Chapter 187 Gathering Medicinal Ingredients
The first level's lounge was extremely spacious. There was at least thousands of meters of space. This open space was brightly lit up, appearing extremely luxurious.
The large lounge was filled entirely with sales counters. There were all sorts of medicinal pills offered here. This first level was actually the medicinal pill lounge.
Hundreds of maidens were handling customers now. Most of those customers were newcomers as well.
As soon as they had received their points, they prepared to spend them. You could buy anything within the Xuantian Monastery with points. Of course, that was on the precondition that you had enough points.
As soon as they entered the lounge, Long Chen saw a familiar figure, Guo Ran. He was in front of one of the sales counters and asking the woman inside, "What is this thing's price?"
That woman glanced at that medicinal pill and indifferently said, "Two hundred points."
"Damn, what is with that price!?" Guo Ran was completely shocked. He pointed to the medicinal pill beside it. "What about that one?"
Still indifferently looking at Guo Ran, she opened her hand, using her five fingers to clearly emphasize: "Five 'damns'."
Guo Ran was stunned. He was about to say more when a tinkling laugh rang out behind him. He turned to see that Tang Wan-er was laughing at him with Long Chen.
"Cough, boss, faction boss, how come you've come here?" Guo Ran asked with some embarrassment.
"Don't call me boss. Call me faction leader." Tang Wan-er obviously didn't like that unsophisticated title.
"Yes faction leader Wan-er," quickly said Guo Ran.
"Guo Ran, how long have you been here? What's your feeling about this place?" asked Long Chen.
Guo Ran bitterly said, "Ah, don't even talk about it. I've circulated around here for four hours. Everything here is too expensive. With my ration, I can only buy some garbage pills."
Guo Ran had previous already received his rations. He had wanted to spend them, but as soon as he arrived here he had been stupefied. He was practically a beggar who had come to a gold shop. His few points were unable to buy anything good.
But Guo Ran was extremely smart. He first went through the entire lounge, basically having asked the price of every medicinal pill.
By doing that, he finally met someone who had been angered. That way he could confront and haggle with them. But it was just at that point that Long Chen and Tang Wan-er had come.
"I was hoping to buy a Muscle Firming Pill here. But that pill requires six hundred and fifty points. I don't have enough points," dejectedly explained Guo Ran.
He had just advanced to the Muscle Rebirth realm and his aura was still unstable. If he wanted to quickly stabilize, the Muscle Firming Pill was a must-have.
The Muscle Firming Pill was perfect for those who had just broken through to the Muscle Rebirth realm. It could quickly help them increase their strength and consolidate their realm.
Without the Muscle Firming Pill, it would take two to three months to completely consolidate the realm.
But with it, one could drastically cut down on that time. It would only take ten to fifteen days to completely stabilize.
That saved a cultivator's precious time, and it was a must-have for the newcomers.
"I've haggled with the sellers for half a day but they just won't relent. They won't make it even the slightest bit cheaper for me! It really infuriates me," angrily grieved Guo ran.
As he said that, the maiden behind the sales counter unhappily said, "You're wrong. We're only in charge of selling. We don't have the authority to give you a discount. Furthermore, what kind of place do you think this place is? A food market? You want to haggle? The fact that none of us have thrown you out after you wasted so much of our time here is already giving you enough face."
"You…" Guo Ran scowled.
"Sorry, this brother of mine has been in a bad mood recently. Let me take his place to apologize," smiled Long Chen.
Only then did that maiden's expression become a bit better. She also smiled slightly, showing she wasn't actually angry.
Long Chen pulled away the still angrily puffing Guo Ran away. Tang Wan-er laughed, "Guo Ran, I finally understand why the two of you have become brothers. You two are both definitely weirdos. You wanted to haggle over prices here?"
"I was just doing that to display my dissatisfaction, letting the monastery hear us newcomer's thoughts. The monthly rations are unable to even buy a Muscle Firming Pill! Aren't they just intentionally toying with us for fun?" Guo Ran still couldn't accept this.
"The monastery's rules all have reasons behind them. Since you're all members of my faction, the faction will think of some method. You don't need to be so worried. Now that everyone has just advanced to the Muscle Rebirth realm, the Muscle Firming Pill is something we must buy. It's also the main reason I came here."
"At six hundred and fifty a pill with seventy-nine people, we'll need fifty-one thousand three hundred and fifty points. For just one pill, we'll need to use up half the faction's ration?" Long Chen was somewhat speechless. The monastery's prices really were ruthless.
Tang Wan-er shook her head. "We don't have seventy-nine people, but one hundred."
"Oh? How do we have one hundred people?" asked Long Chen. There were originally one hundred people, but now only seventy-nine remained.
"Each faction can have a total of one hundred people. The empty spots can be filled with fresh blood. If we don't, we'll end up losing in terms of numbers. In a bit you guys can come with me to find some fresh talent," explained Tang Wan-er.
Guo Ran nodded, but Long Chen was lost in thought. Looking around, his eyes suddenly brightened.
"There's a place to buy medicinal ingredients?"
Guo Ran nodded, "Yes, two-third of this lounge is taken up by all kinds of medicinal ingredients. The other third is taken up by essentially only a couple dozen kinds of medicinal pills.
Long Chen's heart shook. Walking over to the section with medicinal ingredients, we walked a lap and found there were over ten thousand kinds of medicinal ingredients, delighting him.
Although he only scanned quickly, he saw several of the ingredients necessary for the Alioth Pill.
"Wan-er, do you trust me?" Long Chen solemnly looked at Tang Wan-er.
"What nonsense is that? Of course I trust you." Tang Wan-er was a bit surprised and puzzled.
Long Chen smiled. "Then that's good. Lend me sixty thousand points and within three days, I'll give you one hundred Muscle Firming Pills."
Both Tang Wan-er and Guo Ran's eyes widened in disbelief. Guo Ran stuttered, "Boss, you aren't thinking of…"
"Yup. I'll refine the Muscle Firming Pill myself. I took a look around and saw that the ingredients for it aren't that expensive. One hundred pills' worth of ingredients is only just over eight thousand points. If I refine them myself, we'll be able to save a great deal of points," said Long Chen.
"But… the Muscle Firming Pill is a third tier medicinal pill!" exclaimed Guo Ran.
"The current me is still unable to refine third tier medicinal pills. So I'll need to first buy a couple other ingredients to help me accomplish a certain thing, and then I'll be able to refine the Muscle Firming Pill," confidently said Long Chen.
His current Pill Flame wasn't enough for him to refine a third tier medicinal pill. Without a mighty enough Pill Flame, it was impossible to completely purify the medicinal ingredients, and thus it was impossible to form the pill.
But in his spatial ring was the Flame Salamander's Neidan. As long as he absorbed that, he would have a third rank beast flame.
Then adding on his powerful Spiritual Strength and the abundant spiritual qi in his FengFu Star, it would be no problem for him to refine third tier medicinal pills despite him not advancing into the Muscle Rebirth realm.
Furthermore, Long Chen saw that the Muscle Firming Pills that were offered here were all only middle grade, not high grade.
Such a Muscle Firming Pill wasn't especially good. It would require at least fifteen days to stabilize their realm with such a pill.
But Long Chen's goal was high grade Muscle Firming Pills. Such a pill could allow them to completely stabilize their realm in just seven to ten days.
That would allow all of them to save many days' time. With the fierce competition in the monastery, time was money. Each extra day they cultivated was another portion of strength they could compete with for more resources.
So not only would that greatly increase everyone's cultivation speed, but it would also save them many points.
By saving those points, Long Chen could buy the ingredients for the Ten Thousand Beast Essence Blood. Then he could later go out to hunt Magical Beasts and make the Ten Thousand Beast Essence Blood, allowing him to quickly advance his cultivation base.
His fight with senior apprentice-brother Wu had given Long Chen an extreme sense of danger. It was lucky Tu Fang had come before Wu Qi had released his last attack.
If he hadn't appeared, Long Chen would have had to summmon his FengFu Battle Armor to take that blow.
The FengFu Battle Armor was his final trump card. But from the very start, Wu Qi had not used any Battle Skills and had merely used his Muscle Rebirth cultivation base to suppress Long Chen.
Long Chen knew that in a true fight, he would not be a match for Wu Qi. Furthermore, he also sensed danger from that Elder Sun.
Although he didn't know why Elder Sun would target him, he definitely couldn't be careless. He definitely couldn't entrust his life to the monastery.
If he wanted to control his own life, he needed an accordingly high strength. So he urgently needed to get stronger.
He didn't have the pill formula for the Muscle Firming Pills here, but in his soul's memories was an even better formula that could also stabilize the realm. The effect would be even better.
"You can decide yourself. I trust you." Tang Wan-er smiled. Taking out her medal, she pressed a couple things and put it on top of Long Chen's medal.
The number on top of Long Chen's medal immediately leapt up. The original five hundred immediately became one hundred thousand five hundred.
"This…" Long Chen was startled. Tang Wan-er had given him all the faction's points.
"Since I've chosen to trust you, I'll trust you completely. From today onwards, you can be the executive manager of the faction," laughed Tang Wan-er.
Holding the medal, a warm feeling flowed within him. Being trust by others truly was a good feeling. He was actually speechless.
"Cough, boss, should I quietly leave at this time?" awkwardly said Guo Ran.
Tang Wan-er reddened and she turned away, but she also didn't say anything.
Long Chen glared at Guo Ran, "You know too much."
In accordance to the formula in his memories, Long Chen quickly found the ingredients he needed. It went without saying that the monastery's treasure-house contained a very large collection, at least hundreds of times greater than the alchemist guild.
After he bought everything he needed for the Muscle Firming Pills as well as what he needed to absorb the Flame Salamander's Neidan, over thirty thousand of his one hundred thousand points had flown away.
Just as Long Chen was planning on returning home to refine the Flame Salamander's Neidan, Tang Wan-er pulled him back.