Chapter 1: The Stone Bead

Dongyuan Sect, Pill Workshop.

Inside the pill chamber, a pair of clean hands held a white porcelain bottle, tilting it above the pill furnace to pour in a measure of medicinal liquid ground from spiritual herbs.

The flames within the furnace shifted. A piece of vibrant green fruit, kneaded into a paste by spiritual energy, was cast into the fire.

Song Yan’s clear eyes snapped open amidst the swirling mists, fixing intently upon the pill furnace before him. Hovering above his right palm was a globule of crystalline spirit liquid.

His inner reserves of spiritual power were nearly depleted, sweat beading on his brow, but Song Yan remained composed, cautious rather than panicked.

His breathing was slow and steady, as if even the air currents within the chamber dared not stir.

Suddenly, the furnace flames surged. The transparent spirit liquid was swiftly added to the fire. A fragrant scent wafted out, invigorating the senses.

In his left hand, Song Yan grasped a spiritual stone, channeling power as gently as a trickling stream through his body, while his nimble fingers never ceased manipulating the flames, which blazed ever higher.

Condensing the pill!

In an instant, the flames died down. Song Yan exhaled, chest heaving. The spiritual stone in his grasp had turned ashen and crumbled, not a trace of energy remaining.

He was in no hurry. Quietly, he cycled his breath to recover, waiting for the residual heat to stabilize the pill form before rising to his feet.

Opening the furnace and collecting the pills was done in one seamless motion.

"Seven Qi-Nourishing Pills..."

Song Yan’s face lit with delight as he murmured, "Not a single pill failed this time."

Seven pale green pills floated above the furnace, which Song Yan gathered into a pill bottle, one by one.

The classic on alchemy stated that spiritual objects such as pills and herbs begin to lose their energy the moment they are refined or harvested, and even storage pouches cannot fully prevent this dissipation.

Only special containers can truly preserve their spiritual potency.

"Even the poorest chamber in this workshop doesn’t affect the yield of Qi-Nourishing Pills too much..."

He mused to himself, calculating silently.

"Buying Dragon Liver Gourd and Tranquil Spirit Grass cost two low-grade spirit stones, enough for two batches of seven pills. Renting a pill chamber for a day is four more. With sundry expenses, that’s another two."

"Two bottles, each with five Qi-Nourishing Pills, can sell for twelve low-grade stones."

"In one day, I can earn four spirit stones. With luck, any extra pills can be kept for my own use."

Before, when Song Yan’s alchemy skills were less refined, he dared not be careless even with these simplest of entry-level pills, always choosing a slightly better furnace.

Now, at last, he could lower his costs a little.

Ironically, as his skills improved, he began using inferior furnaces—something that would surely puzzle anyone who heard of it.

Song Yan nodded to himself, satisfied.

At three-quarters past the hour of the Dog, Song Yan, clad in a gray robe, stepped out from the pill chamber.

He had already paid for the spirit stones. As he walked along the workshop street, he looked up at the sky.

"What a world of immortals..."

Far overhead, the silhouettes of cultivators occasionally streaked across the clouds in flight. He murmured to himself, eyes burning with longing.

Song Yan had once been an ordinary student on Blue Star, one of countless youths in China. By chance, he had crossed into this world of immortal cultivation, becoming an abandoned orphan in Shiliang Town on the banks of the Wuxi River.

A dozen years had slipped by in the blink of an eye.

Counting the days, it had been a year and a half since he joined the outer sect of Dongyuan.

Alas, with only three spiritual roots, his talent for cultivation was far from impressive. Lacking spirit stones and pills, he had only reached the fourth level of Qi Refinement, barely scraping together resources by refining entry-level pills.

"In another half year, I’ll have to take on the sect’s external missions. I must improve as much as I can before then."

On the streets near the workshop, sect disciples in blue or white robes passed by, their sleeves adorned with special patterns and insignias.

He couldn’t help but envy these disciples each time he saw them.

Inner disciples received a fixed monthly allotment of spirit stones and pills.

When he had first entered the sect, some of his peers with double or even single spiritual roots had been admitted into the inner court at once, even taken as personal disciples by the elders.

"Just for being born with superior spiritual roots, they’re spared all the painstaking effort I must make..."

Still, life had to go on, and Song Yan was not one to dwell in gloom.

Adjusting his mindset, he stepped into a small shop tucked away in a remote corner of the market.

"The Worries-Easing General Store."

There were at least thirty or forty such shops scattered throughout the Lingyuan Marsh Market.

These shops did their business in the front and lived in the back, selling little trinkets of no great value; the best on display were some basic talismans, some even unfinished.

But Song Yan had not come to buy—on the contrary, he was here to sell.

The shopkeeper was a charming young woman, lounging lazily in a chair, her bare, fair feet crossed on the counter, a hint of her snow-white calves visible.

She held a pipe in her left hand, and with her right she toyed with a small jade seal, the picture of leisure.

She glanced up as Song Yan entered.

"Ye Sheng is here."

Ye Sheng was Song Yan’s courtesy name.

"Granny Qin."

They were well acquainted. Song Yan nodded in greeting. "These are this month’s pills."

He brushed his finger across a small pouch, and six white porcelain bottles appeared on the nearly dust-covered counter.

Storage pouches, also called universe pouches, were spatial bags used by cultivators to store all manner of items.

"Six bottles, thirty pills in all. Please check them."

Granny Qin arched her brows, opened a bottle, and poured out a pill, pinching it with her jade-like fingers for a closer look.

It was frowned upon to take pills directly from the bottle when making a transaction; normally, the fragrance and appearance sufficed for assessment.

But this was Granny Qin. To Song Yan, she was the one who had raised an orphan from the streets, so he did not mind.

"In just nine months, your alchemy has improved remarkably," Granny Qin remarked as she returned the pill and sealed the bottle with a flick of her finger.

"Seven spirit stones per bottle. I’ll take them all."

A bottle of five Qi-Nourishing Pills usually sold for about seven spirit stones, but small shops had to earn a profit, so six stones per bottle was standard.

That had always been the deal with Granny Qin as well.

Song Yan frowned, then quickly shook his head. "Granny Qin, the market price is the market price. No need to give me special treatment."

Qi-Nourishing Pills were the lowest-grade pills in Song Yan's knowledge of this world. Though used by cultivators in the Qi Refinement stage to boost spiritual power, their effect was minor.

As the name implied, it was a pill for those who had just drawn in spiritual energy and had not even reached the first level of Qi Refinement—a pill to "nourish the qi."

Granny Qin laughed. "I’m not being generous. Your Qi-Nourishing Pills have gentle yet potent energy, almost reaching the standard of mid-grade pills."

Song Yan raised an eyebrow. "Truly?"

A mere outer disciple, in the sect just a year and a half, would have never had the chance to encounter mid-grade pills, much less ones so lowly in rank as these.

"Would I lie to you?" Granny Qin rolled her eyes, stowing away all the bottles. With a flash of light, a small pouch of spirit stones appeared on the counter.

"Take your stones and be off. Don't disturb my cultivation."

Granny Qin was kind in every way, except for her temper, which turned as quickly as flipping a page.

"Thank you, Granny." Song Yan took the stones without counting, bowed, and left.

"This boy..." After Song Yan left, Granny Qin lay back in her old rattan chair, a pill flying from the pouch into her hand for closer inspection.

"Never mind the spiritual energy contained—this pill’s form is round and plump, with barely any impurities. Even true mid-grade pills are no better."

"The main factors affecting a pill’s form are the quality of the furnace and the alchemist’s spiritual sense."

She knew full well that Ye Sheng couldn’t afford a good furnace.

Granny Qin—Qin Xijun—fell silent, a strange light in her eyes. "Yet this rascal is only at the fourth level of Qi Refinement..."

...

After leaving the Worries-Easing General Store, Song Yan did not return at once to the outer disciples’ lodgings, but instead made for another part of Lingyuan Marsh Market.

The Artifact Workshop—Fireworks Outpost.

Much like the Pill Workshop belonged to the sect’s alchemy division, this workshop was a complex run by the Dongyuan Sect’s artifact crafting branch.

It served mainly for the inner and outer sect disciples, as well as scions of attached cultivation clans, to purchase magical implements, spirit tools, or to barter goods.

Compared to the market center, Fireworks Outpost was remote and rarely visited.

For it was the dumping ground for all the market’s trash.

Failed pills, ruined implements, misdrawn talismans, damaged formation plates...

Even the odd risqué book, beloved by both men and women.

Anything Song Yan could imagine—and much that he could not—could be found here, broadening his horizons if nothing else.

Failed pills were of no use to him; he knew next to nothing about implements or talismans.

He came only to scavenge formation materials.

"Steward Xu."

Steward Xu was a taciturn middle-aged cultivator. Seeing Song Yan approach, he nodded slightly—a greeting in itself.

The work at Fireworks Outpost was simple; one person sufficed, so only Steward Xu was stationed there.

Song Yan skipped the pleasantries and simply handed over a spirit stone.

Xu Wenxuan pocketed the stone, and, watching the boy’s retreating figure, quietly offered a tip. "Near the market edge, I recall some discarded formation remnants."

Song Yan had come several times, always seeking materials for basic formations, so Xu Wenxuan pointed him in the right direction.

Song Yan brightened. "Thank you for your guidance."

Once the refuse piles reached a certain size, they’d be carted by the steward to the great Jangyan Furnace behind the outpost—connected to the sect’s underground—and burned to ashes.

To Xu Wenxuan, it was all destined to disappear anyway. Why not do a favor for these rootless outer disciples, starved for cultivation resources?

After all, every one of them in the outer sect had clawed their way up from nothing, without resources or connections. If he could help, he would.

Besides, it was an extra spirit stone for his own cultivation.

"Here’s a basic formation plate—its copper corners are intact, though the formation stones are ruined."

Song Yan dug a battered formation plate from the trash, the formation pearls nowhere in sight.

"With the remaining formation stones... it should be just enough."

"I’ve nearly gathered all the materials for a Minor Spirit-Gathering Array. If I can manage to assemble it, I might break through the fourth level of Qi Refinement before my mission."

"Now to find the formation pearl."

Finding such a thing amid the trash was truly a challenge.

There were too many round objects in the piles—chief among them, failed pills.

Failed pills were mostly either burnt black or bleached white after losing their energy; formation pearls tended to be the same colors.

The Fireworks Outpost was not reserved for Song Yan alone, but today, few others were about. Apart from Steward Xu, he was the only one there.

Some piles had already been picked over, the remnants sparse.

"Failed pills..."

"More failed pills..."

Song Yan even activated his spiritual power, drawing every bead-sized object within sight towards him.

Fortunately, neither failed pills nor formation pearls expended much energy to retrieve.

"A formation pearl."

"Failed pill."

"Formation pearl..."

His hand had not yet closed on the next "formation pearl" when a strange sensation made him pause. He tossed it absently into his pouch.

But the odd texture prickled at his curiosity.

He withdrew the "formation pearl" from his pouch and examined it carefully in his hand.

This "formation pearl"...