“The instructions I received told me to keep the flames at a constant medium temperature.”

As I suspected! “That’s your main issue. The constant temperature mentioned in the instructions was misleading. They should secretly mean that the concoction, itself, not the fire should remain at a constant.”

It was a bit obvious when one had a lot of experience in dealing with odd instructions in pill formula. To hide the true methods, the creators would often leave deceitful directions like that, or add in unneeded plants, then misorder them to confuse anyone who wasn’t their disciple.

“You need to adjust the flames for each ingredient you add. High flame for Yin and low flame for yang.”

“Of course.” He grimaced and the tips of his ears turned red. He probably thought it was obvious now that I pointed it out. But there wasn’t a need to be embarrassed as every alchemist started off falling for this type of bullshit. He likely would have figured it out in another batch or two.

“There is one other issue. You also need to add in the Yin’s Harmony Lilly and the Yang Monarch Grass first and together to keep the temperature stable. But this means that you’re going to need to prepare them differently than you have been. Remove the lilly’s stem as you only need the flower. And for the grass, remove the yellowed part of the roots with a wood knife.”

He nodded. I could tell that he realized something as he practically vibrated with the urge to immediately try what I suggested.

I smiled. “Believe me now?”

“Y... Yes. I do.”

“And the tournament?”

His face turned red. “Of course we’d never keep the disciple of an Immortal Zhenren out of the tournament.”

I beamed. “Thank you.”

“I’ll go explain it to the manager... Of course, I’ll keep your master’s name a secret.”

“Good.”

He hurriedly left the room, leaving the privacy formation in place.

“Is... our master really an Immortal Zhenren?”

I sighed. I hadn’t really spoken to Little Spring about our master much. It was... a weird conversation that I wasn’t looking forward to having. How does one explain to a kid that, in his past life, he took his master as one of his many wives?

Nope. Not touching that.

“Our original master was someone else who... well, they aren’t qualified to be my master in this life. Sword Within the Light of Virtue... Let’s just say that in our past lives I learned many things from him.”

The employee returned and smiled broadly. “I explained the trouble I was having with the manager and he thinks your solution is viable.”

No shit.

“He also informed me that of course, the guild would never go back on its agreement.”

I sighed, “Of course not.” They would just try to fool a child into not participating so some other alchemist with an impressive backer on the waiting list could have a shot.

“The tournament will begin shortly so I was asked to escort you to your position.”

“Thank you!” I thought of something. “By the way. I need flowers from a Vine of Stellar Rebirth. Can I purchase them at this guild or is there a good herbalist who can sell me some?”

“Oh! Those? They’re sold out everywhere for a thousand li.”

I stopped walking. “What?”

Employee Stone stopped as well. “Apparently someone discovered a few days ago that they can be used in a few different pills in place of a more expensive ingredient. They released that information and are receiving quite a large sum for their hard work.” He gestured for me to continue so I did. “But if anyone had them and was willing to sell, it would be Violet Pill Fairy. You’ll meet her in the tournament.”

I did not like where this was going. “Do you know what price she’s selling them at?”

“Last I heard? Around 1200 per flower, I think. Which is a steal compared to the price of the original ingredients for those pills.”

Fuck. I see what she did. Hadn’t she mentioned this incident at one point? Well, I remember it a bit but I’d forgotten the exact flower.

Piecing it together, she’d discovered that this vine’s flowers could be used in place of an expensive hard to find ingredient. Before she patented the information at the guild, she purchased a majority of the flowers and searched for the vines in the wild so she had a monopoly on them. Then she upped the price all the fucking way up. But it was still much lower than the plants that it replaced.

Violet Pill Fairy ended up making millions of low-grade spirit stones from this monopoly, even though it only lasted a year.

Fuck! I thought she was trying to price gouge a couple of little kids. Turned out she was price gouging everybody!

I sighed.

Comparatively, in the forest, she treated us quite well... then again, her whole fake persona was one where she adored children.

Price gouge a slightly rare spiritual herb? Doing it to pay for research to help cultivating children for some nonsense reason.

Selling a healing pill to cultivators at 10 times the normal price in a secret realm? There is no need to be angry since she’s putting that extra money toward helping needy orphans.

Find a cure for a spiritual energy-resistant plague and sell it at 1000x the price of the ingredients? But she was doing it so she could give children the cure for free.

If those excuses had been the truth, it would have been amazing... Too bad the numbers never added up.

I sighed.

Whatever. We still had one flower. One shot at making the pill I needed. If I could get that cauldron, then the chance that I failed to make it on my single try would lessen.

And I needed it soon. My injuries were only worsening as time went on.