Chapter 42: The Ancient Fragment

With a heart full of curiosity, Zihou opened the wooden box and found an ancient-looking scroll inside.

Its dull yellow, curled edges, and ruined cover were all signs of it being an extremely old scroll. However, there was an important and ancient feel to it…

The old and tattered covers had been rendered illegible by time, and there were scratches all over it. “Pill Book” was written on the first page. As expected, as Zihou flipped the pages, the contents were all of training and medicine. If there was an expert present, he would surely be shocked as many of these were long-lost, legendary recipes.

As she flipped towards the end, Zihou found that the back of the book was already ripped out by others. Other than the pill book, there were no other books within it. Based on what she knew, there should have been more than that.

As she closed the book, she saw the words “Ancient Fragment” on the book’s cover. So that was what the book was called. She thought, Since it’s a fragment, then it’s normal for it to be lacking some parts.

After she stopped thinking about the completeness of the book, Zihou began to read through its contents.

The Ancient Fragment recorded many pills and its functions, and Zihou was dumbfounded by everything that she read. She did not have much knowledge of this prior to reading the book and did not feel anything special for it, but after looking at this, her understanding of these pills changed.

There were many grades of pills, ranging from one to nine, and the higher the grade, the rarer the pill, but the more impressive the result. Every grade was assigned a level according to the number of times they were refined. Hence, a Grade 1 pill would be a One-Transformation Pill, and a Grade 2 pill would be a Two-Transformation Pill, and so on. Thus, a Grade 9 pill was also a Nine-Transformation Pill. As for a Grade 9, it could be seen as a godly pill. Those in possession of these pills would be effectively immortal.

However, in the entire country of Western Chu, any Five-Transformation Pill was already extremely rare, so there was no point talking about the godly ones.

With this scroll, as well as her deep understanding of medicine and poison, she believed that it would not be too hard for her to understand this.

“I didn’t expect to get this gem. Since you have already given it to me, don’t expect to get it back!” Zihou laughed coldly and loudly. Since this was hers now, she would make full use of it, and make sure to never give it back.

If Zihou knew, at that moment, what it meant to be the owner of the bracelet, she would never have said anything like this. Of course, when she found out, it would already be way too late.

She could only sigh and regret her actions!

…

Northern Medicinal Pavilion.

“Boss, how coincidental, I meet you everywhere!”

As Zihou prepared to enter the pavilion, an excited voice came from behind her. As she turned, she saw the brightly smiling Qi Shaoyang, who had his eyes wide open, ready for action.

“Are you sure you did not come specifically to look for me?” Zihou frowned, and the corners of her lips curled up, as she clearly did not hesitate to expose his act.

“Hehe, not meeting you for a day is like not seeing you for three thousand days!” Qi Shaoyang laughed awkwardly as he fawned over her, his hands around his head.

“Did we not meet yesterday?”

“Er… we did,” Qi Shaoyang said. He was originally an idler who did nothing much, and before he met Zihou, he had spent much of his time in the West Capital, doing good, stealing from the rich to give to the poor, fighting evil, etc. However, after he met Zihou, he felt that there was nothing better than spending time with her.

How would Zihou not know what Qi Shaoyang felt? She said nothing else and turned into the pavilion. “Since you’re already here, then help me take some stuff!”

“Okay!” Qi Shaoyang did not hesitate and immediately followed her with a large grin.

This was Zihou’s second time to the medicinal pavilion, where her previous time was to purchase medicine for Wei Ziyu. Today, she was here to buy some herbs and ingredients for the pills.

Although it was written in the Ancient Fragment that higher grade pills could only be made through high-quality ingredients as well as a well-made fire, the god-level pills could only be made with the best of the best ingredients as well as fire. However, she had to start small, and there were some things that she knew she should not rush.

“Could I please see these herbs and ingredients if you have them?” Zihou passed a list of the required ingredients to the shopkeeper over the counter.

After the elderly shopkeeper took a look at her list, he paused before speaking, “We have the ingredients that you need, but they are rare, and we do not have much of them.”

“Whatever you have, give it to me.” Zihou nodded her head. Some of the ingredients were necessary for the Five-Transformation Pill, and given that the pill itself was extremely rare in the city, the ingredients were rare as well.

“However, these ingredients are not cheap!” The shopkeeper hesitated and spoke again.

“No worries!” Zihou waved him off. Money was not an issue to her, as she won a lot back then in the gambling den.

“Do you have urns here?” Zihou did not see any urns after looking around, so Zihou asked curiously.

The shopkeeper was stunned for a moment, before asking her, surprised, “Are you an alchemist?” Why else would you buy urns?

“I just wanted to try it out,” Zihou said, smiling and shaking her head.

The shopkeeper nodded his head knowingly. Alchemists were so rare that the entire West Capital barely had any, so how could a young lady be an alchemist?

“Not many people purchase urns, but we have a few upstairs. I shall get someone to bring it down for you.” The shopkeeper was an amiable person and had a helper go up to get it.

At that time, Zihou spent some time browsing around in the shop.

“Hey, why did you not apologize after knocking into me?” An arrogant and unreasonable voice was heard and attracted the attention of the people around.