Chapter 426: Ancient Immortal Prescription

In the autumn season, it was almost time to plant mulberry trees; the time around the first snow of autumn was when to plant the saplings. If one asked the cultivator masters to cast spells to seal the vitality before the snow, then when spring warmed and flowers bloomed the following year, most of the mulberry saplings could survive.

At this time, Master Chuhe was holding a lazy cat, sitting in the main seat, with the heads of the Yao and Xu brocade firms on his left and right hands respectively, while the Mi family had sent the head's son, who sat in a position further out.

Originally, the Xu brocade firm could barely squeeze into the top five, but by clinging tightly to Master Chuhe's thigh, they had already sat at his right hand.

Master Chuhe's banquet table had its own rules: whoever received more orders could sit closer to him; as for whose family business was large, the old master didn't look at that at all. That was why the Mi family sat outside the eighth or ninth position, and the head of the Mi family was even so angry he fell ill because of it. But the Mi family couldn't afford not to send someone; the eighth or ninth position was still an order for ten thousand bolts of silk brocade, so they had to come.

The atmosphere at the banquet was enthusiastic, and the heads of the Yao and Xu families had flushed faces, almost wanting to stick themselves onto Master Chuhe.

Master Chuhe coughed, and the banquet quieted down, then he said: "This time I have come, naturally there are new orders."

Everyone's eyes were burning, quietly waiting for what followed.

"This batch, I want to collect fifty thousand bolts of brocade, silk... two million catties!"

Hissing sounds arose, and all the family heads gasped. Brocade was one thing, but this quantity of silk was too terrifying; this was the rhythm of wiping out the inventories of several families!

Many people were still calculating, when the head of the Xu family said loudly: "I can take five thousand bolts of brocade and three hundred thousand catties of silk!"

All the family heads were greatly shocked. The quantity the Xu family gave was simply emptying their entire inventory; what would they use to weave brocade? Some family heads immediately recalled the Xu family's actions; they had already converted all of their own tens of thousands of acres of grain fields into mulberry gardens! Although it was too late for this year, they could start producing silk next year.

Immediately, a small family head shouted: "I am willing to take fifty thousand catties of silk!"

Master Chuhe was all smiles, beckoned to him, and said: "Come, come, come, sit a little closer!"

That small family head was both excited and somewhat uneasy, exchanging seats with the son of the Mi family head. With someone taking the lead, quite a few people followed suit, and after a while, the orders for this batch were finally gathered, and Master Chuhe returned satisfied.

After Master Chuhe left, the price of silk in Shanyang Commandery immediately skyrocketed, changing from one qian of immortal silver to three qian. A bolt of Ning brocade sold for five taels of immortal silver, and each bolt required five catties of silk, needing ten-plus craftsmen to work in relay, taking three months to weave one bolt. The craftsmen's manual labor was worth two taels, and in addition, housing, fuel, taxes, etc., were another one tael.

After the price of silk skyrocketed, weaving brocade immediately became unprofitable, so the price of brocade also rose accordingly. Although the inflow of goods from other commanderies would cause the price to slowly drop later, with such a large buyer suddenly appearing, everyone knew the price would never return to the past.

And the grain transported from Azure Void was endless, having already pressed the grain price in Shanyang Commandery back to the level of a normal year.

This time, the large order given by Master Chuhe had more silk and less brocade, instantly letting those who hoarded silk at home taste the sweetness, while those with more brocade and less silk didn't laugh so happily.

Many people learned from this matter that if you have a catty of silk, you earn the money of a catty, while brocade is not so; how much you can earn depends on the face of the silk.

Autumn was originally the harvest season, but with the influx of grain from Azure Void, countless grain farmers were worried. Most of their fields were rented from the noble families, and the rent was determined when grain prices were high at the beginning of the year; now, the grain price was less than half of what it was at the beginning of the year, and they sold all their grain and still didn't have enough to pay the field rent.

The so-called "cheap grain hurts the farmers" was verified in this autumn.

In comparison, the mulberry farmers in Shanyang Commandery were all beaming with joy, and every household was decorated with lanterns and colored streamers.

The Yao and Xu family gates were bustling, while the Mi family was quite deserted. Inside the main hall of the Mi family's ancestral residence, over a dozen clan elders gathered, and the head of the Mi family sat in the middle, still possessing unquestionable majesty.

"I still hold the same opinion: the one hundred thousand acres of grain fields are the lifeblood of the clan, and not a single bit can be moved! Hmph, Azure Void is collecting silk this year, what if they don't collect it next year? If Azure Void doesn't sell grain then, wouldn't we starve to death?"

The head of the Mi family's words were resonant; according to the past, this meant setting the tone, and the matter didn't need to be discussed again.

But this time, a clan elder said: "Azure Void exchanges grain for silk; the more silk they sell, the more grain they hoard! If they don't buy silk next year, at worst we can just convert it back to grain fields; the hoarded grain is enough to eat for several years, so we won't starve no matter what." The head of the Mi family's face immediately darkened; in recent years, very few people had dared to contradict him to his face.

Another clan elder also said: "The income from grain fields is now less than twenty percent of the mulberry gardens. Leaving so much money unearned, we must give the clansmen an explanation! It's not something you can just say a word and suppress the clansmen below."

The head of the Mi family's face was already livid, but looking at the clan elders with strange expressions, he suddenly realized that these people weren't here to discuss matters but to replace the clan head.

Azure Void, Wei Yuan took out a batch of Blood Yingluo of various grades and handed them to Xu Henshui. During this period, Xu Henshui had been testing various medicinal ingredients from the Western Regions.

Xu Henshui examined them for a long time, holding a top-grade sample that could already be called Soul Yingluo, and said excitedly: "This is it! This thing can completely replace a main medicinal ingredient in the Immortal Prescription!"

"Immortal Prescription?"

"Oh, an ancient Immortal Prescription, you don't understand yet. When your alchemy level is sufficient, I will naturally teach it to you," Xu Henshui said.

Wei Yuan looked suspiciously at that piece of Soul Yingluo; such a small piece, only a little over a catty, was worth hundreds of thousands of taels of immortal silver, but the life-extending effect was only a dozen-plus years more than ordinary Blood Yingluo. And ordinary Blood Yingluo of the same weight was only worth a little over a thousand taels of immortal silver.

Wei Yuan naturally knew what the Immortal Prescription Xu Henshui spoke of was, and the source of the True Meaning inheritance was still with Wei Yuan; what Xu Henshui saw was merely a rubbing within the Human World Renjian Yanhuo Dharma Form.

!.

Wei Yuan had also handled a few pieces of Soul Yingluo, and he just couldn't see how this thing was related to any medicinal ingredient in the Immortal Prescription. From this, one could see how great the gap in alchemy was between the two.

Xu Henshui explained to Wei Yuan in detail why Soul Yingluo could replace that ancient immortal material, but one look and he knew Wei Yuan didn't understand. However, adhering to the original intention of not giving up on every fool, Xu Henshui still lectured for a full hour.

Everything he said was recorded by Wei Yuan and simultaneously presented in the Human World Renjian Yanhuo. Thus, all this knowledge was stored, and compared and analyzed with existing knowledge, then classified and stored in the corresponding position, which made Wei Yuan's alchemy knowledge even more abundant and clearly structured.

After lecturing on the entire principle, Wei Yuan finally understood why the Lesser Year Pill was at the price of a normal life-extending pill, while the price of Blood Yingluo was several times or even hundreds of times that.

The alchemist who researched the Lesser Year Pill was, in Xu Henshui's view, of mediocre attainment, using several main medicinal ingredients with life-extending effects in the prescription. And after taking other life-extending pills containing these main ingredients, the effect of using the Lesser Year Pill would be greatly reduced.

By the same token, if one hadn't taken other life-extending pills and took the Lesser Year Pill first, it would also cause the medicinal efficacy of other similar life-extending pills to decrease.

But Soul Yingluo was different; in the past, the human race took it raw, and very few people were qualified to use it. If Soul Yingluo was taken too much, the life-extending effect decreased very slowly, but the negative medicinal effects were hard to bear.

Soul Yingluo could replace a main medicinal ingredient in the Immortal Prescription, so the research on the ancient Immortal Prescription took a big step forward.

Over the next few days, Xu Henshui improved the Lesser Year Pill's prescription, adding low-grade Blood Yingluo as the main material, and researched a new prescription. Based on this new prescription, Xu Henshui and Wei Yuan shared an alchemy room, opening the furnace simultaneously, and in this way, pointed out Wei Yuan's alchemy and corrected some bad habits common to novices when refining pills.

This time, besides Wei Yuan and Xu Henshui, all other Creation Sect disciples were present, and some people with talent for alchemy were also watching. Xu Henshui was now also a famous alchemist, and pointing them out was more than enough.

This was a rare opportunity, and Wei Yuan didn't want to miss it, so he selected hundreds of people from the boundary cultivators in one go to learn alchemy on the spot.

The auspicious time had arrived, the bell rang, and Wei Yuan and Xu Henshui put the first batch of medicinal ingredients into the alchemy furnace and began refining pills.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 427 =====