In the bitter life of force-feeding studies, the sweetness of money had become Ji Jue's mental support. Every time after getting brutally beaten, he would take out his phone to check his account balance.
It was just too delightful to stop.
"Here we go again."
Ye Chun rolled his eyes, watching helplessly as Ji Jue held his phone, giggling foolishly and could only shake his head.
Forget it, forget it, even if he was cured, he'd still drool.
Sweet dreams are hard to find, let him sleep a bit longer.
Sooner or later, a brutal reality would slap them both in the face.
After lunch, upon receiving a call, Ye Chun sent Ji Jue with a cart to pick up the goods.
Outside the workshop, a man in a crisp suit stepped out of a black van, his smile warm and enthusiastic as he shook hands with Ji Jue, handing him a business card and even offering cigarettes. The guy was so warmly insistent that he even helped load a small sealed canister onto the cart and waved goodbye, waiting until Ji Jue entered the door before returning to his van and driving away.
"Is the competition in sales really this fierce now?"
Ji Jue curiously fiddled with the canister, which was the size of a human head but ludicrously heavy, "What's inside?"
"Didn't you want to practice Fluid Alchemy?"
Ye Chun glanced at it, "This is Pure Extraction Mercury ordered by auntie from Tianping Commerce, not easy to find, it just arrived today."
It had to be said, after spiritual fusion and quality transformation, handling this mercury is much easier than the transformed mercury Ji Jue tampered with on his own.
After simply handling it for a moment, Ji Jue felt as if it were an extension of his own limb.
Like a snake charmer, with a casual wave of his hand, the mercury slowly rose from the canister, wriggling in mid-air in sync with his movements~
Now and then, Ji Jue's face would appear in it, now and then Ye Chun's visage.
Incredibly lively.
"Super convenient!"
Ji Jue's eyes brightened, "I will set up some at home too! This little bit isn't enough."
"That's going to be troublesome, Tianping doesn't like dealing in small quantities." Ye Chun, pen in mouth and head down, reminded him, "Orders start at half a kilogram."
"Are you kidding, who do you think you are looking down on?"
Ji Jue scoffed, sweeping his hand grandly, "Give me ten catties!"
"Okay, using auntie's Golden Membership Card, it's seven thousand per gram." Ye Chun pulled out his phone, the screen facing him, his smile gentle, "Scan the payment code."
"Are you robbing me?!"
"Hmm?" Ye Chun puzzled, then seemed to realize as he flipped through the PDF on his phone, "Sorry, got it wrong—it's seven thousand six hundred thirty-six. But there's a discount for purchases over a kilogram, roundabout seven thousand two hundred per gram."
Ji Jue's hands holding the canister shuddered then shuddered again.
If he hadn't miscalculated, his account balance... seemed like it could only afford sixty-nine grams?
Shit, no wonder that delivery guy was so enthusiastically smiling earlier.
If it were Ji Jue, his smile would surely outshine his.
What kind of cutthroat merchant is this!
He carefully placed the canister, at least seven or eight catties of mercury, on the ground, and meticulously capped it to prevent evaporation. Then he wiped his cold sweat and asked with a trembling voice, "Is it really that expensive?"
"Yeah, what did you think?"
Ye Chun glanced at him, unimpressed, "Anything related to Alchemy, the price skyrockets, you know?
Most craftsmen buy raw materials and process them themselves. This type of mercury is only here because the workshop doesn't have the rare equipment to handle it, and it's not worth buying just for this, so auntie added it to fill the quota. Otherwise, what would you have to practice with?"
He said, pointing towards a robotic sweeper in a corner.
"Now you know why you have to wear a work uniform when entering and exiting the storage, right?
Just the gray left behind from your practice, overloaded with wasted material properties, sells over four thousand federal coins per hundred grams in the market, starting from one hundred catties, sold out the second it's listed, with a terrifyingly high demand. In any other workshop, an apprentice like you without connections would never even dream of getting a task like waste material recycling, right?"
You see, the gray left after overloading during Alchemical products collapses serves a purpose.
After undergoing alchemy beyond its limits right before collapsing, this ash has become a bad reaction body of spiritual material, hardly reacting with other spiritual materials. So, it's often made into special bricks after collection, used to cellar some materials that need aging or for making mausoleums for Chosen Ones who are prone to resurrecting but can't be conveniently cremated or building special-purpose structures.
Like, for instance... prisons.
In every major city in the Federation, there is at least one whole building constructed out of this material. Not only is the material costly, but the shackles of the Secret Ritual and various equipment inside... sum up to a number that poor guys like Ji Jue, who have only just escaped poverty, could never even dream of.
The Path of Embers is just like that, earning money while meaning spending ten or a hundred times more than other paths.
Compared to other paths, the Path of Ascension requires inspiration and understanding, the Heavenly Origin Path demands personal control, the White Deer Path involves overcoming the strong through cleverness or survival of the fittest, the Ruins Path needs closeness to the essence of the world, the Heart Core requires clarity about one's nature...
Embers are just much more straightforward—spend money.