Tainted Blood

by Tinalynge

  “Let us not do that then,” Xue Wei was not willing to sacrifice his friend’s cultivation base for himself.

  “We have a few other options,” Bai Tianyi continued hesitatingly. “Well, first of all you can just stay here and slowly cultivate. You can also make inscriptions and raise your cultivation base that way, or we can go look for a two colored rainbow pill and hope your luck is good.”

  “A third option is that you learn alchemy.”

  “Me learning alchemy? I never planned on doing that,” Xue Wei said, dumbfounded. “Why should I learn alchemy?”

  “Alchemy is not exactly like inscription-writing,” Bai Tianyi explained. “Inscriptions are fully dependent on the runes and the Spiritual Energy to be created, whereas alchemy requires materials.”

  “Still, to refine and concoct pills and pastes you need an immense control over your spiritual energy.”

  “You also require control over your spiritual energy when you make inscriptions, but that is nothing compared to pill-making. I will suggest that you go this route!”

  Xue Wei looked at him with narrowed eyes and sighed. “Tell me the real reason you want me to become an alchemist,” he said after a bit of thought. Although the reasons that Bai Tianyi had listed made sense, it was clear that he had held some information back.

  “We are leaving the continent, which means we might not be able to get our hands on more rainbow pills,” Bai Tianyi finally came clean with a pitiful expression on his young face.

  “Without Rainbow Pills, I am very useless. My cultivation base will slowly drop. I will become withered, rust, and slowly fall apart; I will become a sword no one will ever use again,” Bai Tianyi spoke with such grief and dejection, but Xue Wei had long since seen through his act.

  Although the growth of his cultivation base would lessen over time, it would never go the other way and make his cultivation regress.

  “Okay then,” Xue Wei said after spending a moment to mull it over. Although he had never planned on becoming an alchemist, he had to admit that an unlimited supply of Rainbow Pills was tempting, which was why he decided that it was not that bad an idea.

  “But how does one start to become an alchemist?” Xue Wei had no idea where to start or where to stop. He was as clueless as a little child.

  “Don’t worry!” Bai Tianyi beamed when he spoke. He waved his hand, and suddenly thousands of herbs appeared in the room. All of them had various quality; some were Earth Warrior-ranked, others were meant for the Sky Warrior stage, and yet some were Heavenly Warrior-ranked.

  All these herbs were of the best quality in their respective categories, but they were still nonetheless low-ranking herbs.

  “You bought these?” Xue Wei asked, to which Bai Tianyi nodded. “I have waited to make you into an alchemist for some time now,” he admitted.

  Looking around, Xue Wei spotted a large cauldron underneath the big mountain of herbs, and next to the cauldron were jade slips, all of which contained formulas for various pills.

  “Don’t worry too much, just have fun and start concocting!” Bai Tianyi said as he took Hei Gou’s arm and dragged him out of the room. When they finally exited, Xue Wei could not help but sigh again. He felt that he had sighed a whole lot after waking up, but he had no other option. Seeing how adamant Bai Tianyi had been, he understood that he had no other option than to simply do it. Since it mattered so much to Bai Tianyi, he would do his very best. Still, he was not so stupid as to believe Bai Tianyi’s reasons.

  Chapter 24 - Pill Tester

  Sighing, Xue Wei understood that Bai Tianyi had some other reason behind making him learn alchemy, yet he did not explain why. As to this reason why, Xue Wei did not inquire.

  Shaking his head, he sat down on the floor and took the cauldron into his hands. At first glance, he found that it was not very large; it was only around twenty centimeters in diameter, and it was round and black with a flood dragon engraved on it.

  It was a very beautiful cauldron, but knowing Bai Tianyi, it was likely a very ordinary cauldron. Bai Tianyi did not have a lot of assets, even with the gold and essence stones he had been given by Xue Wei, he was not considered rich. One also had to consider Xue Wei’s current achievements in alchemy. Giving him a unique, special cauldron would be too much of a waste.

  Without wasting time, he started sorting the herbs into what kinds they were and placed them in piles around himself. There were so many herbs that he had no clue how Bai Tianyi had managed to produce so many.

  Next up were the formulas. He picked them up one by one, placed them on his forehead, and felt how the knowledge poured into his mind.

  The formulas were all for Warriors. There were pills for Earth Warriors, Sky Warriors, and Heavenly Warriors. There was nothing for Knights, but Xue Wei was not too surprised. He was a complete novice so trying to bite more than he could chew would be a bad idea.

  He quickly picked the simplest of the formulas, a Rising Qi Pill, and studied it thoroughly. It was a pill for an Earth Warrior and it could increase one’s Qi a full layer if the pill was of high grade.

  Pills were ranked similarly to cultivation levels, and then further into low, middle, high, and profound-ranking pills.

  Low-ranked pills had many impurities and would prove problematic to consume. One would only consume these pills if one had no other option, such as in a life and death situation where it could save their life, because it could leave damage on one’s cultivation base that was not easy to manage.

  Middle-ranked pills were not as bad, but they still had quite a bit of impurities. If one consumed too many of these pills, it could cause problems down the road, but these impurities could be removed by relying on other pills.

  Finally, you had the high and profound-ranked pills. These pills had little to no impurity within them and you could eat them like candy. There would never be any threat to one’s cultivation base.

  Xue Wei had never before made a pill, so he would be content if he managed to concoct a low-ranked pill. Having decided on the Rising Qi Pill, he picked the herbs he needed and closed his eyes.

  Taking a deep breath, he calmed himself down. When he opened his eyes, he tossed the herbs into the cauldron.

  He then summoned the Golden Dragon. It blew a ball of spiritual energy into the cauldron, which lit up with a flame that started to refine the herbs, transforming them into liquid.

  Just as he was about to extract the impurities from the herbs, he felt that something was wrong. His control of the spiritual energy was not precise enough, and soon a loud boom resounded in the room. The entire hotel started shaking.

  “Okay, not like this then,” Xue Wei said to himself as he touched the burn marks that the liquid had left on his face from the explosion. Clearly the process of concocting pills was not as simple as he had thought. Fortunately, the cauldron itself was safe.

  “Let us try one herb at a time,” Xue Wei decided, completely ignoring the fright his explosion might have caused to others outside.

  Putting one herb into the cauldron at a time made it easier to control. This time, he managed to refine it three times, removing impurities three times.

  Then after finishing one herb, he wondered what he was supposed to do. It was now liquid that floated within his cauldron. He could not take it out, but adding another herb to the cauldron meant that the difficulty would increase.

  The Rising Qi Pill required seven herbs. But Xue Wei was not one to give up. “Worst that can happen is that it explodes again,” he consoled himself before he began refining the second herb and distilling it a few times to remove the impurities.

  It went surprisingly easy, but he was at a loss for what to do again when he was finished. Should he try merge the two liquids or should he keep them away from one another? Did it matter? The formula had not described it, all it had said was that the user should refine the herbs and add them together.

  “Well, I am not going to be the one eating the pills, so why not try a few different ways and see i
f the results are different,” Xue Wei thought casually. He could always get someone to try out the different pills to see whether or not it mattered in which way he made the pill.

  With this in mind, he merged the two liquids slowly. It was not as difficult as he had expected, and he could begin on the third herb.

  Everything went smoothly up until the merge of the fifth portion of liquid. Then it once more exploded, making yet another tremor run through the entire hotel.

  Fortunately, no one could track the source of the explosion back to him. Many thought it was an earthquake, or someone fighting. Xue Wei was completely safe from being blamed; the only ones aware of it were himself and Bai Tianyi.

  Xue Wei was not good at giving up. Although his first two attempts had ended in failure, he was not willing to give up just like this. In the end, he would not give up before he had mastered the trade, and thus he continued to merge the herbs.

  The third attempt exploded at the sixth merge of liquids. Fourth attempt was the same. Fifth attempt at the seventh merge of the liquid.

  At last, on the sixth attempt he had managed to merge all the liquid together. Now he needed to turn this liquid into a pill, and to do so he needed to catalyze it with spiritual energy.

  Too much spiritual energy and it would explode, too little and it would turn to paste and lose much of its power.

  The first batch exploded. The second was a goopy liquid that could not even be considered a paste. Another three explosions later and Xue Wei finally laughed like a madman with a small middle-ranked Earth Warrior’s Rising Qi Pill in his hand.

  “Not bad, not bad,” he laughed. “It’s a middle-ranked pill! Must be because I distilled it quite a few times. Could also have something to do with my merging technique. Oh well, who cares. Got to find someone who can test it.”

  Having said this, Xue Wei left the hotel room that looked like the aftermath of a hurricane that had ravaged the place after the many explosions.

  Walking around town, Xue Wei soon found a youngster who was training to become an Earth Warrior. He was clearly poor, but his talent was rather amazing to have reached the Earth Warrior level as early as he had.

  “Hey, you there,” Xue Wei pointed at him and smiled. The boy was stunned, but he stopped in his tracks and looked at Xue Wei curiously. “Are you interested in a Rising Qi Pill? I just refined it—it is a middle-ranked pill, but it is also one of my first pills. If you take it in front of me and let me see the results, I will give you a low ranked essence stone!”

  The Earth Warrior was stunned by the proposed deal. Not only was he going to get a middle-ranked Rising Qi Pill, he would also get a low ranked essence stone for eating it? That could be used to support his family for a very long time.

  “I would gladly be your pill trial!” he said honestly. Xue Wei grinned as he took out the pill.

  It was not a pretty-looking pill. It just barely passed as a middle-ranked pill, but even so it had quite a few impurities. It was after all his first pill.

  “Don’t worry,” Xue Wei said when he saw the young man quickly changing his opinion. “I will guard you while you take it. I am an Ordinary Knight, so I should be able to protect you,” he promised. The young man no longer stood on ceremony after that.

  Quite a few people had noticed that something was going on and were watching curiously, but no one really understood what was happening.

  Seeing that the young man sat down at the side of the road and popped a pill into his mouth, many knew that he had accepted a pill test. Many were curious as to what would happen when he consumed the pill. Sometimes miserable things would happen to the pill tester.

  Xue Wei was incredibly excited. This was the first pill he had ever created, so he was eager to know what it was like. He saw that the heaven-and-earth essence became denser around the boy before it suddenly shunted into his body at a speed so fast that it could not possibly have been caused by a pill designed for Earth Warriors.

  “Did I make a mistake?” Xue Wei muttered to himself contemplatively. The young man was grimacing. The heaven-and-earth essence that was pouring into his body was being refined into Qi as fast as his body could manage, but this was much more energy than anything he had ever had to manage before.

  Xue Wei did not really care about the young man’s fate. He had willingly decided to become a pill tester so his fate was up to luck. No one could blame Xue Wei if he died.

  Three hours passed before the flow of heaven-and-earth essence stopped pouring into the body of the young warrior. His face was red, and blood had trickled out of the corner of his lips for some time, but he was not dead. When Xue Wei observed him, he saw that his strength had risen from the second layer to the fourth. This was an improvement caused by Xue Wei’s Rising Qi Pill, clearly. It was not bad at all.

  “I guess merging them like this works,” he said to himself after consideration. Seeing that he had gotten such an outstanding result meant that there was no problem in merging the herbs one at a time instead of trying to keep them separate and then merging them all at once.

  As to why the result was much more potent than what he was expecting, he had no idea.

  “Hey kid, here’s your payment,” Xue Wei said casually and gave him a low ranked essence stone before he turned around and left, not caring about the rest. He had already gotten the result he wanted from the test.

  After returning to his room, he once more threw himself at concocting medicinal pills. He found that it was incredibly fun and rather challenging. In fact, although inscriptions were difficult, alchemy was much more fun.

  Unfortunately, there were quite a few explosions as a result of his attempt at concocting pills. At times it would be every second hour, at other times it would take up to five to six hours before there was an explosion.

  The staff of the hotel rushed around everywhere trying to figure out who was the cause of the ruckus, but no one dared believe that it would be Xue Wei, and thus the cause was never found.

  After managing to create Earth Warrior pills with no issues—even high-ranked Earth Warrior pills—Xue Wei smiled. He was rather satisfied with his achievements before he threw himself at the next challenge. He would not be truly satisfied until he could make Rainbow Pills.

  Chapter 25 - Betrayal

  The days went by one after another. Xue Wei was busy concocting pills. Over this period of time, the explosions became less frequent. This did not mean that he did not fail from time to time, but the result was not as extreme any longer.

  By the time he had to go pick up the information on the Sovereign Beasts, Xue Wei had managed to create Heavenly Warrior Pills, a feat he was incredibly proud of.

  Bai Tianyi was also proud of his results. “You are doing very well,” he praised him, slightly surprised by his rapid advancement

  Xue Wei’s spiritual energy was also rising constantly. Now it was at the sixth layer of the Ordinary Knight rank.

  Xue Wei was rather pleased with his rate of improvement, as it had happened very fast with little obstruction. After all, he had managed to enhance his spiritual energy by one layer in only a short time.

  Before he knew it, it was time for him to go to the Intelligencer’s dilapidated mansion. He set out early that morning with both Bai Tianyi and Hei Gou by his side.

  When they made it to the lawless area, they found that everything was silent as the grave; the streets were desolate, and even the beggars and shady people who usually occupied the corners and shadows were nowhere to be seen.

  “Odd,” Xue Wei muttered, now a little more hesitant than he had been before. His senses were on high alert, and his eyes darted from side to side with vigilance. He had his spiritual energy spread around him like a blanket in a radius of fifty meters. He could feel even the movements of small creatures or bugs. If a person of lower rank than him stepped into the blanketed area, he would sense it immediately.

  Bai Tianyi, who had previously acted as carefree as the bird gliding through the wind, was also sudde
nly tense, his spiritual energy also spreading out. Even Hei Gou could sense that something was wrong.

  Nothing had happened, but there was something eerie about the sudden lack of people and the disturbing silence that enveloped them. At the same time it felt as if they were being watched by many eyes.

  “We should get out of here,” Bai Tianyi finally said, his voice compressed so only Xue Wei and Hei Gou could hear it.

  “Something is definitely wrong,” Xue Wei agreed. They acted natural and took a small stroll around the area before they turned around and started heading back to the outside of the lawless area.

  The moment they tried to leave, a whole slew of people started walking out from the alleyways and the houses. These people were all dressed like the beggars and residents of the lawless area, but a single glance at them made it obvious that they did not belong to this part of town.