Learning To Live As A Cultivator

At these words, the man"s long suffering wife straightened her spine and shot Ursam a warning glance. It was very clear to her that these young men were students. Not that there was anything wrong with that, as it happened, the students of the inst.i.tute were amongst their best customers seeing as their prices were more affordable to the general populace than say if one were to purchase from the Heavenly Pill Pavilion. But students often came here trying to sell their pills and frankly, most were not worth the herbs used to produce them. If it were up to her, no student made pills would ever grace her shelves. Unfortunately, Ursam tended to purchase things on a whim...

"Er.. well... n-not exactly," Leon stuttered, suddenly nervous of the cold aura of the woman. He had hoped to indeed sell the pills if they were worth selling, but he didn"t want to make Ursam"s wife unhappy. Didn"t Mr Clawse say that the woman was an ordinary person, unable to cultivate? Then why was he terrified of her right now? "M-Mr Clawse said that I c-can have p-pills evaluated here?"

The cool aura retracted a little and Ursam looked at his wife fondly before beckoning the young men to the side room. Watching the boys follow her husband, the woman looked thoughtful for a moment before decisively deciding to close the shop for a short while. She just did not trust that man of hers...

Leon and Jin Li were seated upon stools opposite Ursam, whose face-splitting grin returned the moment he noticed that Jin Li"s stool had been "stealthily" moved closer to the small alchemist. Not that Ursam could blame him for this protective streak that seemed to have surfaced since he had first met these boys. Young Leon was quite the cutie. Those large black, innocent eyes were frankly dangerous.

"So, what would you like me to evaluate?" Ursam asked, curiously. Had the small alchemist found out about one of the other tricks of his trade? He"d been delightfully surprised to find that the youth had already figured out about the quality of Purple Spirit Gra.s.s. Perhaps this time, it was the Songmist moss secrets...

He looked on as Leon produced several jade bottles... nine in face and his eyes widened as he noticed pills that seemed unfamiliar amongst them. He unstoppered the bottle holding deep burgundy pills and sniffed the herbal aroma emanating from them. A frown marred his forehead and he poured one of the pills into his palm. "This smells like a Burning Energy Pill, but... did you alter the recipe?"

"N-not really," Leon replied, carefully thinking about his words. "It c-contains the same ingr...ingr... things as a n-n-normal b-Burning energy p-pill. As d-does this one." He pushed forward the jade bottle with vivid scarlet pills in its hold. Ursam popped the burgundy pill into its bottle before opening the other. It"s scent was what he expected, but somehow more potent.

"He he," Ursam suddenly chuckled and shook his head, before leaping to his feet and running off into another room attached to this. He returned with a small golden device in his hand. It was about the size of Ursam"s large fist, a tiny yellow jade cup sitting upon a platform of gold. Only when Ursam placed the small thing upon the table did Leon notice the intricate carvings on the inside of the cup. "You"ve probably not seen one of these things before; most alchemists don"t use them, they claim that they are "unreliable". Actually, they are just really, really expensive! I happened to find one in a flea market a few centuries ago. The original owner didn"t even realise what he had! This will reveal the secrets of your pills! Ah I don"t mean how you made them, by the way, so I can"t steal the method. It just lets me know what they can do."

And as he said these words, he popped a burgundy pill into it.

Alchemists did not like this device, for in their opinion, it was no better than the nose of a qualified alchemist and this was generally true. A qualified alchemist would be able to take Leon"s ordinary Burning energy pills and declare that the pill was of average quality, that it could raise a primary cultivator"s combat ability to that of a secondary level Cultivator for a temporary couple minutes, but would cause the Cultivator weakness afterwards. They could also add that the impurities within were about 30%. But a qualified alchemist would likely say something similar about the burgundy pill and the scarlet pill; Burning Energy Pills usually varied in redden shades, though never as extremely.

Ursam would have thought those insufferable alchemists were just covering their own ignorant b.u.t.ts.

The little device sent the information through Ursam"s fingertips using his internal spirit as a medium, and thus the information he sought appeared in his mind. "This little pill is not as good at raising the combative ability of a primary Cultivator as a Burning Energy Pill, probably at best peak stage, but the effect would be longer, probably closer to ten minutes and the resultant weakened state would be greatly reduced." Ursam grinned. What an amazing thing!
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Excitedly, he grabbed the scarlet pill and popped it into the cup after removing the other. He sent his energies into the golden device and felt it circulate the carved circuits before returning to his mind with enlightenment. "And this one will gift the consumer with a blast of ability for a few seconds, but it would be as if the Cultivator was peak secondary, perhaps even half-step into tertiary. However, it"s cost is greater, the cultivator might even faint from exhaustion!"

"Oh," Leon sounded a little down hearted. One didn"t provide the ability of a normal Burning energy pill and the other had an even more serious backlash. Didn"t that make these experiments a failure? But then why was Jin Li smiling at him, an almost proud expression within his eyes? And why was Ursam laughing?

"My boy, do you have any idea about what you have done?" The (former) Martial Artist was slapping his thigh gleefully. "While they are not new pills, they certainly are acceptable variations!"

"B-b-but I thought that they were n-no g-good," Leon said, slightly confused.

"Are you kidding me??" Ursam bellowed, his grin revealing all of his white teeth. "Who wouldn"t want a bit more strength without the flaw of feeling weak? Who wouldn"t want a blast of energy at a crucial moment, potentially saving their lives, even if it meant collapsing afterwards? These pills are marvellous!"