Mei Lan placed the mask on her face, and was relieved when her surroundings changed. She followed the instructions given to her, and soon found herself in a workshop that looked different, but held everything her workshop had and more. She did, however, notice that a furnace was missing when someone spoke to her.
"I can see you're someone with some experience", a man said, "I am Qing Lan, your instructor for the next few hours. Would you like to be provided with a furnace, or do you prefer your own?"
Mei Lan was surprised to see the man standing at a door she didn't remember being there, but decided to ignore it for now.
"I would like to use my own, but is it possible?", she said, "I would have to return to my room to grab…"
"No! No! No!", Qing Lan admonished her, "Use your head, just picture the furnace in your thoughts and it will appear."
Mei Lan wanted to be upset, even if she was a 3rd rate alchemist, her profession was greatly looked up to. But she also remembered her teacher than instructed her in alchemy, and noticed a similarity her and this man. Seeing the man glare at her, she stopped thinking about other things and imagined her furnace. She heard something land on the table in front of her, and when she opened her eyes, it was her furnace.
Qing Lan eyed the artifact in a critical manner before continuing, "Overall, it's well maintained though I need to give a few more tips. If you use this furnance right now, you will induce impurities into your refining. Now watch!"
Qing Lan took the furnace, and started pointing out a few spots that were well hidden. He methodically cleaned the furnace until he was satisfied with the cleanliness of the artifact, he then focused on Mei Lan again, "Now, you see the spiritual ingredients here. Refine the pill you are most familiar with so I can view your standard."
Mei Lan walked over to the storage chest that held all the spiritual plants and herbs, and selected everything required for a Qi nourishing pill. She took an herb, and began processing it for its essence before grabbing the next. She was about halfway through processing everything when Qing Lan loudly stopped her.
"I don't need to see you refine the pill to see how poor in quality it will be", he berated her, "You harvested around 60% of the essence, and it's tainted with impurities. The only result will be a low quality pill if you even succeed. How weak is your Qi sense? You have both a mid grade spiritual roots of fire and wood, which should make you at least a competent alchemist."
"I am just a 3rd rate alchemist, I don't know any 3rd rate alchemists that can perfectly process spiritual plants", Mei Lan complained.
"Don't blame your lack of skill on your lack of training", Qing Lan rebuked her, "Fine, I'll order you a cup of tea, that should suffice for this evaluation."
Mei Lan was confused by this, but the instructor said nothing. Several minutes later, she felt someone approach her body in the artifact, so she exited. As she removed the mask and opened her eyes, she saw an employee with a tall cup of tea standing next to her.
"One order of green tea and honey", the employee said, "3 spirit stones, please."
Mei Lan handed the puppet the stones, but she was slightly angry.
'Shouldn't the teacher buy the tea for his student', she thought as she pouted.
She took a sip, and was impressed by the combination of taste, so she took a few more sips. Mei Lan's mind felt refreshed, and her thoughts became clearer than usual. She didn't feel so upset about purchasing the tea now, so she quickly drank the rest of the tea and put the mask back on before entering the artifact.
"Welcome back", Qing Lan said as she appeared in the workshop again, "I believe I will see an improvement this time, and also you should probably have yourself tested. Once you practice the right body, mind, and spirit cultivation methods, your ability to perform alchemy will greatly improve."
Mei Lan just ignored the man's comments, and gathered spiritual herbs again. This time when he processed the herbs, she could sense the precious essence inside much better than before. Instructor Qing Lan didn't intervene again, and she was able to finish the first step. When she looked at her results compared the the first time, she could only wish she could go back in time to chastise herself.
Mei Lan finally reached the point where she began to blend the essences together according to her knowledge, and once it reached the point she felt was correct, she condensed the pills. Even with the assistance from the tea, she felt taxed by the process. The room was filling with the scents of the pills when she made the hand motions to complete the process, and gathered the pills in a jade bottle. Qing Lan made a move, and the jade bottle moved to his hands. He opened the bottle to take a look at the results.
"Based on the amount of material you used, the total number of pills formed should have been nine", he stated, "And from what I see here, you did form nine. Now let's take a look at the quality. Four low quality, three medium quality, one high quality, and one with pill veins. Considering your previous attempt, this is probably a good result for you. But if you saw what is sold at this store, you would know this would have been destroyed if the alchemists of this pavilion produced this."
"I am aware", Mei Lan said in frustration.
He was correct, she had never produced a pill with veins before, but every pill she saw in the store had pill clouds.
"It's because your cultivation is lacking", Qing Lan explained, "You haven't practice any mind cultivation, the minimum body cultivation, and your spirit cultivation method doesn't match you at all. Here is a list of items sold here that will benefit you, and use the training function on this artifact to find methods that suit you."
"I will", she earnestly replied
A man was sitting at a table of a smaller tea house of the inner city, enjoying the special brewed there. A bell rang as another customer entered the half full tea house, and the newcomer made his way to a table close to the first man.
A waiter came over, and handed a menu to the new customer before bowing and leaving. The new customer took much longer than normal before signaling to the waiter.
"I would like a pot of eight treasure tea with golden butterfly honey", the man ordered.
The waiter bowed, and left to give the order to the tea brewers in the kitchen.
The man who had been watching all this suddenly spoke up, "The eight treasure tea is an excellent choice for those who cultivation who value that from the ground."
The man who had just ordered looked at the one speaking, "I can tell you know much about tea, I also am willing to travel to find excellent ingredients. Does this friend have advise for me?"
The first man smiled, "The leaves used to brew eight treasure tea are often found on rocky ground. It's better to walk a safe path to locate what you want."
"I, Ye Yu, thank you for your help, friend", the second man raised his cup to salute the other, "May the road you travel be easy to walk."
"That is very kind of you", the first man bowed, "I do have things to do, but I feel a kinship in meeting like this. Take this small token as a gift, and may you find what you are looking for."
Ye Yu watched at the other man drained his cup, stood up, and left the tea house. He placed the small bag in a pocket of his sleeve before leisurely drinking his tea, and leaving.
Ye Yu made his way through the inner city, and made his way to outer city after a few hours.
Ye Yu took the bag he received from the client, opened it, and checked the contents. Inside the bag was a stone, a map, and spirit stones. He picked up the stone, cycled his Qi, and activated the stone. Several images appeared in his mind: several locations including a pavilion and a rock quarry, and person wearing robes with mountains and clouds. Ye Yu didn't recognize the person though, as his face was covered by a mask that looked like a wolf.
With his destination decided, Ye Yu his way to the path that led to the rock quarry. After inspecting most of the foot path, he selected a spot that gave him a wide vantage point while allowing him to stay hidden. After a few hours, he saw his target walking towards quarry. He closed his eyes, and let the man continue on as his instructions were to wait until the target had acquired the precious materials first. When the courier came back, he would kill him and bring everything to his client, as the contract stated.
Ye Yu had been mediating for a few hours when he noticed the employee from the pavilion was returning. He used his Qi sense to confirm the man was just a mortal, and pulled out the silver needle he used often for these types of jobs. With a thought, he attacked with the needle, and watched as it went towards the courier.
To his surprise, the man quickly turned and waved his hand before breaking out into a sprint into the forest. Ye Yu was stunned for a moment until he realized that the employee had just caught his needle and ran away. In a panicked, he activated his movement technique and sprinted after the target. He followed the signs of the fleeing man for a couple kilometers until it had appeared the courier just vanished.
Ye Yu was flabbergasted at this, so he attempted to call back his needle. To his horror, he felt his connection to the needle had vanished. Not sure what to do, Ye Yu quickly left, and returned to the inner city.
Peng Hui had returned after a few days from hunting spiritual beasts to convert his gains into progress for his cultivation. He was pleasantly surprised when he came today, because he saw many more of the new cultivation artifact and additional floors. He went to the 'pod', which was the name everyone seemed to be calling this artifact now, that was assigned to him and entered.
He first looked at his friends list, but no one was currently on, so he went to use the Monster Slayer game like normal. But as he moved towards the door to start, he noticed a new door named 'Sanctum'. Curious, he entered the door and instead of a primitive village appearing before him like Monster Slayer, a large library with bookshelves and scrolls racks came into view.
Peng Hui walked up to the a book that was placed at the entrance that had a sign behind it, 'Read this first'. He went to pick it, but when he touched it, a stream of information entered his mind explaining everything about how the 'Sanctum' worked. He quickly became excited, and walked over to a scroll rack with a board on top bearing 'Monster Slayer'. He touched the first scroll, and like the first book he touched, this one also streamed information into his head, except it was all exclusively about Monster Slayer. He remembered his first time playing last week, and had improved greatly since then, not only defeating the chamegrases that had killed him, but also the great chamegras. He went on to fight a pack a wolves after that before meeting a crafty beast named Ka-La-Kulu that would escape quickly, ambush him, and use trees and rocks at weapons.
He let go of the scroll he was touching, and found the scroll belonging to his current target, Anjadon. He didn't believe this beast belong to this world, and just something that came from a story or tale mortal parents scared their children with. It was large, aggressive, and could breath flames. His first attempt at hunting it ended with disaster because he had underestimated the speed the anjadon could move.
When he touched the scroll there was only one entry made, and it was by the owner. It described how it looked, the best places to find it, and several images. When he looked at the first image, it came to life and started moving, and Peng Hui could see the beast perform its breath of fire attack. He immediately understood that all these images where a demonstration of the various movements and attacks the creature could perform. He watched everyone before he moved onto the next section which seem to list the various body parts of the creature, and what they could used for.
Peng hui continued to read on to the next section labeled 'Weaknesses', but was disappointed when nothing was written there. It made sense to him, he had been one of the first to reach the mission to battle the monster, and the owner wouldn't simply share the weaknesses of the enemy with everyone. So it was up to him, and others who played to fight and write down strategies to help future players. Peng Hui went down to the last section of the scroll and saw a list of weapons, but like the weaknesses section, nothing was written down. He thought about the first scroll he touched when he entered the room that explained how record what he did, and enter those recordings into the Sanctum.
'I see', Peng Hui thought to himself, 'If I were to defeat the Anjadon using a sword, I could share the recording here and write about how I conquered the beast.'
Peng Hui heard a chime, but he already knew what it was. When friends enter the pod or send messages to each other, sounds would notify each other about their arrival.
Peng Hui sent Mei Lingxue a message,
(I found something interesting, let's start the older missions over again and I'll show you what it is).