I followed Jiao’s advice and began making Rank 1 pills in significant quantities. I started with the Basic Qi Gathering Pill which required only a peony to concoct. At this point, I could turn the flower into a Perfect pill as easily as turning over my hand, but I didn’t.

I didn’t rely on my various affinities, and I did my best to dampen the effects of my strengthened soul. I wanted to simulate being an average Disciple Alchemist working on his first pills.

I had copied dozens of Rank 1 alchemy techniques, and I had studied them enough to know what they did, but I hadn’t used them much, and I certainly never relied on them to make a pill. Now, I was intentionally trying to suppress my abilities as I worked so that I would have to depend on these techniques.

I continued this for several weeks, producing hundreds of pills in that time. None were Perfect, I still didn’t know how to make Perfect pills without using affinities, but I was eventually able to reach 99% effective and High-Purity for every pill.

During this time, Jiao helped take care of ingredient deliveries and pill pick-ups, so I didn’t have to step away. By now, it had become clear what she was. She was my handler, much like Deacon Liu had been when I worked under Elder Mu. I wasn’t sure when that started. Perhaps from the very beginning, she was scouting me out to join the Eyes, but after I was here, her role was obvious. This fact didn’t bother me, though. It allowed me to clearly define what our relationship was and would be.

“Brother Su,” said Jiao one day after the delivery pick-up, “how are you feeling with the Rank 1 techniques? Think you’ll be ready to move up to Rank 2 soon?”

I considered her question from a few angles. The faction leaders probably wanted me to hurry up and make more valuable pills for them. They bought a workhorse, and they wanted it to work. I could sympathize, but those concerns didn’t faze me.

More importantly, was I ready? On the face of it, a few weeks to practice dozens of techniques was wholly inadequate, but I was simply learning to use different tools to accomplish tasks I was intimately familiar with. Once I understood the hows and whys of the new tools, it wasn’t difficult to slot them into my process.

After careful consideration, I finally answered. “Give me one more week. There are a few more tests I want to run at this level, then I will move up to Rank 2 pills.”

“Alright,” said Jiao, “I’ll plan future deliveries using that schedule then. By the way, the Flowing Mountain Sect will be scouting for disciples in a few months. If you are interested in trying to move up, you might want to try out this year. Next time they come you will be close to the age limit, so it will be a lot harder.”

I thought back to my conversation with Elder Tao. If I left to join the Flowing Mountain Sect, someone from the faction would no doubt tell them about my fire seed, and that would certainly end with my swift death once I left the Wastes. I was supposed to stay here obediently. If I wanted any chance to leave here in this life, I needed to build my personal and political power first. Even hinting that I wanted to leave before then would be a bad idea.

“No,” I said, “I’m not looking to join. If there’s an open competition for the selection, I would be interested in watching, but I have no interest in participating.”

“It’s all done behind closed doors, unfortunately. Really, it’s a good thing you didn’t set your heart on joining them because it almost certainly wasn’t going to happen.”

I didn’t want to join, but I still had at least a little pride, so I bristled a bit at that comment. “Why do you say that?”

Jiao laughed, “They only accept true standouts like Wen Hao. He’s practically guaranteed a slot to move up this time.”

“Is he that good?” I had to ask.

“Depends on what you mean. From what I hear, his technical skills aren’t the best, but his blessing is more powerful than you would believe. It helps fortify the medicinal energy in the herbs so they take much less damage from small slips during concocting. That let him make Rank 3 pills with outstanding efficacy far earlier than almost any other alchemist I’ve ever heard of.”

Was Wen Hao’s blessing really that powerful? I wouldn’t be willing to trade reincarnation for it, of course, but I wished I could do something like that myself.

“If you have any problem, let me know,” said Jiao. “If not, I’ll go ahead and schedule the Rank 2 herbs for you starting next week.”

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After Jiao left, I went to consult the System. I didn’t have much in the way of credits, but I wanted to check some prices for the future.

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“System, how much would it cost for an ability that mimics Wen Hao’s blessing?”

The cost of such an ability is not possible to calculate at this time.

I had assumed as much, but it was worth a quick check.

“What about a similar ability that is only able to affect up to Rank 3 herbs?”

Soul-based ability of Rank 3 Complete Herbal Enhancement. Cost 1 billion credits.

“How much if it only affected Rank 1 or 2?”

Rank 1 Complete Herbal Enhancement. Cost 100,000 credits. Rank 2. Cost 10 million credits.

So, to even be able to affect Rank 1 herbs that way, I would need more credits than I had earned to date. Even if I bought it, it was impossible to maintain it as a relevant ability as I climbed cultivation realms. Even now, Rank 1 enhancements would do me little good when I could just make Perfect Rank 1 herbs instead.

Instead of going down the rabbit hole of trying to get this blessing, what I needed to do was learn herbalism to create far superior herbs. That would require both knowledge and space though, and I didn’t have either yet, but it offered far more possibilities eventually.

“System, how much to learn Rank 1 Herbalism?”

The complete skills and knowledge of a Disciple Herbalist. Cost 10 million credits.

It was the same as when I asked about alchemy long ago. Thinking about it…

“System, how much to master Rank 1 Alchemy?”

The complete skills and knowledge of a Disciple Alchemist. Cost 9.9 million credits.

There was definitely something suspicious about those valuations.

“Why are those prices so high?”

The answer to your question. Cost 8 million credits.

Definitely suspicious.

“How much to learn Rank 1 herbalism to the level of my ability in Rank 1 alchemy?”

Cost 100,000 credits.

The cost to purchase a skill from the System was just too high. If I had that many credits, there were other things I wanted to accomplish first. Instead, I would need to begin learning on my own. As long as I was still producing pills, my taskmasters shouldn’t mind if I engaged in a few other pursuits.

Aside from herbalism, I also needed to start learning formations for my other project, but that had its own problems. Formation specialists required earth qi. I had a fire and wood qi cultivation technique, so I could work with herbalism and alchemy simultaneously, but adding in earth qi would, I assumed, require an Earth Rank cultivation technique, and I hadn’t even heard a mention of one of those.

I had given Jiao a timeframe of one week to finish with Rank 1 before I began a focused study on Rank 2 alchemy techniques, but I already felt my grasp of Rank 1 techniques was sufficient. Instead of doing more there, I took the herbs that had been delivered and transformed them into pills at my fastest possible speed. It took only a day to finish the project, giving me six days of ‘free’ time.

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While I had been told I could leave the sect as I wished now that I was an inner sect disciple, I knew that the situation was more complicated than that. There would likely be a subtle but fierce resistance if I tried to leave, so I needed to accomplish my goals in other ways.

Instead of leaving the sect, I went to visit a place I hadn’t been in a long time, the city of the nominal disciples. Working with outer sect disciples would be complicated, but given the mental state of the nominal disciples, things could proceed more smoothly.

It took a bit more effort than I had expected, but I finally found my target.

“Disciple Bao,” I said when I saw my old friend, “please follow me. There is something I wish to discuss with you.”

Bao was someone I trusted. I didn’t know him at all in this life, and I didn’t know where his experiences this time around would have taken him, but I at least knew he was not involved in the deep politics of the sect since he was only a low-level nominal disciple.

“Senior Brother,” he said with a deep bow. “How may this one help you?”

“Let’s talk in private,” I said.

Bao didn’t protest, though I didn’t give him an opportunity to, and we went to a private dining room in one of the larger restaurants around the city.

After ordering some dishes, I got to business.

“Junior Brother Bao,” I said kindlier than I had the first time, “how is your life in the sect? Are you well?”

“Senior Brother, thank you for your concern. I am very well,” he said without hesitation.

“Junior Bao, let’s drop the formalities. My name is Su Fang, just call me Fang,” I said. It was nice having a higher position so I could set the rules of decorum. “Bao, I have a project I’m working on, and I would like your help with it if you’re willing.”

“Senior… Fang. I… I don’t think… I mean, I’m just a nominal disciple,” he said, stammering and gesturing at his disciple robes.

“Please listen. I am only making an offer, and you can decline freely, but I trust you can do what I need,” I said in a calm voice.

“Al… Alright.”

“Great. I need knowledge and information that isn’t available to me in the sect. Books, techniques, anything of value. If someone finds an old tomb that holds a valuable relic, I want to know about it. Mostly, though, I want information about herbalism, formations, refining, and beast taming,” I said.

“But the sect—” started Bao.

“What I want isn’t available in the sect, and I can’t do this myself, so I need someone to help me. I chose you.”

“But I don’t know you… and… I can’t leave the sect…”

“You will have to quit the sect, yes, but if you work with me, you and your family can live happily for years to come. I will provide you with as many pills as you need. Right now, I can provide countless Rank 1 and 2 pills of extremely high quality. You just need to sell them and use the money to buy information. Gather as much as you can. Especially low-level herbalism or formation books and techniques. I don’t care how much of the money you keep for yourself as long as I get the information.”

I could see the struggle that was happening inside Bao’s mind. His dream was to prosper in the sect, and in a single sitting, I, a completely unknown person, was asking him to throw it all away. How many people would be willing to do such a thing, especially for a stranger?

There was only one thing that weighed heavily in my favor. Bao had been cultivating a technique that encouraged trust and naivete.

“Alright,” he finally said. “Bring me the pills. I’ll do it.”