The Omnistore System

Chapter 396: Simu teyan



Simu Teyan was a young alchemist apprenticing under one of the three senior alchemists of Lucima City, Watawe Monor, the vice lord of the prestigious Monor family. The vice lord had recognized Simu's talent early on and made him his student. Simu was thrilled to have this opportunity and even had the chance to join the Monor family through marriage, which he could pursue after becoming a junior-level alchemist. Achieving this status required mastering a few fundamental alchemy recipes and techniques.

Simu had long since mastered the necessary techniques; the remaining challenge was the recipes. He had chosen some of the more difficult ones to master, including the recipe for Qi potions. He had even modified this recipe to improve it. However, enhancing an already well- established recipe took a significant amount of time and resources.

Simu had access to plenty of resources as the personal student of a senior alchemist, but he lacked time. A family member he was supposed to marry from a minor family seemed to be headed to an academy to further polish her skills. If he married her before she left, he could join her and get to know the world beyond this low-level cultivation environment.

So he needed to act quickly and master his enhanced recipe. Simu was confident he could do it in a month if someone could just give him a few kilos of the herb essences he needed to test his changes. Extracting the essence himself would take more than two years, as the process took hours depending on one's talent. Simu, being talented, could extract a few grams of essence in an hour from an earth-grade herb, but it required significant energy and took a toll on him.

To save time and effort, he had been buying extracted essences, although it was not much since cultivation shops didn't stock large quantities. They preferred their own alchemists to use the essences to create alchemy products, which yielded higher profits. Simu continued to search daily for the required essences and purchased a few grams whenever he could find them. However, the quality was often too low for testing his recipe changes.

Today, fortune seemed to smile upon him as he suddenly found 1340 grams of Qi grass essence being sold for just 900 units per 10 milliliter.

At first, he thought it was a scam. However, after seeing more products listed in the store and reading positive customer reviews, he decided to take the risk and order a few grams. He figured wasting a few thousand units wouldn't matter much. To his surprise, he discovered that he had to purchase the essence in person, which would take up his already limited time.

Determined, Simu made his way to the small store in a market he had never visited before. The store was no bigger than the bathroom in his house, yet it was packed with customers and bustling with activity. He sighed, feeling a bit frustrated. "I shouldn't have come now; it's going to waste another half hour," he muttered under his breath, thinking the busy store employees wouldn't be able to attend to him anytime soon.

But to his surprise, a woman with short black hair and a muscular build greeted him with a smile. "Welcome, sir. What brings you to our store?" Sia had honed her customer service skills over the past few months. She had perfected a welcoming smile that made people feel at ease and adopted a professional tone that maintained a respectful distance.

Simu cleared his throat, trying to mask his initial surprise. "I'm here for the essence of Qi Grass," he said, his voice steady but tinged with a hint of urgency.

Sia's smile widened, a hint of satisfaction in her eyes. "You're in luck, sir. We still have a few hundred grams left. If you'd been a bit later, it might have been sold out already. Please wait a moment while I get it from the back," she said with a slightly apologetic smile. Simu returned her smile and waited as she went to retrieve the goods.

As he waited, he looked around the store, examining the merchandise. Everything appeared to be genuine and legitimate, yet the prices were surprisingly low, making it hard for him to believe the store could sell such high-quality items for so little.

One of the high earth-grade swords was priced at just 25,000 units. Even if it were the lowest and most useless weapon in its tier, it should still cost at least that much, with most high earth-grade swords costing over 50,000 units.

This made him even more curious as he waited eagerly for Sia to bring the essence, which she soon did in a big clear crystal tube. The essence was green in color with a slight shine to it. Any alchemist would recognize its legitimacy at a glance, but looks could be deceiving. "Here it is, the essence of Qi Grass. How many milliliters would you like to purchase?" Sia asked as she placed the tube in front of Simu. He couldn't help but ask hesitantly, "Can I check it?"

"Yes, please go ahead," Sia nodded, removing the tight lid. The store filled with a strong herbal aroma. Other customers couldn't help but glance at the tube of green liquid with greed, but under the watchful eyes of the cultivator owner, they quickly returned to their shopping. The customer who had requested to check the essence stood there with a shocked expression as he took in its scent. It was enough for him to determine its authenticity, and from the excitement in his widened eyes, it seemed legitimate. With a big smile, he said to Sia, "I would like to buy all of it and any other essences you have in store."

Simu felt like he had struck gold as he looked at the nearly half-filled glass tube. There was just under half a kilogram, which meant he could conduct many more tests in a week than he could in two months with this quantity alone, especially if he acquired other essences of similar quantity.