The Hu clan eagerly took over the task of researching and improving my automated alchemy factory design. Our agreement was simple. They would provide the formation expertise, and I would support them with my alchemy knowledge. At the end of the project, a comprehensive manual would be produced to explain everything we created, and we would each get a copy to use as we pleased.


    While I had only showcased the formations for Nutrition Pills in our first meeting, I had also prepared diagrams for three other Rank 0 pills in high demand among the lower classes. The key traits they had in common were that they all only needed a single herb and each of those herbs contained robust medicinal energy, so less precision would be required. I mentioned the need to look at ways to combine energies from multiple herbs, but everyone agreed that we should develop working assembly lines for these four pills first.


    The hardest part of the process was the purification assembly. I had a hard time creating such a thing, and the Hu clan had a hard time understanding why I did things the way I did. With Nutrition Pills, it wasn’t too bad because the toxins seemed to want to vaporize when touched with the slightest bit of qi, but actual technique was needed with most other herbs, and that needed to be replicated in the formations.


    I had long discussions with a Lord and several Grandmasters from the Hu clan, and they seemed to understand what would be needed for our target pills, but it would take them time to refine my designs. I offered to stay and help them with the research, but they made it clear that I would be in the way. I didn’t have the background in formations necessary to assist them.


    I wanted to argue about that, but after a bit of self-reflection, I realized it was true. I should let the professionals handle things and not get in their way. There was a risk they would try to cheat me, but our agreement, sworn on the Oath Stone, was sound enough that I didn’t have to worry. The most they could do was develop the technology in novel directions and not share the additional information with me, but that didn’t cross my bottom line.


    The Hu clan’s involvement meant I no longer had to personally focus all my attention on this project, and while Minister Tang was hard at work building my factory, he would still need weeks or months to complete it. All of this meant that I could finally set aside my obsession with automation, at least for a time.


    I wanted to advance to Martial Lord so I could begin learning Rank 4 alchemy, but at my current rate of karmic energy production, I estimated it would take several more months. I considered trying to force the issue by randomly choosing people from my city and giving them countless cultivation pills but eventually decided it wasn’t a good idea. It might be worth trying it someday to see how rapidly I could generate karmic energy, but if I was going to do it, it would be better to do it near the end of my term, not at the very beginning.


    With my active projects put on hold for the moment, I had a bit of freedom to pursue other studies.


    Learning more about general governance would be helpful, and it would have many applications for future lives here or elsewhere. I already had ideas for economic reforms, and based on my experiences in the Su clan and elsewhere, I could only guess that any justice system in this world would need a large overhaul to come anywhere close to being what I would consider ‘just.’ In Eight Flower, though, that wasn’t seen as a Lord’s responsibility. My ministers would have a fit if I started meddling in day-to-day operations, and they might elevate it above my head.


    Even without being in a position to implement such changes, I could take classes and study the roles and responsibilities of each minister to better understand governing principles, but without being able to take action, doing so felt less important.


    I also considered spending some time focusing on training my fighting skills… but no. I didn’t see the point. The Blue Wind Pavilion and Eight Flower Kingdom were tall trees shading me from most storms, and I had prepared defensive formations and poisons to defend against sneak attacks that ignored those powers. No amount of three-legged kung fu would save me if those protections fell. I would have to learn it eventually, but I could avoid it for the moment.


    The most important thing was to gain knowledge that would make obtaining the spatial fire seed easier. Anything that didn’t directly aid that mission would need to be put on hold.


    After reviewing the options open to me, I decided I needed to visit the Water Library. The thought of reading hundreds of books just to store them away in my mental library wasn’t exactly thrilling, but it was something that needed to be done.


    <hr>


    The water library was divided into seven parts, one for cultivation and martial techniques and six for the different professional skills.


    There wasn’t much to say about the cultivation and martial technique section. It was extremely lackluster, and there were only a few manuals inside that I didn’t already have a copy of.


    Moving to the professional sections, I decided to start with the two smallest ones, those for talisman artists and illusionists. There weren’t many books available here, and I could barely understand the ones that were. Overall, my impression was that these were combat-focused professions. I spent a couple of days carefully reading through all of the books, but I didn’t have the necessary background to completely grasp what they were trying to tell me. For the moment, they weren’t useful at all, and I couldn’t use them, but maybe they would be of some use in the future.


    After I was finished with those, I decided to quickly go through the alchemy books. Minister Jin had said the information here was basic and that there wouldn’t be anything rare or outstanding. He wasn’t lying. There were some books with very slight variations on what I already knew, but reading through the alchemy books provided me with almost nothing.


    The formation section was where things started to get interesting. Among the many books, there were three subsections with specific information that caught my eye: using formations in alchemy, using formations in herbalism, and using formations in beast taming. Each of these subsections had formations that were of particular use for the different professions.


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    In addition to formations for assisting other professions, I also found several types of formations requiring reagents. These included alchemy concoctions, herbalist-produced plants, or parts of beasts. I realized that formations had a deeper connection to the other professions than I previously considered.


    The herbalism section had several simple techniques for assisting in growing plants, but what caught my attention were two simple manuals. The first described growing plants needed for formations, while the second focused on plants used as feed by beast tamers. Again, this showed me how herbalism was connected to the other basic professions. Beyond herbalism helping the other professions, I also found books about using manure from beasts to boost the productivity of fields.


    Seeing a pattern here, I took out a piece of paper and wrote down these four basic professions at the corners of a square. I had already established the connection between formations and the other professions, so I drew a two-way arrow between it and the other three. With herbalism, I found information about how it was beneficial in raising beasts, so I drew a two-way arrow there. I also already knew that herbs were used in alchemy, so I drew a one-way arrow from herbalism to alchemy.


    One of the Rank 0 ‘pills’ I was working on producing with the Hu clan was a powder that acted as a type of fertilizer when spread onto fields. While it was only useful with mortal crops, there had to be variations for higher-level plants. I opened up my mental library and began quickly flipping through various recipe books. Sure enough, I found powders for assisting Rank 1 and 2 herbs grow. I completed the two-way arrow between alchemy and herbalism.


    Looking at my chart, I found that there was only one connection missing. Two-way arrows connected each of the four basic professions except for alchemy and beast taming. Did such a connection exist? Yes, it had to.


    I began reading the beast taming section, trying to find how alchemists interacted with tamers. An obvious answer was that there were pills that could be used to help beasts gain power. However, reading through various books, I couldn’t find any references to alchemical pills or powders specifically for beasts.


    Neither the beast tamer section nor the alchemist section referenced any method of the two professions interacting. Was it possible that every other profession would be interconnected, but there was simply no connection between alchemy and taming?


    I rejected that immediately. There had to be a connection. Beasts could use pills, and alchemists must somehow use parts of beasts in their concoctions. I had never heard anyone discuss the idea of using beast parts to make pills before, and the area of the Pavilion that sold things to alchemists didn’t have any animal parts for sale, but I could feel it had to be possible.


    Two important questions suddenly appeared in my mind.


    “System, how much to complete my mastery of Rank 1 alchemy?”


    Cost 9 million credits.


    Why so expensive?


    It could teach me countless herbs and recipes, but I doubted doing so would have much meaning. At this point, I had an extremely well-developed innate sense of how to use low-level herbs. Even if there were hypothetical herbs of rare elements I’d never seen before, it didn’t make sense to me that learning to use herbs I may never see in a hundred lifetimes would be so expensive. Also, if the herbs were that rare and powerful, could they really be considered part of Rank 1 alchemy?


    It might teach me some new way to boost efficacy, but again, that idea felt underwhelming. I had already spent time learning to boost most herbs, but doing so rarely justified the time and energy required. There might have been a crazy trick technique to make herbs infinitely better, but again, even if that trick existed, how could that be considered Rank 1 alchemy?


    There had to be something else, and now I had the lead I needed. I didn’t need to ask. I already knew what the answer would be. Even if the system told me I had to pay to learn the price, it wouldn’t change my conviction. Even if the price it gave me was different, I was already convinced of the truth of my answer. Still, I asked anyway.


    “System, how much to learn everything possible about the connection between beast taming and Rank 1 alchemy?”


    Cost 9 million credits.


    I smiled but decided to ask one more question, just to be sure.


    “System, how much for a complete mastery of Rank 1 alchemy excluding its connection to beast taming.”


    Cost 21,562 credits.


    So, a few bits of knowledge in the margins, but everything else was tied up with beast taming.


    I didn’t want to pay for what I could learn by myself, and nine million was a high asking price in any case. I wanted to figure things out on my own, but I wasn’t sure where to start.


    Beast taming had to have some way to supplement alchemy, that was clear to me. How? The obvious answer was parts from demon beasts could be used as ‘herbs.’ Nothing like this was mentioned in any alchemy book I had read, so I highly doubted taking any kind of alchemy class in the Mountain District would provide answers.


    I could scour the various libraries around the city, but that also seemed like it would be fruitless. This wasn’t common knowledge people would just leave out in the open. The Pavilion might be able to provide me with some leads, but that was questionable. Aside from grabbing a beast and studying it myself, I only had one other idea for where I might find information about this.


    I opened the book Pill Emperor Li had left me and started reading. I didn’t focus on the details and quickly skimmed over his explanations for Lord-level alchemy since it wasn’t useful at the moment. I only searched for any information about using parts from demon beasts when concocting.


    I flipped through the book twice, just to be sure. There was nothing. None of the recipes mentioned in the book used any type of beast material, and it didn’t even hint at the possibility.


    Returning the book to my storage space, I leaned back in my chair to contemplate.


    No one seemed to have any idea that beasts could be used to make pills. Was it possible no one had ever considered such a possibility? Maybe I was just a frog in a well, and outside this small corner of the world, such alchemy was as common as dirt. That didn’t seem right, though.


    Knowledge of how to use beast materials in alchemy had a cost of millions of credits. Could that mean no one in the world, or at least no one on this continent, knew how to do such a thing? They had to have thought of the possibility. I wouldn’t allow myself to be so arrogant as to believe I was the first to have such an idea, so if no one knew how to use beasts in alchemy, there had to be complicating factors I wasn’t aware of.


    North Lake City was the perfect place for what I needed. I didn’t need to learn beast taming, but I did need to research and study the beasts themselves, and there were a multitude of tamers in the area.


    I considered talking about this with Mei since she was likely studying taming. She hadn’t come to see me since the ceremony, though, so she seemed to be busy with her responsibilities as the city’s Chancellor. I didn’t want to disturb her, so I sent a messenger to ask her where I could go to study beast taming.


    Shortly after, a different messenger arrived. Mei suggested I go to the Ouyang clan.