Li Tianxiang thought to himself as he followed the sisters, May and Lan, around the abandoned alley that was filled with sewage. Would anyone really live in such a place? Did May really want to find someone to repair her staff?
However, a flash of red solid wood interrupted Li Tianxiang's speculation.
"We're here."
Li Tianxiang was awakened by Lan's crisp voice. He raised his head and saw a red wooden door about three meters tall embedded in a grayish-black stone wall.
Li Tianxiang tried his best to raise his head, but he could not see the top of the high wall. All he could see was that it reached out into the sunlight, like a black sword stabbing into the sky.
Lan gathered some magic power in her hand and pressed her hand against the door. There was a flash of light and a creaking sound. Then, the thick wooden door slowly opened by itself.
"Come in."
Following Lan's footsteps, Li Tianxiang walked into the towering building.
The moment he entered the building, Li Tianxiang was dumbfounded. He was greeted by a pile of all kinds of cloth.
"This is the back door of the laundry room. Who would open the front door of their house on the back street?"
Upon seeing the strange expression on Li Tianxiang's face, Lan naturally knew what he was thinking and explained with some amusement.
Li Tianxiang nodded in understanding and followed the two sisters down the dim corridor to a round arched door.
"This is the main hall. Wait here for a while. We'll go get someone and get changed at the same time."
Lan didn't care at all when it came to changing her clothes. She even lifted up her collar and started fanning herself. She complained that the dirty water sticking to her clothes and skin was unbearable.
Meanwhile, May's face had already turned as red as a cooked prawn. She kept urging her younger sister to hurry back to her room and remind her of her ladylike behavior.
Fortunately, before the two of them left, they called the servants over and led Li Tianxiang to a room by the side of the hall to wait.
After a while, while Li Tianxiang was playing with a teacup in the Schariac family house, a hearty voice came from the door of the room.
"I heard that my two good daughters found me a great client?"
After the voice was heard, a middle-aged man wearing a red outfit walked in. His eyes were squeezed into a slit and he had a red nose.
After all, Li Tianxiang had studied etiquette for a semester. Thus, he quickly stood up and performed a standard salute.
"Don't put on such a fake act."
The middle-aged man waved his hand, as if he was disgusted by the complicated etiquette. This was somewhat similar to Lan's personality.
"I heard that you want to buy earth crystals, right? And you want to buy a huge quantity of them?"
Li Tianxiang counted his remaining gold coins and nodded.
"I want at least 20 earth crystals."
Upon hearing this number, the middle-aged man's face turned even redder.
"In one go?"
Li Tianxiang nodded.
"This is only the first time. I should need even more earth crystals after this."
The middle-aged man was panting heavily. He no longer cared about the difference in their age and started calling Li Tianxiang his brother.
Li Tianxiang was a bit helpless. According to reason, this man looked about the same age as his father, but now this man was calling him brother. Thus, this was definitely a strange feeling.
The middle-aged man introduced himself as Gordon Schariac.
Li Tianxiang ridiculed the translation function of the system in his heart. "Damn, did you stop translating because the name sounds too vulgar? Can you give me a standard translation?"
However, this was not important. Under Gordon's enthusiastic invitation, Li Tianxiang arrived at Schariac's Earth Crystal Production Workshop.
This surprised him. He hadn't expected Gordon to let him see the technology for producing earth crystals. Gordon either genuinely thought of Li Tianxiang as his brother, or was convinced that Li Tianxiang couldn't learn this technology.
However, when he thought about how this man could be his father's age, Li Tianxiang eliminated the first possibility. Then, after seeing the production process, he could only say that after learning mathematics, physics, and chemistry, he was not afraid of anything.
The method of producing earth crystals was very simple. A special solution was used to dissolve the magical crystal. Then, the temperature would be lowered slowly. When the solution cooled down to a certain degree, earth crystals would emerge from the solution.
Li Tianxiang immediately understood. Wasn't this the crystallization method? It was knowledge found in junior high textbooks.
"Why don't you recrystallize the solution?"
Li Tianxiang felt that his chemistry teacher had been insulted when he saw the servants carefully select the purest earth crystals from the crystals.
Li Tianxiang's words were like a stone thrown into a lake, instantly causing ripples throughout the workshop.
"What is recrystallization?"
"Can you extract more earth crystals using this method?"
"Also, what is crystallization?"
"It is a method of obtaining earth crystals from the magical crystal solution that is similar to freezing. Crystallization, what a good name."
Only then did Li Tianxiang realize that in this world, this kind of rough crystallization method could already be considered a top-notch purification method, let alone recrystallization.
Li Tianxiang coughed and asked Gordon for some solution, which was produced after dissolving magical crystals. Only then did he realize that the liquid was actually mithril. It could absorb mana, so it could dissolve the magical crystal.
Li Tianxiang first extracted large amounts of earth crystals containing impurities according to the method that the Schariac Workshop used.
Then, he put the earth crystals back into the mithril liquid and dissolved them.
This time, Li Tianxiang controlled the temperature to drop even more slowly. Then, something serious happened to Gordon.
About 50% of the earth crystals produced this time were pure earth crystals, but the total amount of magical crystals consumed was the same as before.
In other words… The yield had doubled.
Gordon no longer looked at Li Tianxiang like he was looking at a great customer. If there was a so-called God of Fortune in this world, then Li Tianxiang was now Gordon's God of Fortune.
"You can recrystallize the solution again."
Under Li Tianxiang's reminder, Gordon quickly asked someone to dissolve the earth crystals with impurities and recrystallize the solution. As expected, even more pure earth crystals were obtained.
Gordon was so excited that he was confused and disoriented.
"Since earth crystals can be extracted, have you ever tried to extract other crystals?"
"Other crystals?"
Gordon paused, not understanding what Li Tianxiang meant.
Li Tianxiang knew that since magic crystals were composed of many elements, there must be other elements in the mithril-crystal solution. This only required some chemistry knowledge.
"Do you have fire crystals or the like?"
In Gordon's eyes, Li Tianxiang was the number one alchemist in the Human Monarch City. He could probably get a dragon core for Li Tianxiang, let alone a fire crystal.
Li Tianxiang took out another pot of mithril-crystal solution. After cooling it down a bit, he threw a fire crystal inside.
After about ten minutes, the fire crystal in the solution stopped changing. Li Tianxiang took it out. Then, Gordon looked at the thing in his hand and felt that he was going crazy.
The fire crystal had doubled in size.