The Undying Immortal System

I spent the next several weeks locked away in my alchemy lab.

A few new clients came to discuss terms with me, but most seemed to be waiting for the results of my first discussions. Those representatives had yet to contact me again after our meetings, but that wasn’t too unusual. Even modest forces moved at slow timescales, and the elder councils that needed to approve any major decisions could spend weeks in discussion over the simplest matters.

Likely, they weren’t fans of handing me copies of all their techniques, but at the same time, they knew lending me as many manuals as possible would get them countless free pills. This clash of priorities was probably the biggest cause of the delays.

This didn’t bother me, though. I had plenty to keep me busy. After acquiring the herbs I wanted, I had many new avenues to study and explore.

I wanted to focus on learning how to improve shoddy herbs, but lacking sample pills of secondary elements would hamper my business prospects, so I resolved to take care of that first.

I had bought three of every Rank 3 herb the Blue Wind Merchant Exchange possessed, so I was well stocked to begin my explorations. I started by working through each of the recipes I had bought.

Interestingly, this did not include the Shadowed Soul Pill I had needed to make during the registration exam, but that made sense. The exam would be significantly less effective if someone could just buy the recipes beforehand. Instead, it tested an alchemist's ability to analyze herbs.

The recipes included various types of pills, like a wind and thunder flashbang style pill and a temporary appearance-altering pill that combined light, dark, water, and wood herbs.

One strange recipe created something I could barely call a pill. It combined light and fire herbs to create a light source. When squeezed, the ‘pill’ would begin emitting enough light to illuminate a decently sized room. I wasn’t sure how bright the light would be, or how long it would last, but this seemed like an almost criminal waste of Rank 3 herbs. While it was possible someone would use such a thing, I had to believe that it was a case of an alchemist stumbling upon a useless recipe and just selling it to anyone willing to pay for it. To me, this felt like the type of pill that would be labeled Rank 0.