Cautiously Cultivating Immortality in a Strange World
Chapter 2: Strange Scenery

"Good wine!"

Chen Lin exclaimed in admiration.

Zhao Zhengyuan smiled proudly, "That's natural, this is my family's culinary skill, and I can live in this city thanks to this craft."

"Indeed, Friend Zhao's brewing skills are unmatched."

Chen Lin nodded and then turned to ask, "By the way, didn't you say you were going to refine pills earlier? How's that going?"

Zhao Zhengyuan's face fell.

His proud expression vanished instantly.

"Ah, don't mention it."

Zhao Zhengyuan sighed, shaking his head repeatedly.

But he quickly lifted his chin and gazed at Chen Lin with a cold smile, "A trivial pill-refining technique can't stump me, I'm Zhao Zhengyuan, from a family of pill-refiners!"

Chen Lin's mouth twitched involuntarily and replied with a cold smile, "Right, right, with your determination and talent, you'll surely succeed."

Zhao Zhengyuan let out a bitter laugh and returned to normal, "Thanks for the encouragement, but unfortunately my inherited techniques are incomplete, otherwise there might be a slight chance."

Chen Lin forced a smile and said nothing more.

Interacting with the people here was a kind of torture.

They seemed to be unaware of their own abnormalities.

The two of them started drinking in silence.

"By the way, Friend Zhao, is it really that difficult to refine pills?"

When Chen Lin saw that they had almost finished the bottle of wine and the meat and porridge were almost gone, he finally asked the question he wanted to know.

Although the other person's mood could change at any time, he couldn't leave, so he had to adapt, and when they weren't "sick," everyone was still normal.

The resources here were extremely scarce, and with his identity, he couldn't buy any pills to help him improve his cultivation.

Otherwise, he wouldn't have thought of using Spirit Rice Porridge to break through the bottleneck.

And he didn't want to stay in this strange place for a moment longer, thinking only about breaking through the middle stage of qi refinement and then escaping.

So he decided to refine the pills himself.

With the ability to hit every ten times, as long as he had the tools, materials, and pill formula, he was sure to succeed.

Zhao Zhengyuan, slightly drunk, exhaled a mouthful of wine, "Tell me, if it wasn't difficult, would even the lowest-quality qi restoring pills be so expensive?"

"That's right, I heard that even among the few qi refining families, each of them only has one pill refiner, and if you, Friend Zhao, succeed, you can immediately go to the inner city and enjoy yourself, at that time don't forget about me!"

Chen Lin poured Zhao a full cup of wine and said casually, "Friend Zhao, since you've already started trying to refine pills, you must have obtained the pill formula, can you tell me what kind of pill it is?"

Zhao Zhengyuan paused, smiled coldly, and glanced at Chen Lin, "What, you want to refine pills too?"

Before Chen Lin could respond, he continued, "Refining pills isn't that easy, I advise you to focus on studying the talisman-making path instead."

Chen Lin's thoughts were seen through, but he didn't mind.

Many people want to learn pill-refining, and he wants to learn too, which is very normal.

However, since he's been exposed, he might as well be straightforward.

"No, I indeed want to learn pill-refining. My cultivation has been stuck at the Qi Refining second stage for over twenty years, and without pill assistance, it's unlikely I'll break through. But you also know that the pills in the city are controlled by the big families, and us low-level scattered cultivators can't possibly buy them, so I've thought of refining pills myself. No matter what, I'll try and won't leave any regrets for myself."

Chen Lin's words made Zhao Zhengyuan sigh as well.

He felt the same way.

Scattered cultivators, especially low-level ones, had it too hard.

After hesitating for a moment, he shook his head, "I do have a pill formula, and I can sell it to you, but I must declare beforehand that this formula has defects, so don't say I cheated you."

"What defects?" Chen Lin immediately asked.

Zhao Zhengyuan searched his chest and pulled out a yellowed paper scroll placing it on his hand, "Pill formulas are ancient inheritances, but with the changes in the cultivation world, some ancient spiritual herbs have already been extinct. Now, pill formulas are modified by pill-refiners themselves after multiple attempts, replacing the spiritual herbs, which is why pill formulas are so scarce."

As he spoke, he unfolded the scroll, revealing the dense, tiny characters on it.

He sighed, "The formula I obtained, although modified, might be very old. One of the spiritual herbs is now extremely rare, and its value has far surpassed that of the pill itself. I've replaced it with a cheap spiritual herb according to its properties, but whether it can be refined into a pill is still unknown."

"Did you replace it yourself?" Chen Lin tapped his finger on the table, his face full of doubt.

"Heh heh." Zhao Zhengyuan's mood changed, and he coldly smiled, "Fellow Daoist Chen, don't look down on me, Zhao, just because I've never refined a pill. I'm from a pill-refining family and have deep research on pharmacology and pharmacological effects. Improving a pill formula is not a difficult task!"

"Is that so? Then let me take a look at what you've replaced," Chen Lin said, ignoring the other person's boastful tone, and reached out to grab the pill formula.

But he was blocked by the other person.

Zhao Zhengyuan rolled up the pill formula again and said, "Three hundred spiritual stones if you want!"

"Too expensive." Chen Lin retracted his hand and took a sip of the porridge.

"This is a pill formula, and it's for increasing cultivation. Three hundred spirit stones are still too expensive? If you went through normal channels, even if you offered many spirit stones, you wouldn't be able to buy it!"

Zhao Zhengyuan's eyes widened in anger. 

Chen Lin shook his head, "What you said is a normal pill formula, but yours is basically a defective formula. Who would buy it? Alright, I'll give you twenty spirit stones, just consider it a hobby."

"Twenty spirit stones? You're kidding, right? What pill formula can be bought at this price? You think it's your powerful talisman?" Zhao Zhengyuan shouted loudly.

Chen Lin didn't say anything more, just drank his porridge silently.

If the other person didn't want to sell, he would have left already. Since he didn't, it meant the other person was eager to sell.

And Chen Lin wasn't sure if his innate abilities would work on such a defective pill formula, so he didn't want to invest too much.

Most importantly, he was very poor.

As expected, Zhao Zhengyuan huffed and puffed for a while before finally relenting.

"Add a bit more, how about fifty spirit stones, and you have to promise not to leak it out."

This price was what Chen Lin could accept, so he nodded, "Alright, but I'll need Friend Zhao to explain the basics of pill-refining and the precautions to me."

After a while, Zhao Zhengyuan left with a look of being taken advantage of.

Chen Lin then carefully examined the pill formula.

He was absorbed in it for an unknown amount of time when he heard the copper bell in the corner of the room emit a low, muffled sound. His face changed, and he immediately stood up and went to the window, opening a crack to look outside.

It was already midnight.

Except for the sound of snowflakes being blown by the cold wind, the city was quiet.

Suddenly, a red light beam appeared from a nearby courtyard.

It shot straight into the sky!

Followed by a second, third, and tenth beam.

In the blink of an eye, countless tiny light beams appeared above the city, densely packed yet orderly, piercing into the dark sky without end.

Such a magnificent scene, even when the blizzard was dispersed, yet not a single cultivator in the city came out to take a look.

It remained quiet.

The scene lasted for nearly a quarter of an hour before the red beams slowly faded away.

The wind picked up again, and the snowflakes danced.

Chen Lin stood still for a while before closing the window and returning to the table.

This scene had been happening every day since he transmigrated.

Every night, at this time, it would appear.

The rest of the time was normal.

After a month of investigation, he discovered that each of the red threads was connected to a person, but he didn't know what they were doing.

Moreover, the people connected by the threads seemed to be unaware of it, and he had asked many people in a roundabout way, but they all looked puzzled.

Even the original host's memories didn't have any records of this situation.

So he suspected that the people here, including the original host, couldn't see this strange phenomenon, just like they couldn't notice their own cold smiles.

Lack of knowledge made it impossible for him to speculate about the cause, and with his current cultivation, he didn't have the ability to investigate.

All he could do was quickly raise his cultivation to the Qi Refining middle stage, gain some survival abilities in the wild, and then escape.