One year later.
In the blink of an eye, Bai Yunxi and Ye Fan had been on Ice Sword Island for more than a year. This seemed like a long time, but to a cultivator, it was just a fleeting moment.
For more than a year, the reputation of Ye Fan’s store had resonated throughout the island, and every time the store had a product on the market, it would be snapped up.
“Okay, the auxiliary herbs for refining the ice lingzhi are almost collected. I want to refine it.” Ye Fan said.
Bai Yunxi nodded and said, “Okay.”
It had been a long time since Ye Fan obtained the ice lingzhi, but he never dared to refine this thing easily. Now, Ye Fan finally decided to start.
“Three hundred year old ice lingzhi is a good thing! Golden Core cultivators would also be interested.” Ye Fan said.
Bai Yunxi nodded and said, “You can only get it if you have the ability.”
Ye Fan nodded and said, “En. I’m the most capable.”
Bai Yunxi: “…”
…
Ye Fan hung a sign outside the store saying that he was closed for retreat.
“Alchemist Ye, you won’t open the shop in the next little while?” Li Yue came over and asked.
Compared with other alchemists, Ye Fan’s temper could be considered approachable, so Ye Fan’s popularity on Ice Sword Island was not bad.
Ye Fan nodded and said, “Yes, the store won’t be open for a while. I have something to do.”
Li Yue was a regular customer of Ye Fan’s medicinal pills. This person did some reselling work. Ye Fan’s store had a good source of goods. Li Yue often bought from Ye Fan. Sometimes, he also brought over some herbs and asked Ye Fan to refine them. By selling the refined pills at a high price, the profit was pretty good.
“Is Alchemist Ye going to make a breakthrough?” Li Yue asked.
Ye Fan blinked and said, “Maybe.”
After closing the shop, Ye Fan set up several protective formations in the shop before he began to refine the Bingzhi Pill.
The three hundred year old ice lingzhi was amazing. When refining, the surrounding cold energy was attracted, and the shop where Ye Fan lived was completely covered in ice.
…
“It’s such a pity that Alchemist Ye has retreated. If I knew that Alchemist Ye would retreat, I would have gone to the store to buy medicinal pills a few days earlier.”
“Who doesn’t regret? I found more than a dozen ice crystal diamonds. If I had known that Alchemist Ye needed this thing, in earlier years, I would not have sold them to those business firms casually. I have lost a lot of money.”
“What’s going on in Alchemist Ye’s cave! Why is there such a thick layer of ice?”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
“He’s probably refining pills. The ice lingzhi from Daoist Lin Mo is said to have been given to Alchemist Ye.”
“Ice lingzhi of such a high age is a good thing! However, Lin Mo’s asking price was too high. 200,000 low-grade spirit stones, no Foundation Establishment cultivator can take them out at once.”
“In the end, it’s alchemists who make money quickly! We risk our lives to kill spiritual beasts, and it’s not as good as others making a few pills at random. No wonder everyone wants to be an alchemist.”
“It’s not like just anyone can become an alchemist because they want to. I have a junior brother who came from a well-off family. However, because that junior brother became obsessed with alchemy, after two years, the family went bankrupt. This guy borrowed a lot of foreign debt for alchemy. Because he hadn’t achieved any success in alchemy yet, he could only complete dangerous missions, and finally died during a mission.”
…
Ye Fan’s pill refining lasted for three days in total. After the pills were refined, the fragrance filled several streets, making the surrounding cultivators jealous.
Ice lingzhi produced twelve medicinal pills. He distributed six to Bai Yunxi, who began to retreat to absorb the medicinal power of the medicinal pill.
Ye Fan retreated for more than two months, and the cultivators who couldn’t buy medicinal pills outside complained.
In more than two months, Ye Fan’s cultivation base entered the middle stage of Foundation Establishment.
Bai Yunxi spent a lot of time on refining ice crystal diamonds, and the progress of his cultivation was a little slower.
…
Ye Fan completed his promotion and reopened the stop.
Ye Fan had been in retreat for more than two months, and the shop had been closed for nearly three months. As soon as the door opened, he welcomed many guests who had been waiting for a long time.
Not long after Ye Fan’s reopened the shop, Ye Fan met an acquaintance.
“Alchemist Ye, long time no see!” Feng Mo’er said angrily.
Ye Fan nodded and said, “En, long time no see.”
“Alchemist Ye, you left in a hurry last time, so I didn’t have time to say goodbye to you.” Feng Mo’er said dully.
“We cultivators don’t need to be so sticky. Let alone, we are not that familiar.” Ye Fan said.
Feng Mo’er: “…”
When Feng Mo’er heard what Ye Fan said, her face was as usual, but Li Qing, who was beside Feng Mo’er, had a bit of anger flashing on her face.
“As soon as I came here, I heard that there is an unnamed general goods store by the sea, specializing in collecting ice crystal diamonds. People say that this store is very special and amazing. I didn’t expect it to be opened by you, Alchemist Ye.”
Feng Mo’er secretly thought: Ye Fan’s name for the shop was too careless. The Ordinary general goods store in the past was named Ordinary. This time it was even better. He didn’t even bother to name the shop and just called it a general goods store. It was just an ordinary shop with an ordinary appearance, yet business was unexpectedly good.
“Why did Fellow Daoist Feng come to Ice Sword Island?”
Feng Mo’er took a deep breath and said, “The sect sent me to buy ice marrow.”
“Oh, is there ice marrow here?” Ye Fan nodded lightly.
Feng Mo’er shook her head and said, “I don’t know. There is no news yet. I heard that Alchemist Ye is buying ice crystal diamonds?”
Ye Fan nodded and said, “Yes.”
“I don’t know, does the ice crystal diamond have any special use?” Feng Mo’er asked.
Ye Fan glanced at Feng Mo’er and didn’t want to talk more, “You don’t need it.”
Feng Mo’er smiled and said, “Really?”
Ye Fan secretly thought: He had been buying ice crystal diamonds here for more than a year, and Bai Yunxi should be almost ready. He should make the last batch of purchases and there would be no need to buy more after that.
Feng Mo’er looked at Ye Fan and said in surprise, “Young Master Ye, have you entered the middle stage of Foundation Establishment with your cultivation?”
Ye Fan nodded and said, “Yes!”
A bit of doubt flashed in Feng Mo’er’s eyes. Ye Fan said at the beginning that he had to knock eight Foundation Establishment Pills to build a foundation. If so, Ye Fan’s spiritual roots should be very bad! If Ye Fan’s spiritual roots were so bad, how could he advance to the middle stage of Foundation Establishment in such a short period of time? Did he lie to her?
Feng Mo’er secretly thought: Ye Fan, this guy should be the kind of person who pretended to be a pig to eat a tiger*. He acted careless, but in fact was full of scheming.
Ye Fan looked at Feng Mo’er and said in confusion, “Why are you looking at me like that?”
Feng Mo’er shook her head and said, “It’s nothing.”
…
“Senior sister, is that the Ye Fan you mentioned? Is he really from a big sect?” Li Qing asked suspiciously.
Li Qing had been following Feng Mo’er for a while. Before, Feng Mo’er was talking to Ye Fan, but Li Qing was unable to intervene, and she couldn’t help but feel a little regretful.
Feng Mo’er nodded and said, “It’s very possible.”
If an alchemist wanted to become a master, in addition to alchemy talent, he also needed inheritance. Whether it was pill recipes or alchemy techniques, they were valuable. Without the guidance of famous teachers, no matter how strong your alchemy talent, it would be useless. Ye Fan seemed to have no troubles in this regard.
Feng Mo’er had inquired about it. Ye Fan solved the cold poison on Lin Mo’s body, which made Lin Mo very grateful to Ye Fan.
Even Yuan Hai, the Golden Core elder of Tiangang Sect, didn’t dare to make a guarantee to solve the cold poison in Lin Mo’s body. If Ye Fan didn’t have an expert behind him, how could he be able to solve it?
“Senior sister, what do you think he’s buying so many ice crystal diamonds for? I heard that the ice crystal diamonds he bought over the past year are at least equivalent to hundreds of thousands of low-grade spirit stones, and almost 70% of the ice crystal diamonds in the entire Ice Sword Island have flowed into Ye Fan’s store. Why would he accept ice crystal diamonds when he could earn spirit stones? Could it be that ice crystal diamonds can be used for alchemy?”
“What are you thinking? Ice crystal diamonds are materials used for refining weapons and tools. How can they be used to make pills? I don’t think Ye Fan himself needs this thing. It should be prepared for Bai Yunxi.” Feng Mo’er said.
“Bai Yunxi. Senior Sister, is it the cultivator who produced a vision of heaven and earth during his promotion to Foundation Establishment?” Li Qing asked.
Feng Mo’er nodded and said, “Yes, it’s him.”
“Ye Fan is really good to this guy!” Li Qing said.
Feng Mo’er smiled and said, “If he joined our sect, the elders of the sect would also treat him well, but fortunately he didn’t join.”
Li Qing smiled and said, “Yeah! Fortunately, he didn’t join. Otherwise, the elders, after getting such a treasure, wouldn’t be happy to see us.”
Feng Mo’er: “…”
“However, I don’t think this heavenly spiritual root cultivator is anything special. He has been eating soft rice all this time. Fortunately, Ye Fan can make money. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to support him.” Li Qing said sourly. Alchemists were highly respected, and many female cultivators wanted to have an alchemist as a partner. That way, there would never be a shortage of medicinal pills.
…
Ye Fan spread the word that he was looking to purchase his last batch of ice crystal diamonds and finally purchased another 2,000 ice crystal diamonds. He then spread the word that he wouldn’t accept ice crystal diamonds as payment in the future.
Many people who had been hoarding ice crystal diamonds and waiting for them to increase in value, immediately went to Ye Fan’s shop to exchange things. Others were reluctant to let go, just waiting for the island’s ice crystal diamonds to be in short supply, and then sell them to Ye Fan*.
Ye Fan walked into the refining room and asked, “How’s it going?”
Bai Yunxi nodded and said, “It’s almost there.”
There were twelve sword embryos suspended in front of Bai Yunxi. Bai Yunxi looked at the sword embryos in front of him, and a bit of fiery light flashed in his eyes.
These twelve spiritual swords were basically the results of Bai Yunxi’s hard work over the past year. The effort Bai Yunxi had spent on these twelve spiritual swords for more than a year was unimaginable.
Ye Fan looked at the twelve sword embryos, nodded, and said, “Well, it’s almost done. The last step is to shape them with blood.”
For this set of spiritual swords, Ye Fan’s proposition was to let Bai Yunxi refine them into his life-bound spiritual weapon. A cultivator’s life-bound spiritual weapon was connected with the cultivator’s consciousness. Even if it was taken away, other people couldn’t use it. The power of a life-bound spiritual weapon was stronger than ordinary spiritual weapons. The trouble was, if the life-bound spiritual weapon was damaged, the cultivator would also be implicated.
“I plan to complete the last step in the next few days.” Bai Yunxi said.
Ye Fan nodded and said, “Okay.”
Ye Fan’s shop reopened for half a month and then closed again, causing a cry of mourning.
Luo Dieyi looked in the direction of Ye Fan’s shop with some loss, and said with regret, “I just got a few sword-shaped grasses, and I wanted to ask Alchemist Ye to refine them into medicinal pills for me. Unfortunately, he’s not there.”
Lin Mo opened his eyes and said, “Ye Fan has been collecting ice crystal diamonds, and suddenly said that he will stop collecting them. I think he should make a big move soon.”
Luo Dieyi looked at Lin Mo and said, “Senior brother, do you mean that we will know the purpose of the ice crystal diamonds right away?”
Lin Mo nodded and said, “Yes, the ice crystal diamond is supposed to be used for refining weapons. However, this material is generally not malleable, and only its decorative properties are good. I just don’t know what Bai Yunxi will use it to refine.”
Luo Dieyi frowned and said, “The ice crystal diamonds that Ye Fan spent so much effort collecting should be of some use.” After all, Ye Fan was always talking about how much he loved his wife. He shouldn’t treat Bai Yunxi badly.
***
T/N: Don’t ask me why the title is Start Practicing Swordsmanship when they don’t actually start practicing swordsmanship… I was confused too.
*Pretending to be a pig to eat a tiger – Chinese idiom that means disguising yourself as weak/incompetent so others let down their guard and you can defeat them.
*Honestly, I’m not sure the point of this paragraph as the author said in the previous paragraph he purchased his last batch and then spread the word that he wasn’t taking them anymore.
