, just show them that coin and ask to see Pill Emperor Li.” Stunned by his words, I barely noticed when he disappeared from my sight. After Emperor Li left, my first thought was to suicide and immediately go to search him out and become his disciple. That feeling only lasted for a second before I regained my composure. Such actions would be meaningless. Emperor Li was relying on some kind of blessing in his dealings with me, and if it didn’t want him to accept me as a disciple now, simply restarting probably wouldn’t change that. His gifts significantly boosted my chances of completing my plans for this life. I would wait a few years, take over North Lake City, and see about transforming it into a haven of peace and prosperity so that it would produce karmic energy as fast as possible for me.