"See, Master Alchemist" - the tattler said, pointing at my garden. - "He’s growing regular crops on his assigned garden instead of alchemical plants, as if he’s just a common farmer. Look, these are beans, and that’s turnip!"

"I can see perfectly well what’s growing here" - Chu Zhu Zhu said with a frown. - "Or do you doubt my ability to identify these plants?" - He shot the snitch a sharp look.

"No, of course not, Master. I wouldn’t dare" - the tattler stammered, retreating into silence.

"Tan Ji Tao, how do you explain this?" - the alchemist asked, turning his gaze to me.

"I’ve been conducting experiments on this plot to study the effects of Qi on plant growth. To do this, I used fast-growing plants as examples, which are commonly used in alchemy."

"But those are turnips!" - the snitch interjected triumphantly, just before I gave him a light slap that sent him flying into the bushes, spitting out teeth.

"Since alchemical herbs grow too slowly, I decided to use plants with shorter maturation periods to see if they could even serve as model organisms. I divided the plot into three zones. One zone was left untouched, with plants watered only with ordinary stream water. In the second zone, I used water charged in the meditation chamber, swapping in a fresh bucket daily and using the charged water exclusively for the roots. In the third zone, I infused my own Qi directly into the plants, saturating them to their maximum tolerable capacity."

"But in that case, they’d be unsuitable for pill-making."

"Exactly, I wasn’t growing them for that purpose. I wanted to evaluate how Qi will affect growth speed, maturation time, and their alchemical properties. The results showed that the control group grew slowly, as expected. The second group grew much faster and generally met quality standards, though with some anomalies. Plants in the third group either grew at an accelerated rate or died from overexposure to Qi."

I paused, noting Chu Zhu Zhu’s intrigued expression.

"Specifically, radishes thrived only in the first zone, developed an odd taste in the second, and turned into some unrecognizable weed in the third. Turnips in the second zone grew like crazy but turned woody and developed thorns in the third. Beans grew similarly in the second and third zones, but during ripening, pods in the third group exploded from an excess of Qi. Blood grass in the second group had a richer color but lost its Qi much faster after harvesting. In the third group, its color shifted unpredictably — red to yellow, green, and even blue in places, while its alchemical properties varied randomly. Lastly, I planted honey fern, whose seeds have a notoriously low germination rate. In the control group, only one seed out of twenty sprouted. But look at the second and third zones." - I gestured at the beds.

"I don’t see anything" - Chu Zhu Zhu said, frowning. - "The beds are empty and dug up."

"Exactly! Because some bastards stole all the plants I grew. May they choke on them!"

"Why choke?" - the alchemist asked, surprised.

"Because these plants were never meant for pill-making. While the fern looked normal externally, its internal Qi lost all beneficial properties and turned toxic."

"So, you deliberately grew poisonous plants instead of medicinal ones!" - the tattler interrupted again.

This earned him another slap, and this time, he passed out in the bushes without reappearing. Chu Zhu Zhu paid no attention to his fate, clearly preoccupied with more important matters.

"Recently, one of the sect’s disciples fell ill with a strange disease not described in any books. It happened after consuming a pill that requires a large amount of honey fern for its production. If your plants were used, that explains the poisoning."

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"That’s very likely. But I don’t understand how anyone could use those plants without first testing their properties. Even a single drop of their sap caused skin irritation and redness."

"The pill was made by an alchemist apprentice. During the investigation, under supervision, he successfully made a normal pill, clearing him of suspicion. Now it seems the cause was stolen herbs unsuitable for consumption. I’ll find out who stole your crops, and they’ll face the harshest punishment. As for your garden, I find your research results valuable. They clearly illustrate why artificially accelerating herb maturation is dangerous. By the way, what was the germination rate of the fern in the second group?"

"Over ninety percent. Eighteen out of twenty in the second group, and nineteen in the third."

"Hmm... Perhaps if we use charged water only during the seed germination stage, we could increase the yield of these plants."

"Yes. Additionally, we could reduce the Qi concentration in the water and charge it in zones with different energy characteristics. I’ve considered this, but I currently lack the conditions to conduct such experiments."

"I see you’re interested in alchemy" - Chu Zhu Zhu said, looking at me closely. -"Would you like to become my apprentice?"

"It would be an honor, Master. I would be thrilled to learn the secrets of the alchemical arts from you."

"Very well, very well. I’ll have two apprentices now, both considered geniuses. Mu Niam will be furious when he hears about this. Ho-ho-ho."

Thus, I unexpectedly became Chu Zhu Zhu’s personal apprentice. Instead of attending lectures, I now helped with the preparation of various pills in the role of a padawan. That is, my tasks included handing over a stirrer, grinding herbs, or washing dishes. Alongside me, Dao Yu engaged in the same mundane activities. The moment he saw me, he almost jumped out of the window. I couldn’t resist planting the idea in his mind that I had joined Chu Zhu Zhu’s apprenticeship solely to get closer to him.

The most valuable perk of this arrangement was free access to a device for reading memory imprints stored in special jade slips. It turned out that most cultivators were illiterate, so instead of writing books, they preferred to preserve memory imprints on specially prepared jade. These could later be "read" by uploading the knowledge directly into one’s memory. However, since this process could damage the jade, a specialized device was used to project the contents of the jade without destroying it.

In one of the laboratory rooms stood such a device. It resembled a tall, narrow stone table with special recesses holding pieces of jade, covered by a protective energy field. The moment I saw this masterpiece of an unknown artifact master, I almost started drooling. However, after examining the device, I found its mechanism surprisingly primitive, with the most complex part being the activation of the protective field.

The device had six slots, five of which were occupied by books on alchemy: four plant encyclopedias and one pill recipe compendium. This allowed me to occasionally take breaks from my chores to read small fragments of information from the books, analyze and memorize them, and then move on to the next fragment. As a result, all my time in the lab was equivalent to continuous reading. I even deliberately chose simple, monotonous tasks to avoid distractions from processing the information.

Generally, local alchemy turned out to be far less sophisticated than I had imagined. The recipes were vague, and the instructions were imprecise. Many procedures relied on sheer luck — they could result in successful material processing or end in waste and destruction.

I had the chance to observe the "master alchemist" at work, and honestly, I was disappointed. While Chu Zhu Zhu delivered excellent lectures, his pill-making process was sloppy at best. His products might as well have been stamped with "Made in Dump" Of course, I didn’t point out his carelessness; instead, I focused on my own development.

The plant encyclopedias contained information on thousands of plants. However, after classifying them and analyzing their morphological features, I concluded that there were actually only a few hundred real species. The thousands of entries were merely manifestations of how these plants interacted with Qi. This insight came to me from observing the turnips I had grown. After infusing them with my Qi, they sprouted thorns, developed a deeply branching root system, and their leaves turned a burgundy-pink color. Most surprisingly, the turnips bloomed and bore fruit, despite being biennial plants.

In short, I planned to revolutionize the world of alchemy in the future. For now, I was content with studying the basics. We hadn’t even been trusted to prepare the simplest strengthening pill yet. While I didn’t particularly care, Dao Yu was seething with frustration. He desperately wanted to become a genius alchemist and conquer the world with his ambition, yet his skills weren’t even sufficient to touch an alchemical furnace.

I spent a couple of weeks on this routine before Chu Zhu Zhu, seemingly struck by sudden inspiration, decided to visit a cave that had once been the dwelling of a mysterious cultivator. Most importantly, he decided to bring us along to help carry things and clean the cave floor of millennia-old layers of dirt. Officially, the expedition was advertised as a thrilling adventure to the tomb of a great cultivator. In reality, we arrived at what could only be described as a massive dump that needed to be cleaned of all the filth piled up inside.