After having some fun in the water, our girls changed back to their usual clothes. It was worth mentioning that a few people approached Yasenia, trying to flirt with her when she was alone for a short time. Sadly, a heavy hit from our girls buried those people in the sand.
They were surprisingly understanding and avoided killing them.
After putting on their clothes back, they approached one of the paths that led into the underwater city.
Unlike other beings who had extra equipment for underwater movement, Yasenia's group strode forward without it. Still, before going underwater, Kali took out a pouch from her ring and shared a beautiful blue pill with each of the girls and the maids, as well as giving some to the spirits.
Embera took it and looked at it with curiosity. Controlling her flaming fingers perfectly so as not to melt the pill, she asked. "What is this, Kali?"
During the few hours they spent playing, our girls and the spirits got to know each other more deeply. By now, the relatively old spirits talked to them as if they were juniors.
If one measures their age from when they started having consciousness, even Soluna, the youngest one in the group, is well over 3,000 years old.
Kali explained without hiding anything. "It's a [Mermaid Lung Coral Pill]. It facilitates underwater breathing and movement and also creates a small shield that protects against the increased pressure. With that, even a mortal would be able to swim about 10,000 meters into the sea without problems. Each of them lasts for a week, so one of them should be enough for all of us."
Kali added. "Still, I don't know how it will react on spirits because Valeria is not a good example when testing these things. So, if you feel like the effect is running out or something, tell me. I have a few hundred of those in my ring."
The water spirit pouted. "Why didn't you give me one?"
Kali chuckled. "Here, I don't know why you would want that."
The water spirit took it with a smile and looked at it curiously. "I wonder what effect it will have on me?"
Kali lifted an eyebrow. "Maybe it makes your course unable to be wet, so all your body will dissolve because of losing contact with it."
The water spirit that was about to eat it stopped, looking between Kali and the pill warily. "… Will that happen?"
Kali placed a hand over the veil and spoke teasingly. "Who knows?"
After thinking about it, the water spirit decided not to use it. Kali saw that she wanted to return it, so she shook her head. "Take it. Who knows if you'll need it in the future."
The water spirit blinked and smiled, taking out something from her own storage accessory. Because of their special bodies, spirits usually had storage beads, not rings. And these beads were inside their own bodies.
So, with a wave of her hand, the water spirit took out a sapphire-like gem and gave it to Kali. "This is a [Spirit Water Orb]. Since you have me this mid-level Heaven-ranked pill, I'll give you a mid-level Heaven-ranked material as well."
Kali took it with a pleasant surprise. "This is a very precious material. Are you sure you want to give it to me?"
The water spirit tilted her head. "Really? I have so many of them that I sometimes throw a few."
Kali was speechless. She explained. "With this orb, I can create a permanent [Mermaid Lung Coral Pill]." Then, she asked. "Can you sell a few to me? I can trade with anything you want."
The water spirit took out a few hundred of those orbs and smiled. "Take it. Just give me half of all the pills you create with them."
The other spirits approached, and each of them took out an orb of their element. The nature spirit asked, holding a [Spirit Nature Orb]. "Can you use these as well?"
Kali was somewhat overwhelmed by the sudden wealth these spirits suddenly took out. While Kali had much better materials, these orbs were extremely hard to find because they only appeared in extreme environments of their elements. Since these kinds of environments were the ones where spirits were born, it was only natural for them to have them.
Kali nodded with a large smile. "With these orbs, I can create similar pills that would give the cultivator a small resistance buff for each of the elements. It's a really good thing, to be honest."
Embera was thoughtful and finally commented. "Because I'm the leader of this time's expedition, I have plenty of resources from our Spirit World. I have about 200 of each elemental orb, including some rare ones like blood, void, soul, etc."
Embera commented. "As long as you give us 50% of the pills you create with these cores, you can have them all."
Kali's tails wagged and commented. "If you have all of them, then I don't need to do individual pills. There is a specially crafted recipe for this kind of situation called [Rainbow Spirit Element Pill]. It increases all elemental resistance as well as giving abilities like the ones the [Mermaid Lung Coral Pill] gives but for each element."
Kali and Embera started exchanging, and Kali said. "Give me three hours. I think I can create enough of them for all of us gathered here."
With that, Kali took out her peak-level Heaven-ranked alchemy cauldron, and they all moved to a place with fewer people. Setting up an energy-gathering formation with Angel's help, Kali created an improvised alchemy workshop.
Then, she began working.
First, she placed the alchemy cauldron on the fire and slowly heated it up.
While that went on, Kali retrieved around 112 auxiliary herbs from her spatial ring. Twenty sets of each herb.
Then, she nodded and looked at Yasenia. "Love, can you give me 20 sets of [Silver Curl Rose], [Day Infused Durian], [One-Thousand-Year-Old Ginseng], [Yellow Life Lotus Petal],…"
She named 30 herbs in total. Each time she named one, Yasenia took out 20 of them.
A total of 20 sets of 142 different herbs were set up slowly on various tables with different tools. Yasenia helped with practiced moves.
After so many years of studying, our dragoness was finally able to learn enough to be their assistant. The moment all the girls started giving her the go-ahead, Yasenia was so delighted that our girls had trouble getting out of bed in the morning.
Seeing the number of Heaven-ranked herbs that appeared one after another, even the spirits became speechless. The nature spirit curiously asked. "What level is this pill, Kali?"
Kali answered as she placed down the last set of herbs. "Quasi-transcendent rank."
The spirit's eyes opened widely, and Embera asked, incredulous. "You can create a quasi-transcendent pill in the fourth realm?"
While spirits were generally ignorant about spirit professions, that didn't mean they didn't understand what the "normal" levels were.
For someone at Kali's cultivation level, being able to create low-level Heaven-ranked pills at a 40% success rate was already considered a genius.
Embera asked. "What is your success rate?"
Kali blinked. "Success rate? Do you mean my average quality on pills at this rank?"
Embera caught something from the genuinely confused tone and gulped, asking slowly. "No. I mean, how many batches do you usually fail."
Kali frowned. "Why would I try creating a pill that I know it can fail? That's a waste of resources."
Embera questioned. "You know if you can create a pill or not without trying?"
Kali nodded calmly. "Naturally. I don't spend most of my non-cultivation time buried in alchemy books to not know that."
Embera and the other spirits would've coughed blood if they weren't a life-form without it. Embera thought awkwardly. 'If other alchemists heard Kali, they would've slammed their heads against tofu until they died out of shame.'
However, when she looked at the others, she saw that nobody reacted to Kali's outrageous remark. Not wanting to be the first spirit to die from a heart attack, Embera restrained her curiosity and didn't ask around. 'Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.'
After setting up everything, Kali's [Evolution Intent Level 3] spread around together with many of her life-related auras. Our fox had realized in the past that Evolution Intent wasn't just about evolving the living beings she created through her skills but about everything related to the concept.
With it active, her mind could explore pill recipes more in-depth and discover ways to evolve the pill into a more refined version. For example, Kali's energy-gathering pill was about 10 to 20 percent better than the same pill made by an alchemist with a similar skill to hers.
10 or 20 percent didn't sound like much, but it added up tremendously. People would be willing to pay nearly ten times as much for a pill like that.
Of course, Kali never placed those kinds of pills for sale. While profitable, when she sold them, it was like setting up a large flag that said. "Hello, exceptionally talented alchemist asking to be kidnapped here!"
She used it in front of the spirits because the [Rainbow Spirit Elemental Pill] was outrageously rare. The only reason Kali was able even to concoct it this time was Yasenia's strange connection with Soluna, a being similar to royalty for other spirits.
Otherwise, there was no way, regardless of how good friends they were, that Embera would share so many [Spirit Element Orbs].
For spirits, it wasn't that valuable, but that didn't mean that they were willing to exchange them. With the spirits' ridiculously long life spans, they were similar to dragons in the sense that they loved hoarding things.
If it weren't necessary, you wouldn't see a spirit selling or even exchanging things. If they really wanted something, they would just wait and try to get it later.
After all, for a spirit, what did it matter waiting for one, two, or even ten thousand years to get something?
They were virtually immortal as long as they could feed on their elements. A species very similar to dragons, phoenixes, and other legendary beings in nature, and one of the strongest in the entire existence.
Unlike humanoid beings, time was not a problem for such creatures.
As a reference, Yasenia's current lifespan was already in the tens of thousands if she stood at her current strength level without advancing anymore for the rest of her life. Embera, Soluna, and the rest were similar.
If Yasenia didn't have the grand objective of catching up to Tatyana, she would never have been so anxious to strengthen herself. She would take her sweet time to get there.
In a way, Tatyana's strength was both a blessing and a curse for a dragon of Yasenia's level. She constantly pushed her limits because of her objective, which allowed her to become extremely strong. But at the same time, she lacked the experience she should have at her current level of strength.
Even after the trial, 23 extra years were little in comparison.
I digress. The reason for the explanation was to clarify why using all her might when concocting pills in front of the spirits was inconsequential.
First, the pills were so scarce that nobody would stop at meticulously analyzing the pill's vague effects to see if they were stronger than usual. Even if someone realized it, they would pass as a higher-quality pill, not a modified pill.
Second, the spirits were not too interested in this kind of thing, and the sample size would never be large enough to reveal Kali's extraordinariness.
After around 7 minutes, the first batch of pills was finished. It was really quick because of many factors: Kali's auras, the level of her tools, the purity of the materials, and finally, Valeria's help.
Usually, Kali would refrain from asking Valeria for help because she wanted to experience the process alone and refine her skills. However, since people were waiting, she used everything she had to create it.
With an average of 8 minutes per batch, it took not longer than three hours to concoct all 20 batches for a total of 140 pills.
After giving the spirits 70 of them, she gave the rest to Yasenia.
Our group had 50 maids and another 13 people, so after all of them, Kaleina and Flame included, consumed them, only nine were left. Valeria and Mirrory didn't consume one.
Yasenia commented. "We can place them in the Astral Sky Shop for around 5 million Astral Sky Points each."
Andrea asked. "How much does an average Epoch Core earn a year, love?"
Yasenia answered. "About 400,000 Astral Sky Points. The total average is around one hundred times less."
Andrea nodded and suddenly realized. "By the way, why haven't I received Astral Sky Points?"
The dragoness titled her head. "Why would you need them? The maids and us can take anything from the treasury at will."
Andrea blinked and then laughed. "I see."
Embera and the other spirits looked at the seventy rainbow-colored pills, and Embera asked. "Can we ingest them?"
Kali nodded, this time with certainty. "They are especially useful for spirits. Even Soluna should be able to eat them."
With that, everyone ate the pills. After 10 minutes, all of them, Kaleina and Flame included, absorbed all the effects and had a small boost in strength. It was an increase in strength that only benefited a certain amount related to the cultivator's current level.
So, the increase wasn't as large for Flame and Kaleina, but it would become larger as they increased in strength.
Pills gave "permanent" buffs by assimilating with the cultivator's dantian, core, mind, body, meridians, or whatever they affected. That's why the medicinal effects didn't dwindle with time but instead became part of a cultivator's strength and strengthened as the cultivator grew stronger.
The spirits lifted their eyebrows, feeling noticeably stronger. They all respectfully bowed in thanks. "Thank you, Kali. We'll remember this favor."