Dao of the Deal

High level cultivators were notoriously difficult to kill. Destroying their physical bodies was already quite difficult, and was only the first step towards actually killing them. On the other hand, high level cultivators were also notoriously good at killing things. It stood to reason that an army capable of threatening the entire Qianzhan Continent would find it easy enough to obliterate an isolated cultivator, no matter how high level, but it was still chilling to hear Xinyi discuss the matter so casually.

"I suspected I might be in danger, so I prepared countermeasures," Xiang said.

"Not very well," Xinyi said. "How long has it been, and you still don't have a body back together?"

"Creating a new physical vessel isn't like picking vegetables at the market," Xiang said, then sighed. "I underestimated how vicious Lord Guang would be. All of my life savings were taken out and used to buy the affections of my colleagues, scattering my preparations to the wind. I had to scramble to even keep my remnant spirit together."

Even with the world facing complete destruction, people would still count their own costs and benefits. It took somebody particularly cold blooded to come up with such a decisive plan to divide and conquer his own troops. And all in order to bring down a faithful soldier whose only crime was to ask to be paid better for his efforts. The worst part was that here on the Qianzhan Continent when you learned about long ago atrocities there was every chance the perpetrator was still around.

Muchen cleared his throat. "Do we still have to worry about this Lord Guang?"

Xinyi chuckled. "Why do you think I want to bring down the Cloudy Peaks sect?"

The specter flinched backwards. "You still mean to take him on? After everything that has happened?"

Xinyi stared at him. "You don't?"

"I just want to live a quiet life with my pill furnace and perhaps an apprentice or two," Xiang said. "After so much time, there's no point in pursuing revenge."

"A thousand years isn't too late to have my revenge," Xinyi said. "If anything, it ought to be all the more terrible for the delay."

Muchen once again reminded himself never to do anything to get on Xinyi's bad side. She was easygoing most of the time, but once she was roused to actual anger she wasn't the type to let things go.

"Madness!" the ghost said, trying to retreat back into the pendant but unable to move. "You can't drag me into this."

Xinyi cocked her head in thought. Even from the sidelines, Muchen could tell that she very much had the upper hand should this turn violent. He thought it would be better if they could reach some sort of win-win arrangement. He was still hesitating over whether to step in and try to mediate when Xinyi spoke.

"There's no need for force. Don't we both want the same thing?" she asked. "You might give up because of weakness, but don't pretend that you're truly reconciled."

"Even if I'm not, so what?" Xiang asked. "I've worked this hard to cling to a shred of life, I'm not going to throw it away just because you asked."

"I'm not about to charge the gates of the sect right now," Xinyi said. "I prefer honest, forthright methods, but I won't stick stubbornly to the principles that led to such a catastrophe."

She shook her head, then turned to stare off into the distance in the direction of the Cloudy Peaks Sect. "Now is the time to build strength, build alliances. I won't make a move until I'm sure of victory."

"Sure of a safe victory?" Xiang asked.

Xinyi shook her head. "You must shed that timidity if you ever want to accomplish anything. How many times have I told you?"

"Easy for you to say," Xiang grumbled, before bowing to the reality of the situation. "I suppose we can join your alliance, if you aren't going to just throw our lives away."

"You speak for the boy?" Xinyi asked, turning her attention to Junfeng. "What is your relationship, exactly?"

"Master has taught me a lot," Junfeng said, for once completely serious.

"It's been a while since my vessel came into the ownership of someone who isn't a fool," Xiang said. "He provides me with enough spiritual energy to maintain my existence. I've taught him a few things."

Muchen wondered how the spirit had survived for long stretches of time without any willing infusions of energy, before deciding it probably wasn't a good idea to dwell on the possibilities. Maybe hiding in the necklace put him into some kind of power saving mode.

"Alchemy?" Xinyi asked. It took Muchen a moment to place the expression on her face. To be fair, it was the first time he'd had any inkling that she was impressed by somebody else's mastery of a topic.

"Just some trivial matters," Xiang said. "After all, it's not worth spending the time on any serious tutelage until he reaches the foundation building stage."

Xinyi shook her head. "I never thought I'd see the day when you took on an apprentice."

The ghost looked off to the side. "I haven't made him a formal apprentice just yet."

Muchen cleared his throat, refreshing his sense of existence, before addressing Junfeng. "Are you still willing to join Flower Mountain? This has been a lot to take in."

"I've always wanted to repay master for the help he's given me," Junfeng said. "This is, it's on a larger scale than I expected. But I won't back down now."

"Good," Muchen said. "Our Flower Mountain lacks an alchemy department."

Muchen didn't foresee much need for miracle pills. Everyone on Flower Mountain so far had enjoyed a brisk pace of cultivation progress under Xinyi's watchful eye, with no need for performance enhancing drugs. As they entered the foundation building stage they would be able to take advantage of the Storm Dragon scripture. When combined with the electrical mill, the overall effect was more impressive than most of the miracle pills Muchen had heard of.

Healing pills might be nice to have around, but they didn't need more than a handful to ensure they had well stocked first aid kits on the premises. The Iron Bones sect might rely on trading off its disciples' injuries for spirit stones—essentially turning pills that could heal those injuries into currency—but Flower Mountain was on an entirely different business model.

As to the more exotic pills out there, well, Muchen would be willing to listen to the sales pitch, but he doubted that a complete novice like Junfeng would be able to produce something that would blow him away, even under the guiding hand of an experienced ghost like Xiang.

What Muchen was really interested in was in building up a department that had some idea of how to manipulate spiritual energy. Muchen's rudimentary knowledge of physics and chemistry had already been worked into their nascent assembly line, but none of this knowledge from the modern world had anything to say about how to mix spiritual elements into his products.

In other words, if he wanted to crack into the cultivator market and find customers who would be willing to pay in spirit stones instead of silver, he needed to employ a local expert. Now that Xinyi had dragged such an expert into the light, Muchen wasn't willing to let him go easily.

"An alchemy department," Xiang said. "I wouldn't mind being the founder of something like that."

Behind Xiang, Xinyi rolled her eyes. Muchen did his best to maintain a poker face.

"If we do this, though," Junfeng said, "can you help master build a new body?"

Muchen turned to the ghost. "You must have your own plans."

"The recipe is something that Junfeng could master, given time. Probably. Many of the ingredients are precious, but that's just a matter of spending enough spirit stones," Xiang said, the alchemist's habit of disregarding costs still engraved in his spirit, "but finding the Misty Root Xu Duan and Scorching Fraxinella won't be easy."

Xinyi clicked her tongue. "Those should be long extinct. There's no substitute?"

Xiang shook his head. "I had secured both, hidden away in case of betrayal. Unfortunately, they weren't hidden away as well as I thought. Like I said, Lord Guang dug out my treasures and used them to buy off the other alchemists."

"Do you know what they did with them?" Muchen asked. He didn't hold out too much hope. A spirit tethered to a single location couldn't build up much of a spy network.

"Of course," Xiang said. "Just like most of the truly precious items, they found their way to the Cloudy Peaks treasure vault."

"Master," Junfeng began, before Xiang cut him off with a raised hand.

"Don't volunteer to do anything foolish. There's a reason I never told you about this before," he said, before giving Xinyi a look. "And a reason I'm willing to join your crusade."

"Bold of you to start allocating the spoils before the fight has even begun," Muchen said. "I'm not opposed to giving you first dibs on what's important to you, but if you want a share of the priceless treasures from the sect's vault, you'll have to pull your weight."

"You think the pills I can craft aren't worth it?" Xiang said, before glancing down at his ghostly hands. "Even if I can't craft pills myself, it won't be long until I have Junfeng trained up into a top flight alchemist. By then he'll be able to write his own ticket."

"Will he be able to write a ticket for access to the Cloudy Peaks vaults?" Muchen asked, before shaking his head.

"Nobody on the Qianzhan Continent is going to be willing to dig out those precious treasures for you for free," Muchen continued. "There's no free lunch in this world and there will be no freeloaders in my Flower Mountain sect."

Alchemists were welcome additions to any force, that was true, but they weren't so important that they would inspire any suicidal charges against a hegemon like the Cloudy Peaks sect. Maybe if Junfeng were willing to join up with one of the other hegemon sects and work his way up into a position of importance, they would be able to bargain with the Cloudy Peaks sect as an equal and get him what he wanted. But if he went that route, whichever sect he chose as a patron would expect to get value back for its investment.

Muchen smiled in the face of the translucent pout on Xiang's face. "Come now, I'm hardly planning to chain Junfeng to a pill furnace."

Muchen thought back to his attempt to sell liquor to the Iron Bones sect. While mortals had been impressed at the first taste and eager to buy more, the Iron Bones sect had higher standards when it came to items it was willing to import and provide to its disciples.

"We have developed products that appeal to mortal sensibilities," Muchen said, "but they will need to be reformulated in order to penetrate the cultivator market. To that end, your expertise will be far more valuable than Junfeng's labor."

The ghost perked up a bit at the praise. As far as Muchen was concerned, it was just common sense. In terms of his previous world, Xiang at least had his PhD in alchemy. If he were still alive he would probably be a world-renowned expert. It would be ridiculous to put somebody with those kind of credentials on the assembly line. Even worse to assign their inexperienced student a series of production tasks with the expert doing nothing but looking over their shoulder and critiquing their work.

No, the way to use an expert was to have them develop a process that produced a high quality product without needing more experts. In this case, Muchen figured they needed to add a bit of spirituality to their liquor somehow. And perhaps to their scented oil. If Xiang could come up with a way for Chuhua to do that, then their spirit stone problem would be a thing of the past.

Although, an improvement like that would take time to pay off. Muchen cleared his throat and braced himself before making his next demand. "Also, do you have any spirit stones?"

Junfeng cocked his head. "No. I had to choose between medicinal materials and spirit stones when I left. Is that a problem?"

Muchen shook his head. "No, no problem. I was just curious."

It would have been nice for the solution to his money problems to have dropped into his lap, but he couldn't be too upset that it hadn't. Besides, he would have felt guilty about extorting cash from an aspiring disciple.

"Also," Muchen continued, turning his attention back to Xiang, "I would appreciate it if you could impart the basics of alchemy to Flower Mountain disciples who take an interest in the subject."