Four hours later, Li Yu stood up and left the night market.
Taking the Little Armadillo, which was dizzy with hunger, out of his Spirit Beast Pouch and slipping it into his inner garment pocket, Li Yu headed for the Spirit Beast Pavilion.
"What does the fellow Daoist need?" a young woman in yellow asked Li Yu.
"Do you buy and sell primary Spirit Beast Pouches here?"
"We certainly do. A primary Spirit Beast Pouch costs two hundred Spirit Stones, and the acquisition price is one hundred and eighty Spirit Stones."
Though Li Yu secretly cursed businessmen for being devoid of conscience—a twenty-Spirit Stone difference between buying and selling—he kept a straight face and said, "I want to sell a Spirit Beast Pouch."
"Please come to the inner room, fellow Daoist, and I will go call the manager to handle the transaction with you." A transaction worth over a hundred Spirit Stones was more than a mere shop assistant could decide. After showing Li Yu into the inner room, she returned to the front desk to attend to other customers.
Less than an hour later, Li Yu sold the Spirit Beast Pouch, bought a dozen bottles of beast food spiritual liquid along the way, and left the Spirit Beast Pavilion.
Afterwards, Li Yu went to the street stall area and spent one hundred Spirit Stones to buy a beginner's alchemy furnace.
This furnace was called the "Dual-Qi Bronze Furnace", which was a standard-issue alchemy furnace commonly used in the alchemy world. Higher-tier standard furnaces superior to the "Dual-Qi Bronze Furnace" included the "Four-Origins Secret Silver Furnace", the "Six-Harmonies Dark Jade Furnace", and the "Bagua Purple Gold Furnace".
Of course, aside from these standard-issue alchemy furnaces, the cultivation world also possessed many rare, non-standard alchemy furnaces, every single one of which had an immense background, was priceless, and was simply not something Li Yu could currently afford to own.
Although Li Yu could use Spirit Stones to buy the Youth-Retaining Pills directly and then take them to sell to Liang Jie in exchange for silver, considering that he would definitely have to rely on alchemy to elevate his cultivation in the future, he decided to plan ahead and get his foot in the door first.
With the majority of his remaining Spirit Stones, Li Yu bought a large amount of the main ingredients for refining Youth-Retaining Pills and some inexpensive little trinkets.
After that, Li Yu left the Cultivator Market through the entrance guarded by the white-robed elder.
Once outside the Cultivator Market, Li Yu took out the Little Armadillo and fed it several drops of spiritual liquid before it finally regained its energy.
Looking at the Little Armadillo, Li Yu couldn't help feeling a pang of heartache. Following him meant a precarious existence where they missed nine meals every three days, not to mention that now they didn't even have a home.
Stroke the little fellow in his hand, Li Yu used his Spiritual Sense to speak to the Little Armadillo.
"Even though you're often so hungry your eyes glow, I hope you can be as tenacious as a wolf! From now on, I'll call you 'Elang'." The Little Armadillo snorted and grunted, expressing its utmost satisfaction.
Placing the well-fed Little Armadillo back into his inner garment pocket, Li Yu hurried in the direction of Beishan Town.
Half a month later, Li Yu finally found a satisfactory mountain deep in the ranges half a day's journey from Beishan Town. The mountain soared into the clouds, tall and precipitous, standing like a sharp sword thrust straight into the firmament.
Li Yu summoned his flying sword and carved out a cave dwelling in a secluded corner at the peak.
The cave dwelling consisted of only two rooms and a living room. In the central "living room", he used stones cut by his flying sword to make some crude tables and chairs. The left room was used to house the Little Armadillo, where he thoughtfully built it a nest, while the right room was completely empty, as Li Yu intended to use it for alchemy in the future. The entrance to the cave dwelling was a movable boulder.
The "homeless" Little Armadillo took a sip of the spiritual liquid Li Yu had placed in a porcelain bowl on the ground, then happily burrowed into its nest and began to sleep soundly.
As for Li Yu, he set about tinkering with the "Dual-Qi Bronze Furnace" in the living room.
Glancing at the "Youth-Retaining Pill Refining Insights" and the "Youth-Retaining Pill Formula" he had obtained from Wang Wei, Li Yu once again praised Wang Wei in his heart.
The "Youth-Retaining Pill Formula" stated that refining Youth-Retaining Pills required two main ingredients, namely "Gold-Jade Grass" and "Spirit Catkin Flower", while the supplementary ingredients were worldly items such as deep-sea fish gelatin, beast tendons, and royal jelly.
The technique was to use centennial ironwood as the fire source, first boiling the supplementary ingredients into a paste; then decocting the main ingredients separately in alchemy furnaces to obtain the essence stripped of medicinal dregs, setting them aside separately for later use; and finally, adding the supplementary ingredient paste, the Spirit Catkin Flower essence, and the Gold-Jade Grass essence into the alchemy furnace in sequence.
After refining for seven days, one would obtain a spiritual pill with Gold-Jade Grass essence as the medicinal coating, Spirit Catkin Flower essence as the catalyst, and the supplementary ingredient paste as the medicinal base. This formula yielded five pills per batch, and a successful refining session produced five pills at once.
Li Yu knew that without the guidance of a master, even with the recipe in hand, practicing blind trial and error might eventually lead to proficiency and success, but it would inevitably waste a huge amount of materials, and materials required Spirit Stones to purchase.
Fortunately, he had the "Youth-Retaining Pill Refining Insights". These insights were like a teacher providing hands-on instruction, and he believed the pill success rate would be greatly increased.
Li Yu had calculated that under successful refining conditions, a batch yielded five pills, which sold in the Cultivator Market for two Spirit Stones each, totaling ten Spirit Stones. Meanwhile, the costs were one bundle of centennial ironwood at one Spirit Stone per bundle, ten stalks of Gold-Jade Grass which also required one Spirit Stone, one Spirit Catkin Flower costing three Spirit Stones, while the supplementary ingredients could be bought with silver and didn't need Spirit Stones, bringing the total cost to five Spirit Stones.
The conclusion was that if he successfully refined and sold the spiritual pills individually, after deducting costs, he could make a profit of five Spirit Stones.
Judging from his experience selling the Spirit Beast Pouch, the Cultivator Market would take a cut of the price, meaning he wouldn't even make a full five Spirit Stones.
No wonder Youth-Retaining Pills were rarely refined despite being one of the introductory practice pills. Spending seven days for a profit of less than five Spirit Stones—and losing five Spirit Stones if the refining failed—was truly not worth the effort.
However, Li Yu was different. He wanted to sell the Youth-Retaining Pills to the mortal world in exchange for white silver. A successful refining session would allow him to obtain fifty thousand liang of white silver at a selling price of ten thousand liang per pill.
Moreover, using the "Silver Mud Extraction Method" to refine white silver could yield ten thousand liang of white silver in a month, thereby acquiring one qian of "Silver Mud" in the process.
Most importantly, "Silver Mud" could be sold for a high price, with one qian fetching fifty Spirit Stones.
The conclusion was that spending seven days once to refine Youth-Retaining Pills could yield fifty thousand liang of white silver, and then spending another five months extracting Silver Mud would ultimately result in five qian of Silver Mud. Deducting the five Spirit Stone cost of the Youth-Retaining Pills, in just over five months, he could obtain two hundred and forty-five Spirit Stones.
Especially if Wang Wei's "Heavenly Thunder Stirring Earthly Fire" proved effective...
Li Yu pondered the "Youth-Retaining Pill Refining Insights" until dark, then took out the "light stone" he had bought from the Cultivator Market and channeled a trace of spiritual power into it, instantly brightening the entire living room.