Chapter 237: Bestowing Tasks
Wan Ai was as happy as she’d ever been. While she’d expected being the leader of the Alchemy Pavilion to be problematic, she was mostly left alone either to cultivate or practice her craft. Only Zou Tian and Bai Xinyi ever disturbed her.
The first, of course, was never a bother, and the second… Well, Bai Xinyi was heavens sent. The girl actually enjoyed all the administrative stuff, even managing the other members and teaching lessons. All Wan Ai had to do was meet with the girl occasionally to compare notes on what they were both learning, and all the rest of the organizational duties were handled.
Zou Tian worried a bit about handing so much authority over to someone else, said it took away from Wan Ai’s prestige, but she had laughed at the concern. If Bai Xinyi could convince the sect leader to let her have the pavilion, that was just fine.
Wan Ai would love nothing better than to concentrate on her three passions—cultivation, Zou Tian, and her alchemy. Which was coming along quite well, thank you very much!
Since getting past the issue with the herbs in the area being influenced by Nature qi, everything had fallen into place. She successfully created every mortal pill in the beginner manual the sect leader had gotten for her, and with her knowledge of her herb technique at Mastery, she could judge which parts needed to be trimmed just by looking at a plant, no spiritual sense required.
Of course, once she reached Foundation Establishment and started dealing with spiritual herbs more complex than the ones they used for the Bronze Body Cultivation baths, that would change. There was only so much mortal sense could comprehend. Creating real cultivator resources would require her to maximize spiritual energy and minimize toxins, both of which could only be achieved with trained spiritual senses. In fact, when she advanced, she’d already decided that the first technique she requested would be one that enhanced and fine-tuned her senses.
One of the books the sect leader had bought for her said that a lot of novice alchemists started with heat control in order to better control the pill creation process in the cauldron. That choice, in the opinion of the book’s author, was a huge mistake. The better the materials an alchemist put into the cauldron, the better the pill that would emerge could possibly be.
Realistically, both techniques would be required. Good ingredients with poor control equaled just as bad a final result as poor ingredients with good control. Since the Rising Tide Sect was focused heavily on Body Cultivation, it was more beneficial to everyone that she optimized ingredient preparation first.
Just the fact that she had the opportunity to choose her path was another indication that everything was going so well. Between her and Bai Xinyi, they almost had enough vitamin pills to give one to each of the villagers. Even though the pill was a simple mortal grade nutrient, the books said that they were very beneficial, especially to mortals who lived in poor villages who didn’t get much variety in their diets.
Wan Ai was barely even an alchemist, and she was already on her way to helping people. She chopped up the ingredients for yet another vitamin pill, feeling her control over her knife improve slightly. Large Success in her dagger technique wasn’t far off.
Yes, everything was going perfectly.
The sect leader suddenly appeared before her.