Chapter 4844 — Qing Xuanzi's Worry
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
"What do you think of your disciple's spirit-herb reserve, Master?" Qing Xuanzi led Wei Zhao on a tour, his face brimming with pride.
"Very fine indeed—the best I've seen," Wei Zhao said with a nod.
"Truly?" Qing Xuanzi was both startled and delighted. He had assumed that a man of Wei Zhao's alchemical attainment must have seen countless top-tier alchemists' stores; little did he know that apart from his own, Wei Zhao had never laid eyes on anyone else's spirit-herb reserve. So calling this one the best was no lie at all.
Wei Zhao smiled faintly and did not correct him. In truth, with so vast a reserve of spirit herbs, Qing Xuanzi had every right to be proud—every essential herb and rare herb one could name was almost entirely accounted for.
If one insisted on picking bones from an egg, the only lack was a few treasures on the order of the Thunder Profound Vine—but such peerless wonders were things one might encounter but never seek; they came only by exceptional luck, not by effort.
"It must have taken a long time," Wei Zhao said with a smile.
"Three hundred years." Qing Xuanzi gazed with deep feeling at the fruit of his painstaking hoarding, then turned to Wei Zhao. "I began systematically gathering and collecting the herbs here from the age of ten, and I have kept at it without a single break to this day."
"Ten?" Wei Zhao was taken aback. Ordinary children that age were still playing in the mud; he had not expected this one to have begun such advanced work so young.
"Indeed. You need not wonder, Master—I come from a pill-refining clan. Any clan child with even modest aptitude begins pill-refining initiation at ten, and the first lesson is identifying and collecting spirit herbs," Qing Xuanzi explained.
"I see." Wei Zhao nodded, thinking privately that this was what it truly meant to win at the starting line. Then a puzzle struck him. "If that is so, your clan should have no shortage of skilled alchemists—why go to the trouble of taking me as your master?"
"You misunderstand, Master. My family is indeed a pill-refining clan, but it had already declined before I was born. Not only has its glory fled—it has been bullied on every side, and holding onto the name of a pill-refining clan is sheer luck. For a long time it teetered on the brink, and only after I became a seventh-grade alchemist did things improve somewhat—at least we no longer live in daily fear of being hounded at our own door." Qing Xuanzi smiled bitterly.
"Every family has its own sutra to recite," Wei Zhao said, casting him a look of some sympathy.
"After I became a seventh-grade alchemist, though I steadied the situation for a time, the outlook is still far from good. To keep the name of a pill-refining clan, a family must have at least two seventh-grade alchemists—and our Qing Clan has only me. Among the other disciples there is not even a sixth-grade alchemist, let alone a seventh." Qing Xuanzi poured out his grievances.
"Is that the rule? Then what will you do?" Wei Zhao asked.
"Because I had some reputation in pill-refining circles when I advanced to seventh grade, the other clans were wary and for the time being did not dare press us too hard—after all, if one day I advanced to Mystic-Rank first grade, they would have a hard time swallowing the consequences. So they made an exception and gave our Qing Clan a two-hundred-year deadline. If I advance to Mystic-Rank first-grade alchemist within two hundred years, we may keep the name of a pill-refining clan; otherwise we are to be struck from the rolls and lose all resource allotment that belongs to a pill-refining clan." Qing Xuanzi paused there and smiled bitterly. "From the day I became a seventh-grade alchemist to now is just about two hundred years—the deadline is nearly upon us."