Story 7 - To Kill Demonic Vines (Part 8 🌱) (Patreon)

I took out one of the little golden pills and held it up with spiritual energy so everyone could see.

All eyes in the clinic stared at it. Some of those looked like they were waiting for me to fail. I even heard a physician lean over and whisper to a patient, “I don’t think that even an immortal could cure this plague so fast, let alone that little girl. Just watch, it won’t work.”

Since I was the first person to create it in this life, then I needed to give it a name.

Something with meaning.

I was half tempted to call it one of these three: Violet Pill Fairy Can Suck It Dan, Violet Pill Fairy Disrespects Your Mom And You Should Kill Her Dan, or Violet Pill Fairy is a Shitwaffle Dan.

But I didn’t want to jump down that rabbit hole. I mean, first I’d name a pill as an insult to her. Then the next pill she invented would be one that insulted me. It would never end.

At least, not until I killed her.

“This pill is called the Violet Plague-Destroying Prototype Pill.”

Named after Violet, because she was the original creator of it... And forever labeled as a mere prototype. Because that was all her early work deserved.

Muahahaha!

“Senior Lin,” Clear Eyes Mad Tongue said, “That pill is obviously gold, not purple. Are you sure you made it correctly?” Then he quietly gasped as if he had a realization. Then he looked at me with pity. “Senior, are‌ you color blind?”

I sent the kid a glare.

Okay, I was now 1000% positive that this teen’s mad tongue got him into trouble with some powerful, arrogant cultivator who didn’t give a fuck about angering our sect.

It was a good thing he became a sword cultivator because he would have died immediately if he went down the path of a four arts cultivator.

Just imagining him writing poems that were too clever, then getting his ass beat, made me chuckle internally.

“I’m not color blind. I named it that for personal reasons. The final recipe will have a different name.”

“What if that is the final pill?”

Internally, I rolled my eyes. “Then I’ll rename it!” I turned to Head Physician Xiang You and tossed him the jade bottle. “Try this one on the patient who is the worst off and has had the least amount of medical testing so far.”

He brought us to an older man who had the thickest vines I’d seen yet. His face was pale and almost waxy, as if he were on the verge of death. The pink vines curled around his neck, his wrists and the crown of his head.

I scanned the patient with my divine sense as the doctor poured out a single pill into a dish, opened the man’s mouth and fed it to him.

It melted before it even reached the mortal’s tongue. I began counting as the energy traveled down his throat to his stomach. It slowly spread throughout his body. Frankly, the healing was going at a snail’s pace.

By the time the energy had finished expanding, the tips of the vines had shriveled up a little and fell off. They even released some of the stored vitality inside the man’s heart back into him. His skin visibly turned pinker.

I mentally took note of the measurements.

After doing some quick calculations, it would take two fucking months for this person to fully heal.

Two. Fucking. Months.

That was a major problem.

From what I could tell, the prescription specifically called for four Rapscallion Oscillating Leafs. This was two to three too many of them.

I mean, it was fine that the recipe had some of them. Without them, all of that energy would remove a significant portion of the vines all at once. This would shock the patient’s weakened body and kill them faster. But four Leafs was definitely way too many.

That was when I realized what was going on here.

Violet Pill Fairy! That donkey-punching, mother-cursing, poisonous bitch had actually done it.

She added more Rapscallion Oscillating Leafs than necessary in order to slow the effect way down.

I wouldn’t have been the only one to see this either. But the other alchemists either kept their mouths shut back then or assumed the fairy was merely being on the safe side, since these would be pills that many mortals would consume. And it wouldn’t hurt them if they earned more spirit stones for braving a plague.

Of course, lengthening the ‌time to heal also meant that her patients would be in horrifying amounts of pain for those two months. It was akin to torture in the form of a motherfucking scam.

Granted, it was a scam that actually accomplished what it said, but weren’t those the ones that worked best?

That incomprehensibly reprehensible money-obsessed shit! That ignoble spirit-stone fucker!

Ooo, I really wanted to end her. Oh, she’d been on my Fairy Lin’s People to Kill (When You Can) list before, but now she was on there twice.

While I’d been fuming, the physicians celebrated.

Salamander and Clear Eyes Mad Tongue stared at me — the older with slightly widened eyes and the teen with his mouth open in disbelief.

Little Spring, on the other hand, was already pulling at my sleeve.

“Sister Lin, what’s wrong?”

I held out the bottle. “Head Physician Xiang You. Give these pills only to those close to death. One pill a day.”

“O-only to those about to die? But shouldn’t we start producing more of these and get them to everybody?”

I sighed. “They’re too weak as they are. Give me four or five more hours and I should have a few more prototypes to work with.”

“B-but these work!”

“Yes, they do. But they can only consume one pill a day or the efficacy will quickly go down. This means that it will take too long to fully cure a patient.”

I let that sink into everyone’s heads. A few of the physicians looked skeptical.

“Okay, imagine I’m irresponsible and tell everyone this recipe without fixing this problem? Not only will we have a massive supply issue in the long term, but those people who could get cured faster will end up being in horrible pain for at least two months. Do you really want us to waste resources on a partially failed product?”

“N-no, Immortal,” All the physicians shared a look, having come down from their joy at finding a cure.

“Then give me a few hours.”

Clear Eyes Mad Tongue held out his hand like he wanted to stop me. There was a gleam in his eyes like he was about to say something that could get him killed again. “Excuse me, senior, I’m gonna interrupt you here because the last time I heard that someone was going to take a few hours to adjust a recipe, they took a whole month.”

Little Spring adorably glared up at the juvenile. “If my sister says that she can do it, then she can!”

“If she can, then I’ll call her the ‘Best Alchemist Under the Heavens Lin’ for the rest of my life.”

My mind was already on possible improvements, so I didn’t have the head space to care about the two kids and their nonsense. “Sword Master Salamander!”

“Yes, Senior Lin?”

“Don’t let anyone interrupt me!” I turned on my small heel and stormed right the fuck out of that clinic.

***

“What can I do to help?” Little Spring asked as soon as we reached our courtyard.

I sighed and patted his head. “Be you.”

He bit his lip and nodded. Having been around me so much, he must have realized what I meant and immediately started on prepping another batch of ingredients.

Good kid.

I used the cleaning technique on a stone bench and sat in the lotus position.

Once I split my mind, I meditated on the probable combinations I’d come up with on the way over.

Was it possible to have a better effect if Day Lion Fruit was added? Yes, but it would be too expensive to produce in mass in this era.

Could adding Coddling Fire Seeds and Pear-Shaped Orange Leafs fix this issue? No. Close, but no. They would interact poorly with the Walnut. From my experience, this would have the horrifying side-effect of giving the patient the shits. Or more accurately, highly explosive diarrhea.

I didn’t want to live in a world where people had to shit out the plague.

It would be worse than giving every infected a Five Stages Bowel Clearing Dan.

Wait! There! Two possibilities.

The first was too simple. Merely lowering the amount of Rapscallion Oscillating Leafs by two. This should decrease the time it took to heal the patient to around a month. Not much, but every little bit helped.

The other lowered the Rapscallion Oscillating Leafs down to one, however, it required another spiritual plant that would increase the healing properties of Violet Puffing Fern Leaf. One that was just as inexpensive as the other herbs used to create this recipe.

And it was a plant regularly found in this empire, so it would be widely available.

It also didn’t have any explosively shitty side effects.

I contacted Salamander. ::Talk to the alchemists currently outside the palace. Have them collect Golden Goat Tailed Wheat.::

::Yes, Senior Lin.:: Ah, was it just me or did I sense a lot more respect coming from my old friend than I had before?

Well, it was about time he saw for himself how impressive I was. I’d have to give him some pointers once this plague was taken care of.

Since I had already used a fair amount of energy from making only one of those batches, I took out a spirit stone and absorbed half of it while cultivating.

Then I stood up and stretched.

“I wasn’t able to make a meal yet, but you’ll need energy.” Little Spring handed me a glass of spiritual spring water and one of my special Grain Liberation Dan.

I downed both the pill and the water. It had been far too long since I tasted this. Far more sweet and delicious than I remembered.

Within a short period of time, every single inch of me felt full and energized.

I grinned. “Okay, we’re going to make two batches of pills almost back to back. Are you ready?”

“Yes, Sister Lin!”

“Good! Now, let’s get to work.”

***

The next batch I made was the one with fewer Rapscallion Oscillating Leaves.

Since the process was the same as the first — with some minor adjustments here and there — it only took thirty minutes from start to finish. There also weren’t any problems, like the cauldron nearly boiling over.

The new prototype pill also came out golden, but this one gleamed a bit more.

Frankly, I wasn’t satisfied. This was too little of an improvement. However, it would be a reasonably priced variation of the cure that could help the weakest of mortals.

If this next one worked, while it shouldn’t cost that much more, it would still be slightly more expensive per pill to make because of the additional herb. But it would actually be less costly in the long run because the patient would only need to take it a fraction of the time.

With perfect timing, Salamander returned carrying a jade box.

“Senior Lin!” Mad Tongue said while walking into the courtyard behind the sword master. “One of our alchemists who’d been in the Guild received your message and rushed the order.”

“How is it going so far, Senior Lin?” Salamander asked while he handed me the box.

To double check its contents, I opened it up. Several heads of the Golden Goat Tailed Wheat rested inside. They shimmered with energy. Perfect.

“I finished the first experimental pill, so you’re just in time.”

Mad Tongue eyed the bottle in Little Spring’s hands and scowled. “Hey. I know you said you could change the recipe, but are you really that confident?”

I flicked my fingers and sent a blast of air at the teen’s glabella.

“Hey!” He rubbed his forehead and looked like he was about to say something stupid again.

Salamander wrapped his arm around Mad Tongue’s head and covered his mouth with a large palm. “Don’t mess with an alchemist when they’re about to concoct a life-saving pill.”

The teen struggled, but it was useless against Salamander’s strength.

Apparently, this was a regular thing because he started dragging the teen back through the doors of the courtyard like it was no big deal. Clear Eyes stopped struggling and just fumed.

“Don’t worry, Little Senior Lin. We’ll make sure you aren’t interrupted.”

Ah, it was so nice working with competent people again. Even if they had strong personalities and came with juniors who had no filter.

And now that I had my Wheat, it was time to attempt a new recipe — one that had never existed, even in my past life.

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Author's Note:

Thank you all for reading! You are the best readers ever!!! ❤️(≧﹏ ≦)

I didn’t have time to finish the picture of Clear Eyes Mad Tongue, but I was able to get a rough sketch up. I'm looking forward to seeing what he looks like in color.