Chapter Three - Dragonbone Den

  Just thinking about drinking that wine after it's done fermenting changes my mood, after all it's one of master's cultivation wine recipe. So I decide I'll work on alchemy for a change of pace. So I sweep everything away into my master ring and pull out my alchemy stuff. Damn I feel pumped up as I seek that white infinity that leads into alchemy. When my senses comes to, I see a five ornate jade vials each with a single pill vibrating in their confined space. I sense ten more inside master's ring, but I notice they are only tiger marked pills. The medicinal scent in the workshop is intense, I can feel my cultivation raising a little. I can't help think 'Damn what the hell did I make' as I stare at five Ki-Rin divine marked pills in wonder. They act as if they are alive and terrified of their captivity, quivering in fear as they sense my gaze finally upon them.

  I feel exhausted so I drag my resource pouch out and started cultivating with glee. I can't wait to examine those truely curious pills. Once I finish cultivating to recover my exhaustion, I sense my cultivation has risen to mid stage seven. I only recently solified early stage not too long ago. This makes me even more curious about the pills and open my eyes as I quickly chow down the last of my morning intake. It'll take a few hours for my stomach furnace to refine all that so I have plenty of time to examine the pills now.

  The five dazzling pills illuminates the space as a rainbow of colors. As each pill trying to out dazzle the others with their aura's output. As my divine sense infiltrate those jade vials I'm pleasantly surprise they possess pill spirits. Though a bit childish in their bid for the best aura. The effect of divine marking caused by the pill lightning is doubled because of having pill spirits, which means the pills have a forty percent increase effectiveness. But master's techniques, I can put in a bonus effect of refining the pill taker's body a small advance to make it a little bit tougher that a body crafting expert could appreciate. Unfortuneately, the main spiritual ingrediants can only be found in ancient renmants that show up every now and then. Those subspaces are always a battlefield for resources before the subspace closes for what ever default time cycle it was set too.

  After all, the tougher the body, the higher cultivation technique can be learned. Simply for the sole reason to avoid self implosion due to have too weak a body. Most cultivators can only use basic cultivation techiques that does not require higher level of body crafting. As they do not have the funds to even consider attempting advance body crafting techniques. The spirituals materials used is equal to an artifact of the same level. So the average cultivator would spend their available funds for a weapon artifact so they can cut through a body crafter's body. Rather than going though torturous body crafting techniques that are known to be lethal for the weaked willed. That lethality only increases as with higher tiers. So the normal culivators will logically conclude to buy a weapon artifact to cover their base rather than risk dying to protect themselves from said artifact weapons.

  Besides, they all gone through hell cleansing their bodies as they progress though stages one to three. That's body crafting, but at a basic level. So of course most cultivators grew up hating the self torture and promptly jump ship and change to an adult cultivation technique that does not require any more body crafting when they evolved to stage four. But a least they have bodies comparable to a tier three artifact. This is more than suitable for most cultivation techniques.

  There is one kind of cultivator that actually considers body crafting as a must have technique despite it's lethal flaw. They come from all walks of life, but they have one thing in common. They are battle fiends who enthusiastically body craft to the highest level they can afford. All for the goal of meeting other battle fiends and exchanging advice!

  What is exactly is Ki-Rin marked pill effectiveness? My curiosity at this moment goes let's figure this out. A standard unmarked nirvana pill basically has roughly thirty percent chance of working and provides only thirty percent power needed for a full awakening. These basic pills are consumed by most cultivators due to lack of funds. Because of this, cultivators using the basic pill end up having rather shallow foundations. There foundations becoming worst with each breakthough past stage four. Therefore, most cultivators will never achieve stage seven due to their weaked foundations.

  However, this can be improved by summoning pill lightning to recieve a divine mark. Each aura improves the pills effectiveness by five percent. Normally a tier eight alchemist masters are able to call down three auras, and give their pills the divine tiger mark. The grandmasters can go to four auras and mark their pills with the Ki-Rin. While divinemasters can reach five auras, which means their divine Phoenix marked pills have seventy five chance of making a breakthough. While providing seventy five percent of the energy needed for a full awakening. That is a fifty base chance for pills made by a divinemaster, one of their perks. Five auras will raise the success chance to seventy five percent. While the base fifty percent effectiveness, again another perk the divinemaster can master.

  Suffix it to say, cultivators desire higher ranked divine marked pills for their breakthoughs. It just far to expensive for most cultivators to afford Ki-Rin marked pills, let alone Phoenix marked ones. I am a bit surprise that I can be considered grandmaster level, so I choose to limit my sellables to tiger marks since Ki-Rin marks are still a bit of an effort to achieve with my current cultivation. But if I really go all out, I can produce the divine Ki-Rin marked pill. But that will wipe me out until I can cultivate to recover, so l decided to save that kind effort for personal use.

  Back to the story, some may want to kill me, while others would want to be my master. But I already have a master, I just have to wait and see him reborn some five hundred years in the future. I decided to build a reputation of someone who has a hidden master the last time I visited. So I should avoid the troubling fights over who wants to be my master. With any luck those kind of people won't bother me since I left a plenty of evidence of my background. That trail of collecting stage nine resources for my master, since no one would dare try to use one but a stage nine expert. Not to mention the trails of tier eight materials to bought at both the Spiritual Gardens and Celestial Accords. Hopefully to keep at bay those who want me dead, after all no one wants to mess with a stage nine's disciple. I wonder what faces they will make if they found out I bought the tier nine resource for myself. Besides, it also helps to support why I have exceptional skills when they believe I have a stage nine hidden master.

  I will thus avoiding the troubles caused by in fighting of those want to be my master. It will also buy me some time for those who want me enviously dead. If I can reach peak stage seven, then basically I will be safe. With my full stage advance if I use my battle power, I can duke it out with stage eight experts. Only a stage nine expert could threaten me, but they are all hidden away trying to ascend into the next dimension. They have long lost interest in this one and only want to ascend. The only ones I need to worry about are those like me with high battle power.

  However, the arrival of pill lightning always has infintessimal chance of bring forth a pill spirit. I realize my Ki-Rin marked pills is a eighty slash eighty I could not help but smiled, these pills are going to sell for a lot. I also realize I can increase my chances for pill spirits by pouring in a ton of spiritual force well beyond what is normally needed to make a pill during the fall of pill lightning. I double check the suppression restrictions on the five vials to make sure that the pill spirits are being properly being brain wash into submission.

  I also realize they are stage eight pills, I thought it was pretty cool I can make pills one grade higher than my cultivation with alchemy as well. No wonder my cultivation rose so suddenly. I can see why alchemists don't bother with cultivating, all they have to do is craft higher quality pills and their cultivation will raise a little. I can see why top experts will take a hobbie once their cultivation stop growing, because all cultivating hobbies can provide growth to their stagnate cultivation. I see before me two Minerva pills, two Firmament pills and one Pheonix Rebirth pill.

  As my divine sense enter the tier eight Minerva pills, I know it will allow a person to purify their spiritual veins by one to three advances. Depending on the difference of tier, one with tier eight will gain one advance, a seven would receive two advances, and a six or lower will gain three advances. With improved spiritual veins, willpower is also increased. So when the times comes they won't forget to reform their new stage nine body, many forget to do this time as they are distracted by their ongoing evolution. I used to gulp these down in my ancient memories, but I no longer need them and wonder how much they will sell for. Spiritualists under peak stage eight spiritual veins and going to fork over their saving for this.

  As my mind enters the Firmament pills, I know this pill will grant a mid stage eight expert to evolve to a peak tier eight expert and solidify the foundation by two small advances. Kind of handy for those who ran out of potential for various reasons. Jump to peak stage eight and spend the rest of their lives evolving to stage nine. This is another money in the bank and began chuckling.

  When I delved into the Pheonix Rebirth pill, the person who takes this pill will explode into a body of flames when they take lethal damage and emit a stage eight killing intent aura. They will be given a choice of fight or flee. If fight is choosen then the person will be reborn right there with all wounds healed and a temporary advance to early stage eight with the only after effect being their foundation will be a small advance higher. If flee was choosen they will be teleported in the direction of their choice with a distance that a stage eight expert to take a tenday to fly too. The body will then be reborn with full health and their foundation will have risen by a small advance.

  I promptly pop the pheonix rebirth pill and refine the pill energies to permeate through every cell in my body. My last resort life saving technique, imbued with some serious pill restrictions. Too bad I failed the first two times, I hoped I had another for Mara to take. But now I have to wait for the Celestial Accord's networks and special rewards for bringing in any of the rare materials I needed.

  Pushing my limits as I hobby is the only way to truely grown. Pain in my heart goes for the rare ingrediates wasted. Most alchemist have poor success rate even at one or two stages lower than their ranking suggests. Most lack the spirituals veins neccessary for higher level achemy, and must use alchemic cauldron that specialize in spiritual array support. Higher tier cauldrons even have a cauldron spirit who have learn alchemy by watching the multitude of owners perform their alchemy. Making them extremely expensives as their are plenty of alchemists that do not have a spirit cauldron.

  I eyeball the Foundation pills and realize I have a short cut to advance though stage eight. But thinking about it a bit more I realize my foundation would be weak due to lack of energy. Right now it's looking like I need to be at late stage eight to use the pill to get to peak stage. Well if I can get to divine dragon marked pills that would cover fifty percent of the energy I needed. So I just need to cover fifty percent of the energy requirement and make a firmanant pill to work for me at mid stage eight.

  Offhand, I can think a several spiritual materials that can cover thirty percent, that leaves twenty percent to fill in. I tear off two percent of my divine sense to work on the problem before partitioning that away. I become happy because twenty percent is too easy, just finding the best potential mix will take time. So losing another two percent of my divine sense is worth it for now. Since all the research is saved with divine sense recording, I can stop any time with out losing any thing. Thus basically the first thing I will drop if I need more divine sense.

  So I breeze into the workshop token and ordered me a pretty girl. I sigh as I wonder how long it's going to take to find the ingrediants, so I create a message jade as I wait for the girl to arrive. I randomly pull out a tier five jug of cultivation wine and a spiritual dish I stored away for a lazy day. Then activated the appearance restriction and went through the image library and decided on a forest glade setting.

  The pretty girl was shocked and just stared at the pills until I interrupted her with a poke "Nice pills?"

  She jumps like a scared cat and takes a deep breath and joyfully dancing around a bit before says "Young master makes really nice pills!" We both laugh as she drags me to the bed for some duo cultivating.

  As she gather up the vials and about to leave I come over and pat her head and say "I like your enthusiasm, when I call for a pretty girl next time come instead and I'll help you solidfy your stage six cultivation!" Well I can't blame her for her energy, the lingering creation qi no doubt the culprit. Breathing the scent in is intoxicating, but in a good way as it improves the senses. She striped down instantly and played with me in the woods. When her back arched and body went taunt, I could not help but think girls are sexy at that moment. Especially when exploring her body with my right hand. My fingers gliding over her taunt mucles just feels amazing.

  I hand her a tier five nirvana pill and watch her face lit up in gratitude at the divine tiger markings and chirps "Thank you young master!" She exit my workshop to delivering my new four auctions.

  Now that I got my alchemy kick out of the way, not to mentions filling the workshop with the intoxicating scent of pill creation. I have a formation just to keep the creation qi from dissipating. Just breathing in the scent makes my body tingle, I can't get enough of the drug like addiction. I feel my entire body is awake as every cell struggle to absorb the creation qi. I sigh as I realize me and the girl already reduce the thick creation fog to a light mist.

  Crafting five mid tier pills creates an amazing amount of creation qi. The best thing about creation qi is that it improves potential, especially those under twenty years of age. It is not much, but if someone is at the edge and need a tiny push. Then mastering any hobby is the final choice for many cultivators that is stuck in their cultivation.

  I sweep the alchemy stuff into master's ring and withdraw the artificing materials. Not much time is left for the end of the month show, so I'll forge a special blade then. With that thought I enter the white light of oblivion. When I come too I open my eye and just stare at the blade before me. It's a crystal longsword polish so I can easily see my reflection on the blade. Yet molten lava flow endlessly inside the crystal. The aura of the three merged sword qi, earth qi and fire qi forms phantom copies of itself that dissipate as it drifts away from the main sword. The sword's spirit is strong enough to materialize the tri qi into a copies. As I pick the sword up, sword hymm fills the workshop. I laugh as I playfully slash the air to hear the glorious sword hymms. "Good sword" is all I thought, I guess I'll keep this one and sent it into my master's ring.

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  Since a new sun has risen, I proceeded to order that girl again and remove three weapons from master's ring and place them for auction. When the girl arrives and looks at the weapons and playfully goes "Back to weapons?"

  I replied "I had a fond memory of my master so felt like making some pills last time."

  She laughs "Time to make some fond memories too" as she happily drags me back to the bed.

  I laugh to enjoy the moment and teased "Don't hurt me with your new found strength" that causing her to laugh with joy.

  Her follow up response was "Let me show you how enthusiastic appreciative the new me can be!" while dragging me even harder with a joyful smile.

  I pulled out a handful of early tier six duo cultivation techniques and ask her to pick one. I been collecting copies of duo cultivation techniques from the auction house from stage five and up to late stage eight. There are plenty of stage six techniques, my only requirement is having at least a four star rating. So each break girl gets to learn a private duo cultivating technique to use with me.

  She showed me the stamina of tier six cultivator, in appreciation I gifted her a foundation pill and a playful patted to her ass as she leaves my workshop, I informed "I'll wait here until the show is over, here is a new list of items I need," then stuff a jade into her bosom and kiss her goodbye. I then swept the token into my master's ring and thought 'Seal door, open outer barrier' and flew out into the city. I sent a farewell thought 'Close outer barrier' and flew down to check out the shops.

  I go back the medicinal gardens just to breath in that air but manage to buy a few rare herbs that recently arrived. Afterwards I probe the other shops from the air with my divine sense but find no treasure qi worth investigating. My master used to like dining at famous restaurants serving high end spiritual cooking. So I toss my divine sense around me to search for a good restaurant. There one to my far to right, and my awareness focus on that restaurant. The Dragonbone Den sign was the aura of a treasure qi blazing forth above the entrance archway. It's a famous restaurant my master use to love to go. Damn, what luck as I rush down to the entrance, there is already a steady stream of people entering and at the other archway more people leaving.

  As I fly lower I see that the archways act as a simple boundary of two gates. The swirling gates end in a short tunnel into the courtyard of the restaurant. I fly though the tunnel and enter the courtyard. It's like I entered deep underwater subspace without the water. There are exotic fishes around me, but what catches my attention is the giant sharkbeast flying in the middle of the courtyard lazy swimming there like it's water. But notices me and begin swimming in my direction. It's terrifying tier nine aura forces me gently to the ground, as I land the sharkbeast then ignores me and swims back to the center of the courtyard.

  I watched the startled surrounding customers as they step away from me but then realize they are stepping away from the sharkbeast instead. Then they all sigh in relief as it swims lazily back to the center of the courtyard. 'Right' I thought and realize there must be a flying restrictions here and begin walking around the sharkbeast like the rest of the customers. I can see it chase the fleeing customers on the other side of the courtyard as they try to leave the restaurant. I can't help but laugh, who ever designed this entrance courtyard is too funny. This watery illusion is a nice trick, with all the restriction all over the place, no one could get out of line.

  My tier seven eyes can now see restriction qi emitting all over the place. It's impressive tier nine might can't be felt by my normal senses but my divine sense knows it's there. My awareness hoover near a restriction and sense "Anyone who disobeys a den member will be teleported out of the restaurant and their bloodline aura banned for a century." I see, these restriction serve to protect the restaurant's reputation. This is hollowed ground! I recognized in thought. The restaurants attitude is clear, that serve good food and don't want their customer bothered by worldly affairs.

  There are many hostess standing before different portals sending each group away after confirming the experience they want with their dinner. I step in front of a free hostess and smile, she charmingly smiles back and seeing my youth and cultivation goes "What can we do for the young master tonight?"

  Out of curiosity I replied with "Can I eat with the sharkbeast?" The girl burst out laughing and said "That's a first! The boss is gonna like that!" Then with the roll of her hand and a bow included, she gestures to the gate and says "Your wish is our command." I smile at her cute display and enter the gate with a good impression.

  As soon as I entered the subspace of illusionary water, the sharkbeast glares at me and huffs until I sit down on a couch chair that sways from minute currents. The sharkbeast does his lazy dance until he is a safe distance for me. I put my mind on the chair restriction and know it for: when the client sits swim causual away until the client feels your at safe distance. I laugh as I willed that safe distance to grow smaller. I see in the corner of my eye the waitress step away from the fast approaching sharkbeast in shock.

  Oh! I make the sharkbeast swim away. "Nice pet!" I replied covering my mistake. She just stares at me with a smile and hand me the menu and utters "Please take your time young master." As I accept the menu I notice a sheen of persperation on the girls brow and I sprout "Please treat me well and I will be grateful." Since I forced her to fix her makeup, I guess I'll tip her something good. Then I stare at the scaly skinned menu that actually looks like part of some monsterous demonbeast. The words engraved in the scales blaze with harmless fire qi. The Dragonbone Den inscribed in the scales make it look like an enchanted spellbook of a powerful wizard.

  I quickly open it up and notice only five items for sale. Glancing at the price I was most definitely shocked, the chef's choice was equal my best tier seven pill. I focus on the the menu's restriction and felt: provide a menu fit for the customers cultivation. Nice I thought, and looked at the food fit for my mid stage seven, no wonder their are only five items.

  The Chef's Choice title was 'Dragonbone BBQ' This meat is cut from the rib bones of a peak tier seven Celestial Tigerdragon. Cooked in a honey bbq sauce, it's rich and tangy flavor is served with spiritual rice and a bottle of my homemade cultivation wine. Ahh I thought, now it's getting interesting.

  The other entrees are good, but the chef's choice was something my master only ordered. With a little bit of digging in my master's memories I realize the reason, it's because the owner of the Dragonbone Den will personally cook it. In my master's memories, the owner is the only grandmaster of spiritual cooking he has ever met. The owner is a notorious wanderer and rarely leaves his restaurant open for long. Quickly I made up my mind I reply "I'll have the chef's choice and something to feed my senior brother sharkbeast." Then pull out a tier seven nirvana pill and continue with "I pay with this pill" from the best divine marked pills I kept for myself and put on a smile. She takes the vial with a smile and with a deep bow at the knees and disappears to management.

  I stare at the heavy water table that float before me, I can even push my finger though the darker water of the table. When I do that it attracts the sharkbeast's attention and start lazily swim toward me with showing a sharky grin. I glance into the table restriction and sense: Solify when a family member orders with their command ring.' Then I ignore the watery table place my full attention on senior sharkbeast.

  Senior sharkbeast doesn't like me when I touch the table, so I play with him through the fear restriction I sense on the table. I wonder how strong in knowledge in restrictions you need to be make it feel so real to make even a tier seven expert need to abid by the rules. All my senses are telling me this subspace is real, but my divine sense say it's an illusion crafted with restrictions.

  A voice interupts my play "I see you like my sharkbeast." I quickly remove my hand from the table and turn to see the speaker. I see a young uncle wearing a classic black chef outfit with red accents smiling at the sharkbeast. Who I notice has spotting it's master and can see it's flashing tail of happiness. I see there are three girls with trays behind him. The chef then says "I know you will enjoy the dinner I made for you." The first girl steps forward and places the dish on the solified table and steps away. His voice continues "This is a bottle of cultivation wine I made when I was tier seven expert, it aged quite well." The second girl steps foward with a glass and bottle, she calmly fills the glass two thirds and place both on the table and steps away.

  He then follow up with "These three treats I carefully crafted for your entertainment." The third girl lays out three frozen creatures behind me and to the left before bowing and three girls leave the subspace. He then pull out a pill vial and reminisce "I had an old customer that use to give me pills like yours. I'm glad he finally found a disciple to pass his legacy," the vial vanishes and a token that looks like a small version of the menu complete with harmless fire qi for the lettering. "A pupil of a good customer is always welcome here" and tosses me the token.

  I sent the token into master's ring and supplied "My master alway's enjoyed the chef's choice, so of course I had to try it as well" and laughed.

  "I sense my old customer has enter the reincarnation cycle recently, now we just have to wait until he returns."

  Laughing I replied "I know, I can't wait to see my master again. Though waiting five hundred years is a bit of a wait."

  He bursts out laughing and goes "I am still waiting for my master to return, and I've waited for several thousands years."

  I blink for a proper response and just went with a nod of understanding and give "What is important is that our masters are in the reincarnation cycle. Waiting for them is just part of the experience."

  He nods and finalize with "Enjoy your dinner, I have new customers that ordered the chef's choice to satisfy," and then dissappears. I can barely hear his last words as all my senses are riveted on the giant slab of slice meat on the first dish. It's peak tier seven aura waffs from the meat in gentle waves. My nose is filled with a spicy and tangy scent. All my senses are helplessly drawn to it. The bbq sauce is still bubbling on the meat. It's golden glaze smothers the meat and drips on the spiritual rice below in the serving bowl. I picked up the bowl and watching the sauce dripping to cover a good portion of the rice. I can see finely chopped spiritual onions cooked in the bbq sauce.

  I lift the bowl for a wiff and fill my nose with it's spicy but tangy scent that complemented by the slightly sweet scent of honey and rice. With no choice I scoop a slice a meat with some rice put in my mouth and feel the explosion of flavors. The tender meat and rice melts into a fine liquid that gushes toward my cells, I can feel my body refine toward the toughness of this peak tier seven Tigerdragon. I was awed, body crafting was a pleasure with a spiritual chefs to mooch on. But that's not a way to do things since I don't like mooching. So I decided there are then to learn spiritually cooking for myself. If I were to eat a hundred such dishes I definitely have the body strength of a peak tier seven Tigerdragon. It is the only way to level up body crafting beyond tier five, since the raw materials for tier six and higher have gone extinct over the last couple of ages.

  I glance over the the wine cup, I notice the rich spicy scent of a good cultivation wine a while ago but was too enraptured by the barbeque. I took a drink and was stunned when I feel my cultivation rise a little. My eyes lit up as I thought, good wine. I'm really glad I came here but notice the sharkbeast still flashing it's tail and realize it's staring at the treats in glorious happiness that only the sharkbeast see treat restriction applies.

  With a laugh I pick up the first treat with a qi grip, it hovers in front of me as I inspect it with my divine sense. I wonder what kind of treat is this. What a strange looking fishbeast, I see a restriction freezing the fishbeast's movements. I delve near the restriction and feel: When toss into the illusionary water, remove the time freeze restriction. That's when I notice the sharkbeast had swam closer and showing me it's toothy grin of excitement. With a laugh, I send the treat into the illusionary water to the left, away from the sharkbeast. It instantly explodes into life and race away from the sharkbeast. I dive into the restriction on the flashing tail and see it as: Prepare to chase treat by swinging your tail as fast as you can but don't move forward yet until three breaths of time. However if the customer gives any kind of encouragement give chase immediately.

  With another laugh, I point and command "Go!" and the sharkbeast roars forward in glee. I look at the remaining two treats and smile. As I eat the view of the chase remains constant at the sharkbeast left profile. The sharkbeast is faster, but the tunabeast is more agile and avoids being eaten for nearly twenty breaths of time.

  I ate a third of the rib meat slices and on the second bowl of rice when I toss in the second treat at the still spastic sharkbeast. This second treat is a pikebeast, long and narrow fish creature that had great darting moves that help it escape by narrow margins until it's luck finally ran out. Sharky jaws snap shut on it tail, ending the treat's long chain of lucky chances.

  Sharky returns to staring intently at the remaining treat. I toss in the last treat and watch the happy sharkbeast hold for three breaths before giving chase as I starting on my last bowl. The last treat was once a swordfish, heavily mutated as it evolved into a spiritual beast. The chase lasted quite awhile, but finally sharky jaws snapped shut severing the last treat in half to end the game.

  Every thing I ate and drink was absorb directly into my cells. I feel my body crafting technique raise up a mid stage five and my cultivation go to late tier seven. This spiritual meal was amazingly helpful. As I finish the meal I sigh with pleasure. I stood up and wave at sharky and utter contentedly "Til next time senior" and head for the exit portal, I hear the the sharkbeast roars a response behind me.

  The waitress stands by the exit portal and inquiries "Was your dinner to your satisfaction young master?"

  I pull out a tier six foundation pill and replied "Most satisfied, please tell your master I will come again" and hand the pill over to the stunned girl as her tip then step into the exit portal. I enter the exit part of the courtyard and see sharky terrorizing the fleeing customers which brings a grin to my face. Knashing it's sharky grin and rushing hither and thither if any exiting customers that make so much as a twitch. I laugh and play with sharky like the rest of the customers and inch my way to the exit while affected by Sharky's terror restriction.