Stretching out his hand to receive the porcelain bottle, he poured out a pill and glanced at it a few times, then sniffed it carefully, his beautiful eyes reflected a hint of disappointment.
"Mr. Cheng, this should be a type of elixir that martial artists use to temper their bones... However, its quality cannot be considered excellent, and its appearance is also lacking. We have alchemists in the Pill Cauldron Pavilion who can refine similar elixirs. If sold in the market, each pill might be worth around a hundred taels, maybe even higher in the black market."
Its quality and appearance are not considered excellent.
There are professional alchemists in the Pill Cauldron Pavilion to refine it.
Lin Xue’s words were tactful, but the implication was clear. Su Mu’s refined Bone Strengthening Pill could only be considered average, and it subtly conveyed that the Pill Cauldron Pavilion would not accept these mediocre quality pills.
Hearing this, Su Mu was not disappointed. He himself disdained these Bone Strengthening Pills in the small porcelain bottles; he kept the good quality ones for his own use, and it’s normal that the Pill Cauldron Pavilion wouldn’t want these uneven practice pills.
However, this also gave Su Mu a sense of the value of Bone Strengthening Pills. Ordinary Eighth Grade pills are about a hundred and twenty taels each, which inevitably made Su Mu feel a sense of wonder.
The medicinal materials for a furnace of Bone Strengthening Pills require about three hundred taels, so based on this value, an alchemist needs to produce three pills from a furnace to earn some profit while breaking even.
This leads to freelance alchemists finding it more difficult to survive in a Great Commandery City. After all, training alchemists requires enormous resources. If the cost-effectiveness of the trained alchemist’s pill refining is less favorable compared to directly purchasing from the Pill Cauldron Pavilion, then what’s the point of going through the trouble to train them?
Moreover, without inheritance in alchemy, it is challenging to cultivate excellent alchemists, as excellent pill formulas are precious resources controlled by powerful entities like the Pill Cauldron Pavilion.
With these dual pressures, ordinary freelance alchemists can hardly stand firm in a Great Commandery City.
On the other hand, Su Mu just began to ponder the price disparity between the Great Commandery City and smaller places.
Su Mu traveled all the way from the Land of Cyan Clouds, and he had noticed the prices of medicinal materials and low-grade pills in county towns and small commanderies, thereby discovering a pattern.
The larger the place, the cheaper the prices of these low-grade pills and medicinal materials, whereas in small places, the same materials and pills often have values that can be several times higher, or even double and triple.
For example, the Hundred Elixir Tower controlling the medicinal material business in Qingyun County sells a set of Entry Level medicinal soup for Yijin at a hundred taels, but in Donglai County, an Eighth Grade Bone Strengthening Pill is only about a hundred taels.
Small places not only have scarce cultivation resources, but they are also expensive.
"What if someone were to purchase pills in the Great Commandery City and resell them in small places?"
Suddenly, Su Mu considered this question, but quickly shook his head silently. Being able to travel freely back and forth between a Great Commandery City and smaller places requires more than an ordinary person, requiring considerable strength.
A single journey consumes considerable time, often months, or even more, spending this time to earn mere money is indeed counterproductive, it’s not worth the effort, hence it’s better to stay in the Commandery City.
Moreover, it requires numerous personnel, local prestige, and networking with various factions, tasks that ordinary people cannot undertake.
With this in mind, the words ’Noble Family’ quietly surfaced in Su Mu’s mind.
Only Noble Families, these colossal entities, can dominate a place, with their descendants spread across the region. In this sense, even the Great Yan Government Office and local powers like the Cyan Fish Gang and White Whale Gang may not measure up.
The sky is high and the emperor is far away; royal authority struggles to reach remote places.
Collecting his thoughts quickly, Su Mu also noticed Lin Xue’s last sentence. From the start, Su Mu didn’t come with the intention of selling pills to the Pill Cauldron Pavilion, at least at this stage, Su Mu didn’t think his practice pills could catch the Pavilion’s attention.
His real purpose was to inquire about the location of the black market in Donglai County.
"I wonder where the black market is?"
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His real purpose was to inquire about the location of the black market in Donglai County.
"I wonder where the black market is?"