Pill Concocting At The Speed Of Shock, Cool Berries

As Latoya felt heat start condensing atop Jam's hand, she hurriedly covered the "busted pill" with her energy and watched as a scorching yang flame blinked in and out of existence. Jam noticed that a certain someone didn't want his worthlessly imperfect pill gone, so he didn't spend much time or energy burning away at Latoya's energy.

The moment he dispelled the energy powering his yang flame and the pill's image was visible, a dark shadowy hand snatched it out of Jam's hand and the owner of said hand glared at him as if he had just killed her parents.

Latoya hissed at Jam "What do you think you're doing?! This is a near perfect fucking Tier 6 Shedding Pill! DO YOU KNOW WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF ANY OF THE FEMALE ELDERS KNEW OF YOUR ATTEMPTED SIN?!"

Jam clicked his tongue, saying "It's not even perfect… I don't want anything I make that isn't perfect, out in circulation."

"You what? Do you even know the value of these things?" The veins on Latoya's head were so tense Jam could see them pulse every time his words further angered her.

"According to guidelines for selling pills in the academy… Tier 6 Shedding Pills would go for about 10 million spirit stones within the sect and 15 million outside the sect." Naturally, if cultivators with expertise in the various secondary occupations sold their creations within their respective sects, they would sell it at a "loss" when compared to the market value. But, in return, they would earn certain favors from their peers and make connections.

"You fool! That's the price for normal low-tier Tier 6 Shedding Pills! Don't you know how hard concocting consummate-tier pills..." It then hit Latoya, that Jam hadn't partaken in any alchemy competitions. He only been in the academy for a couple weeks before leaving for the Titanic Beast Mountain Range, leaving him with no time to learn from a master either…

She thought back to when she first met him, after he create perfect Energy-Gathering Pills as newbie alchemist in just two dozen or so tries. 'This idiot… He's probably only made perfect pills throughout all his career thinking that to be the standard...'

As the thought flashed through her mind, Latoya took a deep breath and calmly tried explaining how normal alchemist and the pill market moved. She said "Ok Jam, I'll explain it to you so you don't look like an idiot at the Gathering… First and foremost, what I'm about to tell you is also true for inscriptionists, and spiritual cooks. All three of these professions make items that are graded with the standard, only the principle changing: the principle for pills being pill purity, the principle for talisman's being accuracy, and the principle for spiritual meals being infusion rate.

NORMALLY, alchemist that make pills at the highest level for their rank create between trash-tier pills that just barely form at 50% purity, to intermediate-tier pills at 79% purity. Only on lucky days will normal, let's say Tier 2 Alchemist, create a high-tier Tier 2 Energy-Gathering Pill. Usually, only Alchemist attempting to create pills one tier lower than their rank will make high-tier pills. Alchemists attempting to create pills two tiers lower than their rank can expect to make peak tier pills. And Alchemist attempting to create pills three tiers lower than their rank "might, perhaps, maybe, once in a blue moon, if their luck has transcended reality twice over and then some" create ONE consummate-tier pill within their batch of pills concocted. Do you understand?"

"It's really hard to make consummate-tier pills."

"Good~ Now, back to our previous topic. You see this "garbage pill" you almost incinerated? This worthless 99% purity Tier 6 Shedding Pill would definitely earn you well over several dozen billion spirit stones if you offered then to the female Sages around our academy. If by some misfortune, the pill managed to descend into a mid-level world with only Saints… You could expect a full out war between most factions..."

"Ok?" Jam didn't really care. These were just some rather worthless cosmetically altering pills, which he didn't even need thanks to his Regeneration. Any scar left on his body from an arduous battle would heal itself eventually; at least that applied all the way down to his musculoskeletal system with his Bone Realm body cultivation. In the future, when he reached the Organ Realm, his whole body would, in most cases, be able to revert back to its most perfect state even if it were dealt horrific injuries.

Jam took the rest of his "standard" consummate-tier pills and shoved them in Latoya's hands. As he acted like a bigshot, he said "Well, this was just a test and these pills are kind of worthless to me. So~ if you would, please take them in exchange for some Tier 6 & 7 herbs so I can begin training under your tutelage."

Latoya blanked out for a second, before smiling as she said "It's good that you're looking out for your future and getting Tier 7 herbs now~"

However, her smile quickly cracked into mild disgust as Jam said "Future? I'm going to use them right now. Tier 6 is too easy..."

She really wanted to curse him out right there and then for being too arrogant, but when she looked at the facts… Sure Jam was nothing but a "rookie" Saint Master level cultivator and he had just recently made that advancement. But, he effortlessly made an almost perfect batch of Tier 6 pills. Even as a Tier 9 Alchemist herself, she couldn't guarantee making five perfect Tier 6 Shedding Pills every time.

Tier 7 might be the normal scope pills Saint Gods could make, but Jam's soul was clearly not under pressure when making Tier 6 pills; he might just be able to make Tier 7 pills if he worked at it. As Latoya day-dreamed of Jam storming the Gathering as a Saint Master, creating Tier 7 pills. "Heh..." a bit of drool escaped her mouth…

And thus began a training montage for Jam to make Tier 7 pills… Actually, that didn't happen. Instead, because Tier 7 was within the realm of possibilities for Saints, Jam struggled to create perfect batches for Tier 7 pills once or twice for common pills, then upwards of five whole times, before mastering what was left of traditional alchemy. It took him less than three days to completely re-restock the pills he never got to use, and by then there was literally nothing Latoya could argue for making her precious little money maker stick by her side.

She was already contemplating suicide when around the time Jam showed her his pace of making hundreds of consummate Tier 7 every hour. However, that depression and feeling of her life being a waste quickly melted away after Jam started exchanging some of his pills for more materials.

After all, Jam needed to restock materials for the rest of his professions, so he felt the need to just get the matter over with through Latoya. He struck a rather "selfless" deal of taking the revenue for 70% of the pills he gave Latoya, when he could have very easily and rightly asked for 95% or higher; since there was always an unmatchable demand for high-Tier pills, even more so for pills that managed to reach the ethereal consummate level.

Now, Jam had finished restocking his supply of pills and even did the Academy a favor by staying with Latoya for an extra day, effectively giving away consummate-tier Tier 7 pills which he didn't need; all in the name of "practicing."

Latoya was sad to see Jam go after he had virtually given her trillions of spirit stones in profit in the short four days they spent together. But, when she thought of how Jam would obviously annihilate the competition in four months with his absurd abilities in Alchemy she just couldn't find it within herself to ask Jam for anything else.

Rather, as a parting gift from a useless step-master, she gave Jam two herbs from her own little treasury. It was an odd pair of fruits that resembled a small sun and moon, but the most astonishing tidbit of knowledge pertaining to the fruits were the halos of energy that seemed to converge from the surroundings towards them, almost as if the fruits were a beacon of some sort.

"Ah, Jam, it's sad to see you go, but given all you've done for me in these past few days I wouldn't feel right without at least reciprocating a bit. These two fruits… I've been meaning to use them in a new formula but their properties are just too hard to deal with as you can now doubt tell. I've never seen or heard of these fruits prior to harvesting them personally during one of my times adventuring across the vast Mortal Plane.

Anyways, I think they would be put to use much faster, and probably more efficiently, if they stay in your hands. There's no need to thank me for these fruits as they're probably worth as much as the money you've earned for me these past few days."

Jam took the two fruits in his hands and almost staggered due to their weigh. 'What the fuck? These easily weigh a couple million kilograms each..'

Then from the depths of his soul Tzatziki's voice sounded off with unusual glee. He said "What do we have here? A pair of Cosmic Taiji Berries?"

"What?" Jam had scanned through several jade slips by now pertaining to alchemy and the various herbs within the Mortal Plane, including the one that seemed all-encompassing from the Academy's library. But he had never heard of Cosmic Taiji Berries.

"Heh, those bad boys in your hand would set off a plane wide war if the value of their existence were to be revealed to the general public. The berries are true Immortal Treasures that can't be found here in the Mortal Plane. Their just a couple Tier 1 Immortal Herbs, nothing too crazy, but for you these are truly marvelous little snacks."

"Snacks? Do I look like a demonic beast to you?" Jam almost felt offended. Did this no-good teacher of his wish for him to die? These are Immortal Herbs and he's just a Saint! Even Sage God level Demonic Beasts would hesitate to consume anything Immortal related until they were at least somewhat through their Immortal Tribulation.

"Yeah. Yeah you do, actually. You look like a little demonic beast with a pair of fucking God Souls." Tzatziki sneered at Jam from within his own soul, thinking 'Obviously you're a dumb demonic beast. If not, how'd you figure you'd have GOD SOULS appear before even becoming a Saint.'

"What? You're not playing around are you?"

"No, I'm not playing, I'm 101% percent super serious right now. And if we're to go by the various clues you've thus displayed I'm guessing you have some sort of draconic bloodline."

Jam recalled that he had seen his potential reveal a phantom dragon, but he wondered how Tzatziki guessed of his connection to dragons. The questioning look in his face was enough for Tzatziki to start talking, so he said "How? Well, going back to your Lesser Demon Form, you take on draconic scales in that form, which is unusual to say the least. Then there's the fact that your precious Danger Noodle conceded a fight with you over "feeling something special about you." Back then I didn't understand what she meant, but now that the existence of your God Souls has become apparent, it would make sense for her to feel a connection to you if you're both of dragon lineage."

"Mhmm… even if I all that is true, why then is it that I don't feel any sort of bloodline powers? I mean, Kirin has a Frigid Kirin Bloodline and he's got that weird runic hair of his. Cynthia has a Stellar Roc bloodline and she turned into one herself! Where're my dope dragon powers if I have a dragon bloodline?"

"Uh… I don't know? It really is odd as I've seen your blood several times now and I never get the impression that there's anything special about it. But you see… It's too normal. Like, even now as a Body Refiner at the Bone Realm, your blood should have become spiritually enhanced and it is! It's just… it doesn't appear as such. Even after practicing my Blood Dao technique and improving your Blood Essence, I can barely even detect the effects of that cultivation in your body.

It's almost as if someone or something is purposely restricting the effects of your bloodline. But even with my current soul strength being that of a god I can't detect anything within your body that might be causing that change. And for that something/someone to be cable of obscuring a bloodline as ridiculous as yours, with the potential to manifest God Souls before becoming a Saint, while also escaping MY detection as a god at the same time… Even I find it inconceivable."

As Tzatziki opened himself up to an endless rambling of what could surpass his detection and what he should do to get around it, Jam's focus returned to the real world outside his soulscape. He took the Immortal Berries into his Storage Dimension and thanked Latoya for the gesture. He didn't speak one word of the astonishing nature of the berries as he didn't want to get himself into needless trouble and just ran out of the treacherous room that left him a prisoner for the past four days.