Chapter 307 – The Recipe
Cold winds howled outside the window and large snowflakes softly beat against the glass. Had it not been for Qian Xiaoqian pulling him out of the game, Fatty wouldn’t have known that the Lunar New Year was arriving soon.
In the blink of an eye, he had been playing Eternal for half a year.
Liu Lan had returned to her home. After all, she should accompany her family to celebrate the New Year.
Fatty and Qian Xiaoqian were staring dumbly at each other. New Year’s Day was only two days away, but they hadn’t bought nor prepared anything at all.
“Isn’t it just New Year? It happens every year, what’s the point of making a fuss over it?” Fatty dove into the bed and rolled twice, wrapping the blanket around himself as he rolled.
“You have a point. It’s all good as long as we have enough food. Our family never bothers with such troublesome things anyway.” Qian Xiaoqian tilted her head. Surprisingly, she actually approved of Fatty’s nonsense.
“Mhm, I’m gonna log into the game.” Fatty jumped off the bed to go get the helmet.
“Bro, my guild is establishing our base soon. Everyone will go online at 12 am on New Year’s eve. Do you want to come?” Qian Xiaoqian suddenly asked.
“So late?” Fatty frowned a little. It had been over two months since the Ice Rose Alliance established the first base in the system, but Rainrevelers had only started building theirs now.
The game was like reality, if you were one step behind, every future step would be behind. It wasn’t hard to imagine the difference between the development of two bases with over a two-months gap between them.
“It can’t be helped. It’s so much harder to get a City Construction Token than a Guild Establishment Token.” Qian Xiaoqian sighed helplessly.
“Okay, I’ll go.” Fatty put on the helmet and entered the game.
Under the orders of Architect Lin, the construction of Sky City was being carried out steadily. With Vice City Lord Reck as the overseer, Fatty was able to shirk away from a lot of hassle.
West had also returned to the city. Upon hearing the Water God’s Mystery Codex was used by Wu Junxiao to restore the Elemental Skill Book, he nearly choked to death. He had put in his blood, sweat, and tears; even destroyed his Icefire Lotus to snatch the codex, only to benefit Fatty in the end.
“This… I really had no other choice, bro. If there’s anything I can help you with, tell me and I’ll go through a mountain of blades and a sea of fire for you.” Fatty was a bit embarrassed.
“Forget it.” West shook his head with a wry smile. “Since it was Lord Wu Junxiao’s decision, of course you had no choice but to agree. I’ll just think of another way.”
After consoling West for a while, Fatty prepared to go train in a faraway place. The trip to the East Ocean had been a huge eye-opener for him. Not to mention God-tier, even experts of the 6th, 7th class enhancement were existences he couldn’t easily provoke.
However, there was something that must be done before anything else – refining medicines.
Reck must have been quite addicted to his vice-lord role, seeing how he could bear to give Fatty over ten recipes. Those recipes were nothing like the petty or useless ones dropped by monsters. All of them were top-class formulae that Reck had developed after years of research and wasting countless materials.
There was only one problem – Fatty was only an Intermediate alchemist. He couldn’t even refine the lowest-level recipe, the Blue Blood Pill.
The Blue Blood Pill was a high-rank pill that required over ten materials in total to refine, including the Blue Blood Snake inner core, Thousand Ring Grass and Waterdouse Flower. It would increase the user’s max HP by three folds for 15 minutes, the cooldown being 2 hours. An alchemist must be at least at the Advanced level to refine this pill.
The pill’s effect may seem simple, but it was a magic bullet for every knight, especially those who only added little to their defense to go nearly maximum health points. If one of those super HP knights used the Blue Blood Pill and increased his HP by three times, he’d be equivalent to a moving fortress that could attack.
However, temporarily setting aside the ten-something bizarre and rare materials, the requirement of having to be an Advanced Alchemist alone was enough to make Fatty suffer.
Leveling was his priority. He had no time for spending all day on alchemy.
In fact, it wasn’t a hard problem to solve. Recipes like these were meant to be processed by an entire guild. A mere Fatty naturally couldn’t gather such a large amount of materials on his own.
“What? You want to do business with us? I heard that you took a stroll around the Sun Dynasty, don’t tell me you want to sell us souvenirs?” said Fierce Dragon TheTalent the as soon as he entered the door. Along with him were the other guild masters who were all quick to come upon Fatty’s call.
Fierce Dragon TheTalent, East Gate BlowingWind, Jiandong’s LittleOverlord, and the other guild masters were all frequent business partners with Fatty (Even now, they were still renting his Miner’s Whip). After that, there was RainbowWatcher and Rosethorn of Ice Rose Alliance. And that basically was Fatty’s social circle.
“Alright, since everybody here is a busy person, I’ll cut to the chase.” As usual, everyone was squatting in the bank in a circle with Fatty in the center.
“Hurry and out with it. Are you planning another trip to the Sun Dynasty or something?” Jiangdong’s LittleOverlord was holding a new halberd after getting his 5th class enhancement. It was unknown where he got it from.
“First, take a look at this.” Fatty took out the Blue Blood Pill recipe and handed it to Liu Lan.
Scanning the recipe, Liu Lan’s expression blanked out for a moment. She swept Fatty a glance before passing the recipe to East Gate BlowingWind.
As the recipe passed through their hands in a circle, everyone reacted the same way: they first blanked out, then went wild with joy.
“Tsk tsk, where did you get such good stuff? Increase the upper limit of HP by three times, tsk. This thing is tailored for knights, especially those who go full health,” Wind God’s World clicked his tongue as he handed the recipe back to Fatty.
If it wasn’t for Purple Bell, Fatty would have excluded Wind God’s World from events like this, since he was involved in Cloud Dragon Sailing’s breach of agreement last time. Wind God’s World also understood this in his heart, so he had expressed his apologies to Fatty many times.
“This pill is good, and Advanced alchemists are not a problem since our guilds all have at least one. However, the materials are difficult,” Liu Lan voiced her worry.
“That’s why I sought you guys.” Fatty stowed the recipe and clapped his hands. “There are over a dozen materials, some we’ve never even heard of before. They’re obviously hard to acquire. If it’s only me or just one guild, it’s impossible to produce a large quantity. That’s why I called all of you here.”
“Let’s settle the details on the distribution first,” Fierce Dragon TheTalent spoke after some thought.
“Since you guys definitely don’t want to sell all of the pills, then let’s do it like this. I’ll take 30% since I’m the one providing the recipe. The rest will be split up among you guys according to the materials you contribute.” Fatty had already come up with a method.
“Agreed.” Fierce Dragon TheTalent was the first to approve after thorough consideration.
“Agreed.” The rest had no opposition.
“Great! Now we’re left with only one problem. Who will be in charge of the recipe?” Fatty took out the Blue Blood Pill recipe again and placed it in the center of the group. “Every guild has Advanced alchemists, but there’s only one recipe. Who will be the one to hold it?”
“Me,” Jiangdong’s LittleOverlord was first to raise his voice.
“Of course it should be me.” Rosethorn refused to fall behind. She rolled her eyes at Jiangdong’s LittleOverlord.
“We can’t pass on our responsibilities to others.” East Gate BlowingWind mimicked West Gate BlowingSnow annoying manner that asked for a thrashing.
“Me…”
The guild leaders began a heated argument where none gave way to the others. After all, keeping the recipe was an advantage in itself.
“Alright guys, don’t get into a fight over it.” Fierce Dragon TheTalent knocked on the floor. “First of all, the chosen one needs to be trustworthy, or it will be everyone’s loss if they run away with the recipe. Secondly, the guild keeping the recipe cannot refine the medicine in secret, we must be informed of every refinement, like who provide the materials and how much. This condition depends on the chosen one’s conscience. After all, they have their own freedom, there’s no way to supervise them every day. Lastly, we take turns to refine the pills and distribute them after adding up the total amount.”
Everyone lapsed into silence after Fierce Dragon TheTalent finished his words. No one dared to guarantee that their Advanced alchemists were 100% trustworthy. It was only a game after all. They were free to quit their guild whenever.
“How about our Darksnow? Fatty, you know her too. Her secondary profession is apothecary, and she’s reached the Advanced rank. Moreover, someone of her family background won’t stoop down to something like betrayal.”
Not only Fatty, but the majority of people here knew Darksnow as the guilds all communicated with each other frequently. Not to mention that Darksnow was a likable, pretty girl.
“I agree.” Fierce Dragon TheTalent was first again. He had done research on all of the other guilds and knew what kind of person Darksnow was.
Fierce Dragon TheTalent was an experienced man. Since he had approved, the rest followed suit and agreed. The first problem was basically solved.
The second one was simple after everyone chose to believe in Darksnow’s character. Liu Lan also promised to never on her own accord make Darksnow refine the pill.
On the other hand, the last problem quickly gave rise to arguments. Some suggested taking turns, each guild refining for a week. Some proposed that everyone should contribute the same materials so that the pills would be evenly distributed after all the refining was done.
Each method had its pros and cons. In the end, everyone agreed upon taking turns. Since the quantity of materials collected differed with each guild, they couldn’t risk one guild delaying the rest by being unable to gather enough materials in time.
After everything was settled, Liu Lan called Darksnow over and gave her the recipe.
Darksnow’s small face was bitter as she learned the recipe. Refining was a boring job, of course she wouldn’t want to be everyone’s shared laborer if she had a choice. As motivation, she would be compensated with a certain portion of pills refined.
Watching as the guild masters disappeared into the Teleportation Portal, Liu Lan pulled on Fatty.
“You only need to spend several days to get your alchemy to Advanced level, then mass purchase the materials, refine the pills yourself and put them up in your auction house. Wouldn’t that be much more profitable?”
Listening at the side, Darksnow rolled her eyes. From the looks of it, Liu Lan was wholeheartedly thinking for Fatty.
“Firstly, I just don’t have that kind of time. Secondly, refining is tedious in every meaning of the word. Lastly, I’m in desperate need of money, and this is the quickest way to earn some.” Fatty laughed bashfully and added, “The Blue Blood Pill is only a normal one in the batch; increasing max HP is nothing. I have even more precious recipes here, maybe I’ll refine them myself someday.”
Suddenly, Fatty remembered something.
“Oh, right! I have several dozen Dark Unicorn pet and mount eggs. Do you want them?”
