Return Of The Demon - 139 The first customer

Bai Yun quickly took out a lot of food from his storage ring and wolfed it down. As a cultivator, he could eat a huge amount of food in one sitting. After a while, Bai Yun finally finished eating, and some strength returned to his body.

Bai Yun dragged himself up the stairs. He realized that it was dawn, so Bai Yun went to the living quarters and slept until noon. At noon Bai Yun went back down and opened his store. But as usual, no one came in. Though some of the nearby stores did look at Bai Yun mockingly.

Bai Yun then went back down to the blacksmithing room. He pulled out the muscles of the three headed snake and started to refine them one by one. Bai Yun would heat them up to the perfect temperature before repeatedly using the nine nine hammering technique. As Bai Yun tempered the muscles, it became smaller and smaller as the impurities were pushed out, and it became sturdier and stronger. Finally, each muscle fiber became the size of a small thread. It took Bai Yun the entire day and night before he finished refining all the muscles.

After this Bai Yun went back up to open the store. Once again no one came in.

Bai Yun went back down after this and started to thread the muscles together. Each muscle was tied together to another by hand. Slowly the muscles came together to form a long string.

By the time Bai Yun finished making the bow string, it was long after midnight. Bai Yun then went back up to his living quarters to sleep until noon. Then he went down to the store and opened it once again.

As Bai Yun sat in his chair in the store, Bai Yun thought about what he should do in the future. Bai Yun had already used up all of the money he had. Bai Yun still had a lot of medicinal ingredients that he had bought in Yellow city. But Bai Yun was planning to use them for himself. He did not want to sell those medicines. Bai Yun now had to find a way to make money. This store was a way for Bai Yun to do so, but he hadn’t been successful until now.

Bai Yun had rented a store with a training room to master various techniques now that he had reached foundation establishment. Bai Yun had a lot to do, and could probably make enough money to reach the city of scholars by hunting beast and selling them. But not only would it waste a lot of time, he would also be in unnecessary danger. Bai Yun needed a good source of income.

As Bai Yun sat there thinking, he heard a commotion from his door. Bai Yun looked up to see a young man walking into the store. He raised his eyebrows in surprise. But then he stood up to meet him with a smile.

“Hello welcome to my store.” Bai Yun welcomed the young man.

Bai Yun frowned when he heard this. Barrier breaking pills were a wide class of pills that were used to break barriers in the body. These barriers could be of different types. For example, it could be a barrier to a cultivation breakthrough, or a barrier in the body that stopped blood flow to a particular part, and so on. Depending on the need, the barrier breaking pill could be wildly different, and this had varying needs and difficulty in making.

“I have a blocked meridian in my body. It is making me unable to breakthrough to the foundation establishment realm. I want to know if you can make a pill to fix it.” The young man said.

Bai Yun nodded his head. This kind of problem was quite common. Many people were born with blocked meridians that would make it difficult to cultivate. And if the cultivation technique that you practice needed that meridian, then you would be in a lot of trouble. Generally, it would be possible to slowly clear it in time. But some of the meridians would be too blocked and needed external force to clear them. Thankfully Bai Yun did not have such a problem in either of his lives.

“Give me your hand.” Bai Yun said, extending his arm.

The young man frowned and hesitated for a moment before he extended his hand. His hesitation was because Bai Yun had asked for his hand to study his meridians. This would require him to allow Bai Yun to delve his qi and perception into his body. This was extremely dangerous to him. If Bai Yun wished, he could easily destroy his cultivation while doing this. Another reason was this would allow Bai Yun to understand which of his meridians were nourished by qi, which would lead him to understand which all meridians were used by him to cultivate. Even though Bai Yun would not be able to copy his cultivation technique, as Bai Yun would not know the order cultivation of meridians, it would give Bai Yun a lot of information, which could be used to harm him.

But after a while, he decided to trust Bai Yun. Not only would he be able to yell out, and give Bai Yun a bad reputation if he did something, since this was a store under the alchemy association, if Bai Yun did something, then the association would not let him go. And Bai Yun needed to study him to find out what was wrong anyway.

As Bai’s perception entered the young man’s body, he realized that the young man’s meridians were blocked quite badly. Even though the young man could probably clear it by himself, it would take a lot of time. It would hinder his progress to waste his time like this in this crucial period of growth.

Bai Yun pulled his perception back, and let go of the young man’s hand. He then said while nodding, “I can fix this.”

“I have been to a few other stores that said the same thing as you. What I want to know is how much would it cost? I didn’t have a lot of money, so I can’t afford to waste any.” The young man said

Bai Yun thought about the problem for a moment. He quickly went through various pill formulas in his mind before he picked one that was suitably cheap as well as effective. Bai Yun then took out a piece of paper and quickly wrote down all the ingredients he needed. He then handed the paper to the young man while saying, “These are all the ingredients I need to make a barrier breaking pill that can help you. I need two sets of ingredients to ensure a batch and also thirty percent of the cost of ingredients as commission.”

The young man looked over the ingredient list. But the more he looked, the greater his frown became. “This list of items looks quite different from what I got from the other alchemists. Even though all of their lists were also different, they had a lot of similar ingredients. But I can’t find any of them here. And the total cost of ingredients are also a lot less here.” The young man finally said.

“That’s because they are idiots.” Bai Yun simply replied.

“And your cost is also a lot cheaper.” The young man said. “The others asked for three sets of herbs and seventy five to a hundred percent of the cost of herbs as commission.”

“The reason I only ask for two sets is because I am confident and good enough to make the pill with just two sets. And the reason I asked for only thirty percent is because I am only starting out.” Bai Yun said.

“You are only starting out?” The young man asked with a frown.

“Yes. You are my first customer actually.” Bai Yun said with a chuckle.

Bai Yun could see that the young man was a bit disturbed by the fact that he was Bai Yun’s first customer. He realized that the young man was about to leave. But Bai Yun didn’t want to lose his first customer so easily.

“You know if you are afraid of me cheating you, we can make an agreement that if I cant produce the pill after taking your money, then I will pay you back in full. Also if you have some hidden danger from the pill, then I will pay to have it fixed. How about that?” Bai Yun proposed a deal.

For a moment the young man was deep in thought. Then he finally nodded. Actually, he didn’t have a choice after that. eE had to go for the cheaper option. For poor people like him, money was sometimes more important than their life. And he didn’t think that he could find a cheaper alchemist than Bai Yun.

Bai Yun quickly pulled out an agreement sheet and wrote down the agreement. This agreement sheet was from the alchemist association, and thus any agreement written on them was backed by them. If someone tried to break an agreement backed by them, they would find themselves blacklisted and on the run from the alchemist association. And the cost of the ingredients the young man wanted was far less than that of the rent of the store. The young man did not think that Bai Yun would cheat him for such little money.

After Bai Yun wrote up the agreement, the young man looked at it and then both of them quickly signed it. “You should quickly go and buy the necessary herbs. As I say on the board, I am only open for an hour every noon. If you waste too much time, you can only come back tomorrow to give me the herbs.” Bai Yun said.

Hearing this, the young man quickly left. Bai Yun then sat back on his chair with a smile on his face. Time quickly passed. Just as Bai Yun was about to close the door, the young man ran back in, panting. “Here are the necessary ingredients.” The young man said while handing over a bag to Bai Yun.

“Alright.” Bai Yun said while taking the bag. “You can come back tomorrow to take the pill. Make sure you prepare the thirty percent commission if you want to collect the pill.”

“Will a day be enough?” The young man asked nervously.

“Relax. A day is more than enough.” Bai Yun said.

As the young man was about to leave he turned around and looked back at Bai Yun. “Please be careful with the medicines. It took most of my savings to buy them. If something happened, I don’t know what I would do.”

“don’t worry. Since you trusted me with them, I will make sure that they came out alright. You can come back here tomorrow at noon to collect your pill.” Bai Yun reassured him with a smile.

The young man nodded and nervously left. Bai Yun closed the store, and turned around with a smile.

He finally had his first customer.