A mentor

While she had stopped scanning him with her divine sense, it wasn't hard for her to imagine the peculiar looks on Collins's face. This brought a smile to her face. She found it boring to play shopkeeper, it was a job for the newbies or those who were being punished.

"You can relax kid, most people don't care, they all have far more important things to care about then you." The gleefulness of her voice made Collin realize that she was messing with him.

"I need the ingredients on this list and more information on joining the alchemist's guild." Trying to push down his paranoid thoughts and get what he came for, he walked to the counter and gave her the list.

After giving the list a look; spirit herbs, bags, and a pill bottle appeared on the counter in front of her. The spirit herbs were the ones he needed to continue to practice alchemy for the next several months. The bags were full of low-grade spirit herb seeds, since his villa had garden beds and arrays to make growing plants easier, growing some spirit herbs to use for alchemy seemed like a good idea. The pill bottle was one of the things confusing Collin, nothing he ordered should come in a pill bottle, and the second batch of spirit herbs with fire energy was missing.

"The bottle of pills?" He asked.

"I refined some fire energy pills not too long ago, I'll sell them to you for the price of the spirit herbs but if you do join the alchemist's guild, you have to mention my name as your mentor." She said looking straight where his eyes would be.

"Mentor? Why would you mentor me?" He asked. He could hear some desperation in her voice when she said he had to mention her name. He didn't know why, but he started to feel that he got lucky.

"Someone made me look foolish, so I messed with his alchemy cauldron and instead of checking it like he should have, he didn't, and it exploded. He and several others were injured, he was punished for not properly checking his equipment, but my punishment is to be the shopkeeper here for five years. I've been here for a year, and instead of waiting another four years, I could help you join the guild and get some or all of my punishment reduced. The guild looks real favorably towards those who mentor others." She said.

"So, you will help me? Then what do I need to do to join?" Collin was trying not to sound too happy at this turn of events. But he was.

"You need to be at the 5th layer of Qi Condensation, then take a test to identify spirit herbs and then make several pills in front of an elder of the guild. You should memorize all the low-grade spirit herbs and what they are used for. You will also need to learn to make all of the top 10 pills, in one of the books I gave you it lists all the popular Qi Condensation pills in order of sales." she said with an eyebrow raised.

"How did you know I needed pills with fire energy? I could want a water spiritual root." He asked.

"Alchemic cultivation was developed in the second era during the great cultivation renaissance, they believed in the divine path. Fire suppresses wood, water suppresses fire and so on. This belief has been disproven many times but there are still those who believe in it. Besides, if you weren't going for a fire spiritual root, we wouldn't be having this discussion. Making low-grade pills can easily be done with arrays or treasures, but making mid-grade pills require you to spend over 5,000 spirit stones or more for upgraded arrays and treasures, while using your own flame is free. So, unless you're planning to stop progressing at the Foundation Establishment stage or are rich enough to throw massive amounts of spirit stones away for every stage, you need a fire spiritual root."

Collin knew everything she said was true, which is why he wanted a fire spiritual root. While he does plan to learn inscription and treasure refining and could make arrays and treasures that could help him with alchemy in the future for far cheaper than buying, he was only going to learn them to make his life easier and not be reliant on others.

"If I am supposed to tell people you are my mentor, you should probably tell me your name." He said nodding his head.

"Alchemist second class Valeria Curtz. It will take you awhile to cultivate to the 5th layer, till then I can help you memorize all the spirit herbs, and give you tips on learning how to refine all 10 pills." She said.

"I've already memorized all the low-grade spirit herbs and the recipes of the top ten pills, I have also learned how to extract the medicinal essence from a spirit herb." he said.

"Not bad for a months' worth of training, but you have a long way to go if you wish to join the guild." She said.

Collin didn't tell her that he only refined his alchemic pill dantian three and a half days ago. He didn't think it mattered if she knew or not since they were both using each other to get what they wanted. After talking about alchemy and some plans to meet up in the future Collin left the alchemy shop and returned to his villa.

He didn't know how long it would take to get to the 5th layer of Qi Condensation or to learn to make the ten pills, but they were on the top of his list of things to do along with learning the techniques and spells he bought today.

There were still a few hours before dinner, so he was planning to resume practicing alchemy. After dinner he was going to study the body refining technique so he could begin practicing it after his nightly cultivation.

The more Collin understood about being a cultivator the more things he had to learn and more things he wanted to learn. While he was going through the techniques and spells that the shop had for sell, he was finding it hard to limit what he bought. Whether it was him being new to cultivation or him being a ten-year-old boy, he wanted to learn everything there despite knowing it was impossible.

Sitting down at the alchemy table, Collin began the very hard process of clearing his mind of distractions. After a while his mind was calm, and he began to heat the alchemy cauldron to begin extracting medicinal essences.

Collin kept practicing with semi success till he was distracted by the sound of birds chirping and he incinerated an herb and its medical essence. He was angry he messed up but glad that the food had been delivered, he was starving.

Dinner was a grilled fish with a sweat sticky glaze, and he devoured it as if he was a starving man who hadn't eaten in weeks. After placing the try in the chute he was planning to go to his room and read the manual for his body refining technique, when he had a thought. His villa has a library, it has many places to sit and read, a desk, several chairs, and even a large couch. Since he moved in, he had only walked inside the library the day he explored the villa.

He decided that from today he would sit on the couch and read his books in the library.