Chapter 122

Chapter 122: Entering the Myriad Books Tower Again

Seeing that he could not win the argument, Cheng Xiao Feng simply played dumb and fell silent, then scowled: “This is not something you need to worry about. I just wanted to give you an early heads-up so you can be mentally prepared.”

He added, “I already gave you several life-preserving treasures a long time ago. Keep them on you at all times, and be careful whenever anyone gets close.”

Cheng Bu Fan answered with a gloomy look: “Got it. How many people know about this?”

Hearing that, Cheng Xiao Feng sighed: “Very few. We still cannot be sure who the spies are, so even at the elder level there are basically only one or two we can trust who know the situation.”

“Oh. I understand.”

Realizing the gravity of the situation, Cheng Bu Fan quietly shelved the idea of telling Rong Shu. [For all I know, in the elders’ eyes, Rong Shu might be a suspect too.] [After all, she joined the sect not long ago.] [If I tell her rashly, I may only increase suspicion on her and bring needless trouble.]

On the other side, after watching several more matches between Golden Core and Foundation Establishment cultivators, Rong Shu greeted Fu Yong Kang and left the competition grounds.

With more than half a day left, she planned to visit the Alchemists’ Branch. At the moment she only held a trainee alchemist certificate. If she wanted to obtain first-grade and second-grade alchemist credentials, she still had to take the examinations. The exams were scheduled for the end of each month. She would be staying in Cloud Link City for three months, which gave her ample time to prepare.

Lectures for third-grade alchemists were held once every half month, and there were still a little over ten days before the next session.

After entering the Alchemists’ Branch, Rong Shu headed straight for the Myriad Books Tower. She ran into a small snag at the door, because she was carrying Little Hamster and the guard stopped her.

She explained to the guard: “Uncle, this is neither a spirit beast nor a demon beast. He is just an ordinary little hamster. If you do not believe me, you may check him.”

Little Hamster, tucked inside the cloth bag, stared vacantly and gnawed on sunflower seeds like a dazed deer.

The guard at the tower entrance inspected him several times. After confirming the animal was neither spirit nor demon beast but merely ordinary, he said, “Keep a close eye on your pet. If anything inside gets damaged, you will compensate at full price.”

She brightened at once and nodded repeatedly: “Yes, I will keep a close eye on him.”

Once inside, Little Hamster blinked, and the light returned to his eyes. Rong Shu reached in and scratched his head: “Yan Yan, you are amazing.”

Little Hamster shook his head hard to fling away her hand, plopped down, and went back to cracking seeds, doing his best to ignore her. Hmph. She had made him pretend to be a silly, slow-witted hamster.

Unbothered, Rong Shu entered the Myriad Books Tower, found a quiet, secluded corner, set Little Hamster down, and went to look for books. Before coming in, she had warned him in advance. He must not reveal his identity. Also, if he broke anything, she would sell him by the pound. After she said that, Little Hamster had nodded briskly, so she was not worried he would run wild inside the tower.

Six hours later, Rong Shu came out of the Myriad Books Tower and immediately rented a pill-refining room in the Alchemists’ Branch. Now that she had Spirit Stones, she did not feel distressed about the rental fee.

As soon as she entered the pill room, she pulled out her small notebook and copied down all the alchemy knowledge she had memorized. This time she recorded a dozen-odd third-grade pill formulas, but she did not rush to refine them. She planned to return to the Myriad Books Tower the next day to verify everything, so she would not waste a batch of ingredients if she had anything wrong.

She glanced at Little Hamster, who was looking around curiously and taking in the pill room piece by piece with his eyes. If not for the injury on his paw, she suspected he would be running laps around the room.

She reached out and could easily pat his head, then warned him: “I am going to refine pills. Go a little farther away and do not get too close.”

Little Hamster looked back in confusion, then, seeing her take out the Pill Furnace, tilted his head slightly. Following her instructions, he grabbed a cushion with his tiny paws, dragged it farther away, climbed onto it, and nestled into the soft dip in the middle to watch her.

Rong Shu planned to refine a batch of first-grade and second-grade pills, not mainly to sell but to practice. For first-grade and second-grade alchemist exams, the tested pill was no longer chosen by the alchemist. The proctoring instructor set a uniform topic. Since she did not know which pill would be assigned, she decided to run through all the commonly used first-grade and second-grade pills. As for herbs being insufficient, that was easy enough to solve. You could buy ingredients anytime in the Alchemists’ Branch.

And so, Rong Shu refined pills for several more hours, running through roughly a hundred common first- and second-grade pills several times over. In the end, she sold the successful pills back to the Alchemists’ Branch before leaving, which not only covered the pill room rent but even turned a profit.

When she exited the Alchemists’ Branch, she was still carrying the cloth bag. Little Hamster had fallen asleep again.

Although she had been focused on refining, she had not entirely shut out the outside world. Every so often she would turn to glance at Little Hamster to see what he was doing. Most of the time, she found him asleep. Having never really kept a pet, she could not help feeling puzzled. [Could this be the little hamster’s natural habit? Is he simply born to sleep a lot?] There were spirit or demon beasts like that, but Little Hamster’s species did not match any spirit or demon beasts she knew well.

When he slept, she would sometimes poke him gently with a finger. Occasionally he reacted, but most of the time he did not move at all. If she had not checked his body heat with her hand and found him warm, she would have thought something was wrong.

She lowered her head to look at Little Hamster and murmured, “Should I have found an alchemist at the branch to take a look just now?” [No, if someone discovered Little Hamster was not an ordinary animal, they might never let him into the Myriad Books Tower again. And hiring an alchemist to examine him would cost a lot of Spirit Stones, not to mention requiring an advance appointment.]