137 Muscle tempering (1/2)

Bai Yun now had to find a place to recover. Bai Yun went back to the inn he had stayed in earlier and booked a room for a couple of days. Bai Yun then spend the next few days resting.

When Bai Yun finally left the inn a few days later, the situation in poison valley had died down. From the word on the streets, Bai Yun was able to gain a lot of news. He learned that the explosion this time was the largest in recorded history. Thus there were many many blue lotuses, and that even now new blue lotuses were coming up, though rarely.

And the biggest news was purple lotuses. According to rumors, the city lord arrived on the lake long before anyone else and collected a few purple lotuses. Afterward, the heads of major factions of terracotta hill also arrived and fought each other for the purple lotuses.

But the biggest purple lotus actually came yesterday. It was four times largest than the second largest purple lotus that was born and was so dark that it almost looked black. After a fierce struggle, it finally fell into the hands of the city lord.

And during these battles Huang Yao's mercenary group also became famous. They fought on the side of the city lord and repelled many other forces along with the city lord's forces. A mercenary group led by a beautiful lady thus quickly became famous.

After finding out about this, Bai Yun left the inn and went to the alchemist assassination. Just like the blacksmithing union, the alchemist assassination also rented out rooms for use.

But Bai Yun was not going for a single room. From Qin Feng, Bai Yun learned that the alchemist association and blacksmith union also rented out stores. These stores were on the major commercial streets of terracotta hill and had basements where one could do alchemy or blacksmithing.

So Bai Yun went directly to the alchemist association and asked to rent out a store. Bai Yun was planning to stay there for a few months before moving on. He had quite a few things to handle first, and terracotta hill was a good place to stay. Not only did it have many places nearby to collect rare medical ingredients, but it was also close enough to ever green hills so that Bai Yun could go there to sharpen himself.

After spending the afternoon Bai Yun finally settled on a location for the shop. It wasn't on the main street, but it was only a few blocks away. Bai Yun initially thought of renting a shop closer to the main street, but those were a lot costlier.

Bai Yun quickly finished the procedures for renting and paid the deposit for the shop. Bai Yun initially decided to rent the shop for three months and then go from there.

After this was done Bai Yun went straight to his shop to inspect it. It was a three story house in a little street near the main street. The ground floor was the shop while the first floor was living quarters and the second floor was a training room. And in the basement, there was an alchemy room, and a blacksmithing room, complete with many tools.

After inspecting it, Bai Yun found that it was a bit too much just for him. But it was unavoidable since he wanted a shop that had both blacksmithing as well as alchemy rooms. Usually, these stores were for a group and not a single person.

After arriving here, Bai Yun quickly cleaned up the shop. Bai Yun could have hired help for this, but since he wasn't going to be focusing on alchemy and blacksmithing during this time, Bai Yun thought that hiring someone was a waste.

Bai Yun then hung up a board outside the shop. The board simply said 'Open every day for one hour at noon. Can create any pill or weapon at the qi step. Also does consultations and examinations.'

Bai Yun was only planning to open the shop for an hour every day. He hoped that he would get some work and then his reputation would spread by word of mouth. And if it didn't, that was fine too.

Since it was already afternoon, Bai Yun locked up the shop, leaving only the board hanging outside. Throughout the day, a few curious people stared at the board, but no one took it seriously. The shop wasn't even open for it to be taken seriously anyway.

After this Bai Yun went down to the alchemy room. He then removed the bandages that he had covered himself with. All the injuries he had suffered in the poison valley had healed by now. The only thing left was the burn on his hand. Bai Yun's left arm was pretty much completely burned out. But it was only a surface burn and did not affect his mobility. And Bai Yun figured that it would heal in about two months.

After this Bai Yun took out a few medicinal ingredients he had bought at the alchemist association. The first thing Bai Yun was going to do today was to break through to muscle tempering.

In the muscle tempering realm, the muscles, the tendons, and the ligaments of the body would undergo a special process of refinement. The idea behind muscle tempering was similar to tempering minerals. The process was to crack the muscles under extreme pressure and then repair them rapidly. During this repair, the muscles would get stronger and stronger.

Just like how skin sewing primarily raised one's defense, muscle tempering primarily raised one's strength and speed. It did not mean that it was the only improvement though, only that strength and speed were raised the highest.