Molting the Mortal Coil Chapter 30: Stock Boy

Sage didnt go ho until dawn the next morning.

He had only browsed through the material manuals so when it ca to identifying the many incoming materials, Sage had to spend quite so ti simply figuring out what everything was. The next problem was he had to accurately sort them by their age, potency, and condition.

Most Spirit Plants take massive amounts of ti to mature. It was essentially the ti it took different plants to cultivate. They drew in the energy of the heavens and earth, slowly converting it into Qi. Over ti, just like cultivators physical bodies would get cleansed of its impurities and transford into more powerful states. The older the Spirit Plant, the more powerful it would beco.

Potency is related to the amount of sustaining nutrients and qi that the spirit plant absorbs during the growing period. It was like the difference between grass-fed organic and corn-fed barn raised beef. There was a huge difference between a plant that grows in the wilds for a thousand years versus the one rapidly raised by Farrs over only a couple years. Despite being matured essentially to the sa cultivation level, those from the wilds will have far more ti to absorb and digest the energy around them.

Condition relates to the manner in which the Spirit Plant is harvested, packaged and preserved. Just like regular vegetables, Spirit Plants would start to wilt. There was also the chance of being harvested incorrectly and ruining the effectiveness. Proper storage is incredibly important as even if harvested correctly the Spirit Plants can undergo drastic changes if stored in the wrong type of box. Not to ntion losing their effectiveness, so types of container can even turn Spirit Plants into poison when stored incorrectly.

After identifying the type of Spirit Plant and sorting by age, potency, and condition. Sage then had to weigh and package them, followed by finally storing them and updating the records. If it wasnt for the fact that there was only a dozen types of herbs and they were all mostly of similar ages and potency it would have taken him far longer. The majority of his ti was spent looking things up and asking for advice from one of the other Alchemy Hall workers, but it still took him nearly a full day and night to do a job that was expected to take half a day.

He slept through the next day and returned to do his job again. The second ti he again took the full day and night. The third was the sa. It wasnt until hed been working there for nearly a full month before he was finally able to complete his tasks by midnight instead of dawn the next day. It took a full month before he began to truly learn and be confident with the spirit plants he saw often.

It was nearly half a year of studying before Sage finally beca able to finish his duties in the ti that the first job posting listed. He was now working a ten hour shift, three tis a week rather than the punishing twenty four hour cram sessions he was spending before. That first week he had been switching between working 24 hours then resting 24 hours, squeezing in just enough ti to keep from losing his sanity by spending ti with his dormmates. He also spent much of his ti cultivating and improved faster than he had in the last few years. It was far more peaceful and he actually had more ti to spend on cultivating. Sadly, he still only increased one stage to level 26. A middling talent was only a middling talent after all.

Ones talent seed to be mostly a asure of training speed. Each rank took exponentially longer to reach, and so low talent people were destined to take decades to reach middling ranks. Many reached a point where if they failed to reach a breakthrough in ti they would die from old age. Each rank would increase a cultivators maximum life span so it beca a race against ti for most.

A few tis during the next six months, Sage was forced to stay a full 24 hours again. Those were the rare tis that a bunch of disciples or elders had either returned from missions to the outside or a secret area of so sort opened. Each ti, the spirit plants they brought back were few in volu but large in variety. Each Spirit Plant had to be individually identified, categorized, packaged and stored. Instead of crates full of a dozen types of plants there was hundreds of individual plants with drastically different ages.

Besides those few circumstances, Sage finally felt he had ti to work on other activities and he started back in on his Spirit Insect breeding activities, even building a storage room in his shared backyard to contain his insects. In order to coerce his three dormmate brothers he just offered them so Moon Honey from the Silverbee hive and they imdiately agreed to the insect shack. He wasnt about to share the Insect Immortal Index and he didnt even know any other Insect Taming techniques, otherwise he might have gifted them so actual insects.

After three years, Sage was no longer a Stock Boy.

Finally able to perform his duties quickly, Sage was deed to be ready for a more important job and one of the other workers recomnded him as an Alchemists Assistant. He would be responsible for transporting, sorting, storing and retrieving materials for the Alchemist. They would stand to the side ready to fetch materials and do simple preparations and in return they could learn by observing the Alchemist. They receive no direct training from the Alchemists like a disciple, but even rely observing would teach plenty. If an assistant serves well they will be on the track to becoming an Alchemists disciple or at least an independent Apprentice Alchemist and join the Alchemists Hall.

In the first few months he was rely a general Alchemists assistant and would simply get hired on by whoever requested an assistant for the day. He wasnt ever really trusted by these Alchemists, mostly being sent to deliver materials from the Alchemy Hall to the Alchemists house. Things only changed when his Spiritual Sense was discovered again. One of the Elders in the Alchemist Hall noticed his perception searching around inside the stockroom and added this note to his Assistant qualifications.

A few days later, Sage was signed on to be the full ti Assistant to Alchemist Tang Deng. Tang Deng was working on pill formula that required constant adjustnt to the refining flas while at the sa ti various formation arrays and qi techniques had to be perford. He was told it was a very difficult recipe that only the most skilled individuals, or whole groups of alchemists, could perform. Alchemist Tang had the idea of getting an assistant to do the sowhat simpler task of controlling the flas, allowing him to focus on the arrays and qi skills.

Sage was then given a Qi technique for controlling flas from Alchemist Tang and spent the next few weeks learning it. From there it took a few dozen tries before he was truly successful at using it and Alchemist Tang made the first attempt at the difficult pill formula. Hed attempted by himself many tis so he was quite experienced and it took rely three attempts before true success. It showed how skilled Alchemist Tang was that it only took him three tries to properly synchronize with Sage and complete the pill. That was the only pill that took this special thod but Alchemist Tang kept him around as a regular assistant afterwards. He had grown to enjoy Sages quiet nature, even though he required far more training before becoming a good assistant. There was quite a few types of basic refinents that he had to learn as well as a few more simple Qi techniques for ssaging and controlling materials.