It took me years to perfect the Master Alchemist techniques that existed in the sect. The primary problem came down to managing my fire seed. The sect had several techniques and methods for working with a spirit fire, but I needed to learn to adapt and change them.


    During this time, my focus was on alchemy, and that was where I spent almost all my personal time, but I also cultivated to save up enough qi to push myself to Martial Grandmaster 2. This had involved filling my dantian to the limit and compressing it down. Jiao guided me during this, but it wasn’t necessary. Everything went smoothly and I was able to take a step forward.


    This advancement made my qi more powerful, so I needed to use less, but I also had to cultivate harder to restore what I did use. In total, I saw no real impact to my efficiency from advancing, so for me, the overall impact was not much. This experience suggested that advancing as a Grandmaster was only impactful for people like fighters, where quick power could be worth more than endurance.


    My main task these years had been working for the sect and producing pills for the faction, but everyone always maintained the fa?ade that everything I made was mine and that I was selling it to the sect for contribution points. Because the produced pills were ‘mine,’ I was allowed to send a small portion of them to Bao for him to sell in the outside world.


    What I sent him was just a tiny fraction of what I made, since I wanted to maintain my polite fiction with the sect, but a steady supply of nearly perfect Rank 2 pills was a fortune in this part of the world. Bao used the profits to set up an intelligence-gathering organization across the Wastes to gather any information I might find useful.


    He couldn’t extend his reach outside, since the economics were completely different outside of the Wastes, but paying dozens of mortals to gather information inside was nearly free when compared to what I could produce.


    Significantly more money was spent buying technique manuals. I was surprised to learn that there were only two sects in the Wastes. One, the Twin Mountains, had a group focused on alchemy, while the other, the Verdant Fields Sect, focused on herbalism. The other professions were not represented.


    There were only four significant powers within the Wastes. The two sects, the Su Clan, and the Blue Wind Pavilion. Any information about the world outside, or more powerful techniques from the outside world, would have to come from one of them. The two sects didn’t share information with outsiders, and the Su Clan outright rejected overtures from Bao’s people, so the only source of information was the Blue Wind Pavilion. They were willing to sell it, but it didn’t come cheap. Even with my steady stream of Rank 2 pills, Bao was only able to get his hands on a few weak Rank 2 techniques.


    Over the years, I gathered a handful of Rank 1 herbalism techniques and a few formations techniques, but nothing about beast tamers or refiners. The few Rank 2 techniques I got were for herbalism. The quality of everything seemed slightly dubious, but I still diligently copied it down. I couldn’t use the information without the appropriate qi, but I had it for the future.


    Aside from techniques, he also gathered an assortment of random bits of information about happenings around the Wastes, but it was all pretty tame. The only bit that interested me was that this year, sects from outside the Wastes were recruiting disciples. Such a recruitment happened once every 10 years, and it offered a different path for leaving this part of the world in future lives.


    Aside from Bao, I also pillaged everything I could from the faction’s technique hall. There wasn’t much new, but they had the Rank 3 version of the Mid-Profound wood and fire qi cultivation technique. I couldn’t copy it into my library, so instead, over the course of years, I slowly copied everything onto small ten-centimeter by ten-centimeter sheets of paper. I wrote as small as I could, but there were several diagrams in the book that were difficult to copy and took significantly more time. Each time I finished a sheet, I tucked it safely away in my storage.


    At the end of six years of practice, I determined that my practice with Rank 2 techniques was complete. It was time to move on.


    <hr>


    “Alright,” said Jiao, “now you have the foundation you need. This should have all been passed on to you by Elder Mu… Anyway, we can start with Rank 3. You’ve got the techniques memorized, right?”


    “Yes,” I said confidently. Rank 3 techniques were too powerful to use on Rank 2 herbs, so I couldn’t practice them except in the air, but I had studied them enough to have a solid understanding. They differed from Rank 2 a bit, but the differences mainly centered around focusing and directing significantly higher quantities of qi.


    “Okay, here, take a look,” she said, handing me an herb.


    It had the same mess of toxins I had seen in the ones last time.


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    “So, there are pockets of toxins trapped within medicinal energy, right? You have two options there. Do them first or save them for last. Doing them first allows you to throw away the herb if you mess up without wasting time on the rest of it, but you need practice more than anything. Clean up the easy spots first as practice, then do the harder bits. Save the enclosed bits for last. If you burn off too much efficacy there, it is what it is. You just need to do better the next time.”


    I did as she suggested. Using a combination of spirit fire and fire qi, I began burning away the toxins at the edges. My flame made quick work of them, slicing and incinerating them cleanly. Then, I approached the medicinal energy and cleaned around it.


    I had learned a technique to make my flame incredibly smooth on one side so that it could get right up against the medicinal energy and clean it without any risk. The downside of the technique was that it made the opposite side of the flame wild and completely uncontrollable, so I had to ensure that it was always pointed away from the important parts.


    After that, I had to work on bits of toxic energy that formed a kind of weave with the medicinal energy. This was more difficult since having any part of the flame uncontrolled in tight confines would be a disaster. Instead of boring through the weave, I trimmed it on one side and then the other, slowly flipping back and forth until the toxins were gone.


    Finally, I had to do the globs of energy toxins that had been completely surrounded. There was no perfect way to handle this. Ideally, I would have affinities that would let me control the medicinal energy and expel the toxins to where they could be easily erased, but I didn’t have that luxury.


    I formed my fire into the thinnest needle I could and punctured the medicinal energy. Instead of creating a small pinprick, a large hole opened up. I slowly passed energy through the hole and into the cavity to begin removing toxins.


    At that point, I finally slipped. The needle that was guiding the energy into the cavity sputtered and a small lick of flame danced out and hit the side of the opening. After that, a series of chain reactions caused the herb to completely collapse.


    “That was good,” said Jiao, “really good. You did much better than in the past. Once you have some practice with Rank 3 herbs, you’ll do great.”


    “Thanks,” I said. “Using the techniques, it wasn’t as draining as I expected. Once I get this down, I should be able to manage several a day.”


    “That’s the spirit,” she said, “but remember, Rank 3 herbs are expensive, and you can’t destroy too many. Our goal is to make money, not burn it, right? So, be a little more careful. You were doing your best to make a top-of-the-line High-Purity pill there. You wanted to eliminate everything. That isn’t exactly needed.”


    “What?” I asked, confused. “Isn’t that the goal? Get rid of all the toxins?”


    “No,” she said firmly, “the goal is to make money. Burning herbs in pursuit of perfection is not how to do that. If some of the toxins are difficult, leave them. A Mid-Purity pill is always more valuable than no pill. You didn’t have to worry about this much at lower levels, but these herbs are significantly more valuable, so we need to be more careful.”


    She was right, of course. I had long since stopped making anything but High-Purity pills. In my book, anything else was defective, but now, I was entering a new stage with exponentially more expensive herbs. I needed to make everything count, and if that meant avoiding toxins that appeared too tricky, that’s what I would have to do. Some trapped toxins would have to just remain trapped if the cost of destroying them risked the collapse of the herb. Don’t let perfection be the enemy of good enough.


    Slowly, I got to work.


    <hr>


    “What do you think?” I asked Jiao a week later.


    “Mid-Purity and I’d say with about 72% efficacy,” said Jiao, “but I’ll need to take it to one of the deacons to be sure.


    My smile dropped a bit. The efficacy was lower than I wanted. I had hoped for at least 80%.


    Seeing my expression, Jiao laughed. “Don’t worry too much. This one is good. The herbs we’re sending you aren’t the best, so this result is expected. If they were easier to work with, you might have gotten higher purity, and I’m sure the efficacy would be better. 72% is good for the materials you’re working with. It’s profitable, at least.”


    “Alright, I understand,” I said with a bit of a sigh.


    “How many do you think you can do a day?” she asked.


    I wasn’t sure what a normal disciple could manage, and that hurt me here. I couldn’t lowball it or my answer could be scrutinized too much, but I didn’t want to commit everything either. Thinking about all the energy costs and comparing them to my regeneration, I figured I could easily make twelve a day right now, but there was a lot of room for improvement.


    “Eleven,” I said with confidence. “Right now, I believe I can do eleven like this one. With better herbs that require less work, maybe a few more, I’m not sure. I need to work on efficiency though. I’m not sure how far I can take it, but I should be able to reduce the energy requirement.”


    “Hmm,” said Jiao, “working on your alchemy now is important, but you will be able to make more as you advance your cultivation. Let’s put the number at ten each day for now. Once you make more progress, and you can make solid High-Purity pills, we can look at getting you some ingredients to make a couple of Rank 3 Qi Gathering pills for yourself, but we shouldn’t do that now. No reason to add extra pill toxins to your body unless you have to.”


    Whether it was just the faction being cheap or they were really concerned about my pill toxins, I still agreed with the sentiment. I didn’t want to rush my cultivation. Aside from any problems that may come from doing so, my main concern was that it would mean I needed to make more pills every day, and that would chew into my free time for my extracurricular studies. The most important of which was learning fighting techniques.


    I had pillaged everything I could from this part of the sect, and I had my sights set on grabbing all the techniques from the other peak. As an inner sect disciple, that was allowed, but because of what I had been told, I believed visiting the Martial Peak with zero martial knowledge was simply a death wish. I needed to prepare.