Martial Peak

Chapter 1981, Source Condensing Pills

Translator: Silavin & PewPewLaserGun

Editor and Proofreader: Leo of Zion Mountain & Dhael Ligerkeys

Entering inside, Yang Kai immediately felt a scorching heat on his face.

“Alchemist Yang, please take some time to familiarize yourself with the various pill recipes. There is no need to rush to begin Alchemy, just proceed when you are fully prepared.” Kang Si Ran was afraid that Yang Kai would become hasty and could not help emphasizing.

Yang Kai nodded before asking, “By the way, Shopkeeper Kang, what kind of Spirit Pill does the store need most right now?”

“Source Condensing Pills. There are countless Origin Kings in Maplewood City, so the demand for our Source Condensing Pills is great, often causing them to sell out the moment they are refined,” Kang Si Ran Replied proudly.

“En, I understand,” Yang Kai nodded lightly, having already figured so in his heart.

.....

There were countless herbs and medicines in this world, and the number of pills which could be refined from their various combinations were simply unknowable. However, if one asked various cultivators which Spirit Pill was in highest demand, if one excluded healing and restoring Spirit Pills, the answer in the Star Boundary would be Source Condensing Pills!

Using Source Condensing Pills was the standard practice amongst Origin Kings for countless years now, and all Origin Kings had a great demand for this Pill because it could promote the transformation of Saint Qi into Source Qi in the body.

Maplewood City was not very big, and there weren’t many Dao Source Realm masters, but there were many, many Origin Kings, so the demand for Source Condensing Pills could easily be imagined.

It was impossible to open a pill shop in Maplewood City and not sell Source Condensing Pills.

The Source Condensing Pill recipe of Spirit Pill Plaza was also improved by an Emperor Grade Alchemist, so compared to ordinary Source Condensing Pills, it had a roughly ten percent stronger efficacy which earned it much praise and many accolades.

Countless cultivators wanted to buy Source Condensing Pills from Spirit Pill Plaza, and every time a new batch of Source Condensing Pills was refined, people would go all out to snatch them.

This was even after Kang Si Ran placed limits on the number of purchases an individual could make.

If he did not limit the purchase quantity, customers would likely be even more aggressive!

Currently, the Source Condensing Pills of Spirit Pill Plaza were out of stock, which naturally aroused the dissatisfaction of many old customers.

Outside the Alchemy Room, Kang Si Ran paced back and forth, feeling extremely restless. His strength and mental fortitude were not low, and he had trained himself to maintain composure at all times as a shopkeeper, but at this moment, he was still as anxious as an ant on a hot wok.

If he listened carefully, he could even hear the impatient urges of the Origin Kings outside the shop, demanding Spirit Pill Plaza open.

*Deng deng deng...*

A series of footsteps rang out from above.

Kang Si Ran did not even need to look up to know it was one of the shop-hands who had raced over.

Stopping his pacing, before the shop-hand could even speak, Kang Si Ran spat angrily, “Didn’t I order you to comfort those customers!? Why have you come down here again!?”

“Shopkeeper Kang, the situation is growing out of control! Our Pill Shop should have brought out a new batch of Source Condensing Pills yesterday, so many old customers have been waiting in line for an entire day now but delaying for so long has made them very dissatisfied.”

“So what if they are dissatisfied? Do you want this old master to make pills appear out of thin air? Make them wait again!” Kang Si Ran replied impatiently.

“We have explained the situation many times, but they refuse to listen,” The shop-hand said with a nervous expression. “And, and...”

“And what?” Kang Si Ran’s face sank.

“And I don’t know who spread the rumour, but some are beginning to say our Spirit Pill Plaza will no longer be selling pills in the future, so some customers lost patience and left already,” The shop-hand replied quietly.

“Zhuo Ning Si! You cheap slut!” Kang Si Ran almost crushed his own teeth in frustration.

Although he did not see it with his own eyes, with his shrewdness, he knew that Zhuo Ning Si had instigated people to spread such rumours. Naturally, this vicious woman would not miss this opportunity to add insult to injury, hoping she could close down Spirit Pill Plaza even one day sooner.

Although enraged, Kang Si Ran was really helpless.

If a new batch of Source Condensing Pills was now brought out for sale in short order, the customers who did not know the truth would most likely believe those rumours and many of them would leave, dealing a huge blow to Spirit Pill Plaza.

But in this situation, what could Kang Si Ran do?

Turning his head, he stared eagerly towards the Alchemy Room that was closed shut and could only pray in his heart that Yang Kai would not disappoint him.

“Shopkeeper, is that Alchemist Yang really credible?” The shop hand didn’t seem to have much confidence in Yang Kai. He had met many Alchemists in his life, but none of them had as high a cultivation as Yang Kai. What’s more, Alchemists normally had extremely sloppy images and because they dealt with herbs all the year-round, there would be a rich medicinal fragrance lingering about them. From his previous contact with Yang Kai, Yang Kai did not fit the image of an Alchemist at all.

“How should I know?” Kang Si Ran replied feebly.

It had been ten days since Yang Kai entered the Alchemy Room. The first two days were spent studying the various pill recipes while on the third day Yang Kai had requested a large number of herbs for refining Source Condensing Pills. After that day, the Alchemy Room’s door had been closed and was not opened once since then.

Kang Si Ran really wanted to rush in and see how many Source Condensing Pills Yang Kai had refined and how many herbs he had wasted!

Every Alchemist would have some rate of attribution in Alchemy. This was unavoidable. No matter how skilled the Alchemist was, there was no guarantee that they could refine every furnace of Spirit Pills successfully.

Depending on the Alchemist’s own abilities, however, the herb attrition rate could be vastly different.

Among the three Alchemists Spirit Pill Plaza used to employ, the best one had an attrition rate of thirty percent, which meant out of every ten furnaces, seven would be successful while the remaining three would be wasted.

This was already quite a remarkable feat. Fan Hong for example had a material loss rate of about fifty percent.

Even so, Kang Si Ran had to treat him with great respect. Who made him an Origin King Grade Alchemist?

What kind of attrition rate would Yang Kai have? Sixty percent? Seventy?

Even if it was eighty percent, Kang Si Ran felt he could accept it! As long as some Source Condensing Pills could be refined to alleviate the current situation, everything else was immaterial.

What he worried about now was that Yang Kai had not produced a single Source Condensing Pill yet! Were it not for it being taboo to disturb an Alchemist while they were performing Alchemy, Kang Si Ran would have rushed inside the Alchemy Room long ago.

The noise from the crowd outside grew more intense by the moment, only fueling Kang Si Ran’s anxiety.

*Kacha...*

Suddenly, a soft sound rang out.

Kang Si Ran was taken aback for a moment but was immediately overjoyed as he stared at the door to the Alchemy Room open.

Before it even fully opened, Kang Si Ran rushed in.

Ignoring the blistering heat inside the Alchemy Room, Kang Si Ran rushed over to Yang Kai’s side before swiftly sweeping his eyes around, quickly discovering a pile of medicine slag in one of the corners not far away.

These were naturally the burnt remnants of failed Spirit Pills.

Fortunately, the amount was not too great, probably just ten percent of the total herbs he had delivered earlier.

As for what he had delivered exactly, Kang Si Ran had given Yang Kai a hundred sets of ingredients for Source Condensing Pill’s seven days ago.

Now the only question was how many of those sets of materials had Alchemist Yang consumed. If he knew that, Kang Si Ran could estimate the herb attrition rate.

“Alchemist Yang...” Kang Si Ran forced a smile onto his face, cupped his fists, and asked, “Have you refined the requested Spirit Pills?”

“En, they’re all here,” Yang Kai stretched out his hand and waved, producing more than thirty jade bottles from his Space Ring.

*Si...*

Seeing this scene, Kang Si Ran could not help drawing a sharp breath as he stared at the jade bottles on the ground stupidly, his whole body frozen in shock.

Yang Kai looked at him in amazement, and called out, “Shopkeeper Kang?”

Only then did Kang Si Ran recover, twist his stiff neck, and stare at Yang Kai, “Alchemist Yang, are these all Source Condensing Pills?”

“Of course, Shopkeeper Kang can check them if he wants.”

Hearing what he said, Kang Si Ran did not hesitate anymore, stretched out his hand, swept up a few of the jade bottles, and began uncapping them one by one, discovering that the contents were really all Source Condensing Pills with pure coloured exteriors and fragrant aromas.

Each bottle had ten pills, and there were more than thirty bottles here, which meant there were at least three hundred Source Condensing Pills!

This number appeared in Kang Si Ran’s mind and pounded down on his brain like a hammer, making him dizzy and unable to think.

[How could this be? How is this possible? Is this all a dream?]

In just seven days, one person had refined more than three hundred Source Condensing Pills. That was equivalent to the results all three Alchemists Spirit Pill Plaza had employed before could produce!

Was Yang Kai more competent than all three of those Alchemists put together? Kang Si Ran completely lost his ability to think and was unable to regain his composure for a long time. Everything in front of him subverted his understanding of common sense.

Seeing this scene, Yang Kai could not help cursing in his heart.

It seemed he had still taken out too many. If he had known earlier, he would have pocketed another hundred for himself.

Refining Source Condensing Pills was actually not difficult for Yang Kai; after all, it was only an Origin King Grade Mid-Rank Spirit Pill while Yang Kai had been capable of refining Origin King Grade High-Rank pills for quite some time. It was just that he had never refined this particular Spirit Pill before as he lacked the appropriate recipe.

As such, after a few initial failures, things had progressed smoothly.

The number of pills he could produce per furnace was also gradually improving.

At first, he could only refine two or three pills from a single set of materials, but as time passed, condensing four or five per furnace became the norm. Out of the hundred sets of materials, Yang Kai had refined almost all of them into pills successfully, so he wound up with roughly four hundred finished pills.

Yang Kai secretly pocketed a hundred Spirit Pills so his performance did not look so shocking.

But now, it seems that there would have been no problem with him pocketing two hundred.

He needed Source Condensing Pills himself, and a large amount of them at that. Even if he could not use them all up, he could still sell them. There was no need to worry about finding a customer for Source Condensing Pills.

Kang Si Ran’s expression, which was a mix of joy and shock, annoyed Yang Kai greatly.

But... Fortunately, he had kept all the Source Condensing Pills which formed Pill Veins for himself, which was a small comfort.

After a long time, Kang Si Ran let out a burst of slightly awkward laughter.

Yang Kai seemed to understand Kang Si Ran’s mood a bit, so he remained silent.

After all, Kang Si Ran had not expected Yang Kai’s performance to be so outstanding. A one-time refinement had actually resulted in the same number of pills, if not more than all three of the Alchemists he had hired before. Kang Si Ran had originally only prayed that Yang Kai wouldn’t waste too many herbs, so this result was a huge surprise.

The violent ups and downs his emotions had experienced these past few days made it impossible for Kang Si Ran to restrain the joy in his heart or express it properly, so he could only let out this feeble laughter.