A Huge Fortune
After a rather embarrassing misunderstanding, Adam was eventually able to return to campus. But by the time he did get there, it was already nightfall. Between the 1-hour car ride to and from the Pill Menagarie and how long it took Mr. Yan to retrieve all of the herbs he wanted, Adam unknowingly spent the entire day outside.
Because of this, Adam only dropped off his crate full of medicinal herbs in his alchemy lab before going back to his dorm to rest. Though it seemed like a lifetime had passed since his 16th birthday and system awakening, it was only one day, and for now, all Adam wanted to do was rest.
Closing his room's door, Adam fell face-first onto his mattress, falling asleep almost instantly.
—
After his strenuous and action-packed 16th birthday, Adam spent the next day doing nothing but refining pills. From the second he woke up that day until sunrise, the next, Adam was in his alchemy lab concocting Body Refining Pills.
Thankfully, Adam, after he showed his strength to the principal, was given permission to choose whether or not to attend any classes.
Martial artists needed time to cultivate and train, and for someone as advanced as Adam, classes would only get in the way of his training.
When you factored that in with Adam's peak Body Refining Realm cultivation base, Adam basically graduated. All he needed was the diploma. Because of this, no one bothered him during his secluded alchemy session.
With 40 sets of ingredients to his name, Adam had a lot of pills to make. However, he loved the entire process, never really feeling burdened about it.
If he did, he would stop. Other than the $1,000,000 the system needed to advance and Adam's desire to get as much money as possible, there was nothing else forcing him to refine pills.
Maybe his past life is influencing him even now after reincarnating into the future, but Adam had always loved alchemy and refining pills. And doing it for an entire day straight didn't bother him much.
However, now that he was done with the refining, Adam was loaded.
Out of the 40 sets of ingredients he bought from Mr. Yan, only three were failures. But the failures didn't happen because of a skill issue, but rather exhaustion.
Though Adam didn't want to leave his alchemy lab until he finished using all of his ingredients, he truly couldn't do so. Hunger, mental fatigue, and physical exhaustion all prevented Adam from staying inside all day.
As a Body Refining Realm pup, Adam was still very much mortal. Other than a strengthened body that could do wondrous feats of strength, he didn't gain much. Until he absorbed his first wisp of Spiritual Qi, Adam would stay this way as well.
Despite this, Adam could suppress his worldly needs a little. He could eat just a meal a day and feel fine and sleep only a couple hours a day and not feel exhausted, but that was it.
Adam still needed food and rest at the end of the day. So, during his day-long refining session, Adam failed three times because of these disabilities. Whenever he failed, Adam would stop, get something to eat, and rest his mind for a while before going right back into the thick of it.
But even with only 37 successful attempts, Adam made a huge profit from his $10,000 investment. In his alchemy lab, while the sun rose above him, Adam was staring at the nine bottles of pills that stood in front of him.
"30 low-quality pills, 39 middle-quality pills, 12 high-quality pills, and a couple of unranked ones," Adam spoke aloud as he looked at his work.
The unranked pills were still pills, as they had taken form and could be used for cultivation, but they had far too many impurities in them for Adam to even think about swallowing them, especially after eating a high-quality pill. However, Adam knew that some people were desperate and would eat such pills.
Cultivation was a long and arduous journey. And some people were far less blessed than others. Even back on Earth, impoverished people would sometimes eat bugs or even mice. So, in the cultivation world, where power meant everything, swallowing a few pills packed with impurities meant nothing if they could become stronger from them.
That was also why the destructive arts that Principal Smith wanted him to know about existed and was so popular. People needed strength, and anything that could give them that was a treasure.
Of course, the prices of such pills would be much lower than the low-quality pills he made, but money was money. Adam knew his blackhearted system needed a lot of money, so rather than throwing them out, he stored them.
It was a fortune, and Adam was excited at the prospect of selling them. Safely storing them in an insulated box that could withstand damage, Adam left his alchemy lab.
A quick walk later, he reached Professor Singh's lecture hall.
"Adam, you can come in, no need for you to knock." Professor Singh's calm voice sounded just as Adam raised his hand to knock.
Complying with her order, Adam walked in and greeted the woman, who stood at the same spot as yesterday.
"What is it this time, Adam?" Professor Singh asked as she put down her book and looked at one of her best students.
"I have more pills to sell to you." Adam simply said, and without a pause in his words, he placed his insulted box on her desk.
"Oh? You succeeded again?" Professor Singh praised. She was pleasantly surprised. She didn't think Adam would be able to succeed two days in a row.
Opening the box, Profesor Singh continued, "It seems you've been using the money I sent you well. How many did you make?"
However, before she could finish her words, she stopped. She opened the box and saw just how many pills were inside.
"Adam, did you rob a pill store?" Professor Singh stuttered out.
Before Professor Singh looked into the box, she was expecting maybe 10, or at most, 15 pills. After all, the boy had his first successful pill refinement just yesterday. So she thought that Adam would take the $70,000, buy a few sets of ingredients, and continue practicing.
However, when she opened the insulated box and found almost 90 pills sitting in it, her worldview almost collapsed. Moreover, there were even 12 high-quality pills inside.
Looking at the huge amount of pills inside the box and their quality, Professor Singh couldn't match them to Adam, especially when the boy had just become a full-fledged alchemist. These weren't the pills refined by 16, but rather a peer of hers.
So it was only right for her to assume Adam had done something crazy rather than consider the unreasonable possibility of Adam actually refining them.
Adam didn't respond but just pointed at the box, implying that she should take another look. He didn't steal them, so he had nothing to fear. Plus, Professor Singh was a Tier 4 alchemist. It would be very easy for her to sense just how new the pills were.
Adam had, after all, just made them overnight. No pill store would have that many new pills in stock. If stored properly, pills could last an extremely long time. The higher the tier, the longer they could last.
And while Adam's pills were only Tier 1, they could still last years after their initial refinement and not lose any bit of their effectiveness even after all of that time.
And most of the pills kept on the shelves of pill shops were old. Fresh ones were usually handed out to more important customers.
Seeing Adam's finger and where he was pointing, Professor Singh turned her head and took another close look at the pills.
Grabbing a random bottle, Professor Singh gave the pills inside a whiff and managed to smell how new they were.
Moreover, because they were inside the bottles she gave him, Professor Singh eventually realized that Adam was telling the truth.
"You want to sell all of these?" Professor Singh asked with a raised eyebrow as she regained her composure. The only reason she lost it in the first place was because of the shock Adam's rapid improvement gave her, not because of how many pills were in the box.
As a Tier 4 alchemist, Professor Singh could refine that many pills in an hour at most. Plus, with her background as the daughter of a medicine conglomerate, these many pills were nothing to her.
"Other than two of the high-quality ones, yes," Adam nodded. In fact, there was no need for him to keep any of those pills, but since Adam thought that he might run into a scenario where he might need a few of the high-quality pills later, he decided to keep a couple.
Professor Singgh nodded and then started to count how many pills there were and how to calculate their price.
"There are 30 low-quality pills, so for $20,000 a piece, that is $600,000. 39 middle-quality pills for $25,000 a piece is $975,000, but we can just call that a flat million. And finally, 10 high-quality pills for $40,000 a piece are another $400,000. That's two million. Are you fine with that?" Professor Singh quickly calculated.
"But what about the unranked pills? Don't they also have a market?" Adam asked as he pointed at the bottle full of blackish and impure pills on the side.
He had definitely seen those being sold before, and it was odd for his teacher to just ignore them completely.
"You've seen them before because of the stores you go to, Adam. Think of the better stores you've been to, like Mr. Yan's shop. Have you seen an unranked pill there?" Professor Singh asked back.
Not expecting the question, Adam was stunned for a moment, but after he started thinking, he realized that she was right. Only the shady back alley stores he had been to back then had the gall to sell the unranked pills. None of the stores in the Pill Menagerie sold an unranked pill either.
Seeing the boy's clarity return, Professor Singh continued.
"My father's store doesn't sell them either. I could buy them from you, but I would just lose money as I would most likely throw them out." Professor Singh said as she spread her hands out, showing her plight.
Unwilling to throw out money but without a way to convince his teacher to take the loss, Adam eventually gave up and accepted the two million.
And after a handshake to secure the deal, both parties left happy.
'Ding! Professor Singh has sent you $2,000,000! Your new balance is $2,038,432!'
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