Elder Zhao walked down from the platform. When he arrived next to Wei Wuyin, he inspected him with both his eyes and spiritual sense. Wei Wuyin felt this spiritual sense and the man's aura from his close proximity.
He carried traces of elemental energies, indicating his cultivation was only at the Third Phase, Elemental Birth of the Qi Condensation Realm.
"Your body is quite odd. You have no qi to speak off, but your body seemed to have been tempered with various energies. Did an elemental cultivator empower your physique?" The more the Elder inspected Wei Wuyin, the more he felt intrigued.
"Your meridians are closed, your dantian is unawakened, but your body is quite strong. You're suitable for cultivation." Elder Zhao nodded to himself as he stated his assessment.
"However, your life aura is nearly thirty. Even if you reached Qi Condensation, you'll likely have various difficulties ahead of you. That being said, your age is too old to be a part of the guards. You also have no cultivation so being an efficient herbal boy is useless. While you're suited, we'll have to start from scratch. Otherwise, Yan Lin would be quite enraged."
Wei Wuyin's eyes remained fixed on the man, not really understanding anything he was saying. He was like an innocent baby chick just paying attention to the events around him.
Elder Zhao beckoned for Wei Wuyin to follow him as he took a paved path, his steps slow and steady. As they walked, Elder Zhao described all that he saw and Wei Wuyin's future.
Firstly, herbal boys were a profession that incorporated innate yang energies with qi, using a variety of qi arts to bolster the growth of herbs. Because of its yang requirements, only males could be members of this profession.
They all would be cultivated to the Second Stage of Qi Condensation, External Flow, by very forceful means before being placed into work. They would then spend hour after hour, day after day, feeding the plants their qi for growth. In doing so, the herbs could be harvested years if not decades sooner.
It was a profession that needed to exist. Luckily, unlike women's primal yin, unless the man's primal yang was forcefully extracted, it would continuously replenish itself. Therefore, they could do so continuously.
With the appropriate cultivation method, they could even speed up the recovery of their yang energies.
As a herbal boy, he would truly be safe, but also very restricted. According to what Elder Zhao said, he would continue as an herbal boy until sixty. At that point, one's yang would usually start to deteriorate in quality and quantity unless one reached the Yang Growth Phase of Qi Condensation.
However, at that point, his innate yang would be too weak and his bodily talent would deteriorate. At that time, he would need to find a job elsewhere. In fact, Elder Zhao was once an herbal boy. When he spoke of this, his expression turned nostalgic.
Wei Wuyin listened attentively. He was quite curious about all this. His first thoughts were that this old man liked young boys, so he kept only that type in the garden, but now he realized it was more than that.
Secondly, the master of this palace was called Yan Lin, a female core disciple of the Verdant Way Hall, and daughter of the Vice-Hall Master, Yan Yuwei. She didn't visit much. In fact, she avoided this place quite religiously.
Elder Zhao also seemed to have quite the loose lips as he whispered to Wei Wuyin about how Yan Lin had been taken advantage of by a young, handsome man in an herbal garden when she was younger. Unfortunately, she needed this palace for her own cultivation and profits, so despite its affiliation with her ill-experience, she couldn't discard it.
Elder Zhao quietly laughed. In fact, the more he talked and the more Wei Wuyin attentively listened, the more he learned. Elder Zhao had been the herbal boy of the Vice-Hall Master Yan Yuwei when he was younger, and now he worked for her daughter. It was an interesting way of fate.
They talked for quite a while, giving Wei Wuyin all sorts of miscellaneous information. They soon arrived at a location within the palace. At the gates was an old woman who was quite on the heavy side. She chewed a piece of gum ferociously with lazy eyes, not caring about her appearance. She seemed to be guarding a door in this palace.
Elder Zhao arrived and smiled, "Elder Ming, how's that gum?" His smile and gaze turned playful as he spoke, but he only received a cold snort as a response. Elder Ming seemed to be unwilling to have any of what Elder Zhao was offering.
Revealing an expression of 'such a pity, no fun,' Elder Zhao turned towards Wei Wuyin and said, "This is a cultivation invigoration chamber. As long as you step into here, your cultivation will rise to the Second Stage of Qi Condensation."
Wei Wuyin looked towards the door and his eyes blinked. Was this chamber so wondrous?
However, how could it be? Cultivating in this chamber would convert one's innate yin into pure energy used to bolster one's cultivation. At that point, not only will one be unable to give birth to life, but they would never be able to reach the Fourth Stage of Qi Condensation, Yin Form, in their lifetime. For those who are already at that phase, their cultivation would drop immediately.
The price would not be worth the reward.
Herbal boys, however, had long since given up their talent for cultivation and work.
The old woman glanced at Wei Wuyin and saw his silver eyes, her expression flickered. With a very scratchy voice, "Have you tested the boy's alchemic rating?"
When she said this, Elder Zhao raised an inquisitive brow and then an expression of shock followed by a palm smack to his forehead. Indeed! He had forgotten.
An alchemic rating was one's suitability towards developing an Alchemic Heart of Qi. Alchemic energy was hard to define, but it contained extraction, growth, containment, and refinement, creation, transformation, and fusion abilities. It was quite suited for herbal boys and, obviously, alchemists.
In fact, the Alchemic Heart was similar to the Divine Heart. The only difference was its inherent qualities. An Alchemic Heart would make it so that no qi produced could have offensive properties.
Even if you amassed a ball of qi and smashed it onto a baby, absolutely no harm would be done. In fact, the qi would be absorbed into its pores and be beneficial to its growth.
However, in exchange, one's meridians, spiritual sense, physical body, and perception would all benefit from the alchemical energies, allowing their talent in alchemy to soar to the sky. The cost was that one's battle potential would be absolutely zero, zilch, nada, completely without any.
Your entire life would be under the protection of someone else. After all, cultivators could only create one Heart of Qi.
Elder Zhao retrieved a dull, grey stone. When he held it, it released a faint trace of white light. This was an alchemical stone, and it could gauge one's responsiveness towards alchemical energies. That being said, alchemists don't use this to determine if they can or can not be alchemists.
Alchemy was an art form that used all sorts of tools and materials via experience earned, as for alchemical energies, that was something no cultivator with ambition would ever cultivate willingly. While their skills with alchemy would be heaven-defying and their path easy, they would forever be at another's beck and call, unable to protect themselves in a world where the strong dominated the weak. Even the pills they made for cultivation would be mostly useless to them, as a stronger cultivation offered little benefit.
Those who cultivated alchemical energies were exchanging immense talent for being enslaved, essentially. After all, your entire purpose in life within a world of cultivation would be to practice the Alchemic Dao. Even herbal boys could leave the sect at sixty and rule a small area with their Second Stage of Qi Condensation cultivation base. They could establish a harem, build a clan, establish a sect, or more.
That was because they had strength!
Wei Wuyin didn't understand this, so when the stone was given to him, he grabbed it without hesitation. His eyes were lit up by the bright white light the stone emitted.
Elder Ming and Elder Zhao's eyes immediately widened in shock. The white stone was so bright. It was like a miniature sun. They had never seen that before.
"He's suited!" Elder Zhao had complicated emotions as he exclaimed. Being suited was like asking to be a slave for life, living your life practicing alchemy at the orders of another.
Elder Ming added, "Extremely!"