“My teacher is an alchemist, but due to my age, I don’t have a certificate yet.”

The girl in white spoke. Not every cultivator could apply for the certificate of Immortal Arts. The Immortal Gate set age and professional restrictions to filter applicants and reduce the workload each year.

For instance, high school students like Chen Mobai did not meet the first requirement – age.

The girl in white was in the same situation.

The only downside of water method alchemy was its time-consuming nature. A single alchemist found it hard to oversee the entire process.

Therefore, although the Immortal Gate stipulated that only alchemists could concoct medicines, apprentices assisting with some simple auxiliary medicines was an accepted practice within the industry.

Chen Mobai figured that the girl in white was likely an apprentice pharmacist in training.

He thought of the Spirit Water refining method recorded in the Black Water Technique, but he had no clue about it. He wanted to ask for advice, but it felt inappropriate to do so without reason.

“Excuse me.”

In the end, Chen Mobai uttered these two words, turned around, and left the pharmacy.

“What a strange person.”

Qing Nv felt that Chen Mobai wanted to ask something, but for some reason, he didn’t.

Watching the young man disappear around the corner, she shook her head, turned around, and continued to extract medicinal materials in the back hall.

…

Water Mansion.

Chen Mobai nervously pulled out the black formation flag, and the huge hemispherical light shield above his head began to fluctuate slightly.

He immediately followed the method of circulating qi mentioned in Chan Si’s courseware, infusing his spiritual power into the formation flag. Then, with his other hand, he made two sets of simple gestures.

Splash!

In no time, the originally flawless huge light shield caved in a two-meter diameter hole in the direction pointed by the black flag.

Suppressing his excitement, Chen Mobai reinserted the formation flag and walked to the entrance of the formation he had opened.

He reached out his hand, trembling slightly, extended beyond the range of the light shield, and touched the water outside.

Cool and silky.

After playing with the water and confirming there was no danger outside, Chen Mobai began to stick half of his body out.

Since he had not practiced any water-avoiding spells, he could only rely on his long breath to endure.

Even so, he caught a glimpse of the scenery outside the Water Mansion.

It was a lake of unknown size, at least he couldn’t see the edge at a glance. At the bottom of the lake, a kind of blue-glowing water grass grew, which was particularly eye-catching in the dark environment.

Among the water grass, there were blue carps frolicking back and forth.

Chen Mobai confirmed that it was the same kind of fish he had eaten.

He lifted the needle box in his hand, ran the Five Elements Technique, infused spiritual power, and a golden light shot out.

Although he was still a bit stiff in using this magical instrument, under Chen Mobai’s unreserved spiritual power, it was a straight shot, requiring no skill. The flying needle directly pierced the blue carp that didn’t have time to escape.

Seeing his successful catch, Chen Mobai raised his other hand. Two glass beads, accompanied by his infusion of the Five Elements Technique’s spiritual power, flew out like two colorful rainbows, clamping the slowly descending blue carp.

After retrieving the food and the flying needle, Chen Mobai pulled out the black flag again and resealed the entrance of the Water Mansion.

He first carefully observed the blue carp in his hand, noticing a deep blue line on its back, like a tendon, and two long whiskers beside its mouth. It felt cold to the touch, like holding an ice cube.

“This carp looks a lot like the Orient Loong Carp, a second-level protected spirit beast of the Immortal Gate.”

Chen Mobai muttered to himself. The bloodline of the Orient Loong Carp originated from a blue dragon in the deep sea, which was captured with great difficulty when the Immortal Gate opened the sea area.

It was said that after cooking the Orient Loong Carp in a special way, cultivators could absorb a trace of the water dragon’s aura contained in its flesh and blood, randomly increasing their water spiritual root by 1-5 attribute points.

But the Orient Loong Carp of the Immortal Gate was only raised by the Kunpeng Dao Institute and was regarded as a forbidden delicacy by the Elemental Infant. Twenty years ago, this senior even put the wild Orient Loong Carp on the latest list of protected spirit beasts of the Immortal Gate, prohibiting cultivators from killing it for food.

Chen Mobai hesitated for a moment, but in the end, he couldn’t resist the temptation and took out the short knife he got from the old man.

The Immortal Gate stipulated that wild Orient Loong Carps were protected spirit beasts, but farmed ones could be eaten.

These blue carps were somewhat similar to the Orient Loong Carp, but there were differences. They had no spiritual aura, and since they were raised outside the Water Mansion, they could be considered farmed.

Scaling, gutting, slicing, Chen Mobai’s movements were very skilled, done in one go.

This short knife was not a magical instrument, but it was extremely sharp. He had tried cutting gold with it, and it was as easy as cutting tofu, using it to slice fish was a bit of an overkill.This time, he planned to eat it chilled, even bringing ice cubes and seasonings from home.

However, the fish meat was already icy cold, so he could skip the chilling process.

Chen Mobai even brought a can of carbonated drink. If he had a wine glass, the sense of ceremony would be maxed out.

It was a pity that he was the only one eating.

A slight regret accompanied the icy, tender fish meat into his mouth. Paired with the aged vinegar he bought online from Wangwu Cave, an indescribable sour and numbing comfort bloomed on his taste buds.

As the fish meat entered his stomach, a cool sensation spread throughout his body, causing Chen Mobai to shiver. Then came a feeling of utter satisfaction, as if he had taken a cold bath on a hot day, comfortable and refreshing.

After finishing his meal, Chen Mobai belched. The first thought that came to his mind was: it was such a waste to have cooked the previous fish.

Of course, he didn’t forget his main task.

After cleaning up with a cleansing spell, he sat on the cushion and circulated the Five Elements Technique for a full cycle.

The adaptive spiritual power he cultivated had not yet returned to his dantian when Chen Mobai intercepted a portion of it and injected it into the newly purchased spiritual power test paper.

This was a simple tool for measuring spiritual roots, but it was only for practitioners of the Five Elements Technique.

In the Immortal Gate, everyone was a cultivator. Basically, every child was taught the art of Qi cultivation and immortality from the enlightenment stage. To measure spiritual roots more simply and quickly, the Medical Palace invented this kind of spiritual power test paper.

As soon as Chen Mobai’s spiritual power was absorbed by the test paper, it instantly dyed five colors. Then, a string of numbers appeared on the paper according to the proportion of the five elements’ radiance.

【Gold 23, Wood 27, Water 25, Fire 17, Earth 10.】

As expected, his water spiritual root had increased by 2 points.

Chen Mobai confirmed this, and next, he would conduct more experiments.

Suppressing the excitement in his heart, he stood up again and activated the Azure Water Array.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Golden streaks of light lit up outside the water mansion, and the green carps that were eating water grass inexplicably became food in Chen Mobai’s stomach.