“I’ve improved quite a bit, though. In the past two or three days I’ve only exploded one.” He looked at the seven or eight pill bottles lined up next to him, and his eyes shined contentedly. The pills inside these bottles were the accumulation of his two months of practice. They were only useful for the Qi Condensation stage, but the feeling of making something with his own hands left Meng Hao feeling very happy.
“Concocting pills is definitely not easy, and is clearly connected to latent talent. What’s even more important though is… concocting pills is expensive! No wonder there aren’t very many master alchemists….” Meng Hao sighed emotionally. He hadn’t felt this way back when he was an apprentice alchemist. When he had worked with Li Tao, he had only seen the respect given by outsiders, as well as Li Tao’s profits when he concocted pills for Inner Sect disciples.
After becoming a master alchemist, though, he realized that behind every truly successful alchemist existed a mountain of spent Spirit Stones. That was the only way to achieve true success. Of course, latent talent was also necessary; with only ordinary latent talent, the Spirit Stones necessary to succeed as a master alchemist could fund a small Sect.
“A pill furnace costs twenty thousand spirit stones… and that’s for the lowest level pill furnace provided by the Sect. And I’ve destroyed forty seven….” When Meng Hao thought of this, and the fact that he had to pay for all the pill furnaces, his heart ached.
“Pill furnaces are only one aspect,” he thought. “Concocting pills requires medicinal herbs, which are even more costly. Sometimes a single pill requires a combination of dozens of medicinal herbs. When you add them all together, it’s not cheap. That’s not the worst, though… What’s really killing me is… my success rate is only one in ten….” He took a deep breath as he thought of the whole situation. “The more expensive the medicinal plants, the more ancient the pill formula, the higher quality the pill… the more likely I am to fail.” He sighed emotionally.
“However, now that I’m a master alchemist, there are also a lot of perks. For example, this medallion.” He slapped his bag of holding to produce a white medallion.
It felt cold in his hands, and seemed to be made of jade… and yet not. A pill furnace was carved on one side, along with calligraphy that read “Blacklist.”
“Pill Blacklist!” Meng Hao looked at the command medallion, and his eyes filled with a strange light. This wasn’t the first time he had taken out the medallion to look at. Every time he did, his heart filled with a feeling of veneration for the position of master alchemist.
The Pill Blacklist medallion was a right given to all master alchemists by the Sect. Only one was distributed per alchemist, and could be used twice. It was the ultimate expression of the respect demanded by master alchemists, and was enough to strike fear into the heart of any member of the Violet Qi Division.
One of the main reasons that master alchemists had such a high position compared to the Violet Qi Division was because of the Pill Blacklist. The thought of being added to the Pill Blacklist would cause most Cultivators to feel an intense terror.
There was only one purpose to the Pill Blacklist. Any Violet Qi Division disciple whose name was added to the list, would be refused service by all master alchemists for a time period of one hundred years.
This had been a Sect rule for countless ages, and a power possessed solely by the East Pill Division. This arrangement caused master alchemists to command incredible respect within the Violet Fate Sect.