“Good wine!”
Chen Lin exclaimed in praise.
Zhao Zhengyuan smiled proudly, "Of course, this is a skill passed down in my family. I can survive in this city only because of this skill."
"Well, Brother Zhao's winemaking skills are indeed amazing."
Chen Lin nodded, then looked at the other party and said, "By the way, didn't Brother Zhao say some time ago that he was going to refine pills? How is it going?"
Zhao Zhengyuan's face fell.
The feeling of smugness disappeared in an instant.
"Oh, don't mention it."
Zhao Zhengyuan sighed and shook his head repeatedly.
But he immediately raised his chin high, squinted his eyes and sneered, "How can a mere alchemy trick stump me? I, Zhao Zhengyuan, come from an alchemy family!"
The corners of Chen Lin's mouth twitched involuntarily, and he sneered in response, "Yes, yes, with Brother Zhao's perseverance and talent, he will succeed sooner or later."
Zhao Zhengyuan smiled bitterly and returned to normal, saying, "I'll borrow your blessing. It's a pity that my inheritance is incomplete, otherwise there might really be a slight possibility."
Chen Lin grinned and said nothing more.
Communicating with the people here is a real torture.
Because they themselves seem to be unaware of such abnormalities.
The two began to drink in silence.
"By the way, Brother Zhao, everyone says that refining pills is difficult, is it really that difficult?"
Seeing that he had finished drinking more than half a bottle of wine and eating almost all the meat and porridge, Chen Lin finally began to ask for the information he wanted to know.
Although the other person's temperament may change at any time, if you cannot leave, you can only blend in, and when they are not "sick", everyone is still normal.
The resources here are extremely scarce, and with his status he cannot buy any elixirs that can improve his cultivation.
Otherwise, he would not have thought of using the spiritual rice porridge to break through the bottleneck.
And he didn't want to stay in this strange place any longer. He was determined to break through the middle stage of Qi training and then escape from here.
So, he decided to make the elixir himself.
With the ability to hit the target ten times out of ten, he would be able to refine it as long as he had the tools, materials and recipe.
Zhao Zhengyuan was also a little tipsy, exhaling a breath of alcohol and said, "What do you think? If it wasn't difficult, why would even the lowest-grade Qi-boosting pill be so expensive?"
"That's true. I heard that even in those foundation-building families, each family only has one alchemist. If you succeed, Brother Zhao, you can immediately go to the inner city to enjoy life. Don't forget me when the time comes!"
Chen Lin filled the other person's glass with wine and said casually, "Brother Zhao, since you have already started trying to make pills, you must have mastered the recipe. What kind of pill is it? Can you tell me about it?"
Zhao Zhengyuan paused, sneered, and glanced at Chen Lin, "Why, you want to make pills too?"
Without waiting for Chen Lin to speak, he continued, "It's not that easy to refine the elixir. I advise you to study the art of making talismans."
Chen Lin didn't care even though his thoughts were seen through.
There are so many people who want to learn alchemy, so it is normal for him to want to learn.
But since it has been made clear, he might as well go straight to the point.
"Yes, I do want to learn alchemy. My cultivation has been stuck at the second level of Qi training for more than 20 years. I am afraid that I can't break through without the help of elixirs. But you also know that the elixirs in the city are controlled by big families. It is impossible for low-level independent cultivators like us to buy them. So I came up with the idea of refining the elixir myself. No matter what, I will give it a try so that I won't leave any regrets."
Chen Lin's words made Zhao Zhengyuan sigh as well.
He felt the same way.
It is too difficult for casual cultivators, especially low-level casual cultivators.
After hesitating for a moment, he shook his head and said, "I do have a recipe for the elixir. If you want, I can sell it to you. But I have to say in advance that this recipe is flawed. Don't accuse me of lying to you."
"What defect?"
Chen Lin immediately asked.
Zhao Zhengyuan fumbled in his arms for a while, and took out a yellowed paper roll. He held it under his hand and said, "The pill recipes are all passed down by ancient cultivators, but with the changes in the world of immortality cultivation, some ancient spiritual medicines have been cut off. The current pill recipes are all modified by the alchemists themselves after many attempts to find alternative spiritual medicines, so the pill recipes are so rare."
As he spoke, he unfolded the paper, revealing the densely packed tiny handwriting on it.
After touching the writing for a while, he sighed and said, "Although the recipe I got has been modified, it may be very old. One of the spiritual medicines is now scarce, and the value of the spiritual medicine itself has far exceeded the value of the pill.
I replaced it with a cheap elixir based on its properties, but it is still unknown whether I can make the elixir."
"Replace yourself?"
Chen Lin tapped the table with his fingers, a look of doubt on his face.
"hehe."
Zhao Zhengyuan's temperament changed, and he sneered and said, "Fellow Daoist Chen, even though I have never refined any elixirs, I come from an elixir-refining family and have done in-depth research on pharmacology and efficacy. It is not difficult for me to improve an elixir formula!"
"Really? Then let me see what you replaced it with?"
Chen Lin ignored the other party's morbid bragging and reached out to grab the pill recipe.
But he was blocked by the other party.
Zhao Zhengyuan rolled up the recipe again and said, "If you want it, three hundred spirit stones!"
“It’s expensive.”
Chen Lin retracted his hand, slurped a mouthful of porridge and said.
"This is a pill recipe, and it's a pill recipe for increasing your cultivation. Three hundred spirit stones are still expensive? If you buy it through normal channels, you can't buy it no matter how many spirit stones you have!"
Zhao Zhengyuan glared and said angrily.
Chen Lin shook his head. "What you said is a normal recipe. Your recipe is basically useless. Who would buy it? How about this? I'm just using it for research anyway. I'll give you 20 spirit stones. Just consider it as a hobby."
"Twenty spirit stones? Are you kidding me? What kind of pill recipe can be bought at this price? Do you think it's your great power talisman?"
Zhao Zhengyuan shouted angrily.
Chen Lin stopped talking and just drank his porridge.
If the other party didn't want to sell, he would have walked away long ago. Since he didn't, it means that he is very eager to sell.
He was not sure whether his innate abilities would be effective for such a flawed recipe, and was unwilling to invest too much.
On top of that, he was also very poor.
Sure enough, Zhao Zhengyuan snorted for a while, but finally let go.
"How about a little more, fifty bucks? And you have to swear not to tell anyone else about it."
Chen Lin could accept this price, and nodded, "Okay, but I'd like to trouble Brother Zhao to explain to me the common sense and precautions of alchemy."
After one stick of incense.
Zhao Zhengyuan left in frustration, looking as if he had been taken advantage of.
Chen Lin took the recipe and looked at it carefully.
After being immersed in it for an unknown amount of time, he heard a low sound from the bronze bell placed in the corner of the room. His face changed and he immediately stood up and walked to the window. He opened it a crack and looked out with a gloomy face.
It is already midnight.
Except for the sound of snowflakes flying in the sky mixed with the cold wind, the city was silent.
Sudden.
A red light appeared from a yard not far away.
Straight to the sky!
Followed by the second, third, and tenth articles.
In the blink of an eye, countless tiny lights appeared above the entire city.
Densely packed yet orderly, they rushed into the dark sky, with no end in sight.
It was such a spectacular sight that even the snowstorm was dispersed, but not a single monk in the city came out to take a look.
It is still quiet.
It lasted for nearly a quarter of an hour before the red lines slowly faded and disappeared.
The wind started to blow again, and snowflakes began to fall.
Chen Lin stood there for a while, then closed the window again and walked back to the table.
This scene has existed ever since he traveled through time.
This happens every day at midnight.
The rest of the time everything was normal.
After a month of investigation, he found that each of these red lines was actually connected to a person, but he didn't know what they were used for.
Moreover, the people connected by the thin wire seemed to have no feeling at all. He had asked many people indirectly, but they all looked confused.
Even the original owner had no memory of this situation.
So he suspected that the people here, including the original owner, could not see this strange scene at all, just like they could not realize that they always squinted their eyes and sneered.
His lack of knowledge made it impossible for him to guess the cause, and with his current level of cultivation, he was not capable of investigating.
All he could do was to quickly improve his cultivation to the middle stage of Qi training, so that he could have some ability to survive in the wild, and then escape.