Chapter 103: Another Use for Magic Crystals

Fine.

Perhaps they were right.

Lan Qingyou, who didn't understand the first thing about business, didn't fuss over this aspect either.

However, when it came to alchemy, Lan Qingyou would absolutely never abandon this theory. That was because her recent mastery over alchemy had made her firmly believe in this point.

This theory had been especially apparent during her past few attempts at crafting new potions.

To put it simply, only with a one-to-one fairness could the potion be crafted to its most perfect state.

There was no need to say much else. One could tell simply from the difference between the soup pot Lan Qingyou used and a crucible specially made for alchemy.

One could maximize a potion's efficacy, while the other—regardless of how it was made or what methods were used as compensation—would ultimately produce a potion that was just a bit lacking.

Even a 1-point difference was still a difference.

Lan Qingyou raised her head forty-five degrees to look at the ceiling and tightly clenched her fists.

During the afternoon, Li Huai also entered the group.

He also had a title, but Lan Qingyou wasn't surprised by this point. After all, compared to the others, Shang Chuan having one was more surprising.

[Death, Li Huai. Male, 31 years old. Title: 'Commander of the Storm'.]

His arrival pushed the atmosphere of the already exceptionally lively chatroom to a new climax.

Every single one of them was especially friendly to him.

For no other reason than hoping he could test out their hypotheses.

However, all of this was built strictly upon the premise that the other party was willing and that it wouldn't cause him any harm.

Therefore, a newcomer who was originally supposed to hand out return gifts upon joining the group, under the instigation of a bunch of researchers, ended up harvesting even more things instead of giving out return gifts.

For instance, armor given by The Chariot, tomatoes given by The Empress, floating orbs given by Wheel of Fortune, and a deck of playing cards given by The Magician.

The High Priestess was even more exaggerated, directly giving him various magical stones that could fill his entire belt.

As a successful third-generation heir back on Blue Star, Li Huai could naturally see what these people were intending.

But this wasn't important.

After all, freely using the items created by these researchers and offering feedback wasn't an experience just anyone could enjoy.

Moreover, he had done similar things in the past.

Of course, the most important reason was that to him, these things truly had their respective utility.

Although they couldn't compare to his own talent, what if they produced unexpected effects during critical moments?

Over the next few days, Lan Qingyou took lessons from Professor Samayel, absorbed papers from the forum, and crafted potions concurrently.

In short, she lived an extremely fulfilling life every single day.

Of course.

To give the other party a taste of sweetness, Lan Qingyou would also occasionally impart some of her own insights and theories to him.

For example, Albert's two catchphrases, "Alchemy is omnipotent" and "Alchemy emphasizes equivalent exchange," left the little old man so overjoyed he couldn't find his bearings.

He worked even harder at his teachings.

"Speaking of which, it seems magic crystals had another use... What was it again?"

Looking at the wooden box containing two hundred magic crystals sent over by The High Priestess, Vivian, Lan Qingyou fell into a state of reminiscence.

She was certain there was still something else of hers that required the use of magic crystals.

But after suddenly acquiring so many, she actually couldn't recall it in the moment!

What was it again?

Hm...

Why think so hard! She just had to head to the storage room to take a look and she'd know!

Thus, Lan Qingyou immediately headed to her storage room, which had been turned into a constant temperature environment thanks to the Spring of Rest.

She rummaged around and found quite a lot of food she had hoarded previously.

It was just that because there wasn't a constant temperature previously, many things that seemingly could be stored had already spoiled, emitting a foul odor.

"Sheesh! It's only been a little over half a month and it's already ended up like this. Tsk, tsk."

While sighing with emotion, Lan Qingyou used her card to stuff all these boxes containing spoiled food inside and dumped them beneath the tree.

After rummaging for over ten minutes, she finally found those familiar glass bottles.

Instantly, Lan Qingyou's memories were invoked.

Butterfly chrysalises. Right, it was this thing.

Now that her herb fields were already formed, she could have the butterflies pollinate the medicinal herbs after they hatched.

How did the Monster Compendium she read previously phrase it again?

It seemed she had to hang them with the large head pointing up and place them in a humid, dark, and semi-enclosed space devoid of sunlight. One butterfly chrysalis corresponded to one magic crystal.

This was a bit tricky to handle!

Right now, apart from wooden boxes, she had nothing on her that could be considered 'semi-enclosed'...

Crucially, she still needed to hang them up, but there were no hooks on the top of the wooden boxes.

What should she do in times like this?

Naturally, it was to seek out her omnipotent groupmates!

Thus, she directly went to The Chariot to order a hundred needles and a few hanging hooks.

These sorts of things were truly too simple for The Chariot, Orff. He swiftly got them organized for Lan Qingyou in three quick moves and five chops.

Using a hook to open a few tiny holes on either side of the box to ensure ventilation, she sprinkled in some Spring of Rest to pad the bottom. Finally, inserting the hanging hook into the wooden box's lid meant she was more than half done.

What remained was to use a needle to string the butterfly chrysalises and magic crystals together and hang them onto the hooks.

Since the magic crystals in her hands were defective goods, Lan Qingyou added an extra one as insurance.

Over twenty butterfly chrysalises equated to using up over fifty magic crystals.

However, it didn't matter. Since she now had a channel for magic crystals anyway, she could just have The High Priestess make some for her anytime.

Not to mention, the current situation was that she couldn't use all of them up regardless.

One hundred magic crystals were enough to upgrade her shelter to Level Five.

Thinking about how fifty thousand energy points could be consumed over thirteen to fourteen hours, Lan Qingyou couldn't help but nod in satisfaction.

After all, no longer needing to force herself awake while sleeping to charge the shield's core, and being able to sleep soundly—wasn't this better than anything else?

As for moving locations, Lan Qingyou had considered it.

But now that the magic crystals—the most crucial item for upgrading—were in her hands, what remained was waiting for Shang Chuan to gather the materials for her over on his end.

Under these circumstances, Lan Qingyou felt it was better to wait until she upgraded to Level Five before moving the items on the third floor all the way up to the fifth floor.

She would treat it as slacking off; after all, she didn't have the time to move things twice.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

On this day—or more accurately, the day before the mana tide was about to arrive—Shang Chuan had finally gathered all the materials she needed.

Originally, Lan Qingyou felt that since they were all ores, it should be very easy.

However, what she hadn't expected was that it was precisely these ores that stumped Shang Chuan.

Especially the orichalcum ore, gold ore, and obsidian.

He had originally thought they would be very easy to gather. Who knew that after searching for half a day, he would finally discover that orichalcum veins and gold veins fundamentally didn't exist in the Abandoned Land.

Meanwhile, the obsidian had always been sold exclusively by Li Huai.

Crucially, because this fellow needed to 'test' things recently, he hadn't gone to the volcano to mine obsidian at all.

So Shang Chuan was constantly urging him.

In the end, this fellow managed to procure ten thousand pieces of obsidian for him in half a day, and even got ahold of gold ore.

Mm, being able to obtain gold ore inside a volcano was also reasonably fair.