Martial Arts: My talent multiplier increased

Li Family's Secondary Medicine Refining Workshop.

The heavy bronze furnace was pulled open, and a rich aroma of medicine mixed with heat rushed out.

The old alchemist, wearing thick cotton gloves, carefully scraped seventeen shiny black pills from the bottom of the furnace.

The surface has a slightly oily sheen and a firm texture.

It looks exactly the same as the pills sold by Fang Yuan that they bought on the market.

Li Jue stood a few steps away, covering her mouth and nose with a white cloth, her eyes fixed intently on the finished products on the tray.

"Drug testing."

A guard from the Li family stepped forward. He possessed the cultivation level of the early stage of the Body Refining Realm and had a strong physique.

The guard picked up a pill, tilted his head back, and swallowed it.

The alchemy workshop was deathly quiet; everyone was waiting.

Half an incense stick later, a healthy blush appeared on the guard's face.

He took a deep breath and threw two punches. The wind from his punches howled, and the momentum of his blood circulation was noticeably stronger.

"Young Master!" The guard turned around, clasped his hands in a fist salute, and said, "I feel a warm sensation in my abdomen, spreading along my meridians. My blood circulation is indeed nearly 30% smoother than usual. There are no abnormalities."

Li Jue tossed the white cloth to the attendant beside him.

He smiled.

The exorbitant profits that should have belonged to Fang Yuan now belong to Li.

"Okay." Li Jue turned to the old alchemist, "Have you done the cost accounting?"

"Young Master, by following the steps in this recipe, two expensive auxiliary ingredients are omitted, and with the addition of large-scale batch production, the cost of one piece is less than four qian of silver."

Less than four qian (a unit of weight), sold for two liang (another unit of weight), yielding a fivefold profit.

Li Jue quickly began to plan the upcoming business battle in his mind. Tomorrow, he would spread the news in the East Market and the Mercenary Guild that the Li family was launching a new body-strengthening pill, priced at one tael and five mace.

Within three days, all of Fang Yuan's most loyal customers will turn against him.

"Go to the accounting office and get five hundred taels." Li Jue's voice exuded absolute control. "Light all the medicine furnaces. I want to see three thousand finished pills within three days."

Twelve hours later.

A piercing scream echoed from the backyard of the Li family mansion.

When Li Jue arrived at the side room, the guard who had tested the medicine the night before was rolling around on the floor.

He was digging his hands into his stomach, his clothes were torn, his abdomen was swollen, and his skin was a horrifying purplish-black color.

"puff--"

The guard suddenly convulsed on the ground, spitting out a mouthful of black blood that splattered onto the bluestone bricks, emitting a pungent stench.

The old alchemist squatted down beside the guard, sweating profusely, three fingers resting on the guard's wrist pulse, his face even more ashen than the dead man on the ground.

"What's going on!" Li Jue's voice was as cold as ice.

The old alchemist withdrew his hand, trembling. "Poison... the poison is attacking the heart. That's not the warmth from nourishing blood and qi; it's inflammation left by residual herbal toxins acting up in the body. Yesterday, the medicine's effects had just begun, and the poison was suppressed beneath the internal organs."

Li Jue stared at the alchemist.

"Didn't you verify the recipe?"

"The ingredients in the prescription are fine, but those three changes..." The old alchemist wiped his sweat and stammered repeatedly.

If it's a genuine formula, soaking red peony root for half an hour would be just enough to neutralize its toxicity.

However, the prescription specifies two hours.

The step of slowly reducing the heat further locks the hallucinogenic toxins that cannot be dispersed from the artemisia root and the residual waste from the red peony root into the core of the pill.

The excellent feedback in a short period of time is an illusion caused by the toxic stimulation of the meridians.

Over time, the toxins will completely destroy the bottom of the container.

"Change the parameters! Fine-tune those three steps and try again!" Li Jue gritted his teeth and squeezed out these words.

Another twelve hours have passed.

Three batches of new medicine failed one after another. With each adjustment to a step, the medicinal liquid either clumped or turned into water, making it impossible to form the elixir.

Toxins and medicinal effects are like a deadlock; untie the toxins, and the medicinal effect is completely lost. Preserve the medicinal effect, but it must contain a deadly poison.

The medicinal herbs worth four hundred taels of silver were turned into a pile of foul-smelling black mud, which was piled up in the corner of the courtyard wall.

study.

Li Jue sat in a grand chair. Several stewards from the Li family stood in front of the table, none of them daring to breathe loudly.

Four hundred taels are gone. This is real cash, not something that fell from the sky.

Li Jue closed her eyes and went through every detail of the past five days in her mind.

Fang Shi's cowardice and greed.

The old windows were left unguarded.

The inner courtyard was unlocked.

The wooden box is placed in the most obvious position.

He had initially thought it was a theft prevention measure used by the Fang family, a fake prescription to deter thieves. Now, thinking about it, he realized that such a coincidence was impossible.

This is bait.

From beginning to end, it was bait tailor-made for the Li family.

Fang Yuan had anticipated that he would become greedy because he couldn't block the channels. He had anticipated that he would try to buy information. He had anticipated that once he got the formula, he would be eager to start mass production.

Sixteen years old.

A destitute man who had been living off scraps for decades in a collateral branch of the family made a fool of Li Jue.

"Go and bring me the square stone!"

Half an hour later, Fang Shi was escorted into the study by two guards.

"Young Master Li..." Fang Shi's face turned ashen, his legs trembled, and he knelt directly on the ground.

Li Jue looked down at him. He didn't speak, but exerted pressure with his gaze.

"I did everything you asked me to do! The layout of the workshop, the location of the wooden boxes, I didn't lie at all!" Fang Shi's voice trembled.

This fear didn't seem feigned. If it were an accomplice arranged by Fang Yuan, they should have already fled, or given a flawless explanation.

Fang Shi only provided the location. Whether the pill formula inside was genuine or not was something a collateral descendant without authority to approach could not possibly know.

Li Jue predicted Fang Shi's prediction and ultimately concluded that Fang Shi was a fool who would betray his own clan for fifty taels of silver, and that Fang Yuan had used him as well.

"Go back. Report Fang Yuan's movements only if you find out. If you dare to utter a single word, I'll make sure you never leave Dongcheng." Li Jue waved his hand.

Fang Shi scrambled out of the Li family's gate.

After turning around and disappearing into a dead end, his deathly pale face instantly returned to normal. He even reached out and touched the fifty taels of silver in his pocket, letting out a long breath.

Fang Yuan's information was really accurate.

A first-class courtyard.

Fang Yuan moved a rattan chair and sat down under the old locust tree.

These past few days, he has been living a very regular life. In the morning, he goes to the training ground to instruct the side branches on stance training, and in the afternoon, he asks Fang Ping to go to the mercenary guild to distribute three taels of high-priced stock.

Because the Li family has been focusing all their energy on "deciphering the formula" and "de-mining internally" these past few days, the market blockade has been fatally loosened.

Taking advantage of the situation, Fang Ping opened up another route out of the city for Brother Sun and cleared out most of the remaining substandard products.

Fang Yuan brought up the control panel.

[Standing Posture Talent: 2x (Level 3 amplification requires 100 taels of silver)]

[Comprehension Talent: 1x (Level 2 amplification requires 1000 taels of silver)]

The brocade pouch under the table now contains a full eight hundred and fifty taels of silver.

It's only 150 taels short.

In five more days, we will have raised the money.

Baicaotang.

Manager Qian lay on the counter, seemingly dozing off, but his ears were listening to the reports from his employees.

"The Li family's secondary workshop has stopped production. All the artemisia annua and peony that were bought at high prices have been taken to the west of the city to be composted."

The abacus beads in Manager Qian's hand stopped moving.

He had initially thought Fang Yuan was just a lucky guy with a bit of cleverness. But it turned out that a behemoth like the Li family had actually tried to steal the formula, and even after taking it back, they couldn't make it.

An unreplicable monopoly.

Manager Qian slowly straightened up. He felt it was time to re-establish contact with that young core member of the first-class courtyard.

The west corridor of Fangjia Martial Arts Hall.

Fang Teng leaned against a pillar, watching Fang Yuan, who was not far away, correcting the angle of another side branch's punch.

Three days have passed since the wooden box was stolen.

Fang Yuan remained silent. He didn't report the theft to the internal affairs office, didn't change the locks on the workshop doors, and didn't even ask Fang Ping to inquire about the situation on the street.

This is illogical.

Fang Teng's mind raced. He connected the dots with the latest news circulating in the market about "the waste from the explosion at the Li family's medicine workshop."

A thought suddenly popped into Fang Teng's mind.

Fang Yuan did not conceal the formula, because it was poison in itself.

He didn't report it to the authorities because he was eager for the Li family to produce as many children as possible.

He's using the Li family's money to dig a grave for the Li family themselves.

Fang Teng felt a chill as the clothes on his back pressed against his skin.

Is this really the Fang Yuan who only knows how to use brute force to take a beating?

This kind of manipulative calculation, this kind of ruthless restraint—if he were to completely establish himself in the Fang family…

Fang Teng turned and left. He was going to tell his grandfather that Fang Yuan couldn't be dealt with using common sense.

The Li family's underground secret room.

Li Jue looked at the final expense list on the table.

The buyer spent fifty taels on the stone. Four hundred taels were wasted on purchasing medicinal herbs for trial production. The profit loss caused by stopping other production lines during this period is incalculable.

The subordinate, standing nearby, forced a smile and suggested, "Young Master, why don't we send more men to the south gate and completely destroy the canal leading to his blacksmith shop..."

"No need," Li Jue interrupted him.

With business competition reaching this point, there's no point in smashing up another blacksmith shop.

If you can't destroy Fang Yuan's business, then destroy the pharmaceutical company.

The secret door to the secret room was pushed open.

A burly man dressed in dark blue armor walked in. A standard-issue sword of the city guards hung at his waist, the scabbard bearing old marks from wear.

Li Jue pushed a heavy wooden box to the opposite side of the table.

The large hand, clad in fine iron arm armor, pressed against the wooden box.

"According to the rules, blood must be drawn." Captain Wang's voice echoed in the secret room.