Fictional Transcension System - Chapter 43 Browsing The Library

Books upon books.

Shelves among shelves.

The library seemed endless to Lu Fengyi. Even though he had already been browsing through books for hours, Lu Fengyi had not even finished going through the first rack of books. Unless it was Zhang Xuan, even if one were to spend years in the library, they mightn’t necessarily be able to read and comprehend everything.

The library had generalised books into several main categories.

There were the books that recorded techniques and pill forging methods, detailing the processes and how one would go about learning them.

There were the miniature encyclopedias which would explain the use of forging ingredients and catalysts, dictating the ones that went together nicely and what would happen if one were to mix some of the more volatile ones together.

Additionally, there were also recipes of pills and what details and what grade ingredients and pill cauldrons would allow one to achieve the most optimal creation.

Finally, there were diaries and recounts of past apothecaries, sharing their experiences and passing their knowledge to other apothecaries.

While Lu Fengyi had a detailed understanding of the ingredients used in pill forging and also the theoretical part of creating a perfect pill, he had yet to develop a technique that would allow him to forge pills more effectively.

{ Bai Ming’s Pill Forging Theories }

{ Unravelling the Secrets of Beginner Pill Forging }

{ Creation and Formation of Pills }

Books flew by along with time as Lu Fengyi browsed through pill forging books of different sorts. After reading through several hundred diaries and even more theory based textbooks, Lu Fengyi had decided upon one of the more risky pill forging techniques.

Most techniques would focus around placing the pill inside the cauldron with delicacy, trying to avoid dangerous combustion of the herbs at all costs, hence reducing the risk during pill forging. Lu Fengyi’s preferred technique contained a mix of the most dangerous pill forging techniques in the history of pill forging.

If one were to differentiate Lu Fengyi’s pill forging technique from the more common techniques, the best description would be, if Lu Fengyi were to put in his herbs even a breath late, not only would the quality of the pill drop drastically, the risk of a cauldron explosion would increase with that single mistake. On the other hand, the pill forging process would be hastened by almost a fold and the likeliness of having a superior grade pill would increase as well. It was the perfect representation of the saying, ‘High risk, high reward.’

‘System, is there anyway to confirm if my technique is good enough to create high grade pills?’

[ While I am able to rate the quality of your technique as a pre-given function, I will not be able to provide flaws and solutions as to how you would improve it. Would you still like me to rate the technique? ]

Lu Fengyi nodded. As he expected, the system was unable to help him improve the technique, however an evaluation was good too.

[ I’ve gone through a shallow analysis of your technique and I’ve computed it to be rated a grade of a low E out of F ranks. The technique is too lacking in many aspects and won’t cut it for a more experienced user ]

While Lu Fengyi had expected the rank not to be high, the rating of an E out of F ranks was a little too lacking, wasn’t it? If F was considered the rank for a forging technique to be a complete failure, wouldn’t that mean that his technique created through hours of research and compiling was but a step away from being a useless method too?

[ Don’t worry. Your technique should be usable for forging the most basic pills and if all goes well, you should be able to obtain that superior grade 3 pill you were seeking ]

Hearing the following line, Lu Fengyi sighed in relief before exiting the library, waving to the guard on his way out.

While the price of the superior grade 3 pill had been quite steep, racking up to an entire forty million gold, the ingredients were nothing too special. It was just that the crafting process was too sophisticated and had many areas in which if one did not be careful, could easily result in a cauldron explosion, hence raising the price be so much.

Arriving at the reception of the apothecary guild, Lu Fengyi asked Wen Xue for the best market for herbs before heading out towards the market in accordance to the instructions he had been given. While it was true that he was just inside the apothecary guild, each individual apothecary would have to go out to buy their own ingredients in order to forge pills, managing their own stock of herbs.

Turning the corner at the intersection, Lu Fengyi arrived at the destination. Before him was a long line of stores, each with crates of herbs out the front of the shops and shop assistants and owners calling out to passing pedestrians for their attention.

“Cheap herbs for apprentice apothecaries!”

“Fresh stalks from the mountain, get your fresh goods!”

“High quality herbs with a discount today!”

Lu Fengyi grinned to himself. While it was the middle of the day, where farmers would be working their hardest, the atmosphere of the market had not changed one bit, just as lively, just as competitive as before. Sealing his aura within his body, Lu Fengyi walked into the busy street, looking around for the herbs that he needed.

Having withdrawn the remaining gold from his Internal Storage, Lu Fengyi currently had over ten-thousand coins on his body, however this time there was no fear of being robbed as not only had he obtained the status of an Elite Student, his cultivation was currently much too high for anyone to rob him.

While it was true that Lu Fengyi had only spend several hundred on his first trip to the night markets, that did not mean he would spend the same amount now. If one were well versed in the life of an apothecary, they would know that often, apothecaries would empty out their pockets just to purchase a herb that would allow them to forge something of superior quality to anything else they had ever forged, making them a fortune just by selling it off.

Quickly locating some of the more crowded stores for a higher chance of discounts and deals, Lu Fengyi managed to buy several hundred sets of every herb that he required. Since he had never forged pills in his life and he didn’t possess something like the Library of Heaven’s Path, Lu Fengyi knew that he would fail hundreds of times before getting it right. It was the basic process of trail and error.

Lu Fengyi stepped into a dark alleyway before quickly placing the herbs he had just purchased into his Internal Storage before looking towards the final shop he needed to visit. One of the most important things to forging pills was the medium and the easiest one that he would be able to use as of now would be a cauldron.

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As most of you readers have probably noticed, I’ve removed 5 of the latest chapters and have begun replacing them.

An addition to changes that will be made to how I’m currently writing and posting will be that I will get rid of the guaranteed and bonus chapters.

Don’t worry! That does not mean I will slow down in posting when I have free time. I’ll still manage at least 2 chapters a day unless specified and the supposed bonus chapters will be replaced by me just wanting to write.

Thanks to @ImortalofSpagetti for suggesting this change.