Krune's face was hurting. When he came back, he found Yusa consoling Shinja. Still, he couldn't understand, so he went beside Ao to ask.
"I was sure I wasn't wrong this time, and I even researched that. So why did I get kicked again?"
Ao could only sigh.
"Brother, you must understand that when it is related to women, knowledge is far from enough."
Krune wasn't satisfied this time, so he waited until Yusa was back and asked her directly.
"What's wrong with you, I was doing my best there to show that I understand her feelings and you kick me out of nowhere. Are we really friends?"
Yusa was even colder.
"Understand your head! You can't even see what you did wrong."
Krune didn't fall back.
"Then tell me! If no one talks, how do you expect me to understand anything?"
"This is not something that women talk about with men, you can forget about it!"
"What? First, you say I did wrong, then you say you can't say what's wrong, it doesn't make sense!"
"You are the only thing here that doesn't have sense. Shoo, shoo, get away from us."
"What does shoo even mean?"
Ao just pretended that he didn't know those idiots. He had long understood that he shouldn't intervene in the siblings' bickering.
On the other hand, Shinja, the ice block, was doing her best to hold back her laugh. Still, when Krune asked what 'shoo' means, she lost it. She laughed so hard that she was holding her stomach. Shinja couldn't even remember last time she laughed so much.
Krune looked at that gloomily. In the end, Shinja was also laughing at him, and he didn't know why.
'The world is against the wisps, that must be it.'
Yusa's face got warmer after seeing that, though. She thought that she might have had the wrong idea about Shinja.
"Forget about it, just don't talk about a woman's period anymore. Look, your barbecue is about to burn."
Krune's attention immediately shifted away. In his eyes, his barbecue is much more important than women's issues.
Yusa grabbed Shinja's hand and brought her over to eat some barbecue, and she also sent her a Divine Sense message while at that.
"Remember, Krune's EQ is as good as a door's. If you don't give him a kick or two, he won't learn. Look, I just said that his barbecue was going to burn, and he completely forgot about everything that just happened."
Shinja smiled bitterly. Since when did she care about someone's EQ? First of all, what did even happen to her?
Ao also sat back down and started eating again. Krune's EQ might be inexistent, but his culinary skills are the real deal!
Krune is really different. By the time they finished eating, he had already stopped caring about who was right or who was wrong. He was happy as long as his friends were happy. They then started to move back into the city to resume their own activities. Ao was going back to the mercenary guild to use their training room while Yusa was going to check the market to buy a few things she needed. Also, Krune had his pills to be concocted at the Alchemist Guild. On their way back, they talked about trivial things as they always did after lunch.
Shinja, on the other hand, was feeling a bit out of place. Yusa wasn't letting go of her hand, so she was more or less forced to stay with them. Sometimes the conversation was directed at her, but she couldn't say more than a few simple words. Still, Krune's group didn't seem to care. It appeared that Krune's weirdness had already started to affect Yusa and Ao.
Yusa was the first to part ways with them.
"Shinja, don't forget what I said. If Krune repeats something idiot, just give him a beating, it's that simple."
Krune was taken aback! Why give him a beating? He tried to look in Ao's direction looking for a friend's hand, but by the time he turned his head, Ao was nowhere to be seen.
"Traitor!"
After that, he went back to the Alchemist Guild. Krune had to make money, after all. Shinja stayed quiet all the time, she just looked absent-minded while he worked. In fact, her mind was in Chaos, Shinja was feeling embarrassed, sad, joyous, afraid, etc.
'What was wrong with me? How could I fall crying just like that? It's all Krune, Yusa, and Ao's fault. If not for them, I would not have reached that state... Yes, that must be it!'
She then remembered the little time after that.
'But…'
She didn't want it to be over. That feeling of being part of the group without anyone expecting anything from her. The fact that if she said something, the other part would simply answer whatever way they wanted, not caring for her status or talents. How long had she dreamed of such a day to come?
In the end, it became a battle between her desires and her pride once again. While her internal struggle kept going, Krune had just finished another batch of pills.
"Great! I was able to concoct three healing pills of three stars quality at once. The order only asked for two to be done, and any extra would be part of the alchemist's payment."
Krune had been gathering healing pills, cultivation pills, and anti-poison pills. He wanted to be prepared in case there was a need for them, so he always gave his best during the concoction to create more than the amount ordered by the customers. That way, he could take the extra pills for himself without paying a single spirit stone. Not to mention that his proficiency in pill concoction got much higher! He is already able to sync more than 30% of the medicinal liquid elements inside the pills.
Because of his high rate of success, he started to receive even more orders. Of course, he only accepted the ones that were worth his time. But it was then that he saw a request for a pill that shouldn't be there.
"Appearance changing pill? Isn't this thing a Four Stars Pill? Why would someone send me a Four Stars pill order?"
In fact, as an especially accepted Four Stars Alchemist, Krune could accept Four Stars pill orders too. Still, he didn't want to catch much attention, so he had never taken an order of Four Stars. He thought it wouldn't be too late if he started concocting Four Stars Pills when he got to the late stages of the Foundation Establishment. But in the end, he decided to give it a try.
Krune then took a look at the recipe and got a fright!
"This thing needs Star Coral!"
Although the appearance changing pill isn't that difficult to make, the Star Coral used in the recipe was extremely rare. Krune went back to the check the order and noticed that it had a very high payment too, 2000 Rank Three high-quality spirit stones!
"Holy sh*t, high quality! I will definitely succeed in this concoction!"
The order specified that he should deliver only a single pill, and any extra material or pill that remains can be part of the alchemist's payment. Since that was the case, Krune would definitely give his best.
Krune first practiced the pill concoction mentally. He revised every step, the cauldron temperature, the elements of the herbs, the pill formation, etc.
An hour later, he started to work. Every step went as expected, and the Star Coral was as good as he expected it to be. No wonder it was considered a high-quality material, it was one of the easiest to include in the mix. Krune had been very cautious. There was only one Star Coral, after all. When the time came for him to form the pills, he calculated how many could be made with the medicinal liquid inside.
"Three pills! If I'm careful, I can make three pills!"
The pill formation, which should be one of the fast parts of the concoction, ended up taking him almost an hour to complete. But Krune wasn't dejected since he had done it! Three appearance changing pills of the Four Stars quality! This pill was only worth it when it reached the Four Stars. That is because any lower than this, the appearance changing would only be temporary. But the four stars was a lifetime change!
"I've done it!"
He immediately sent the order back with one of the pills for exchange. Surprisingly, it only took a few minutes for the one who ordered it to receive the product.
"That's to be expected, Star Coral is very valuable, and I'm impressed that he even tried to concoct it here. The fact that he stayed inside the guild waiting for an alchemist to accept and finish the order shows its value."
Krune took his 2000 Rank Three high-quality spirit stones and put it into his ring. As for the mysterious cultivator or demon beast who ordered the pill, who cares? Krune received the payment, so anything else has nothing to do with him.
He then submitted the extra two pills to be sold by the guild. Although the appearance changing pill is extremely rare due to the Star Coral, the pill itself has no use for him. If it could at least changed the hair color, then he would have taken one himself. However, it only changed the body's appearance. The hair, unfortunately for Krune, would still be the same, so he might as well sell it for spirit stones.
What he didn't expect was to receive a call from supervisor Go Gao straight away after this.
"Are you sure you want to sell the appearance changing pill? It's very hard to find Star Coral after all."
Krune just replied.
"Yes. I have no use for that anyway, so just sell both. How much you think it would go for?"
Supervisor Go then said.
"Probably something between three thousand and four thousand Rank Three high-quality spirit stones."
Even though Star Coral is very rare, its only use was basically for the appearance changing pill. It didn't help with cultivation or combat prowess anyway. It is also useless to hide the identity since cultivators can recognize each other through their auras. In the end, Krune could not think about any use for it.
"That's great, please go ahead with this price."
Later on, some news appeared in Kaley City.
'Appearance Changing pills were being sold, and there were even two of them!'
Men didn't pay much attention to that, but the women went crazy! Of course, those who could afford three to four thousand Rank Three high-quality spirit stones are very few.
Later on, Krune's group gathered together again, and Yusa and Ao could see that Krune was in an excellent mood.
"Seems like you made a lot of money today."
Krune nodded quite a few times.
"Yes! There was a customer who ordered an appearance changing pill to be concocted. In the end, I was able to concoct three of those pills at once! Other than the payment for the job, I also got two of the pills. After selling them, I ended up with almost ten thousand Rank Three high-quality spirit stones!"
He then laughed out loud.
On the other hand, Yusa, and even Shinja, immediately showed shocked faces! Yusa was the first to talk.
"Those pills from the news earlier were yours? Why didn't you give me one?!"
Shinja agreed, too, since she also wanted one. In fact, she even had the money to buy one of them! Still, because her mind had been occupied with the thoughts about Krune's group, she didn't notice that such a rare pill appeared for selling. She was even blaming herself for not noticing Krune making those pills.
There was one thing that Krune didn't know, but any woman who cared about their appearance would. The appearance changing pill changes one appearance for life. That is common knowledge. But in case you decide not to change your body, the effect of keeping the appearance permanently would still apply. Women could take that pill to keep their young face until the day of their deaths!
Krune, of course, paid no attention to this fact. He was trying to understand why both girls would want to change their appearance. In the end, he just considered it another weirdness from humans.
