Alex walked out of the Alchemy hall at around 10 pm. He had managed to make 8 mortal grade Qi Improvement Pills.
"Do I go sell them now? Or should I register one at the disciple hall first?" he stopped for a moment to decide.
To take the test to become an inner sect disciple, the first requirement was 10 different mortal-grade pills. This meant he had to somehow find 10 different recipes, and create a mortal grade for each of them.
Every time he made one, he would have a chance to register them as one of his 10 pills. Once he made 10 pills, he would be given the opportunity to become an inner sect disciple.
He didn't however hear anyone talk about what the test was to become an inner sect disciple, however.
After more than a second of contemplation, he decided to go to the disciple hall.
Walking along the festival-like valley road, he quickly reached the Black Ranking rock. He hadn't come here since getting his nameplate the first day. When he saw his name that time, it was dead last in the ranking.
He wondered where he was now. It didn't take him more than a few minutes to find his name. However, he was happy it even took him that long.
The total number of names on the list was 4883. His name was on the 4545th ranking. He had earned more than 300+ disciples. Most of them were probably newcomers like him, but just the fact that he got that ranking made him happy.
He walked over to the other side and checked his name there. However, on this site, his name was near the last place. From what he could infer, he didn't have any alchemy achievements at the moment.
He walked into the disciple hall and quickly got into a line. When his turn came along, he handed the inner sect disciple working there the 10% harmony pill.
"I wish to register this pill." He said.
The disciple took the pill and used a pill tester to check the harmony. After confirming that he had indeed brought out a mortal-grade pill, the disciple took up a medallion and place it on his forehead.
'Since the medallion is also part of the sect running formation, I wonder if he is checking for something.' Alex was intrigued.
The disciple was indeed checking for something. He was checking Alex's purchase history at the sect market. Anything bought and sold from the official stalls where the elder stayed was recorded in the sect running formation.
The disciple was checking if the pill Alex brought in matched what he had bought in the sect. This was a way of finding out if the disciple had indeed made the pill or not. Another thing he was checking was also the pill room usage by Alex.
Once he found that Alex had in fact bought the items for the pill the day before, and had just gone into a pill room about 3 hours ago, he registered the pill under Alex's name.
The disciple then handed back Alex's nameplate but kept the pill. Alex knew they kept the pill brought for registering, which was why he decided to use the lowest harmony pill in the first place.
Once he was done, he walked out and checked the Alchemy Achievement rankings again.
His name had somehow jumped from the 4800s to 4234.
"Wow. Does that mean almost 600 outer sect disciples had yet to succeed in making a pill?"
He left and went to the sect market. He arrived there in less than 5 minutes. He got in a line and waited for his turn at one of the sect stalls.
He walked up and put out all the remaining 7 pills to sell them.
"I wish to sell these, elder." He said to the elder working in the stall.
This was the same bald elder with wrinkles and streaks of white on his hair and beard. The elder took the pill bottles and checked the pills inside.
Once he confirmed they were indeed mortal-grade pills, he took out a pill tester and tested them.
12%,12%,12%,14%,15%,15%, and 16%.
The elder calculated and said, "You can sell these for 226 points."
"226? But elder I bought 7 sets of ingredients for 420 points, so why are the pills selling for half the price of the ingredients?" he was confused.
"This must be your first time selling a pill in the sect market. We reduce the price of pills for 2 reasons. First, it is to discourage the disciples from bringing pills from the outside, and selling them for easy contribution points."
"Secondly, if we don't sell the pills for fewer points, a skilled disciple could use just 60 points to buy a set of ingredients, sell the pill for 60 points, then buy another set, and sell another pill, and on and on. This way the sect will soon go into a points crisis."
"This way, the sect can run properly, without having to worry about the same 60 points clearing the entire sect garden."
"So, do you want the points or not?" the elder asked.
Alex sighed, and said, "Yes I do, elder." He handed the elder his nameplate.
"You want to buy anything?" the elder asked.
Alex wanted to, but he had his own idea about what he needed to do.
"No, thank you." He rejected the offer.
The elder handed him his nameplate back with 226 points. Alex walked out of the market and walked along the night streets.
He didn't need to become an aid anymore, as he could make pills himself. What he needed now were contribution points to buy the alchemy ingredients. And from his experience, the best way to earn contribution points was by selling monster corpses, cores, and materials.
So, the first thing on his agenda was to go out and kill some monsters. And, to kill monsters easily and successfully, he needed to learn some battle techniques.