Krune's face was searing with pain. When he came back, he found Yusa consoling Shinja. Seeing what was happening, he couldn't understand what went wrong, so he went beside Ao to ask, "I was sure I wasn't wrong this time, and I even researched it. So why did I get kicked again?"
Ao could only sigh as he replied, "Brother, you must understand that when it's related to women, knowledge is far from enough."
Krune wasn't satisfied this time, so he waited until Yusa was back and asked her directly. "What's wrong with you? I was doing my best out there to show that I understood her feelings. Then, out of nowhere, you kick me flying? Are we really friends?"
Hearing that Krune was unapologetic, Yusa's tone turned cold as she told him, "Understand your head! You can't even see what you did wrong."
Krune didn't relent as he replied, "Tell me then! If no one tells me, how do you expect me to understand anything?"
"This is not something that women talk about with men. Just forget about it!" Yusa said in response.
"What? First, you tell me what I did was wrong, then you say you can't say what's wrong. That doesn't make any sense!"
"You're the only thing here that doesn't have sense. Shoo, shoo! Get away from us."
"What does shoo even mean?"
While the two bickered, Ao just pretended that he didn't know those idiots. He had long understood that he shouldn't intervene in their bickering whatsoever.
On the other hand, Shinja, the ice block, was doing her best to hold back her laughter. However, when Krune asked what 'shoo' meant, she finally could not help herself back. She laughed so hard that she was holding her stomach. Shinja couldn't even remember the last time she laughed so much.
In the end, Krune could not help but have a gloomy expression on his face. Shinja was also laughing at him, and he didn't know why. With that, he just thought to himself, 'The world is against the wisps. That must be it.'
Yusa's face became warmer after seeing that, though. She thought that she might have had the wrong idea about Shinja. After that, Yusa told Krune with a light sigh, "Forget about it. Just don't talk about a woman's period anymore. Look, your barbecue is about to burn."
Krune's attention immediately shifted away after hearing that. In his eyes, his barbecue was much more important than women's issues. With that, Yusa grabbed Shinja's hand and brought her over to eat some barbecue, sending her a Divine Sense message while at it.
"Remember, Krune's EQ is as good as a door's. If you don't give him a kick or two, he won't learn. Look, I just told him his barbecue was going to burn, and he completely forgot about everything that just happened."
Shinja smiled bitterly in response. Since when did she care about someone's EQ? First of all, what did even happen to her? As for Ao, he sat back down and started eating again. Krune's EQ might be inexistent, but his cooking skills were the real deal!
Krune was really different. By the time they finished eating, he had already stopped caring about who was right or who was wrong. He was happy as long as his friends were happy. They then started to move back into the city to resume their own activities. Ao was going to head back to the Mercenary Guild to use their training room while Yusa was going to check the market to buy a few things she needed. As for Krune, he had pills to be concocted at the Alchemist Guild. Along their way back, they talked about trivial things as they always did after lunch.
While that was happening, Shinja felt a bit out of place. Yusa wasn't letting go of her hand, so she was more or less forced to stay with them. Sometimes the conversation was directed at her, but she couldn't say more than a few simple words. Nevertheless, Krune's group didn't seem to care. It appeared that Krune's weirdness had already started to affect Yusa and Ao.
Yusa was the first to part ways with them, telling Shinja, "Shinja, don't forget what I said. If Krune repeats something idiotic, just give him a beating. It's that simple."
Krune was taken aback! Why give him a beating? He tried to look in Ao's direction, looking for a friend's hand, but by the time he turned his head, Ao was nowhere to be seen. In the end, he could only curse inwardly, "Traitor!"
---
After that, he went back to the Alchemist Guild. Krune had to make money, after all. Shinja stayed quiet all the time. She just looked absent-minded while he worked. In fact, her mind was in total chaos at the moment. Shinja was feeling embarrassed, sad, joyous, afraid, and other emotions at the same time.
'What's wrong with me? How could I cry just like that all of a sudden? It's all Krune, Yusa, and Ao's fault. If not for them, I would not have reached that state...yes, that must be it!'
She then remembered the time they had after that.
'But…'
She didn't want it to be over. That feeling of being part of the group without anyone expecting anything from her. The fact that if she said something, the other part would simply answer whatever way they wanted, not caring for her status or talents. How long had she dreamed of such a day to come?
In the end, it turned into a battle between her desires and her pride once again. While her internal struggle kept going, Krune had just finished another batch of pills.
"Great! I was able to concoct three Three-Star healing pills at once. The order only asked for two to be done, and any extra would be part of the alchemist's payment."
Krune had been gathering healing pills, cultivation pills, and anti-poison pills. He wanted to be prepared in case there was a need for them, so he always gave his best during the concoction to create more than the amount ordered by the customers. That way, he could take the extra pills for himself without paying a single spirit stone. Not to mention that his proficiency in pill concoction had become much higher! He was already able to synchronize more than 30% of the elements inside the pills.
Because of his high rate of success, he started to receive even more orders. Of course, he only accepted the ones that were worth his time. However, it was then that he saw a request for a pill that shouldn't be there.
"Appearance Changing Pill? Isn't this thing a Four-Star Pill? Why would someone send me an order for a Four-Star Pill?"
In fact, as a Four Star Alchemist that was accepted through other means, Krune could accept orders for Four-Star Pills too. But of course, he didn't want to catch too much attention, so he had never taken an order for Four-Star Pills. He thought it wouldn't be too late if he started concocting Four-Star Pills when he got to the late stages of Foundation Establishment. But in the end, he decided to give it a try.
Krune then took a look at the recipe and was left speechless from the sheer shock he felt. "This thing needs Star Coral!"
Although the Appearance Changing Pill wasn't that difficult to make, the Star Coral used in the recipe was extremely rare. Krune went back to check the order and noticed that it had a very high payment. 2000 high-quality Rank Three Spirit Stones!
"Holy sh*t! High quality! I will definitely succeed in this concoction!"
The order specified that he should deliver only a single pill, and any extra material or pill that remained could be part of the alchemist's payment. Since that was the case, Krune would definitely do his best.
Krune first practiced the pill concoction mentally. He revised every step. The cauldron's temperature, the elements of the herbs, the pill formation, and other parts of the concoction process, making sure that he didn't miss a single step.
An hour later, he started to work. Every step went as expected, and the Star Coral was as good as he expected it to be. No wonder it was considered a high-quality material. It was one of the easiest to include in the mix. All this time, Krune had been very cautious. There was only one Star Coral, after all. When the time came for him to form the pills, he calculated how many could be made with the medicinal liquid inside.
"Three pills! If I'm careful, I can make three pills!"
The pill formation, which should be one of the fast parts of the concoction, ended up taking him almost an hour to complete. But Krune wasn't dejected since he had done it! Three Four-Star Appearance Changing Pills! This pill was only worth it when it reached the Four-Star level. That was because any lower than this, the appearance-changing effect would only be temporary. But if the pill was Four-Star level, the change would last a lifetime!
"I've done it!"
He immediately sent the order back with one of the pills for exchange. Surprisingly, it only took a few minutes for the one who ordered it to receive the product.
"That's to be expected. Star Coral is very valuable, and I'm impressed that he even tried to concoct it here. The fact that he stayed inside the guild waiting for an alchemist to accept and finish the order shows its value."
Krune took his 2000 high-quality Rank Three Spirit Stones and put them into his ring. As for the mysterious cultivator or demon beast who ordered the pill, why would he care about it? Krune received the payment, so anything else about the pill had nothing to do with him.
He then submitted the extra two pills to be sold by the guild. Although the Appearance Changing Pill was extremely rare due to the Star Coral, the pill itself had no use for him. If it could at least change the hair color, then he would have taken one himself. However, it only changed the body's appearance. The hair, unfortunately for Krune, would still be the same, so he might as well sell it for Spirit Stones.
What he didn't expect was to receive a call from supervisor Go Gao straight away after this, asking him, "Are you sure you want to sell the Appearance Changing Pill? It's very hard to find Star Coral after all."
Krune just replied, "Yes. I have no use for it anyway, so just sell both. How much you think it would go for?"
After a bit of silence, Supervisor Go told him, "Probably something between three thousand and four thousand high-quality Rank Three Spirit Stones."
Even though Star Coral was very rare, its only use was more or less for the Appearance Changing Pill. It didn't help with cultivation or combat prowess anyway. It was also useless as a method to hide one's identity since cultivators could recognize each other through their auras. In the end, Krune could not think of any other use for it.
"That's great. Please go ahead with this price."
Later on, some news appeared in Kaley City.
'Appearance Changing Pills are being sold. There are even two of them!'
Men didn't pay much attention to that, but the women went crazy! Of course, those who could afford the three to four thousand high-quality Rank Three Spirit Stones price were very few.
Later on, Krune's group gathered together again, and Yusa and Ao could see that Krune was in an excellent mood. With that, Yusa could not help but tell him, "Seems like you made a lot of money today."
Krune nodded quite a few times as he told them, "Yes! There was a customer who ordered an Appearance Changing Pill to be concocted. In the end, I was able to concoct three of those pills at once! Other than the payment for the job, I also got two of the pills. After selling them, I ended up with almost ten thousand high-quality Rank Three Spirit Stones!" He then laughed out loud after that.
On the other hand, Yusa, and even Shinja, immediately showed shocked expressions! Yusa was the first to talk. "Those pills from the news earlier were yours? Why didn't you give me one?!"
Shinja agreed with Yusa since she also wanted one. In fact, she even had the money to buy one of them! However, because her mind had been occupied with the thoughts about Krune's group, she didn't notice that such a rare pill appeared in the market. She was even blaming herself for not noticing Krune making those pills.
There was one thing that Krune didn't know, but any woman who cared about their appearance would. The Appearance Changing Pill changed one's appearance for life. That was common knowledge. But in the case one decides not to change their body, the effect of keeping their appearance permanently would still apply. Women could take that pill to keep their young faces until the day of their deaths!
Krune, of course, paid no attention to this fact. He was trying to understand why both girls would want to change their appearance. In the end, he just considered it another quirk of humans.