After leaving the Qi Family Pharmacy, Guo Feilong walked along the bustling street, pondering how he could become a guest alchemist for the Qi Family without revealing his true identity.
Currently, he was just a small Foundation Establishment stage cultivator, as insignificant as a fly or ant under the massive presence of the Qi Family Pharmacy.
If they discovered he was a high-level alchemist at the Foundation Establishment stage, they might harbor malicious intentions and imprison him to refine elixirs every day.
Although the likelihood of such an event was low, it was still possible, especially given his weak strength.
A high-level alchemist capable of refining Seventh Grade elixirs could generate enormous profits annually.
In this cultivation world where the strong prey on the weak, and power is revered.
Countless dark deeds occur for the sake of profit.
"Walking by the river often, how can you not get your shoes wet?
I can't let my weak self stay under the tiger's den.
As long as I earn enough cultivation resources to support my wife and children, that's enough. One shouldn't be too greedy."
In the end, Guo Feilong gave up the idea of becoming a guest alchemist for the Qi Family.
Selling high-level cultivation elixirs to the Spirit Creek Sect was the best choice.
Although the Spirit Creek Sect couldn't compare to the powerful Qi Family Pharmacy,
His connections within the Spirit Creek Sect were strong; his friend's master was a Golden Elixir stage grand cultivator.
Most of his wives, concubines, and children were also cultivators of the Spirit Creek Sect.
If he could refine Seventh Grade cultivation elixirs, proving himself as a high-level alchemist,
The entire Spirit Creek Sect would treat him like an ancestor.
His status would be no less than that of a Golden Elixir stage ancestor within the Spirit Creek Sect.
In a cultivation world where human life is as insignificant as grass, one can never be too cautious. This was Guo Feilong's motto for navigating the outside world.
He was still missing one last type of spirit herb for refining the Seventh Grade cultivation elixir. He had visited all the major pharmacies in the cultivation market, but none had it. He could only wait for the Qi Family's supply in seven days.
Due to the low success rate and high profit of the Beauty Retaining Pills, Guo Feilong visited many medium and small pharmacies, purchasing materials for refining 1,000 Beauty Retaining Pills, and also bought several Eighth and Ninth Grade cultivation elixirs.
After all, he had the ability to analyze and deduce the recipe from the elixir, though it might take a long time to crack high-level elixirs like the Eighth and Ninth Grades, possibly three to five years or even ten to twenty years.
But at least he could obtain it; otherwise, he would have to spend a huge amount of spirit stones, and might not even be able to buy the recipe for Eighth and Ninth Grade cultivation elixirs.
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Back in the room he rented at the inn, Guo Feilong began refining the Beauty Retaining Pills. His alchemy skills had improved significantly over the past ten years.
Moreover, he was now at the Foundation Establishment stage, so his speed in refining First Grade elixirs like the Beauty Retaining Pills was much faster than before.
On average, he could refine a batch of Beauty Retaining Pills in half an hour, and using auspicious clouds during the process, each batch yielded ten pills.
In the inn room, Guo Feilong refined 30 batches of Beauty Retaining Pills daily, which took about fifteen hours.
The remaining time was spent either cultivating or researching Eighth and Ninth Grade cultivation elixirs, keeping him very busy. The only downside was the absence of his wives and concubines; otherwise, he could engage in the life gene continuation project for two hours daily.
Seven days passed quickly, and Guo Feilong went to the Qi Family Pharmacy, spending 15 million low-quality spirit stones to buy the last spirit herb.
A Seventh Grade cultivation elixir cost 150,000 low-quality spirit stones each.
An Eighth Grade cultivation elixir cost 250,000 low-quality spirit stones each.
A Ninth Grade cultivation elixir cost 350,000 low-quality spirit stones each.
The cost to refine a batch of Seventh Grade cultivation elixirs was 300,000 low-quality spirit stones.
Guo Feilong bought enough spirit herbs for 150 batches from the Qi Family Pharmacy.
Back in his room at the inn, it took Guo Feilong over twenty days to refine all 150 batches of Seventh Grade cultivation elixirs.
Each batch produced 10 Seventh Grade cultivation elixirs.
150 batches resulted in 1,500 Seventh Grade cultivation elixirs.
The total value was 2.25 billion low-quality spirit stones.
After deducting the 450 million cost, he netted 1.8 billion spirit stones.
Compared to the Beauty Retaining Pills, the Seventh Grade cultivation elixirs were much more profitable.
A cultivator only needed one Beauty Retaining Pill in their lifetime.
However, for Seventh Grade cultivation elixirs, Golden Elixir stage cultivators with the means would consume one daily, while those without might take one every three to five days, or even ten days to half a month.
In reality, high-level cultivators in every cultivation force were the biggest consumers of cultivation resources.
A Seventh Grade cultivation elixir cost 150,000 low-quality spirit stones.
Consuming one daily.
In a year, that would be 365 Seventh Grade cultivation elixirs, equivalent to consuming 54.75 million low-quality spirit stones annually.
The Spirit Creek Sect had over a dozen Golden Elixir stage grand cultivators, consuming over 700 million spirit stones in resources annually.
Fortunately, the Spirit Creek Sect had vast lands and abundant resources, with many small heavenly abodes and various cultivation resource mines, as well as plantations for low and mid-level spirit herbs and spirit rice. Otherwise, they wouldn't have enough cultivation resources to sustain such a large sect.
What puzzled Guo Feilong the most was the spirit stones, as they weren't mined from the ground.
The cultivation world had existed for countless years, with an unknown number of immortal cultivators.
If spirit stones were mined, they would have been exhausted long ago.
Guo Feilong had cultivated with spirit stones for over a hundred years, yet he had no idea how they were produced.
Not only him, but even the Golden Elixir ancestors of the Spirit Creek Sect didn't know.
They only knew that spirit stones were issued by the Human Immortal Cultivator Alliance to the cultivation world.
In his spare time, Guo Feilong would also study spirit stones as if they were elixirs.
He speculated that spirit stones might be refined from some kind of heavenly material or treasure using alchemy or refinement techniques.
If he could master the method of creating spirit stones, it would be like having a money-printing machine.
Spirit stones appeared as white, semi-transparent stones, feeling similar to jade.
Upon absorption, they would melt like ice and disappear completely as mystic power was depleted.
In the following days, Guo Feilong visited over a dozen large cultivation markets across the Northern Borders Continent's cultivation world, selling the refined Beauty Retaining Pills and Seventh Grade cultivation elixirs to hundreds of different pharmacies.
Traveling to the Northern Borders Continent's cultivation world wasn't easy, so Guo Feilong converted the billions of spirit stones he had into various cultivation resources.
Such as various spirit herbs, refinement metals, spiritual beast skins for making talismans, and more.
He also bought a lot of Beauty Retaining Pills and the main material for Breakthrough Pills, the demon pearls.
After spending most of his billions of low-quality spirit stones, Guo Feilong refined many Foundation Pills and Seventh Grade cultivation elixirs, selling them for billions of spirit stones again, and bought over two hundred Ninth Rank flying spiritual beasts.
At a high-level auction that required at least a Foundation Establishment stage cultivator to enter, he acquired an alchemy recipe for Third Grade spiritual beast elixirs.
Previously, he had analyzed spiritual beast elixirs, deducing the number of spirit herbs used, but faced a major issue.
He couldn't identify seven of the spirit herbs used in the spiritual beast elixirs.
Without knowing their names, he couldn't purchase them, making it impossible to refine spiritual beast elixirs.
By acquiring the Third Grade spiritual beast elixir recipe, he learned the names of the seven unidentified spirit herbs.
After becoming an Elder of the Spirit Creek Sect's Alchemy Hall, he had read all the books on spirit herbs available to him within the sect.
Unfortunately, the Spirit Creek Sect wasn't a sect focused on alchemy, nor was it a more powerful cultivation sect. The existing knowledge on spirit herbs was quite shallow compared to the entire cultivation world.
If there were a million types of spirit herbs in the cultivation world,
The Spirit Creek Sect's Alchemy Peak recorded less than ten thousand types.
Of course, while the types of spirit herbs in the cultivation world were countless, many had similar medicinal effects.
When the main ingredient for some elixirs couldn't be found, a spirit herb with similar effects would be used as a substitute.
For example, if you wanted to make dumplings with pickled cabbage and pork filling,
But didn't have pickled cabbage or pork, you could make dumplings with chive and egg filling instead.
They're both dumplings, just with different flavors, but still dumplings nonetheless.