Chapter One: The Spiritual Treasure Pavilion

  Lingbao Pavilion, located in the northern part of Jizhou City, is a bit remote, surrounded by mansions and gardens of wealthy merchants. When it was first built, it was precisely because of its quiet surroundings that people came here. There are no peddlers' calls or foul smells around the pavilion, as long as the sign with "Lingbao Pavilion" engraved on it is hung out, spiritual masters will flock to it, no matter how remote it is.

  As a renowned merchant house in the Great Empire, and even on the entire Tianling Continent, Lingyao was its foundation. All sorts of finished spiritual medicines of various grades, all kinds of medicinal herbs in large quantities, as long as they could be named on the Tianling Continent, the vast majority could be found in the Lingbao Pavilion.

  Elixirs and herbs, of the two, elixirs are the most important for the Lingbao Pavilion. A business like the Lingbao Pavilion sells hundreds to thousands of elixirs every day, so it's clear that just buying from other elixir masters wouldn't be enough. Therefore, since its establishment, the Lingbao Pavilion has been supporting a large number of elixir masters.

  Mo Xingtu was one of them. His strength wasn't particularly strong, over 40 years old and only had a cultivation base of Huā Líng Fourth Grade, but his talent in alchemy was quite good, and he was also ranked among the top in the entire Líng Bǎo Pavilion, which was why he was sent to preside over the Jiǔ Yáng City branch.

  For a spiritual pharmacist who has reached the realm of spiritual refinement, being able to refine fourth-grade spiritual medicine is already the limit. However, Mo Xingtu surpassed his own limits and two years ago, he successfully refined two grains of fifth-grade spiritual medicine "Golden Jade Gourd", each grain can increase the cultivation of a spiritual master by one grade.

  This matter had caused a sensation in the Lingbao Pavilion at that time, and Mo Xingtu had always been proud of it. However, at this moment, this fourth-grade spiritual pharmacist looked extremely annoyed.

  "Failed again!"

  In the alchemy room on the fourth floor of Lingbao Pavilion, which was filled with jars and bottles, Mo Xingtu's two eyes were full of bloodshot, looking like two small red spider webs. With a snort, Mo Xingtu slapped the medicine cauldron in front of him, which kept emitting a burning smell, into two pieces.

  For the past two years, Mo Xingtu has been trying to recreate the glory of refining the "Golden Jade Gourd", and preparing to refine another five-product spiritual medicine "Fire Lotus Heart Flame Pill", but what he suffered was one failure after another.

  Yesterday evening, he felt that he had already found the key to refining the "Fire Lotus Heart Flame Pill", so he opened the cauldron again to refine the medicine. The first time, the fusion of the medicinal properties reached 58%, unfortunately, at the last moment, he failed to achieve his goal and even damaged his beloved medicine cauldron that had been with him for nearly ten years.

  With a fusion degree of fifty-eight percent, Mo Xingtu saw the hope of success and continued to refine with a spare medicine cauldron. As a result, after one night, he failed eight times in a row, each time the fusion degree decreased, and this time it even dropped to thirty percent, making Mo Xingtu so angry that smoke was coming out of his seven orifices.

  The eight portions of herbs worth millions of gold coins all turned to ash, which was nothing for the wealthy and arrogant Lingbao Pavilion. As long as they could refine one five-grade spiritual medicine, they would be able to make it all back. However, the continuous decline in the fusion degree of the medicinal properties was a huge blow to his confidence.

  Moxingtu's eyes swept over the exploded medicine cauldron from last night's first attempt, and his heart skipped a beat. It seemed that he couldn't refine any more medicine for a while. As a fourth-grade spiritual pharmacist, Moxingtu was well aware that being distracted and restless was a major taboo when refining medicine. He should have stopped when he failed for the second time last night.

  "Hmm..."

  Mo Xingtu let out a long sigh, swept his large sleeve across the table, and sent all the medicine cauldrons and dregs into the large trash can beside him. Then he walked out of the room.

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  Lingbao Pavilion, first floor.

  "Welcome, sir. What can I get for you?" The beautiful waitress, sixteen or seventeen years old, with a bright smile, asked the pale and thin young man in black clothes who had just entered the store.

  "I've come to sell medicine." The man's voice was hoarse.

  "What? What medicine?" The beautiful maid's eyes sparkled, the Lingbao Pavilion sold and collected medicines, as long as they were authentic spiritual medicines, regardless of whether they were self-refined or plundered, all were welcome.

  "Rejuvenating Dew."

  As they spoke, the man in black pulled out a small jade bottle from his bosom.

  It's just a first-rate spiritual medicine! The beautiful maid had a slight disappointment in her heart, but her face still smiled brightly as she took the jade bottle, opened the stopper and sniffed it lightly. Her eyes flashed with a hint of surprise: "The degree of fusion of the medicinal properties has reached 90%, which is very good. 16,000 gold coins, do you think it's okay?"

  "Good!"

  The man in black nodded briskly.

  The maid lifted the bottle stopper, smiled sweetly and said: "Please ask if you want gold coins or spirit cards?" Spirit cards are a kind of instrument made by spiritual pattern makers, which can be used to store gold coins. After its debut 2,000 years ago, it quickly replaced the gold tickets that were widely used on the mainland at that time, and has been in use ever since.

  "Ling Card."

  "Please wait for a moment, sir."

  The maid took out two three-finger-wide gold small cards from the drawer, inserted them into the concave groove of the elliptical sphere on the cabinet surface one after another, and then quickly swiped her fingers in the texture in front of the first card. After a moment, the texture in front of the second card condensed into the numerical symbol "16000".

  "Sir, please take it." The maid smiled with her eyes and handed over the spirit card.

  "Well, I'll take my leave."

  "Sir, slow down!"

  The man in black picked up the spirit card and walked out of the store without hesitation.

  "Little sister, be happy, big sister has come to see you again!" A burst of clear and crisp laughter like the chirping of orioles came, and a tall and beautiful red figure appeared at the door of Lingbao Pavilion. It was an eighteen or nineteen-year-old girl, who had already rushed in while speaking.

  When the man in black and the girl in red passed each other, a hint of surprise flashed across his eyes as he looked at the girl. The girl continued to run forward for several steps before suddenly turning her head to look back at the back of the man in black, a puzzled expression appearing on her delicate white face.

  Upon seeing the girl in red, the maid shook her head helplessly: "Hong Ling, how many times have I told you, I'm the older sister and you're the younger sister."

  Hong Ying snapped back to reality, a smile spreading across her face as she ran to the counter: "Hehe, who told you to have a doll-like face? Ah, right, Little Ling, what did that person come here for just now?"

  "Selling medicine."

  Xiao Ling hummed in a bad mood and suddenly shouted, "Master."

  "Don't call her Master, call her Sister." Hong Yan raised her hand to pinch Xiao Ling's tender and chubby cheeks.

  "Hmm."

  A cough came from behind. Hong Ling "Ah" and stuck out her small red tongue, turned around and smiled at the middle-aged man: "Mo Shu, how did you come down? By the way, didn't you say yesterday that you wanted to refine those 'Fire Lotus Heart Flame Pills'? How many did you refine?"

  "Never mind, all failed."

  A middle-aged man was Mo Xingtu. He shook his head dejectedly and suddenly saw a small jade bottle on the counter, saying, "Xiao Ling, what is this?"

  "Master, this is the newly collected 'Hui Chun Lu', with a fusion degree of 90%. I gave him 16,000 gold coins for it. If sold, it can make a profit of around 2,000."

  "Really?"

  Mo Xingtu said that when he was refining the Rejuvenating Dew, the degree of fusion of the medicinal properties was only between 85% and 90%. He couldn't help but take over the jade bottle and open the stopper.

  "This is not 90%, it's clearly... 100%!" As soon as he heard this, Mo Xingtu's face changed drastically, and with great effort to suppress his voice, he shouted out loud.

  "Perfect score?"

  Xiao Ling and Hong Yan were also stunned, staring blankly at the small jade bottle.

  A perfect blend of medicinal properties, a legendary feat that has finally appeared before my eyes. Even the lowest grade of spiritual medicine is enough to shock anyone.

  Mo Xing glanced around at the customers on the first floor and asked in a low voice, "Did he make this himself or did he get it through other means?"

  "I... I didn't ask..."

  "Oh dear, you're really something! How could you not ask? Quick, quick, what's he like? Where did he go?"

  "That man was in his twenties, with a particularly thin face, waxy yellow skin, a hoarse voice, and the local accent of Jicheng City. He wore black clothes and was about half a head taller than Hong Yan."

  "Uncle Mo, he turned right when he went out."

  “……”

  With a whoosh, Mo Xingtu grabbed the jade bottle and rushed out in a hurry, leaving behind Xiao Ling and Hong Yan, as well as several customers who looked at each other in astonishment...

  ……