Collecting Medicinal Materials

After Hai Bodong finished saying this, he walked into the map shop first without caring whether Xiao Ling followed him or not. 

Seeing Hai Bodong walk into the shop first, Xiao Ling waved to Qing Lin and Zi Yan who were chatting behind him, and said, "Don't bask in the sun outside, come into the map shop and rest for a while." After he finished speaking, Xiao Ling walked towards the direction of the map shop.

Zi Yan and Qing Lin looked at each other, nodded, and followed Xiao Ling's steps.

After following Hai Bodong in the map shop for a few minutes, Xiao Ling and his companions came to a wall and stopped.

Several people stopped, and before Hai Bodong could respond, Zi Yan asked curiously, "Old Hai, why did you bring us to this wall? Do we need to break down this wall to find a secret passage? I can help you."

Hearing Zi Yan's violent words, Hai Bodong couldn't help but twitch his mouth, and replied helplessly: "Little girl, this is not a wall that needs to be opened, it's just a hidden stone door. I will go forward and open this stone door, and then I can directly enter my treasure house."

Under the curious gazes of the three people, Hai Bodong walked to the wall, stretched out his hand and tapped several places on it, then took a few steps back.

"Boom…"

As the wall began to shake, the wall that blocked these peoples advance split in the middle, revealing a passage inlaid with moonstones.

As the mechanism was opened, Hai Bodong walked in first. Seeing this, Xiao Ling and others followed closely behind him.

Walking in this passage, because it was illuminated by the moonstone, Xiao Ling looked towards the end of the passage in the moonlight.

All he saw was a secret room with some shelves lined up inside and some items placed on them.

On the shelves from left to right are placed pills, medicinal materials, martial arts skills, and refining materials.

Seeing this scene, Xiao Ling muttered in his heart: "This layout is quite neat. Hai Bodong is indeed a particular person."

After reaching the secret room, Hai Bodong said to Xiao Ling: "Master Xiao Ling, please wait here for a moment. I will get the herbs for you to refine the Breaking Adversity Pill."

After that, Hai Bodong walked towards the shelf where the medicinal herbs were stored. Xiao Ling took Qing Lin and Zi Yan to sit at the table and chairs nearby and started chatting.

After a while, Hai Bodong walked to the table and chairs, waved his hand, and a pile of medicinal herbs fell in front of Xiao Ling.

Seeing that Hai Bodong had brought the herbs, Xiao Ling turned his eyes to the pile of herbs on the table. These herbs could all be considered rare items. Some of them, if put in an auction, could even be sold for a high price of no less than 500,000 gold coins. However, even so, there was no demand for them. After all, anyone who knew the value of the herbs would not put these rare herbs up for auction, because who knows if they would meet an alchemist who needed these herbs one day, and that would be a very satisfactory transaction.

After carefully checking all the medicinal materials and finding nothing missing, Xiao Ling nodded slightly, looked up at Hai Bodong who was staring at him, and said with a smile: "Mr. Hai, I think you should also know that there is a failure rate in refining pills. Before refining, let me say something unpleasant... I have some confidence in refining this sixth-grade pill, but I dare not guarantee it. So, if the refining fails in the end due to some reasons, the responsibility..."  

"I know, You're not responsible, right... All of you alchemists are like this. If you fail, can I still force you to stay? "Briefly, Hai Bodong waved his hand and smiled bitterly.

Xiao Ling nodded and said with a smile: "Since Mr. Hai can understand, this is naturally the best."

As if remembering something, Hai Bodong said with a smile: "When I first met you, I didn't know your identity very well. I have been asking around these days. It would not have been a big deal if I hadn't asked, but I was shocked when I found out. "The first genius of the Jia Ma Empire", he cultivated Dou Qi at the age of four, became a Dou Zhe at the age of eight, and then joined Canaan Academy. There has been no news about him since then. Until recently, he returned to the Jia Ma Empire with the cultivation level of Dou Wang and the identity of a sixth-grade alchemist."

Hai Bodong smacked his lips and said with some emotion: "If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I really wouldn't believe that the Jia Ma Empire actually produced a genius like you."

Walking up to Xiao Ling, Hai Bodong patted Xiao Ling on the shoulder and said with a smile: "As long as you don't want to hurt me on purpose, with your level of alchemy skills, I think you should succeed in one go."

"This old man is flattering me before I even started refining the pill. He's trying to blackmail me morally. If I fail, you can only blame me for not refining it seriously." Xiao Ling thought to himself after hearing what Hai Bodong said.

"Well, anyway, I have no plan to cheat this old man. I will have to let this Ice Emperor work for me in the future. The position of Xiao family's chief steward is specially prepared for Hai Bodong." Thinking of this, Xiao Ling no longer thought about these trivial things. The key now is to concentrate on refining the pill.

After putting the pile of herbs on the table into his storage ring, Xiao Ling nodded slightly to Hai Bodong and said calmly: "Don't worry, Mr. Hai, I will do my best to help you refine this Breaking Adversity Pill. It won't be long before you can recover your Dou Huang cultivation."

After looking around, Xiao Ling found that there was no good place to make medicine in this secret room. He asked Hai Bodong, "Can you prepare a quiet room for me? No one can disturb me while I am here, including Mr. Hai himself."

"Come with me." Nodding, Hai Bodong walked towards a side door, and Xiao Ling followed closely behind him.

Entering the side door, a corridor appeared. The light in the corridor was slightly dim. He followed Hai Bodong for a distance and then stopped outside a door at the bottom of the corridor.

Pushing open the door, a dim light shone out. The room looked quite tidy, perhaps because it was cleaned frequently. It was not bad to use it as a temporary residence while refining the pill.

After telling Qing Lin to practice well, Xiao Ling walked towards the room.

Walking into the room, Xiao Ling looked around, smiled and nodded.

"Master Xiao Ling, is this place okay?" Hai Bodong asked with a smile. After seeing Xiao Ling nod, he continued, "In that case, Master Xiao Ling, please refine the pill here. I will be guarding outside the corridor. During this time, you will get the quiet atmosphere you need, and no one will disturb you."