Chapter 4844 — Qing Xuanzi's Worry

"What do you think of your disciple's spirit-herb reserve, Master?" Qing Xuanzi led Wei Zhao on a tour, his face brimming with pride.

"Very fine indeed—the best I've seen," Wei Zhao said with a nod.

"Truly?" Qing Xuanzi was both startled and delighted. He had assumed that a man of Wei Zhao's alchemical attainment must have seen countless top-tier alchemists' stores; little did he know that apart from his own, Wei Zhao had never laid eyes on anyone else's spirit-herb reserve. So calling this one the best was no lie at all.

Wei Zhao smiled faintly and did not correct him. In truth, with so vast a reserve of spirit herbs, Qing Xuanzi had every right to be proud—every essential herb and rare herb one could name was almost entirely accounted for.

If one insisted on picking bones from an egg, the only lack was a few treasures on the order of the Thunder Profound Vine—but such peerless wonders were things one might encounter but never seek; they came only by exceptional luck, not by effort.

"It must have taken a long time," Wei Zhao said with a smile.

"Three hundred years." Qing Xuanzi gazed with deep feeling at the fruit of his painstaking hoarding, then turned to Wei Zhao. "I began systematically gathering and collecting the herbs here from the age of ten, and I have kept at it without a single break to this day."

"Ten?" Wei Zhao was taken aback. Ordinary children that age were still playing in the mud; he had not expected this one to have begun such advanced work so young.

"Indeed. You need not wonder, Master—I come from a pill-refining clan. Any clan child with even modest aptitude begins pill-refining initiation at ten, and the first lesson is identifying and collecting spirit herbs," Qing Xuanzi explained.

"I see." Wei Zhao nodded, thinking privately that this was what it truly meant to win at the starting line. Then a puzzle struck him. "If that is so, your clan should have no shortage of skilled alchemists—why go to the trouble of taking me as your master?"

"You misunderstand, Master. My family is indeed a pill-refining clan, but it had already declined before I was born. Not only has its glory fled—it has been bullied on every side, and holding onto the name of a pill-refining clan is sheer luck. For a long time it teetered on the brink, and only after I became a seventh-grade alchemist did things improve somewhat—at least we no longer live in daily fear of being hounded at our own door." Qing Xuanzi smiled bitterly.

"Every family has its own sutra to recite," Wei Zhao said, casting him a look of some sympathy.

"After I became a seventh-grade alchemist, though I steadied the situation for a time, the outlook is still far from good. To keep the name of a pill-refining clan, a family must have at least two seventh-grade alchemists—and our Qing Clan has only me. Among the other disciples there is not even a sixth-grade alchemist, let alone a seventh." Qing Xuanzi poured out his grievances.

"Is that the rule? Then what will you do?" Wei Zhao asked.

"Because I had some reputation in pill-refining circles when I advanced to seventh grade, the other clans were wary and for the time being did not dare press us too hard—after all, if one day I advanced to Mystic-Rank first grade, they would have a hard time swallowing the consequences. So they made an exception and gave our Qing Clan a two-hundred-year deadline. If I advance to Mystic-Rank first-grade alchemist within two hundred years, we may keep the name of a pill-refining clan; otherwise we are to be struck from the rolls and lose all resource allotment that belongs to a pill-refining clan." Qing Xuanzi paused there and smiled bitterly. "From the day I became a seventh-grade alchemist to now is just about two hundred years—the deadline is nearly upon us."

This was the true reason he had been willing to cast aside his dignity and kneel publicly to beg admittance as Wei Zhao's disciple. Two hundred years without the slightest progress was not, in itself, a fatal thing for a seventh-grade alchemist. Had this affair not existed, Qing Xuanzi could well have gone on groping forward alone.

But with the deadline in sight, if he did not strive to do something, the Qing Clan's removal from the rolls was a certainty. And once the various resource allotments of a pill-refining clan were lost, returning to those ranks would be utterly impossible.

"So you took me as master in order to break through to Mystic-Rank first grade?" Wei Zhao regarded Qing Xuanzi with a strange expression. This fellow, surely, was a dying man consulting any doctor he could find. Never mind that he himself was no legendary Mystic-Rank alchemist—even if he were, there was no way he could elevate Qing Xuanzi to Mystic-Rank in short order...

"No, no. Your disciple is not yet remotely among the foremost even of seventh-grade alchemists—how would I dare aspire to Mystic-Rank first grade?" Qing Xuanzi shook his head repeatedly.

"Then what are you after?" Wei Zhao asked, puzzled.

"All your disciple can do now is advance another step. Seventh-grade alchemists, too, are divided into grades. I wish only to reach the first grade, so that when those people come to strike our name, there may still be some room to turn things around. Otherwise, I fear we will not even have a chance to bargain." Qing Xuanzi smiled bitterly. There was in fact one more thing he did not dare say: that if he could win over a Mystic-Rank first-grade honorary clan elder, the name of a pill-refining clan could likewise be retained. But he had just forced a master-disciple bond upon the man—how could he then force Wei Zhao to become his clan's elder?

"Oh? And where would you rank yourself now among seventh-grade alchemists?" Wei Zhao asked with keen interest.

"Barely second grade, I suppose." Qing Xuanzi thought it over and explained: "With my present ability I can already refine almost all seventh-grade pills, and I can often produce pills of superior quality. But there is one deadly problem—I cannot guarantee success every time, and as for absolute success in pill formation like yours, Master, I would not even dare imagine it."

By success every time he did not mean a hundred-percent formation rate, but that every attempt would successfully form a pill. For the vast majority of alchemists, producing even one pill from ten portions of materials counted as success.

"Is that so? Have you thought of any way to solve it?" Wei Zhao asked, stroking his chin. Because of the Divine Farmer's Cauldron, his own pill refining had always exceeded expectations—at worst he achieved a formation rate near one hundred percent, and only when a pill's grade far exceeded the scope of his ability would refining fail.

But the situation Qing Xuanzi described was one Wei Zhao had never encountered before. With the ability plainly there, why should refining so often fail?

"I have consulted many senior alchemists on this very matter, but none could point the way—and indeed many of them suffer the same problem as I do." Qing Xuanzi shook his head, then said: "Such a problem cannot be solved by shutting oneself away and building a cart behind closed doors. So after much thought, I decided to go to Middle Island and consult the Pill God, Zhang Lifeng. I dare not presume to beg a place among his disciples; if I could but obtain a word or two of guidance, it would benefit me beyond measure." (To be continued.)