Chapter 12 Value

  After successfully cultivating, Lin Feng entered the first layer of the Refining Qi period. He was both excited and sentimental, and it wasn't until the middle of the night that he finally fell asleep. The next morning, Lin Feng got up early, cleaned up the Dan Hall, and organized the spiritual medicines in the courtyard before seeing Yang Ze get up to cultivate.

  The two of them had become much closer since their last conversation, and Lin Feng couldn't wait to share the good news with Yang Ze that he had entered the Refining Qi stage. Yang Ze was taken aback upon hearing this and asked, "How is it so fast?" His tone carried a hint of disbelief.

  The Five Spirits Root is also known as the Miscellaneous Spirit Root, and it has its own reasons for being so. The cultivation speed is much slower compared to a single spirit root. If Lin Feng had taken six or seven months to succeed in cultivating his Qi, Yang Ze wouldn't have been so shocked, but Lin Feng only took less than half a year, which was already extremely fast. That's why when he first heard that Lin Feng had entered the Qi Refining stage, he was somewhat surprised.

  Lin Feng saw that Yang Ze didn't believe him, so he drew out the fine steel sword from his waist and made a sword gesture. He pointed it at a piece of spiritual medicine and chopped down. The sword body hadn't even touched the medicine block, but the medicine block suddenly split into two pieces with a "pu" sound. This was precisely the technique of attaching one's energy to an object from the Sword Gesture, which allowed him to increase his killing power by infusing his spiritual energy into the sword body.

  Yang Ze smiled, as a master of the second layer of the foundation period, how could he not see that Lin Feng had already reached the first layer of the refining period? He just hadn't paid particular attention earlier. So Lin Feng's sword performance was simply unnecessary - a waste of effort.

  "Great, not bad! I didn't expect the Five Spirits Root to enter the Refining Qi stage in less than half a year. Congratulations are in order!" Yang Ze's words were truly praise-worthy. If one were to calculate based on Wu Lin Pu and others' Spirit Roots taking nearly three months to enter the Refining Qi stage, Lin Feng should have taken at least twice as long to reach the first layer of the Refining Qi stage. Yet, he had achieved it in less than half a year, which was already astonishing.

  Lin Feng looked at Yang Zhe and chuckled: "Thanks also to Master's guidance, otherwise it would be difficult for the disciple to practice successfully."

  Yang Ze smiled lightly and said, "It's just a small effort. By the way, it's already the end of the month, so I'll be distributing next month's dan medicine soon. In the past, you hadn't entered the Refining Qi stage, so you weren't qualified to receive it. Now that you've coincidentally reached this point, I'll give you one first. Take it early and use it to lay a solid foundation." As he spoke, Yang Ze took out a small jade bottle from his storage bag, containing about half a bottle of creamy white dan medicine with a hint of pale green, roughly the size of a small finger. It was indeed the Qi-Enhancing Dan.

  "Thank you, Master!" Lin Feng was overjoyed. He knew that this spiritual elixir was extremely precious and hastily stretched out both hands to receive it.

  Yang Ze carefully poured out one more pill, thought for a moment and then poured out another one: "For the first time receiving the spiritual elixir, since you are a member of my Dan Temple, I will give you an extra one as your master. I hope you continue to work hard on your cultivation in the future. However, let's make it clear that this is a special reward, and it's considered a personal gift from me. From now on, there will still be only one pill per month. If you want more, go collect the herbs yourself, and if you have them, I can help you refine them."

  "Thank you, Master Yang." Lin Feng thanked him repeatedly. He had known early on that the Yang family treated their disciples well. For those in the Qi Refining stage from layer one to three, they would receive a low-grade Qi Gathering Pill and three pieces of low-grade Spirit Stone, as well as twenty taels of silver every month. Those in layers four to six would get double that amount, while those in layers seven to nine would get even more. As for the other foundation-building stage masters, aside from large amounts of Spirit Stones, he had heard they also received second-grade pills.

  Dan medicine is for speeding up cultivation, extremely precious and rare, being able to provide it to Qi Refining stage disciples every month is already a glory for the family having a Dan Master.

  Silver is a worldly thing, and apart from satisfying the desires of the secular world, it has little use for cultivators. However, most Qi-refining disciples have family members who cannot cultivate, and they do need silver. The Yang family's assets in Fei Ling City account for three layers of the entire city, so they are not short of money. Twenty taels of silver is the income of many ordinary families for two or three years. The Yang family's generosity is actually to stabilize the disciples' minds and focus on their cultivation, and also to spread the benefits of cultivating, in order to attract more excellent disciples in the future.

  As for the spirit stone, it is a special stone that contains spiritual energy. Cultivators can absorb the spiritual energy inside through cultivation, and the effect has a great relationship with the amount and attribute of spiritual energy in the spirit stone. Generally, it is much faster than cultivating without using anything. However, spirit stones have different attributes, and their more important role is to set up spell arrays and refine various spiritual instruments, as well as serve as the universal currency of the cultivation world.

  Generally, spirit stones do not have attributes because they contain spiritual energy, so practitioners of any attribute can absorb the spiritual energy from them to cultivate. However, more often than not, they are used as a circulating currency in the cultivation world. These spirit stones are generally divided into four categories based on the amount of spiritual energy they contain: upper, middle, lower, and extreme quality. Among them, the lowest is the lower quality, followed by the middle quality, upper quality, and finally the extreme quality, which becomes increasingly precious. Generally, the exchange ratio between each level is one hundred to one.

  Apart from these attribute-less spirit stones, the Cultivation Realm also has other spirit stones with five-element attributes and special attributes. These spirit stones are particularly rare and precious, generally used for refining arrays and crafting equipment and other cultivation purposes. Their value is not comparable to ordinary spirit stones, so like spirit ore, attribute spirit stones are also divided into several grades according to their value, in order to facilitate determining their price.

  Because these attribute spirit stones are very special and valuable, they generally have specific names. The spirit stones referred to in the Cultivation Realm, unless otherwise specified, usually refer to unattributed spirit stones used as circulating currency.

  Knowing all this, it's not hard to see that in terms of cultivating disciples, the Yang family is doing a pretty good job. However, all these things have strict rules and regulations, and even Yang Ze can't easily violate them. After all, a family's development needs certain rules and regulations, so he repeatedly emphasized that the extra grain was his special reward.

  Lin Feng happily put away the Qi Gathering Pill in his storage bag and said, "Isn't Master Uncle supposed to teach me how to refine pills? I don't know when Master Uncle will be free?"

  "Alas, I do have some free time, but the medicinal dan for our family's use next month is already prepared, so I won't be firing up the furnace anytime soon. Have you memorized the Spiritual Plant Compendium I gave you?"

  "The spiritual medicines in front are basically memorized, and the remaining ones are all very rare spiritual medicines. It won't take a few days for me to memorize them too." Lin Feng said, seeing that Yang Ze didn't plan on teaching him how to refine pills, he felt somewhat disappointed, but still spoke honestly.

  Yang Ze casually asked Lin Feng a few common spiritual herbs, and seeing that he easily answered them all, nodded his head: "En, not bad, you've basically memorized the things in the book, but still need to look more, practice more. I think when you have free time from your recent training, go take a walk around the back mountain, see if you can recognize spiritual herbs in the wild. Also, practice your hands, and if you're lucky, pick some spiritual herbs and bring them here to exchange for Qi Gathering Pills!"

  "Really?" Lin Feng's spirits lifted upon hearing that he could exchange for a Revival Pill.

  "Of course it's true, do you think Shifu would cheat you? Spirit medicine and spirit elixirs can be bought and sold, so they can naturally be exchanged for each other. It's just that ordinary spirit medicine is far inferior to spirit elixirs of the same rank in terms of value, so if you exchange them, it wouldn't be a good deal. But here with Shifu, I can give you a discounted price, hehe."

  "How much of a difference is it, anyway? Is it because the spiritual medicine is easy to obtain?" Lin Feng had never been to the market, so he naturally didn't know the price difference between the two.

  "The difficulty of refining spiritual medicine lies in the luck, but that's not the root cause. As for how much difference it makes, different elixirs have huge gaps, and it's hard to say clearly. However, the commonly used ones generally differ by several times. Take Tiqi Dan for example, do you know which elixirs are refined from?" Yang Ze asked Lin Feng with a hint of doubt.

  Although Lin Feng had not yet learned alchemy, Ti Qi Dan was the most common and ordinary first-grade dan in the Xiuzhen world, and it was also the main dan medicine used by Xiuzhen practitioners in the refining stage to improve their cultivation speed. The Spiritual Plant Compendium had detailed annotations for each spiritual herb used in the refinement of Ti Qi Dan, so he answered casually: "Lingluo Grass, Jinyue Flower, Dilai Root and Fengyang Fruit."

  "Look, it seems your book wasn't read in vain." Yang Ze continued with satisfaction: "According to the dosage of one furnace of Tiqi Dan, a portion of Lingluo Grass is worth three pieces of lower-grade Ling Stone. Jinyue Flower and Dilai Root are five pieces each, while Fengyang Fruit is more expensive at ten pieces per portion, adding up to twenty-three pieces of lower-grade Ling Stone. But if you refine it into a pill, do you know how much it would be worth?"

  "How much is it worth?" Lin Feng's eyes were filled with golden stars as he looked at Yang Ze expectantly.

  Yang Ze, however, remained calm and continued to calculate: "If the refining is successful, and all eight elixirs in the furnace are genuine, each one will be worth seven spirit stones, even if they're only low-grade elixirs. That's a total of 56 spirit stones."

  "This is a lot!" Lin Feng's mouth was wide open and his saliva almost flowed out. This way, one furnace of dan could earn thirty-three pieces of ling stone!

  "Of course, this is just a theoretical algorithm. In reality, considering the success rate of alchemy and the probability of producing true elixirs, an average qualified alchemy apprentice can only produce three or four elixirs from one batch of materials, barely enough to break even. If they're unlucky or their technique is off, they might end up with a furnace full of worthless duds and lose everything."

  "Ah! The difference is so great?" Lin Feng, who had been fantasizing about making a fortune in alchemy, was shocked to find that it was actually so difficult, and he was left staring blankly.

  "Heh heh, you think refining dan is that easy? If it were that easy, there wouldn't be so few high-level dan refiners, and high-level dan medicine wouldn't be so expensive. Let me tell you! In reality, the higher the level of spiritual dan, the greater the difference between its cost and selling price. It all depends on whether you have the skills to refine it successfully."

  Yang Ze gave Lin Feng a slight jab before continuing: "However, don't worry, as an entry-level dan refiner, I can guarantee success in refining Qi Dan with confidence, and the rate of fake dan won't exceed 40%. So if you gather all the spiritual herbs, you can rest assured and let me help you refine them."

  Lin Feng mentally calculated that if six out of ten elixirs were genuine, he would have five, worth thirty-five spirit stones, which was much higher than the cost. He couldn't help but think to himself that if he mastered alchemy, he wouldn't be extremely wealthy, but at least he would have enough elixirs for his own cultivation. With this thought, Lin Feng became even more eager to learn alchemy.