A-Wu restocked the pills once, but instead of calming the increasingly intense demand, it only left even more people desperate because they couldn’t get what they wanted.
A-Wu didn’t care about that at all. If she tried to satisfy everyone, she would work herself to death!
Besides refining pills, she also had to cultivate.
So time passed quickly as A-Wu spent day after day refining pills and cultivating.
The Jade Body Pills sold previously finally triggered another wave of feedback, and the Star Network became lively once again.
This time, the excitement was no longer limited to ordinary people.
Even wealthy ladies like Madam Wang, Luna’s future mother-in-law, secretly joined the frenzy for the pills.
No one understood the benefits of the Jade Body Pill better than the wealthy ladies of Capital Planet, who regularly visited all kinds of beauty clinics.
None of them lacked money for cosmetic treatments.
The skin after those treatments could look very good on its own. But once they stood beside someone who had taken a Jade Body Pill, the difference immediately became obvious.
So when Madam Wang, who had taken a Jade Body Pill, attended a banquet dressed in her finest clothes, her close friends were instantly shocked.
Originally, everyone had looked more or less the same, and no one thought there was anything wrong.
But suddenly, one woman appeared with a completely natural beauty, without any trace of artificial enhancement.
Everyone else immediately looked like lifeless fake flowers beside her.
Madam Wang had her own circle of close friends.
Before long, the reputation of the Jade Body Pills from the Pill Shop spread from one person to another until nearly every wealthy lady on Capital Planet knew about them.
These powerful and wealthy women weren’t going to foolishly wait for A-Wu to restock and then fight to buy the pills themselves.
Once they gave the word, there would naturally be people eager to please them who would find ways to obtain the pills for them, hoping the ladies would put in a good word for them later.
Unfortunately, the number of pills A-Wu sold was far too small compared with the population of the entire Federation.
There was simply no way she could satisfy everyone’s demand.
As a result, because of the extreme scarcity, Jade Body Pills and Enchanting Fragrance were being sold on the black market at terrifying prices.
The Pill Shop’s reputation became widely known.
This newly opened shop, which had only two products, had completely entered the sight of the people throughout the Federation.
A-Wu was extremely pleased to see her Pill Shop becoming a hot topic on the Star Network.
Finally, just before her energy stones and credits were almost used up, she chose a day to release her new medicine.
She even kindly announced it one day in advance.
Alchemist: Thank you all for your support~ Our shop will release a new product tomorrow! The new product is the Stunning Grace Pill. To thank our customers, we will release a total of one thousand pills this time! Please check the product page for the exact effects. You deserve it!
The moment the announcement was posted, the Star Network exploded.
Everyone hurried into the shop to check the pill’s effects.
The product description read:
Stunning Grace Pill: Create a stunningly beautiful figure for yourself. Light and graceful as a startled swan, elegant and powerful as a swimming dragon~
The shop owner hadn’t listed a price yet.
But after comparing it with the prices of the previous two medicines, everyone guessed that this one probably wouldn’t be cheap either.
People in the interstellar era had generally received at least a secondary-level education, so most of them could understand the description of the pill’s effects quite well.
Basically, this pill seemed to make a person’s figure slimmer, more balanced, light, and graceful.
After learning about its effects, female netizens went wild with excitement and immediately began discussing it enthusiastically on the forums.
Most male netizens, except for some non-human races that considered softness beautiful, were rather disappointed.
They weren’t very interested in the Stunning Grace Pill.
They felt it was probably similar to the various weight-loss medicines women often took, just with slightly stronger effects.
Most people thought this way.
But some men were curious about the pill and wanted to buy one to test its effects.
One of them was Star Voyager, who had previously livestreamed himself taking a Jade Body Pill.
That livestream had gained him tens of millions of new followers.
He had instantly gone from a small-time streamer to a famous one.
So he decided that, besides livestreaming games, he would add another type of content to his channel:
Livestreaming himself taking medicines from the Pill Shop!
A-Wu never released many pills at once, which made them extremely difficult to buy.
But Star Voyager had confidence in himself.
He was originally a talented student of brain-computer information technology. He had simply chosen to become a streamer instead.
If this were a physical store outside the Star Network, his small body probably wouldn’t stand a chance.
But on the Star Network, he wasn’t afraid!
Whether it was rushing into the shop to buy pills or intercepting someone else’s unpaid order, he could do it all!
This increase in followers had made Star Voyager a lot of money.
He wasn’t stingy either.
He planned to grab more than ten pills this time and give them away to his fans after the livestream.
The unprecedented popularity of Star Voyager’s previous livestream also reminded the many other streamers on the various livestreaming platforms of something.
Competition between different types of livestream content was already extremely intense.
But no one had really explored the field of livestreaming themselves taking medicine.
The main reason was that there had never been such eye-catching medicines before.
So many people could already predict that tomorrow’s pill-buying battle would be brutal and extremely difficult.
After all, there were plenty of people skilled in brain-computer information technology!
The ordinary people who hadn’t thought of this yet were still eagerly waiting for tomorrow’s release.
They had already made up their minds.
No matter how expensive it was, they had to buy at least one and try it!
A-Wu didn’t pay any attention to the chaos on the Star Network.
While refining pills, she was also planning to go to the Citizen Center and have her ability and physical strength tested again.
She had already learned from the Star Network how abilities and physical strength worked in this world.
She was confident she could control the results carefully.
She could show that she had an ability without making herself stand out too much.
That way, she wouldn’t accidentally get dragged into the military.
Although she respected soldiers, she had no intention of joining the military right now.
If possessing an ability didn’t sometimes result in very different treatment in interstellar society, she wouldn’t even bother testing herself again.
After all, a tree that stands out in the forest is bound to be struck by the wind.
Fortunately, there was a testing center on Azure Star itself, so she didn’t need to travel elsewhere.
It was very convenient.
After making up her mind, A-Wu immediately booked a testing appointment on the Star Network and paid the fee.
Federation citizens only received their first test for free.
After that, they had to pay.
Fortunately, the fee wasn’t very high.
After refining the pills she made every day, A-Wu took one of the newly refined Qi-Replenishing Pills.
She sat cross-legged inside the Spirit Gathering Formation with her five points of contact facing upward and cultivated instead of sleeping.
A-Wu remained in meditation until noon the next day.
Fortunately, she had already scheduled the release time of the pills on the Star Network.
They went on sale exactly at eight in the morning.
Even before the release time arrived, the Pill Shop was already packed with people.
The Star Network’s central intelligence normally considered a product sold as soon as it entered a customer’s hands, unless the customer returned it to the virtual counter.
Many people had planned to take advantage of this rule.
But they hadn’t expected so many others to have exactly the same idea!
Those who had finally managed to squeeze into the shop glared at one another.
Among them were petite and adorable girls, tall and powerful beastmen, and even towering interstellar tree people who stood out from the crowd.
Men and women of different races watched one another warily.
Their eyes met with murderous intent.
As every second passed, the closer it got to eight o’clock, the more tense the atmosphere became.
The people who had secured the front positions clung tightly to the virtual counter and refused to let go.
They were only waiting for eight o’clock to arrive so they could grab the pills, pay, and place their orders.
The people behind them were already determined to snatch the pills by force.
Even if the Star Network’s central intelligence fined them afterward, it would still be worth it!
At the same time, a group of technical experts sat in front of their own computers, ready to intercept orders.
They had thin arms and skinny legs. They didn’t want to compete physically with those huge, muscular people.
They were going to win through technology!
The moment eight o’clock arrived, the price of the pill appeared.
8,999 credits per pill.
As expected, it wasn’t cheap.
But that didn’t reduce everyone’s enthusiasm for buying it in the slightest.
The Pill Shop instantly became a battlefield.
Everyone used whatever methods they could.
Various abilities were activated, and the virtual bottles of pills constantly changed hands.
Amid the chaotic crowd, someone suddenly let out a miserable cry.
“Who intercepted my order?! I already paid! Give it back to me!”
But aside from a notification from the Star Network’s central intelligence saying that his payment had failed, the crowd only paused for one second before becoming even more chaotic.
Once everyone realized that orders could be intercepted, they placed their orders even faster.
Yet every so often, another person would cry out in despair after having their order stolen.
There were simply too many people inside the shop.
With all kinds of abilities being used, it wasn’t long before someone suddenly turned into a streak of white light and disappeared from the shop.
The Star Network’s central intelligence had determined that the person had been trampled to “death” and immediately kicked them offline.
Just as A-Wu was about to leave the house, she suddenly received a notification from the Star Network’s central intelligence.
Because a stampede had occurred inside the Pill Shop, she had been fined 5,080 credits.
She was also forced to equip the Pill Shop with a shop assistant to deal with emergencies in the future.
A-Wu received the fine completely out of nowhere and was utterly confused.
She could only find Dandan, who was in charge of sales, and ask him what had happened.
When A-Wu found Dandan, he was busy packing orders.
After hearing what she said, Dandan nervously raised both hands to his chest.
His glowing screen kept flashing wildly.
“I’m sorry, Master…”
Dandan explained everything that had happened.
His voice was filled with guilt.
“It was all my fault. Everything was too chaotic at the time. By the time I realized what was happening, that person had already been trampled to death~”
A-Wu felt a little strange when she heard the words “trampled to death.”
Hadn’t the person simply been forced offline?
Why did they have to describe it like that?
It sounded so strange.
Still, she couldn’t completely blame Dandan.
She had originally decided not to hire an intelligent shop assistant just to save money.
“It’s not your fault. You’re not a sales robot in the first place. You’re a caretaker robot. This was my fault.”
“Once I buy an intelligent shop assistant, you can continue working as customer service and handling the deliveries~”
A-Wu continued letting Dandan work as customer service.
She could tell that he really liked the job.
Sure enough, the moment Dandan heard that she would let him continue working as customer service, he happily spun around in circles.
A-Wu smiled and rubbed his round head.
She decided that once she received enough credits from the next sales, she would save some money to buy him a new body.
After paying the fine and checking that all the pills in the shop had already sold out, A-Wu directly bought a standard intelligent shop assistant from the Star Network’s central intelligence and placed it in the shop.
Then she left for the Citizen Center.
Today was also the day she had scheduled for her ability and physical-strength test.
Now that she had enough credits, A-Wu called a flying car and had it take her directly to her destination.
Standing in front of a skyscraper filled with futuristic technology, A-Wu adjusted her mask and hat before walking inside.
She entered a completely transparent elevator and pressed the button for the testing department.
In the blink of an eye, she reached the correct floor.
There wasn’t even the slightest shaking or feeling of dizziness along the way.
A-Wu couldn’t help sighing once again at the convenience and comfort of future technology before walking toward the human woman at the front desk.
More than seventy percent of the Federation’s citizens were human, so most service-related jobs were usually handled by humans.
A-Wu gave her name and appointment time.
The receptionist was already nearly one hundred years old.
When she looked at A-Wu’s appointment information and saw that she was only twenty years old, her expression immediately became gentle and affectionate.
The birth rate was extremely low these days.
She hadn’t seen a child here in many years.
A-Wu was the youngest person she had seen in quite some time.
The receptionist gently announced A-Wu’s queue number, almost as if she were afraid that speaking too loudly would frighten her.
In her eyes, someone this age was still just a little kid~
A-Wu thought the woman’s gaze was a little strange.
After taking her number, she quickly walked away.
With the low birth rate and so few children, there weren’t many people waiting to be tested.
There was only one person ahead of A-Wu.
He was a somewhat thin man—or rather, a boy.
When the person inside the testing room came out, the boy immediately jumped to his feet.
He walked inside as if he were going to his execution.
His entire body seemed to carry the feeling of a brave warrior marching toward certain death, never to return.
A-Wu watched him walk into the testing room with amusement.
She had nothing to do while waiting, so she simply logged onto the Pill Shop.
She wanted to see if there were any interesting comments.
She also wanted to see what kinds of pills people were asking for so she could improve her future sales plans.
But the moment she opened the comment section, A-Wu frowned.
The comment section was completely different from its usual lively and wildly imaginative atmosphere.
It was filled entirely with complaints!
A-Wu scrolled through the comments one by one.
The more she read, the more deeply she frowned.
The comment section was almost completely flooded with complaints.
But they weren’t complaining about A-Wu.
They were complaining about the technical experts who had intercepted their orders that morning, as well as the scalpers who had placed orders for hundreds of pills at once.
Ever since Enchanting Fragrance had become popular on the Star Network, A-Wu’s Pill Shop had been targeted by scalpers.
At first, she hadn’t really cared.
As long as the pills were sold and she received her credits, who cared who bought them?
But now that she looked at the situation, these scalpers were already affecting the normal operation of her Pill Shop!
A-Wu decided to put an end to this unhealthy practice.
Once she returned home, she would add some restrictions.
For example, each account could only purchase ten pills.
Otherwise, she would work so hard refining pills, only for these scalpers to resell them at ridiculously high prices and make all the profit.
If this continued, she might as well auction the pills herself~
Before she could decide exactly how to handle the matter, the boy from inside the testing room came out happily.
His eyes were shining with excitement.
The moment he left the testing room, he eagerly sent a communication request to his friend.
As he walked away, he excitedly told his friend,
“My physical strength really improved! It’s now D-rank! That medicine you gave me, the Enchanting Fragrance, really works! Now I can finally travel with you!”
When A-Wu heard him mention Enchanting Fragrance, her eyes widened in surprise.
She watched his retreating figure with some amazement.
She hadn’t expected to run into someone who had taken one of the pills she had sold.
Enchanting Fragrance did indeed have some ability to improve physical strength.
The boy looked so pale and weak that his physical strength must have been extremely poor before.
That’s probably why he could clearly feel the effect after taking the pill.
In the interstellar era, ordinary people could generally reach C-rank physical strength.
D-rank was the second-lowest level, only slightly better than F-rank, which was known as the equivalent of being severely disabled.
A-Wu suddenly felt a slight movement in her cultivation.
Before she could carefully examine the feeling, someone from inside the testing room noticed that she still hadn’t gone in and came out to call her.
The interruption broke her concentration.
A-Wu came out of that mysterious state, but the feeling was already gone.
She withdrew her gaze and followed the examiner into the testing room.
After verifying her personal information, she followed the examiner’s instructions and lay down inside a semicircular machine.
A-Wu felt another mental wave, completely devoid of any life force, enter her sea of consciousness.
She knew that this was the machine beginning its examination.
So she didn’t make any sudden movements.
Instead, she guided that mental wave and allowed it to see exactly what she wanted it to see.
She didn’t know how much time had passed.
Eventually, the mental wave withdrew from her sea of consciousness.
A-Wu opened her eyes and looked at the examiner.
The examiner’s expression contained a hint of pleasant surprise, but there was no particularly unexpected reaction.
A-Wu immediately knew that she had controlled the situation perfectly.
She relaxed inside the machine and waited for the results.
Controlling that mental force so precisely had left her somewhat tired.