Chapter 371: Open Shop
Translator: _Dark_Angel_ Editor: Kurisu
After dealing with Duan Zheng Zhi, Ling Han naturally needed not change his appearance anymore. Accompanied by the carriage's swaying, he travelled all the way to his destination. When he reached the Extreme Yang City, his cultivation had reached the middle period of the third layer of the Spiritual Ocean Tier, but the bad news was that he had used up all his Origin Crystals, so the current him was really poor.
Guang Yuan's cultivation had also fallen back to the first layer of the Spiritual Ocean Tier, and after this time period of over a month spent on cultivation, he had just broken through to the second layer, which was not that much different from Can Ye. Even if these two endlessly refined Origin Crystals without rest or sleep, they would only be able to supply two Origin Crystals in a single month, and they would only be Single Star Origin Crystals.
How pitiful!
Ling Han sighed. When he entered into the Extreme Yang City, he handed over the last Origin Crystal on him as the registration fee for his entry into the city. The registration needed only be done once, and in future, he would not need to pay any additional fees for any subsequent entries.
To save money, he didn't even let Liu Yu Tong and the others out.
Now, the first step was not to find the remaining two main ingredients for the Restore Spirit Pill, but rather to earn money first. Without money, could it be he was planning to steal? Even if he wanted to, he had to have the ability to do so first.
The Extreme Yang City was the commercial center of the whole north region. This was an extremely lively place, and there were two colossal powers here: the Alchemist Society and the Spirit Treasures Pavilion. The headquarters of the Spirit Treasure Pavilion was still called the Spirit Treasure Pavilion, but the place where the Alchemist Society was located was called the "Northern Pill Palace Hall". It occupied close to one-tenth of the total area of the whole city. There were numerous martial artists and alchemists residing within. There was also a gigantic medicine farm that provided the ingredients for the daily concoction of the alchemists.
It was said that this medicine farm had an extremely large Gathering Spirit Array over it, which allowed the Spiritual Qi within to be extremely dense and sped up the growth of the Spirit Grasses. To sustain the circulation of this Gathering Spirit Array, the amount of Origin Crystals consumed daily was astronomical. It was likely that even the Winter Moon Sect would shiver at seeing this sky-high figure.
In terms of wealth, there were two great parties who were at the top of the hierarchy in the north region: the Alchemist Society and the Spirit Treasures Pavilion. Only these two great parties could burn Origin Crystals like that.
When Ling Han heard that, he could not help but feel his hands itch. He wanted very much to enter this medicine field of the Northern Pill Palace Hall and pull out a few stalks of every type of Spirit Grass to be transplanted into the Black Tower to perfect his medicine field. Only in the Black Tower could it be called a real medicine field!
His thoughts wandered too far away. Priority now was to earn money, earn money!
Ling Han planned to open up a shop to sell alchemical pills, along with a restaurant, to endlessly gather Origin Crystals for him.
…Auctioning off a high grade alchemical pill would indeed get a high price, but the problem was, the rarer something was, the greater its value. If he drew out too many, their price would naturally drop. Furthermore, the amount of Origin Crystals Ling Han needed was an astronomical figure. No matter how many, he wouldn't complain about having too many.
Thus, he not only needed to occasionally produce some high grade alchemical pills to earn Origin Crystals like crazy, he also had to ensure a steady stream of lower grade alchemical pills to continuously earn Origin Crystals for him.
Everything was difficult at the start and lack of money could encumber even the greatest of heroes. Ling Han did not have even one Origin Crystal, so he could only start all over again.
He first harvested some ginseng from inside the Black Tower, and went to a pharmacy to sell them. But the result was that this pharmacy offered an extremely low price for them. He was so furious that he went to another pharmacy, yet the result was the same.
When they saw that he was an outsider and that his cultivation level was only in Spiritual Ocean Tier, they naturally wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to make a killing.
In the Desolate North, the Spiritual Ocean Tier could be considered to be one of the middle ranks of power, but in the Extreme Yang City, only the Spiritual Pedestal Tier could be addressed as elite, whereas those in the Flower Blossom Tier would be able to get real respect.
There was nothing to be done. Who asked the Extreme Yang City to be the commercial center of the whole north region? There were many elite martial artists of the Flower Blossom Tier, and if one simply looked at this city, they may even think that the Flower Blossom Tier was too easy to break through to.
After switching a few pharmacies, the result was more or less the same. Ling Han could only bear the pain and sell the ginseng at a rock-bottom price. One had to understand that these ginsengs have been growing for close to two months, and their age was close to reaching three hundred years.
"You all will regret this!" Ling Han noted this down. In future, he would definitely open a branch beside every pharmacy, and snatch away all their business!
…Ling Han sometimes was also very childish.
With starting capital, Ling Han immediately opened his pharmacy and a restaurant. It was very easy to do so as he simply bought readily available ones that did not even need to be renovated. As a result, two days later, his pharmacy and restaurant were open and ready for business.
Liu Yu Tong was placed in charge of the restaurant, whereas Li Si Chan was responsible for the pharmacy.
The restaurant was called "Forget Not", which meant that if a person ate once, he would not forget the taste and would come again and again. Meanwhile, the pharmacy was called "Alchemist King Pavilion"—with Ling Han's skill, this was definitely not an exaggeration, but rather that he did have the ability to deserve this name.
Since he wanted to earn money, he naturally had to make his brand known. However, even though they had opened for two days, neither of the two shops were doing too well in business.
In the restaurant, Ling Han had drawn out some of the vegetables, fruits, and dried meat from within the Black Tower. Anyways, there was a lot available, but these ingredients were only used in some high-end food, and the bill had to be settled in Origin Crystals for them.
But for a shop that had newly opened, only some ordinary people would be coming for the novelty. The foods that these people chose were the most ordinary ones, and their bills were settled with gold and silver. These people could not afford the higher-end food, so how could it be possible that he could earn Origin Crystals?
The pharmacy was in the same situation. Though the name of "Alchemist King Pavilion" sounded very grand, it was also the stuff of jokes for the majority. Moreover, no one would dare to take alchemical pills randomly—before there was a very good reputation for the establishment, who would come to purchase alchemical pills? It was not possible even if the price was cheaper than average.
Furthermore, Ling Han did not want to snatch a niche in the market by waging a price competition; how could the alchemical pills concocted by the Alchemist Emperor be sold for a low price?
Could it be that he could only choose to reveal his status as an Earth Grade alchemist?
Ling Han shook his head. The claws of the Thousand Corpse Sect had already extended to the Desolate North and the Winter Moon Sect, so there was no guarantee that there were no spies or a branch of the Thousand Corpse Sect here. Ling Han ruined the plan that the Thousand Corpse Sect had put into place for many years at the Falling Moon Gorge—if he revealed his status, it would be very easy for them to find him.
If he revealed his status and if the Thousand Corpse Sect had spies here, they would definitely come and make trouble for him. Killing him should be impossible, but they could disturb his business, and this was also something that he did not want to see happen.
He changed his strategy, and had the restaurant bring out delicacies that were only available for a short period of time, and these foods were all made from the vegetables grown inside the Black Tower. They were free to sample.
After only two days, the business of the restaurant suddenly exploded to shocking levels.
As word of mouth spread, more and more people came, and there was no lack of extremely powerful martial artists among them. Furthermore, as long as they had tasted that precious food, it was naturally impossible for them to forget about it. Thus, they would willingly draw out great amounts of Origin Crystals to spend on the food.
These delicacies were very expensive. One vegetable dish would require one Origin Crystal, and the meat dishes were even more expensive as they required ten Origin Crystals. And Ling Han had yet to bring out the demonic beast meat that he was rearing inside the Black Tower, and the price for dishes made from this could be increased by another tenfold.
However, demonic beasts were very rare, so Ling Han planned to leave their meat only for his own people, and had no plans to bring it out to be sold.
Now that the business of the restaurant had improved, Ling Han guided this stream of customers to the pharmacy. In this way, the business of the pharmacy improved as well. Furthermore, the alchemical pills in the pharmacy were largely concocted by Li Si Chan, but those alchemical pills with the highest value originated from Ling Han's hand. Once they used these pills, everyone praised their effectiveness.
In just over ten days, the two establishments had begun continuously earning Origin Crystals for Ling Han—the amount was extremely impressive. However, astronomical wealth always attracted covetous eyes. Ling Han had no backer and had just come to this city yet earned so much money, how could it be that he would not attract the envy of others?
A young man came to the restaurant, and demanded half their profits.