The Immortal Spirits Wine Pavilion currently only sells two types of Spirit Wine. One is made by Wang Hong using worldly Strong Liquor, soaked in Spiritual Medicine, and stored in Space for a hundred years. Its cost is low, and its quality is only at the lower tier of the first tier, making it the most basic Spirit Wine. Each bottle, half a catty, is priced at thirty Spirit Stones.
The other type is Spirit Rice Wine brewed with Spirit Rice and stored in Space for ten years. It is of a middle-tier first tier quality. Each bottle, one tael, is priced at twenty Spirit Stones.
Although the quality of these two Spirit Wines is not high, their prices are reasonable. The number of Immortal Cultivators follows a pyramid structure, with more people at the lower levels. These two types of Spirit Wine have the highest demand among Qi Cultivation early and mid-stage cultivators.
Since the opening of the Spirit Wine Pavilion, business has been booming. In the first month alone, it made a profit of twelve thousand Spirit Stones, equivalent to his annual profit before.
Wang Hong left only a few subordinates to manage the stalls in the market, focusing the rest on brewing Spirit Wine. The acquisition of Spirit Herbs, however, continued as it was essential to supplement the source and disguise the Spirit Herbs produced by Space. Additionally, sometimes he could acquire rare Spirit Herbs not available to him before.
Once the production of Spirit Wine stabilized, Wang Hong handed over its management entirely to Skinny Monkey. He then secluded himself to practice Alchemy.
He continued with the Condensing Qi Pill, preparing a thousand Spirit Herbs this time. Besides the necessary pill consumption for his cultivation, Wang Hong spent the rest of his time on Alchemy.
This time, it took him a full half-year to refine the thousand Spirit Herbs. The harvest, however, was enormous.
The success rate of Wang Hong's Condensing Qi Pill finally reached forty percent. Each Spirit Herb was worth twenty Spirit Stones, and he sold each Condensing Qi Pill for ten Spirit Stones. With a success rate of forty percent, it meant a profit of twenty Spirit Stones for each batch of Condensing Qi Pills.
Furthermore, Wang Hong obtained a bottle containing eight middle-tier Condensing Qi Pills. Elixirs could be classified into lower, middle, upper, and peak tiers.
Commonly seen Elixirs, if not labeled with a tier, were considered lower-tier Elixirs. Middle and upper-tier Elixirs were rarely produced except by highly skilled Alchemists, and only a few would occasionally appear in the market.
Middle-tier Condensing Qi Pills had fewer impurities, contained a vast amount of Spiritual Energy, and were several times more effective than lower-tier pills. They provided significant assistance in breaking through cultivation bottlenecks and offered numerous long-term benefits if consumed regularly.
After completing this batch of Elixirs, Wang Hong took a few days to rest and relax.
In the past six months, the business at the Spirit Wine Pavilion flourished, bringing in over ten thousand Spirit Stones every month after deducting expenses.
All the income, tens of thousands of Spirit Stones, were invested by Wang Hong into the Space land. At this rate, in two or three more months, the Space land would expand to three acres.
Currently, one acre of Space land was dedicated to Condensing Qi Pill materials. The original Spirit Grain and Spirit Wheat, due to overcrowding, were transplanted, occupying two-fifths of the land.
Wang Hong also planted some Iron Thorns that were covered in seeds. These thorns produced seeds once every ten years and could be used for Wood Element Magical Arts the Entanglement Technique.
The Green Spirit Peach he planted in Space grew extremely slowly. After experiencing nine years in Space, it finally sprouted and had been growing for several decades. It was now over a foot tall, with crystalline, emerald-green stems and leaves that bore faint white patterns.
Additionally, the Astragalus he planted initially began to mutate. Golden yellow streaks appeared on its originally emerald-green leaves. The mutation had just begun, and Wang Hong was curious to see how it would ultimately turn out.
After a few days of rest, Wang Hong resumed his grand endeavor of Alchemy. He was uncertain about the standards required by sects when recruiting Alchemists but aimed to do his best.
However, this time he was going to refine the Barrier Breaking Pill. The main ingredient of the Barrier Breaking Pill, Scarlet Blood Ginseng, is exceptionally rare for others. Wang Hong had a large quantity of it growing in his Space, but it was inconvenient to sell in large quantities. It was perfect for practice, and with his mediocre aptitude, he believed he would need this Elixir in the future.
Building on the previous foundation, he refined only a hundred batches, improving the success rate of the Barrier Breaking Pill to forty percent.
Next, Wang Hong spent over half a year refining several types of first-tier Elixirs. He refined over a hundred batches of each, achieving a forty percent success rate for each.
At this point, Wang Hong had accumulated over ten thousand first-tier Elixirs. He couldn't use so many Elixirs himself in the short term, and keeping them in hand was a waste of resources.
Selling the Elixirs to an Elixir shop in large quantities might attract attention. It would be better to open another Elixir shop.
Running a business in the cultivation world differed significantly from the Mortal Realm.
The Mortal Realm had abundant resources, and the market was filled with common items. The competition was fierce, and businesses had to work hard to attract customers.
In the cultivation world, resources were scarce, and as long as there were Spiritual Objects, they would sell without difficulty. The most intense competition among major businesses was for the supply channels and various resources.
In the Mortal Realm, competition was downstream, in a buyer's market. In the cultivation world, competition was upstream, in a seller's market.
Spiritual Objects needed for Qi Cultivation could still be bought with Spirit Stones in major stores. However, for Foundation Building, the required Spiritual Objects became rare, and the Spiritual Pills consumed by Foundation Building cultivators were no longer readily available like Condensing Qi Pills. By the Golden Core stage, the appearance of any kind of Spiritual Objects would cause contention.
The scarcity of resources was the main reason for the small number of high-tier cultivators.
Opening an Elixir shop required two main conditions. One was a stable supply of Spirit Herbs. The Spirit Herbs required for Alchemy had a long maturation period, and the demand was high. The meager spiritual resources found in the wild were simply insufficient.
Most Elixir shops had their own medicinal gardens, and some even established stable supply relationships with Spirit Herb suppliers.
The other condition was having a skilled Alchemist. An Elixir shop without an Alchemist would not last long. However, cultivating an Alchemist was costly. Alchemists trained by Cultivation Clans would serve their families, and loose cultivators often struggled even to obtain resources for their own cultivation, let alone having an abundance of Spirit Herbs to practice with, as Wang Hong did.
For example, the Wan Family owned a ten-acre Spiritual Medicine garden and had their own Alchemist, allowing them to sustain an Elixir shop in Azure Void City.
Currently, Wang Hong's Space had three acres of land, with time passing at thirty-two times the normal speed. One hundred thousand Spirit Stones could increase Space by one acre. With each acre added, the speed of time passing would double. This was enough to supply an Elixir shop.
As for Elixirs, he was already practicing Alchemy extensively for his own cultivation. He believed his forty percent success rate was still too low and needed further improvement.
The only additional requirement was to rent another shop, which was also a considerable expense.
Wang Hong had always wanted to buy a house in Azure Void City and several pieces of spiritual land. Unfortunately, Spirit Stones were always insufficient. Despite earning quite a few Spirit Stones in recent years and having expenses for over forty people, the major portion went to Space, which was the foundation of all his development.
After so many years, he didn't even have a decent Magical Weapon. Firstly, he hadn't found a suitable one, and secondly, he genuinely didn't have spare Spirit Stones.
He aimed to make the most of every Spirit Stone spent, ensuring maximum value.
Wang Hong called Zhao Ning over and assigned him the task. Zhao Ning, currently at the first cultivation level of Qi Cultivation, rarely appeared in public, and this Elixir shop would be established in his name.
Ten days later, a shop named "Zhao's Pill Shop" opened. It specialized in Elixirs and Spirit Herbs, with all Elixirs sold in the store being first-tier Elixirs required for Qi Cultivation.
This time, Wang Hong didn't inform anyone. He wanted to downplay the connection between this shop and himself. He preferred to stay behind the scenes.
Being a Qi Cultivator without a background, owning a Spirit Wine Pavilion was already remarkable. If he also had an Elixir shop, he would likely attract attention soon.
Having immense wealth without corresponding strength was dangerous.
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