Chapter 32

Chapter 32: A Girl Must Not Say She Can’t

Besides auditing free lectures, the Alchemists’ Guild branch also opens part of its alchemy-related collection to the public, housing those free books in the Myriad Books Tower for alchemists to consult.

This is something even sects cannot do.

The knowledge and resources held by a sect are, under normal circumstances, available only to its own disciples; if outsiders want access, they must pay with something of equivalent value.

Yet the Alchemists’ Guild branch manages to keep its doors open to outsiders. The only restriction is that one must have either a Fire or Wood Spiritual Root, or be a formally certified alchemist.

This restriction is all but nonexistent, because cultivators who become alchemists almost always possess a Fire or Wood Spiritual Root.

In front of the Myriad Books Tower, Rong Shu relied on the fire-aligned spiritual root she revealed and entered smoothly.

The Myriad Books Tower, said to hold over ten thousand alchemy-related volumes, has four floors in total.

At present, Rong Shu can enter only the first floor.

As for the three floors above, they require additional conditions, such as contribution points to the Alchemists’ Guild branch, spending points, or exchanging access rights with Spirit Stones and treasures.

Rong Shu skimmed a portion of the books. Among them were formulas for several commonly used pills found on the market, including the Qi Induction Pill, the Fasting Pill, the Spirit Gathering Pill, and the Tendon and Bone Pill.

When Rong Shu saw the Tendon and Bone Pill formula, delight rippled through her heart.

Back when she did tasks in the Hundred Herb Garden of Heaven’s Evolution Sect, Rong Shu only roughly knew a few of the chief ingredients for refining the Tendon and Bone Pill.

At the time she fumbled about on her own; Heaven’s Evolution Sect did have a Tendon and Bone Pill recipe, but you needed contribution points to view the complete formula.

The Guild’s free formulas, however, record every step of pill refinement in detail. Even a beginner like Rong Shu, who had never touched alchemy before, could read and understand them.

Thinking of tomorrow’s apprentice lecture, she grew even more eager: [This Alchemists’ Guild branch really is the right place to be.]

So Rong Shu first picked up A Beginner’s Handbook to Alchemy, sat down on the floor, opened to the first page, and read with full concentration.

The shelves on the first floor of the Myriad Books Tower hold only printed paper books.

The choice to use paper that must be memorized rather than recording contents in jade slips is meant to discourage a portion of cultivators who only want to press a jade slip to their forehead and freeload knowledge.

Only cultivators who truly wish to walk the path of alchemy can quiet their minds and read these volumes in earnest.

Rong Shu stayed in the Myriad Books Tower for three hour before she reluctantly left.

It was not that she did not want to remain; rather, the Tower has a written rule: each cultivator may stay only three hour per day. Once the time is up, one must leave the Tower, and no books may be taken out.

Anyone caught stealing will not only have to pay heavy compensation to the Alchemists’ Guild, but will also be permanently blacklisted, barred from trading herbs and pills through Guild channels, and forbidden from sitting for the alchemist certification exam.

Because the penalty is so severe, almost no cultivator will take such a risk for the sake of one or two books. Come diligently and you can read a great many.

The next day.

Rong Shu arrived early at the doors of the Alchemists’ Guild branch.

After her Fire Spiritual Root was verified, Guild staff admitted her into the apprentice classroom.

By then many cultivators had already arrived to attend the lecture, and the seats closest to the dais were taken.

Seeing this, Rong Shu found a relatively forward seat and sat down.

Some cultivators who knew one another were chatting, and a portion of their conversation drifted to Rong Shu’s ears: someone whispered: today’s lecture should be taught by Instructor Li; another warned: do not talk out of turn later, Instructor Li has a bad temper, and if you speak without permission he might throw you out on the spot; others merely murmured.

When the Chen hour arrived, the Instructor in charge of the apprentice lecture, Instructor Li, appeared punctually at the hall entrance.

Rong Shu looked up. He was a stern-faced, square-jawed middle-aged man wearing an elegant gray-blue robe.

Remembering that this Instructor Li might have a temper, Rong Shu secretly straightened her back.

During the lesson, Instructor Li gave a small test: he tied a fly to a fine string and hung it from the rafter, then told everyone to stare at the fly for half a hour.

Those who could not persist, Instructor Li told bluntly not to learn alchemy.

After half a hour, some people were driven out, while Rong Shu was fortunate enough to remain.

Three hour later, after the class ended, Rong Shu had a clearer understanding and sense of the alchemist profession.

…

The topics for the second day’s apprentice class were as follows: first, how to distinguish the quality of spirit herbs; second, precautions and handling methods when gathering spirit herbs in the wild; third, the growth environments of spirit herbs.

The latter two topics are too broad in scope; in class the instructor could only explain a few typical cases and recommended several dozen relevant books.

In the instructor’s words, if you memorize the contents of those books by rote, you will know everything.

The one bit of good news was that all of those books could be found in the Myriad Books Tower.

When the lecture ended, Rong Shu went straight to the Tower and, following the instructor’s reading list, selected books to consult.

Six days passed in a row.

After the sixth day’s lecture, Rong Shu glanced reflexively at the notice board to see the next day’s topics.

But this time it was not a topic; it was a written examination with a time limit of three hour.

Rong Shu’s expression stalled for a moment.

After she read the specific requirements of the written exam, a headache immediately bloomed.

There were ten thousand questions. Even with a cultivator’s powerful spiritual sense, if you were not careful, you might fail to finish reading them all.

If your error count did not exceed ten, you could pass the exam and take the pill-refining assessment the next day to begin hands-on practice.

On the morning of the seventh day, Rong Shu went to sit the exam.

Finishing all ten thousand questions was out of the question. For most of them, she had never even seen the relevant knowledge points, so she could not begin to answer.

If you leave more than ten questions blank, there is no need to grade your paper; you are eliminated on the spot.

Unsurprisingly, Rong Shu was eliminated. On the eighth day she had no chance to attend class and could only throw herself back into the Myriad Books Tower to cram the alchemical knowledge she lacked.

On the eighth day, any apprentice who could successfully refine a pill would be promoted one rank to become a trainee alchemist, with access to the free trainee lectures.

By the ninth day, the three lecture topics were the same as those on day one.

Seeing the topics begin to cycle, Rong Shu still went to listen as usual.

Because the instructors rotated, hearing different instructors’ viewpoints was also helpful for learning alchemy.

Another six days flashed by. On the fifteenth day, the written exam began again.

This time Rong Shu could basically finish, but with more than two thousand errors, she was still eliminated.

Unable to attend on the sixteenth day, Rong Shu continued to grind away in the Myriad Books Tower.

[She refused to believe it. She would not fail. A girl must not say she cannot do it.]