The Auction For Top-Of-The-Line Jam! Making A Grandmaster Shiver And Shake

"NO! He just became a Saint, so obviously he needs to come with me to increase his body's cultivation first!" A burly-looking mass of muscles yelled out in indignation.

"No, you dumb idiot! He just became a Saint right? Wouldn't it be best if he improved his Alchemy first to make all the pills he needs to improve his body cultivation first?!" A feisty dark-skinned lass retorted with a deathening pressure impacting everyone as she spoke.

"Pills are a second rate profession unworthy of my precious! Jam come inscribe talismans with me, only Inscriptionist are regarded with any dignity at the Gathering. Don't be fooled by that bitc… woman." This person was the youngest looking man of the bunch before Jam; excluding the Sect Head of course. And he talked a lot of shit up into he almost called Latoya a bitch… Right then and there, a real murderous intent blossomed within the room and prompted the young man into holding back his loose tongue.

"All of you are shit-brained retards! Obviously, he needs to improve his abilities as a formations master before all that to make the most of the Alchemy, Inscriptionist, or Body Cultivation paths!" An even louder voice, belonging to what looked to be the weakest most kind-looking old man before this heated debate began, threatened to shatter the previous three threatening pressures; but only ended up being on par with them.

"Che… Why are we even making him improve on those other worthless occupations? He wouldn't need anything to become a god-tier Illusionist with the current strength of his soul..." A quiet mummified woman spoke with disdain at all the others before here.

"Fuck all of you! Jam come to my side and we can get you ready for the Refiner's competition first! I know it's not really an urgent matter for now… BUT, if you come with me first, I'll, I'll… help you make a Tier 6 weapon." Another old man, one who looked more like a seasoned veteran cultivator, spoke in an almost begging tone. He didn't even dare to show his face to the other Occupational Heads.

The fierce debate only escalated as the Head of Refining brought out a new method of enticement for Jam. He had opened pandora's box as the other Heads started to offer up resources to Jam as if he were an item up for auction.

"Tier 6 weapons? I'll give you all the Tier 7 pills you want!"

"Why would you want pills when I can give you talismans!"

"T-tier 8… I'll give you a Tier 8 weapon from my personal collection!"

…

As the auction heated up and became more exciting, the last two Heads of Beast Taming and Spiritual Cooking slouched over and complained within their hearts as to how unfair the world was. They couldn't really offer Jam anything he needed right now, at least not in an immediate form that he would get from the other Heads and the Head of Spiritual Cooking was even worse off than the Head of Beast Taming as Jam's skills as a Beast Tamer were falsifiably proven to be god-like as even now, he had a Sage Realm serpent coiled around his arm.

Time passed like flowing water, and eventually, even the Sect Head had enough of the Occupational Heads making a mockery of her office. She said "ENOUGH! There's still four months before the Gathering, so we'll just have Jam spend half a month with each of you. Cultivation comes first and foremost, so he'll start with Alchemy and Body Refining. Thereafter he can choose what to take, but you'll each get half a month with him in the end. So, kindly stop your pointless arguments and get to training him already!"

Just like that the fierce debate over Jam's time came to a close. Jam's time was put on sale without his consent, so for the next couple months he would be stuck training in the various secondary occupations. He couldn't even put up a fight as Latoya took his hand and practically dragged him out of the Sect Head's office. The Head of Body Refinement looked at his diamond in the rough being stolen right before his eyes, but he knew he couldn't do anything. In his heart he knew that Jam would make the most improvements if he refined his body with pills he himself created, so the Head could only hide the injustice he felt in some remote corner of his heart.

…

In no time at all, Jam once again returned to the Alchemy Division's building. Under the gaze of hundreds and thousands of alchemists, both rookie and master alike, Jam was practically carried off into the Head's private room. Upon securing her pray, Latoya then shut the doors to her domain and various locking sounds and energy barriers manifested in clear view of everyone, leading many to think of fictitious yet juicy gossip.

Their goddess and respected number one expert of alchemy had gone ahead and done what? She took a man into her private quarters openly, and then proceeded to lock him in with her with enough defensive prowess to survive an invasion of Sages. It was contradictory to her normal behavior, but the gossiping cultivators just labeled her change as a matter of love; why else would she act so absurdly?

Not at all knowing or caring what the people outside were saying, Latoya, upon locking Jam into her room looked at him with greed as she pulled out her Alchemy Cauldron. She said "Show me where you are and we'll begin your "extracurricular lessons" after I properly gauge you." The way she emphasized "extracurricular lessons" would fool many a man to think she was seducing them, but in all honesty, it was just that she was excited at the prospect of teaching someone as insane as Jam.

Jam sighed as he called for his Alchemy Cauldron to appeared before him. He tossed a yang flame to heat up his cauldron as he asked "What do you me to make?"

"Lets see… you are a Saint Master, so try making a Tier 5 Shedding Pill." Latoya understood that Jam had just recently broken through to the Saint Realm, so in her mind, giving him a Tier 5 Shedding Pill, one of the easier pills to concoct, was still a harsh demand as she knew he couldn't possibly have spent much time practicing creating Tier 5 pills, if he even managed to try it out once. If only she knew that he had already created a Tier 5 pill formula unique to him before even becoming a Saint.

Jam's eyes narrowed as he was told to make such easy pills. 'She wants to gauge my level of alchemy by having me make Tier 5 Shedding Pills?' Forget about Tier 5 Shedding Pills… With Jam's cultivation skipping through to the Saint Master level, his soul had also evolved to reach Saint God levels of strength in its base form. He could laugh his way through creating all Tier 6 Pills and probably create Tier 7 pills after a bit of practice!

Tier 7 was the cap for Saints much like Tier 4 was the cap for Spirit Realm cultivators. However, unlike the previous levels, from Tier 5 to Tier 7 there was no significant change to a cultivator foundation, only an increase in their Dao cultivation and the depth of their soul strength. When one became Tier 1 in any secondary occupation or for their cultivation in any type of essence they would gain it through their ability to use the qi they had gathered into their qi sea.

When one reached Tier 2, it would be after they created their Dao Palace. For Tier 3 a cultivator needed to condense their soul, while Tier 4 came after the fusion of the body and soul. Tier five through seven only saw a change being the quality of a cultivator's energy; it was the same case for Tiers eight through ten.

For these reasons, even "normally" talented cultivators could transcend their caps when they Saints and Sages. Jam was by no means a "normally" talented cultivator, so if others could do it, he almost surely could as well. He had been shattering expectations since the start of his cultivation career, so the suggestion of performing a task normal cultivators might accomplish if they were just a tiny bit talented almost came off as an insult.

He snorted and brought out some Tier 6 herbs. Instead of doing something he knew for a fact he could complete with no problems, Jam showed off some of his arrogance as he immediately abandoned Latoya's suggestion and instead tried making Tier 6 Shedding Pills. Jam began to work immediately as he threw herb after herb into his pill cauldron.

As he worked on his concoction Latoya silently judged him from a distance. As a grandmaster in the world of alchemy, she obviously knew of the traditional recipe for Tier 6 level Shedding Pills. She thought Jam to be a bit too complacent going for Tier 6 pills after just recently breaking through to the Saint Realm, but as time passed, her originally frowning face morphed into one of skepticism, followed by hope, joy, shock, disbelief, and ending with terror.

Jam didn't waste more than five minutes concocting his Tier 6 Shedding Pills. He used Yang attribute Saint Flames to extract 99.98% of all the essence in the herbs before him; the time taken for this process was less than a minute… He controlled his yang flames even better than some of the famous Tier 7 pill masters within the academy and refined down the herbal essence previously extracted down to 10% of their original volume in another minute and a half… Up until then it looked like a grandmaster had flicked their sleeves once, twice, and poof! A perfect extraction and refinement of Tier 6 herbs.

Then, for the last and most difficult part of the process, Jam used what looked to be blatant self-sabotage, when he haphazardly jumbled masses of refined herbal essences together with no rhyme or reason. It only looked that way to the untrained eye, but to Latoya, Jam's actions were nothing short of a bored god concocting pills with disinterest. It looked like Jam wasn't even trying as he fused and several pills at the same time.

Obviously, he wasn't putting in his max effort, but who could blame him? Being asked to make pills as easy to concoct as Shedding Pills would bore any alchemist to death, and he didn't even have to use the totality of his soul strength for the process either.

Five minutes after the herbs appeared and began their conversion process into pills, Jam's pill cauldron buzzed, signifying the completion of his pill concoction. Moments later, from the pill cauldron there emerged five crystalline white pills, still glowing from the heat used in their creation.

As Jam looked at the pills, he took one in particular that wasn't at his standard consummate tier and cursed under his breath "What a bust! It seems my skills really have gone rusty after not practicing for eight years..." That last pill was only a peak-tier pill, only pure to 99% perfection. It wasn't good enough for Jam, and he almost inclined to incinerate the blasphemous pill, but didn't get the chance.