Zhou Chen walked to the Spirit Medicine Workshop in the west of the city.
He spent nine spirit stones to purchase materials for six sets of Spiritual Energy Pills.
The Spiritual Energy Pill was a first rank spirit medicine, so the materials were very common.
Clover with about thirty years of growth, thirty year old Lark Flower, forty year old Thunderstorm Fruit. The longer the medicinal herbs had aged, the better the resulting medicinal effect.
Zhou Chen gathered the medicinal herbs and quickly returned to Wutan Town.
As soon as he entered the house, he saw Nan Qiao standing in the courtyard, her soul stirring eyes glancing toward the gate from time to time.
Upon seeing the returning Zhou Chen, her tightly furrowed brows gradually relaxed.
The system’s prompt sounded in Zhou Chen’s mind once again.
[Congratulations to the host. Nan Qiao’s favorability +5. Current favorability is 65 points.]
[The host can use 25 favorability points.]
Zhou Chen was a little dazed.
He had just stepped out for a bit, so why did her favorability increase again?
Soon, he had a general guess.
It was likely because he had given Nan Qiao silver before leaving.
She thought he was planning to leave and abandon the mother and daughter.
After all, a beautiful woman living alone with only a bit of money was more likely to attract danger.
It was not that having money alone guaranteed a good life.
Now that she saw him return, her heart settled and her future felt secured, thus increasing her favorability.
Nan Qiao stood up and, swaying her charming waist, took the initiative to walk toward the house.
She knew very well where her advantages lay.
She was also afraid that Zhou Chen would just walk away.
After all, they had only known each other for a few days. Even if Zhou Chen seemed like a good man, leading her to offer herself for protection, the gap between a cultivator and a mortal was too large, and she was terrified of being abandoned.
Seeing Nan Qiao enter, Zhou Chen’s gaze could not help but drift downward.
"You should rest well for a while. Do not worry. I will take care of you."
Having been a bachelor for two lifetimes, he indeed found the experience had seeped into his very marrow.
Zhou Chen was feeling quite heated, and he would not mind Nan Qiao helping to extinguish the fire.
Right now, though, he wanted to try alchemy more.
Nan Qiao backed out in a daze.
She could tell that Zhou Chen was interested in her.
But under these circumstances, Zhou Chen still rejected her.
Nan Qiao stared blankly into the room, a layer of mist rising in her beautiful eyes.
Could it be that Big Brother Zhou saw how exhausted she was and wanted her to rest well during the day?
That was why he would rather endure it than hurt her.
Such a gentle and considerate man was rare indeed.
Even an ordinary man would not care about his wife’s opinion, let alone Big Brother Zhou, who was an immortal master.
"Big Brother Zhou is truly a good man."
Before Zhou Chen even started alchemy, he received another prompt in his mind.
[Congratulations to the host. Nan Qiao’s favorability +3. Current favorability is 68 points.]
[The host’s remaining usable favorability points are twenty eight.]
Zhou Chen temporarily cast aside his distracting thoughts and put the matter out of his mind.
A woman’s heart was like a needle at the bottom of the sea. It was better not to guess. Regardless, increasing favorability was a good thing.
He patted his storage pouch, and a bronze medicine furnace flew out.
"Sigh, old friend, let us make do for a bit longer."
This was the low grade pill furnace he had bought back then for twenty spirit stones.
During these nearly hundred years of cultivation, he had originally thought about becoming an alchemist.
It was mainly because the sect’s stipend was not high, and he did not dare to go out exploring for treasures.
Zhou Chen wanted to rely on medicinal pills to improve his cultivation, so he had to find another way.
He practiced hard for a while, but unfortunately his talent was poor, and in the end he had to give up.
Spiritual power spurted from Zhou Chen’s palm, turning into spiritual power fire that slowly ignited beneath the pill furnace.
The Flame Spirit Ganoderma was thrown into the pill furnace and quickly turned into liquid under the burning of the flames.
When its shape approached that of scalding, surging magma, Zhou Chen finally put in the new medicinal herbs.
The refining method for the Spiritual Energy Pill was relatively simple.
It was nothing more than tempering and purification, then controlling the heat and performing fusion at the right moment.
A short while later, Zhou Chen stopped the spiritual qi output and gave a gentle beckon with his right hand.
Several medicinal pills flew out from inside the pill furnace.
As soon as the medicinal pills flew out of the pill furnace, they emitted a rich medicinal fragrance.
Zhou Chen narrowed his eyes, holding them in his palm, a flash of wild joy appearing in the depths of his eyes.
"High grade. They are all superior Spiritual Energy Pills."
Medicinal pills were divided into low grade, medium grade, high grade, and top grade.
The higher the rank of the medicinal pill, the better the medicinal effect and the lower the toxicity within the pill.
Most Spiritual Energy Pills circulating in the market were of medium grade. Superior Spiritual Energy Pills were extremely rare.
As for top grade Spiritual Energy Pills, they were things that could be sought but not easily found.
That required microscopic control. Even a second rank or third rank alchemist might not dare to say that the first rank pills they refined were all of top grade.
"Eight Spiritual Energy Pills. With some effort, one furnace can probably produce about ten."
The same alchemy materials in the hands of different alchemists produced not only a huge gap in the grade of the refined medicinal pills, but also a difference in the quantity produced.
For an ordinary alchemist, being able to refine three to five pills from one set of Spiritual Energy Pill materials would be considered extremely good.
Yet Zhou Chen’s first attempt yielded a full eight Spiritual Energy Pills.
If he experimented a bit more and his experience became more proficient, it should not be a problem to refine ten medicinal pills.
"A low grade Spiritual Energy Pill sells for one spirit stone, a medium grade one for two, and a high grade one for four."
Two spirit stones’ worth of raw materials, once refined into medicinal pills, could be sold for dozens of times the price in spirit stones.
In this kind of small cultivation city, superior Spiritual Energy Pills were in high demand with no supply, so there was no need to worry about them not selling.
Zhou Chen looked at the Spiritual Energy Pills in his hand, and after a moment of deliberation, he swallowed a pill.
The Spiritual Energy Pill melted in his mouth, turning into waves of warmth that merged into his limbs and bones.
Under the refinement of spiritual power, the warm current quickly fused with it.
Zhou Chen could clearly sense a slight improvement in his spiritual power.
Moreover, the spiritual power of the pill was incredibly pure, completely incomparable to that of a lower grade Spiritual Energy Pill.
A short while later, Zhou Chen slowly opened his eyes, a look of wild joy flashing in them.
"There is hope for Foundation Establishment. There is hope for Foundation Establishment."
One Spiritual Energy Pill improved his spiritual qi by nearly one tenth.
This meant that as long as he refined twelve or thirteen Spiritual Energy Pills, he could successfully break through to the seventh layer of Qi Refining.
It was not that he had not tried to improve his cultivation with medicinal pills before.
Unfortunately, the spiritual qi contained within low grade pills was far inferior to that of superior Spiritual Energy Pills.
Not only had he wasted his savings for nothing, but it also failed to advance his cultivation.
On the contrary, due to consuming too many medicinal pills, toxins accumulated in his body, forcing him to spend more time neutralizing the pill toxins.
There was no sense of time in cultivation, and time passed quietly.
In an instant, it was evening.
Nan Qiao waited outside the room, not daring to disturb Zhou Chen.
After Zhou Chen entered the room in the afternoon, he had not come out yet.
She was worried that entering abruptly would disturb Zhou Chen and make him unhappy.
So she just waited quietly at the door.
Until evening.
The door was gently pushed open, and Zhou Chen emerged with a radiant face, his clear eyes carrying his usual kindness and warmth.
However, the corners of his mouth were slightly turned up, clearly indicating he was in an excellent mood.
After more than half a day’s work, the six sets of materials he bought were all refined into pills.
From the six sets of materials, he finally obtained fifty six superior Spiritual Energy Pills.
Zhou Chen consumed twelve of them, and his cultivation successfully broke through to the seventh layer of Qi Refining.
Nan Qiao bowed slightly, her ample charms fully on display.
"Big Brother Zhou, what would you like to eat? How about I make some noodles for you?"
Zhou Chen’s eyelids twitched.
Should he not be the one saying those words?
But when Nan Qiao said she would make noodles, she really meant making noodles.
She was a good noodle maker, and the taste was indeed quite good.