My first day was spent replanting all of the trees as mine. The second day, I created a giant creature roughly modeled after a human. I put sixteen thousand mana into it, making it the largest plant I had ever made. It was absurdly huge. I put two Myriad Flame Snakes on its shoulders and added a bunch of modifications. The most impressive of the modifications were the six bladed vines that stuck out of its back.

You’ve created a new type of plant! What would you like to name it?

“Colossus” has been named!

Colossus has reached level eight!

The Colossus was my ultimate defensive measure. It was too big to hide on the surface, so I buried it underground. I spread smaller versions of it across the surface of the garden, disguised as statues. They were my private army.

No more moving for me. I’m done with that. If an army marched to my gates, I would be meeting them with an army of my own.

On the third day, I designed the Treefather.

You’ve created a new type of plant! What would you like to name it?

“Treefather” has been named!

Treefather has reached level eight!

The Treefather was my crowning achievement, none of my other plants could compare. I used my extensive knowledge of all the plants I had ever Identified to create the Treefather. Like the largest Colossus, I spent sixteen thousand on it.

I planted it on top of my house, its roots ran down the walls. The roots of the Treefather intertwined with the stone building. It’s branches held hundreds of holes, like the work of a giant woodpecker. These holes were for other plants to grow. They were like pots, except they were part of the tree. But unlike regular pots, the Treefather provided the perfect home for any plant small enough to fit in the holes. The nourishment of a Treefather was like a cycle of refinement before the herbs were even harvested.

My Improve skill was already at level nine. After spending enough mana on Improving, another window popped up.

Improve has reached level ten! An advanced Cultivator skill has been unlocked : Augment!

I immediately tried it out. I used Identify and Augment at the same time to see what the Augment skill could do.

Augment was similar to increasing a plant’s level, but I could now Augment specific aspects of the plant, such as its toughness or regeneration. I could Augment them beyond what the level of the plant could normally provide. With Augment, my level eighteen vines could become stronger than level twenty five vines.

But the cost of it was an enormous amount of mana. “The Cultivator” gave me a bunch of overpowered skills, but there was a common theme that linked them together; my ability encouraged me to not move.

The day I was to pay for the house arrived. The previous owner of the house had scheduled for us to meet at nearest city hall. I took out the map and looked for the town hall.

The Grand Flames City was unfathomably large. The city covered an entire mountain range. The city was divided into two main categories of land : sect land and public land. Sect land was land owned by sects and the public land was land owned by everybody else. These territories were constantly in a state of flux. Sect land was constantly being fought over, but public land was off limits. While sects could do all kinds of things to convert public land into sect land, directly conquering it was not allowed.

Doing so would be instantly alienating the entire public. This was a tacit social contract that no sect was willing to break. However, since there were no police, the sects often acted as police on the public land around their sect land. The land that they policed was generally known as the sect’s circle of influence. However, a sect’s circle of influence shifted even faster. There were no clear borders. 

I was sitting on a couch in the living room. I called Hui Ming over. I pointed at the nearest city hall. “Do you know who runs city hall?”

“That would be the Emerald Fire Sect’s circle of influence, so I’d assume it’d be run by the Emerald Fire Sect.”

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I tilted my neck at the new sect name. Even after reading all of those books, I still didn’t know all the sects in the Grand Flames City. “Tell me about this sect. How big is it? How’s it’s relation with the Blue and Crimson Fire sects?”

“It’s mediocre in size. It’s not big, but it’s not small enough to be easily bullied. I think we’re on the edges of its circle of influence.” She put her finger on a section of the map covered in green. She dragged her finger to the closest sect, colored dark blue. “The Emerald and Sapphire Fire Sects have a decent relationship. The Sapphire Fire Sect is a long time ally of Blue Fire, so Emerald Fire likes Blue Fire. Emerald is slightly antagonist towards Crimson Fire for the same reason,” she explained.

And this is why I hate history. And memorizing shit. “So the point is Emerald won’t go out of their way to help Crimson, right?”

“Right.”

“Would Crimson be able to get their hands on Emerald’s records and information?” I asked.

“Not without paying a substantial amount,” she said.

I tossed her the briefcase of jade slips. She caught and looked at me, confused. “This is…?”

I motioned towards a stack of jade slips on my table. “Chen Wei gave me five million to buy this house. That briefcase has four and a half million in it, which is the price he offered.”

“Are we going right now? Should I carry this for you?” she asked.

“I’m not going.” I patted my alchemy caldron and winked. “I have some pills to make. You can buy the house for me, right?”

“Yes, that shouldn’t get us discovered by the Crimson Fire Sect,” she said, “but don’t you want to put it under your own name?”

“Nope.”

“Yes master,” she bowed. She turned around.

“Before you leave,” she stopped. I tossed her a couple more jade slips and a piece of paper. The paper consisted of a list of seed names. “Use that extra money to buy me the items on this list. You can also buy some things for yourself, just make sure to get everything on that list.”

“Of course master.” she turned back around and left.

I sunk into the sofa with a satisfied smile. Having a servant was so convenient! I wondered what else she could do. Maybe she could bake cookies too.

I sat back up and put one of each type of ginseng on the table. Boney, Meaty, Skinny, Eerie, Nosey, and Eyebally. I started the process of harvesting them into usable ingredients. I dried pieces of them and chopped them to dust. I squeezed them to collect their juices. I mashed them to create pastes.

My mind was trying to go through every way I could combine the ginsengs, trying to pick out the optimal combination.

The end goal was to produce a pill that both combined and maximized the effects of all the ginsengs.

I added other herbs into the fray. I mixed and matched hundreds of other ingredients. Some worked, others didn’t. Sometimes I would come up with a solution that I thought was genius and try it, only to see it utterly fail. Sometimes I would discover a solution, only to find I didn’t have access to the proper herb. I was trying to make a pill that combined five miraculous ingredients. Trial and error was the only road to success.

I created a bin for all the failed products and waste materials.

I could feel myself getting closer to the desired product. I was slowly excavating a road in the tunnels of alchemy.

Time flew by like a gentle breeze. My sense of time was completely lost while I did alchemy. An hour felt like a minute. A minute felt like a second. Hui Ming stumbled into the living room with her arms filled.

I didn’t even look up. “Put the seeds of there, please.” I pointed at a corner of the room.

I heard Hui Ming take a deep breath. “What’s that smell?” she asked.

“Alchemy,” I said.

“What’s that?” she pointed at the bin.

“Oh, some scraps, can you dump them outside? Thanks.”

“Are you sure, master? Those seem like incredibly expensive ingredients. I can separate them from each other if you’d like. I could sell them for some money, or you could reuse them,” she said eagerly.

“Nah, don’t bother. I have other pills I’ll have you sell later.” I touched my chin. “Actually, put them in the Tree Father's pots. They’ll be good for compost.”

“Compost?” she choked.

I tossed another handful of failed product into the bin. “Reuse, reduce, recycle, and compost,” I said absentmindedly.

“Are you sur-”

“Just do it, I don’t need a little extra money or scraps,” I said.

A couple hours later, I raised my hands in triumph. “It’s done!”

“Congratulations master!”

I jumped. “Wha-? How long were you standing there?”

“Since I emptied the bin for you,” she beamed.

Looking outside, I noticed the sun setting. I turned on the Glowing Pineapples and sighed, “Do you know if the alchemy shops are still open?”

“Most of the big ones should be open through the night,” she said, somewhat distastefully.

I walked across the room and picked up a few of the vials I had made more than a month ago. “Perfect Phoenix Salve… Amysthet Strength Salve… let’s see, what was this again? Oh right, Flame Titan Salve.” I gave her the three bottles. “These are all fourth cycle salves. Can you sell them for me? It’ll be our backup of funds.”

“Oh, right,” I added, “You can take a fourth of the revenue. Buy something for yourself.”

“I don’t n-”

I cut her off, “It’s fine. I don’t need it either. I’m content making pills and keeping my plants company. Buy something for yourself. Have fun!” I insisted.

“Alright…”

“I’ll have a little surprise for you when you get back.” I smiled. I gripped my cauldron and went back to work. Now that I had the conception stage of the pill, I started on the refinement.