Chapter 475: Improvement of Alchemy Skills
Qingyang's alchemy skills certainly did not fall behind. Besides practicing, he did the most alchemy. In recent years, Qingyang made almost all the Qi-gathering pills by himself. He kept the ones with better quality for himself, and sold the ones with poorer quality to others.
In the past few years, Qingyang took as many as three or four hundred pills. In the end, he not only did not spend any spirit stones on this, but also had a small surplus.
Of course, this was due to the improvement of his alchemy skills. As early as when he just broke through the Qi Refining Stage, Qingyang was already a quasi-Qi Refining Alchemist. The value of the materials for refining a pill is about one-fourth of the finished pill. With the success rate of about 20% of Qingyang's quasi-Qi Refining Alchemist, he could barely break even. In other words, the value of the pills Qingyang made was basically the same as the total of all the materials he used, except for the labor cost.
However, as Qingyang's strength increased and the number of pills he refined increased, his success rate in refining pills also continued to increase, from 20% to 30%, and then to nearly 40%. A 40% success rate is almost the limit for Qi-refining cultivators. There are so many Qi-refining alchemists in the entire Alchemy Academy, but not many can achieve this success rate.
Alchemists who achieve a 30% success rate can basically make money, and a 40% success rate can make more profit. Therefore, every time Qingyang purchases a batch of materials for refining Qi-gathering pills, after refining the Qi-gathering pills, he keeps a portion of the good quality for himself and sells the rest of the pills to others. The spirit stones earned are just enough to buy the next batch of materials, which forms a virtuous circle. Without spending his own spirit stones, there are enough pills to take.
Considering that in the future, if you want to refine foundation-building pills, you must improve your alchemy skills to the level of foundation-building alchemists before that. The pills used by foundation-building cultivators to improve their cultivation are mainly Yangyuan pills, so Qingyang also purchased a batch of materials and tried to refine them.
As a result, there were many failures and almost no successes. Ten portions of materials often failed to refine even one Yangyuan pill. The materials for one Yang Yuan Dan require two or three Lingshi, and ten materials require twenty or thirty Lingshi to buy. It would be a lie to say that he didn't feel sad to waste so much at one time. Qingyang didn't dare to try it easily. He often tried to refine it once after a long period of time when he felt that the state was almost adjusted.
Over the years, Qingyang had wasted hundreds of Lingshi of materials, and he succeeded a few times. Almost ten materials could successfully refine one Yang Yuan Dan. The success rate of 10% was far from the level of a foundation-building alchemist, and he needed more practice in the future.
As for the materials for the foundation-building pill, Qingyang has collected some in recent years, but the number is not large, and it is still a long way to collect ten. In recent years, Qingyang has been practicing in seclusion within the sect, and has no additional source of income. The welfare of the inner courtyard and the income of the farming courtyard have all been spent on improving the alchemy skills, and there is no extra financial resources for large-scale purchases.
Unless he encounters a special material that is rarely seen in normal times and is extremely important for refining the foundation-building pill, Qingyang will find a way to buy it back. For this reason, Qingyang also sold some spiritual wine at a low price. As for those common and expensive materials, we can only wait and buy them anytime, until there are enough spirit stones in the future.
Regarding the descendants of Cao Du, no useful clues have been obtained in these years. Qingyang has also asked about it, but the time is too long, and many things have been forgotten. Some people remember that there was a Feng Yan in Qingfeng Hall, but no one knows where she went later.
Qingyang has carefully calculated that the disciples of the immortal sect who have not broken through after reaching a certain age will basically find a way out on their own. If they find a way out on their own, there are many places to go. It is possible to find a place with sufficient spiritual energy to build a hut and continue to practice; it is possible to leave the Jiuzhou Continent to look for opportunities; it is possible to live in seclusion and spend the rest of your life; it is also possible to live in other scattered cultivation cities.
However, in summary, not many people choose the first three options, because cultivators are used to dealing with cultivators. It is very troublesome to do anything by themselves. There is no place to buy pills, and scattered cultivation cities are their best choice, safe and convenient.
Qingyang's friend Tian Shengcai made this choice. Three years ago, Tian Shengcai finally broke through to the fourth level of Qi Refining, but he was already over 50 years old. Although he had not reached the age limit for the sect's outer courtyard disciples, Tian Shengcai felt that it was meaningless to stay here. He didn't know how he hooked up with Sang Qinglan from the errand courtyard, so the two gave up their status as disciples of Qingfeng Hall and went back to Tujiao City in Yongzhou to live together.
When you first join a sect, you choose a hope. If your qualifications are high enough or your luck is good enough, you will soar into the sky after crossing that threshold, while those who don't can only retreat sadly. When Tian Shengcai first joined Qingfeng Hall, his age had reached the limit. His qualifications were average and his luck was not good enough. It was normal for this result to appear in the end.
However, with the strength of Tian Shengcai and Sang Qinglan, although they will not do much after returning to Tujiao City, they can still build a small immortal cultivation family. In the future, if we give birth to more qualified offspring and train them better, we will be able to gain a foothold in Tujiao City gradually. With time, it will not be impossible to become a family like the Liang family in Yuling City.
Then it is very likely that Feng Yan went to a large city for independent cultivators. However, there are many large cities for independent cultivators in the entire Jiuzhou Continent, and they are distributed in various places. The distance is measured in thousands of miles, and it takes a lot of effort to find out. Although I promised Cao Du and took the benefits he gave me, I can't delay my cultivation because of this matter. I can only take it one step at a time.
While thinking about it, Qingyang suddenly felt a wave of fluctuations coming from the formation outside his yard. It seemed that someone was looking for him, so Qingyang got up and went outside.
The one who came to find Qingyang was Chen Biwang. Now he is also a disciple of the inner courtyard of Qingfeng Hall, and his cultivation has reached the eighth level of Qi Refining. In the original Chaos Demon Valley trial, Chen Biwang's performance was not very good. He only got things worth more than 200 spirit stones. After deducting the ones that needed to be handed over to the sect, he finally only got a little over 200 spirit stones.
In order to obtain the Demon-Seeking Order, Chen Biwang gave Qingyang and Lu Dingshan three hundred spirit stones each. The gain of more than two hundred spirit stones was not commensurate with the previous efforts. However, in addition to these gains, Chen Biwang's cultivation level was also greatly improved. He broke through to the sixth level of Qi Refining directly in the Chaos Demon Valley. The improvement in cultivation level could not be bought with spirit stones, so it was not too much of a loss.