It was a quiet night.

The seven-star lamp in the Sky Clinic flickered; The black and white air intertwined in the good-evil tripod; The whole clinic was shrouded in a mysterious atmosphere.

Ning Tao sat cross-legged next to the good-evil tripod and practiced the ABC of elementary cultivation method over and over again…

This was his 30th day in charge of the Sky Clinic. On the last day when the clinic would collect the good-evil rent, he would do a rush job of practicing and try his best to increase his spiritual power. Otherwise, once the clinic took away the good-evil rent from the good-evil tripod, the good and evil energy would be reduced by two-thirds. By then, the effect of practice was far less than it was now.

His aim was to make the alchemy fire for refining Primary Elixirs.

Ning Tao had tried no less than 100 times in this fast-flying month, but he still couldn’t turn his spiritual power into alchemy fire. There were only two Primary Elixirs given by Chen Pingdao left now, so he must raise the spiritual power to live up to the minimum standards of converting into alchemy fire as soon as possible, or he would be in big trouble.

All of a sudden, Ning Tao finished his practice. Then he cleared all the distracting thoughts in his mind, pushed the limits of his innate spirituality and imagined himself not in the real world, but in his own physical world. At one moment his own body and soul fell into a whirlpool, falling fast, and then he saw the whiteness of the sky and the earth, and the mire in the center of the world.

This mire was his Niwan acupoint, his “engine” as a practitioner. It seemed a little bigger, but it was not obvious. It still looked like an ugly whirlpool, not at all like a palace.

As Ning Tao’s mind raced, something black and white jumped out of the mire and danced in the air like a ribbon.

It was his spiritual power, the natural black-white spiritual power of the go-between of good and evil. The black represented evil, while the white represented good, and they kept an absolute balance.

At first, it was just a tiny bit, but now it was the size of an eel now and many times stronger than it was at first.

“It has grown so big. If I don’t come and see it, I don’t know.” Seeing his “palace” and spiritual power, Ning Tao couldn’t help but get excited. “I wonder if it meets the criteria for converting to alchemy fire.”

When the idea came to him, the white sky and the white earth disappeared, and his eyes returned to the normal state. In that instant, he emerged from his physical world.

Then Ning Tao tried to turn his spiritual power into alchemy fire. When his spiritual power was gathered in his hands, he felt his palms getting hot. Driven by his will, the palms became hotter and hotter. It felt like he was clutching two hot irons, and it was killing him. But he did not give up, and continued to strengthen his will, and again and again urged his spiritual power.

Suddenly, two balls of black and white flames shot out of his palms.

Ning Tao opened his mouth wide with excitement and almost cried out.

The flames were faint and flickered in his hands and seemed to go out at any minute. Miraculously, the alchemy fire was not so hot that even ordinary people could bear it. Holding the two balls of flames in his hands, he didn’t feel any discomfort. He felt that the process of heating just now was like the process of seed breaking the shell, which was the most difficult step. Once breaking the shell, it was a new life!

He succeeded, with only one attempt.

However, behind this success was hundreds of failures, and many times of hard and boring spiritual power practicing.

The two little balls of alchemy fire danced in Ning Tao’s hands. Driven by his will, they jumped on the back of his hand and then on his fingertips. But when he tried to get them to leave him, they went out. With that, Ning Tao gave up the idea of attacking a target with alchemy fire, for he knew that he couldn’t fire a fireball at a target like a magician in magic movies. The alchemy fire could only be used for alchemy and healing.

Ning Tao couldn’t test how to use alchemy fire to cure diseases, but he couldn’t wait to try how to use alchemy fire to make elixirs. After an unsuccessful attempt to free alchemy fire from him, he got up from the floor and began rummaging through the clinic for the materials for Primary Elixirs.

He searched for half an hour.

“Chen Pingdao!” Ning Tao bellowed angrily. “You’re a jerk!”

Refining Primary Elixirs required dozens of medicinal and non-medicinal materials, each of which was rather rare. Although Chen Pingdao specified what the materials were in the prescription, he still lacked at least two-thirds of the materials for Primary Elixirs!

With so many rare and precious materials, even if there was a special market selling drugs and materials, he could not afford them, much less to collect them all over the country!

It was a long time before Ning Tao calmed down. Although the medicine was very precious, he still took a yin-yang ophiocordyceps sinensis to do the experiment.

The yin-yang ophiocordyceps sinensis was actually ophiocordyceps sinensis, but a yin-yang ophiocordyceps sinensis was formed by a male and a female. The entire grassland that produced the ophiocordyceps sinensis was likely to produce less than 100 ophiocordyceps sinensises a year with this characteristic.

Fortunately, Chen Pingdao left eight of this medicine, which was the most abundant among all the medicinal materials, or Ning Tao would not like to make experiments with it.

Alchemy needed the tripod of alchemy, and the good-evil tripod was obviously not this kind of tripod.

Ning Tao started rummaging again for the tripod of alchemy in the clinic. After a short time he found three tripods. One was a bronze tripod, about the size of an electric cooker, with a simple design that looked old and heavy. One was a brass tripod, also about the size of an electric cooker, with a protruding “belly”, looked chubby. The third tripod was black, and had visible cracks on it, which seemed to crack at any moment. It was the smallest of the three, about the size of the soup bowl that ordinary people used to contain soup.

Ning Tao put the three tripods on the desk, carefully observed and then chose the ugliest and smallest tripod. He thought there was no need to use a good tripod in an experiment. If he broke a good tripod in the experiment, he would be helpless when he gathered the materials and began making elixirs formally.

Having selected the tripod, Ning Tao found a cloth to wipe the black tripod carefully. As the tripod was clean, he put the yin-yang ophiocordyceps sinensis into it.

When everything was ready, Ning Tao transformed his spiritual power into alchemy fire again, then released them from his hands and put his hands on the cracked tripod.

Buzzing!

The poor black tripod suddenly buzzed, sounding profound and complex, as if from the sky. Moreover, the sound seemed to carry a kind of energy, which made the listener solemn and quiet, and even created a meditative atmosphere!

All of a sudden, the two balls of fire spread along the cracks on the tripod. Every crack was like a dry river that suddenly encountered a thunderstorm, and began to store water! The water was half white, half black and shiny. Then the whole tripod seemed to be covered by a black and white fog. It looked magical!

Ning Tao was shocked. “This… This tripod is unusual!”

Buzzing…

The ugly small tripod ceaselessly buzzed. The sound was actually very low, but the listener sensed a mighty feeling. Hearing this, Ning Tao felt as if he were in the temple of an ancient god and had the urge to kneel down and worship the god!

In this mysterious buzzing, the yin-yang ophiocordyceps sinensis began to decompose. It was not the decomposition of food at high temperature, nor was it the chemical decomposition during chemical experiments, but the decomposition in quenching. During the quenching of the alchemy fire, the basic material of the yin-yang ophiocordyceps sinensis disappeared little by little as if it had been weathered for a long time, leaving only the essence. Moreover, the essence was still constantly concentrated. This was the process of excellence!

After a short time, the yin-yang ophiocordyceps sinensis in the cracked tripod was replaced by a tiny drop of crystal-clear liquid. It sent out its distinctive fragrance, smelling refreshing and pleasant.

Ning Tao pulled back the alchemy fire and stared curiously at the tiny drop of liquid in the ugly tripod. Somehow, he felt an impulse to drink it, as he smelt its pleasant scent.

“Eh, there’s a word on it.” When looking at the liquid, Ning Tao vaguely noticed the words magnified by the liquid. Then he carried the ugly tripod to the foot of the seven-star lamp and looked at it by the light.

This time he not only saw the word under the drop of liquid, but also saw the word at the bottom of the tripod. These words together were delicate perfumed tripod.

Delicate perfumed tripod?

What the hell was that?

Ning Tao was full of curiosity and guessed, “This tripod is probably left by one of the clinic’s owners, who should be a woman, or else, it won’t have such a name?”

Suddenly he thought of the other tripod. Then he immediately took the brass tripod with a protruding belly under the seven-star lamp and looked at its bottom by the lamplight.

The bottom of the tripod was also engraved with the Chinese character—Heavenly Hound tripod”.

At the sight of the name, Ning Tao couldn’t contain his anger and banged it on the ground. He wanted to refine elixirs but had no medicine. He was really compeled too much. He couldn’t find Chen Pingdao to vent his anger on him, and had to vent his anger on Chen Pingdao’s tripod.

But he soon cooled off. If Chen Pingdao could solve all these matters, how could he manage to give the Sky Clinic to Ning Tao? Besides, the Heavenly Hound tripod was not Chen Pingdao himself, so even if he crashed it, Chen Pingdao would not be affected, and continue to live comfortably.

Thinking of this, Ning Tao put back the Heavenly Hound tripod and the bronze tripod. In the process, he found the name of the bronze tripod, which was rotten broken tripod. It was also a strange name. This clearly intact tripod had such a name, while the old black tripod was rotten and broken, but had a poetic name.

At last, Ning Tao poured the drop of liquid from the tripod into his mouth, and immediately a kind of delicious food that he had never tasted in the world went down his throat to the viscera! Then his whole body grew warm and comfortable!

Ning Tao was stunned for a moment because of the effect and then his eyes lit up. “My spiritual power can be transformed into alchemy fire now, and I have the delicate perfumed tripod, a strange treasure. Why don’t I use it to refine common medicinal materials, spices, food materials or the like to improve my second career?” he exclaimed. “Refining Primary Elixirs needs a quantity of precious materials. If I go to gather them, I need travel expenses. I have to make money!”

In fact, he didn’t expect to make a lot of money after he became the owner of the Sky Clinic. What he considered most was how to earn good-evil rent and cultivate. He had to change his mind after discovering that Chen Pingdao did not leave him enough medicine. Not only did he have to make money, but he had to make a fortune!

Suddenly, the black and white air in the good-evil tripod retreated back into the bottom of the tripod, and a strange sound came out of the tripod.

Ning Tao hurriedly collected his money-making thoughts and hurried to the good-evil tripod. The black and white liquid in the tripod was spinning rapidly, forming a whirlpool. The center of the whirlpool was supposed to be the bottom of the tripod, but now it was a fist-sized bottomless hole!

In an instant, the whirlpool turned still and the black and white liquid was reduced by two-thirds.

Ning Tao took out the ledger of bamboo slips from his medicine chest and found that the balance on the ledger was exactly the amount after deducting 200 points of good-evil rent.

Besides, there was a paragraph in the ledger, “30 days from the date of the next payment of rent; Next month’s rent is 300 points of good-evil rent.”

The rent had gone up!

“Why don’t you go and rob!” roared Ning Tao angrily.

At this time, there was a new content on the ledger, saying, “The clinic will upgrade after you pay 1000 points of good-evil rent.”

Ning Tao instantly froze on the spot.

“Can this clinic be upgraded?” Ning Tao wondered.

“Now that it’s so unreliable, will it be even more unreliable after upgraded?”

He had no choice, however.