Chapter 142: The Wish Scroll
Jiang Chen was also similarly stunned when he opened the second scroll.
He had thought that after reaching the twelfth level, the level of wishes within the Tower would be high end, high class, and grandiose.
He discovered that he’d been sadly naive.
The two scrolls that he’d selected had been enough to thoroughly destroy his illusions.
The first one was from some narcissistic female elder from the Azure Heaven Southern Palace who fantasized about retaining her youthful looks. That wish had been from a self-absorbed woman who was exceedingly sentimental about being youthful and beautiful.
The second wish scroll was actually from an alcoholic.
This person had once tasted a kind of wine somewhere called the Nine Magnificence Dew Wine. He’d only had a small bit, a mere half cup and had never tasted it again after traversing a thousand mountains and ten thousand bodies of water.
He’d reminisced over the taste of the wine continuously, and it nearly turned into an internal demon of his after decades.
Therefore, this wish scroll was to once again taste the Nine Magnificence Dew Wine and resolve his many years of yearning.
Anyone who could help him resolve this wish could find him at the Myriad Treasures Palace, and the identity of this wisher was actually a vice head of the Myriad Treasures Palace.
The reward that he’d promised was actually a middle to upper management position within the Myriad Treasures Palace and the bestowment of the identity of a fifth rank noble. These motions were even more generous and ostentatious than those of the female elder from the Azure Heaven Southern Palace.
The two wishes made Jiang Chen speechless beyond belief.
Women were born with a love for beauty and alcoholics a love for wine.
“What in the seven hells. All random things exist alright. I’d thought that on the twelfth level of the Wishing Tower, the wishes contained would all be quite high class. Geez, I was seriously too naive.” Jiang Chen sighed.
Qiao Baishi and Gouyu were equally speechless when they saw the scroll.
They’d also discovered at the same time, that the lifestyles of those with power and those without were completely different in the capital of the Skylaurel Kingdom.
Those who could issue such a boring wishes were undoubtedly those with exceedingly high amounts of power. They would certainly wield large amounts of resources in their hands and control an extremely strong level of influence.
Otherwise, they wouldn’t portion out one of their appointments for nobles onto such a boring wish.
Even though this wasn’t considered extremely extravagant, but the operating styles of the powerful and influential were truly on another level.
“Young master, how about we select a few more?” Qiao Baishi was also someone who wasn’t short on money.
“Let’s go with these two.” Jiang Chen waved his hands. These two wishes were personal in nature, and thus a bit easier to fulfill in comparison to those that were embroiled in the conflicts between power and influence.
“These two?” Qiao Baishi was slightly startled. “But we…”
“It’s just refining pills and making wine, that won’t be a challenge for us.” Jiang Chen stuck the two scrolls beneath his armpit and walked towards the front counter.
“Greetings sir, what can I do for you?” The receptionist at the front counter was also exceedingly polite. He spoke in soft tones that were quite pleasing to the ear.
“I can fulfill both of these wishes, is there a time limit?” Jiang Chen asked.
“Hello, there is theoretically no time limit, but naturally the faster the better as others may also select the same wish, giving rise to potential competition. When there is competition, whoever fulfills it first will receive the reward.”
“That is to say that I can’t take these scrolls with me?” Jiang Chen nodded.
“Yes, my apologies, but you cannot remove these scrolls. Please come back if you fulfill a wish. We will review it strictly through various extensive methods. Of this you can be rest assured of. The Wishing Tower is a tradition that we’ve passed down for a thousand years and have always maintained a standard so high that not even a drop of water could pass through. We’ve never ever had errors committed.”
“Most excellent, then let’s decide on these two wishes.”
“Very good, I’ll register them, please wait a moment.” The various procedures were completed shortly.
“Sir, please store these documents away carefully, they will be your proof of validity later on. In addition, do you require any other services?”
Jiang Chen chuckled, “I’ll take a look around.”
In all matters, more than enough is too much. Jiang Chen naturally had much more advantage than the others in selecting wish scrolls, but if his performance was too heaven defying, it would attract much too much attention and that wouldn’t lead to anything good.
He only wanted to obtain a noble’s status to settle down within the capital. Making a name for himself could only come after his foundations had been laid firm.
Otherwise, if his repute was too eye catching, it would attract the attentions from various sides and incur unnecessary trouble.
There were simply too many examples of shooting down the bird who takes the lead.
Jiang Chen had no desire to become the center of attention after arriving at a foreign environment and having not yet stabilized his foundations. Roasting himself on the rack brought no advantages to him.
After selecting his wish, Jiang Chen took a spin around the various levels of the Wishing Tower, deciding to leave after seeing increasingly greater amounts of people pour in.
They left the Wishing Tower with some difficulty. After Jiang Chen made it to the bottom of the tower and breathed in the refreshing, faint laurel fragrance in the fresh air, he sighed involuntarily, “To think that this country would be so fervent about the Wishing Tower!”
After being passed down through a thousand years, the Wishing Tower was no longer a simple location for fulfilling wishes. It was a type of heritage and a type of psychological support.
Just like many kingdoms celebrated the new year for a justified reason, this was a type of cultural inheritance.
Everyone from the monarch down to ordinary citizens were willing to be a part of this. This was also why the public was so enthusiastic when the Wishing Tower was opened.
After returning to the hotel, Jiang Chen locked himself in his room and took out brush and paper, putting down some sketches and words.
The millions of years of memories ingrained in him from his past life had encompassed almost all professions, with winemaking also one of the professions that he’d spent quite some time researching.
This was because many practitioners were very interested in the contents of a cup. The life of a practitioner was long and endless, and the long road of training sometimes passed by arduously.
Therefore, wine was naturally an item that practitioners could not do without.
Drinking wine, tasting wine, and appreciating wine were a particular affection shared by many practitioners.
But the most important thing was, many pill masters like to connect making wine and refining pills, perfectly combining the two types of art.
Infusing spirit medicine into wine would make the end product both satisfy a craving and have the effects of medicine.
Jiang Chen had conducted quite a bit of study in this regard in his past life.
He wasn’t unfamiliar with the name of Nine Magnificence Dew Wine. In reality, this had been a wine that he’d oft created in his past life.
Except, the Nine Magnificence Dew Wine of his past life was naturally not something that the vice head of the Myriad Treasures Palace had the right to sip. The Nine Magnificence Dew Wine was divided into the common, spirit, saint, earth, and heaven ranks.
In Jiang Chen’s past life, he’d studied the history of this wine quite a bit as well as all its ranks.
What he was curious about now was whether the vice head of the Myriad Treasures Palace had tasted the common rank or spirit rank of the wine?
It was naturally impossible for him to have tasted any greater.
Jiang Chen suspected that it was very likely the spirit rank. If it’d only been the common rank, it wouldn’t have been enough for the vice head to yearn after constantly. He was a vice head after all, and wouldn’t have such a limited breadth of experience.
The Nine Magnificence Dew Wine could be more accurately named as the Nineflower Dew Wine. The heart of this wine was combining the essence of nine flowers to create an exceedingly wondrous wine that was unforgettable after the first sip.
This type of wine had a unique fragrance, making it difficult for one to forget after one taste.
Jiang Chen could understand the sensation that the vice head had described, because the taste of the Nine Magnificence Dew Wine was truly very unique, making one unable to forget it for the rest of their lives after the initial sip.
Drinking wine was a sort of addiction at the end, and this Nine Magnificence Dew Wine was the kind to make someone unknowingly yearn for it. The drinker would always pine after it after having it once.
It would seem that the vice head of the Myriad Treasures Palace was surely one who enjoyed fine wine. Otherwise, he wouldn’t pay such an exorbitant price and yearn for a mouthful of the Nine Magnificence Dew Wine with his every thought and breath.
Jiang Chen wrote out the crafting recipe for the common and spirit rank Nine Magnificence Dew Wine, recalling it from his memory. As for saint level, that was temporarily unnecessary.
The ingredients for the Nine Magnificence Dew Wine were difficult to collect.
Even if he did collect nine kinds of flowers, if he didn’t pick the right supplementary ingredients and they slightly conflicted with the main ingredients, then the wine would turn out to be a complete waste.
The ingredients for the common rank Nine Magnificence Dew Wine and spirit rank Nine Magnificence Dew Wine were completely different.
Of course, the ingredients for a common rank Nine Magnificence Dew Wine weren’t those of rare or precious plants. It wouldn’t be that difficult to collect them.
It was the nine main ingredients of the spirit rank Nine Magnificence Dew Wine that would take some effort in gathering. The selection of supplementary ingredients would even more so it would be a true test of skill.
The supplementary ingredients of the Nine Magnificence Dew Wine were to enhance the fragrance of the nine types of flowers. They were to fuse the scent of the nine kinds of flowers and fully assimilate their scent into the taste of wine, so that they wouldn’t be separate from the taste of the wine.
Each flower needed one supplementary ingredient, but more than due care had to be taken in the selection of every supplementary ingredient. They absolutely couldn’t conflict with any of the other main ingredients.
This was a true test of skill.
The knowledge and skill contained within was something that many crafters were unable to gain a complete handle on for the entirety of their lives. This was also the reason why this wine was rarely passed down through the ages and why there was almost none of this wine in existence.
An ordinary person would be able to enable his offsprings and generations of descendants to enjoy eternal fortune and prosperity if they could simply grasp this skill.
The wish scroll gave Jiang Chen some inspiration.
If he wanted to establish a foundation within the capital in the short term, perhaps the art of crafting wine would be a good decision.
All other venues would more or less become embroiled within all sorts of struggles. The art of crafting wine was relatively simple.
The practice of drinking was quite prevalent within the Skylaurel Kingdom. All men tended to drink, and drink fine wine at that. Even the majority of the women had a sip or two.
The eight personal guards came back later that night, all bringing back some useful information, more or less.
One could see that they had tried quite hard today.
Of course, Jiang Chen knew that they needed this kind of training. Having been born from such a small place, there would be no place for them in a place like Skylaurel Kingdom if they didn’t go out and train for a bit.
Over the next few days, Jiang Chen delegated the eight personal guards to buy ingredients separately. He chose mid sized spirit medicine shops, instructing them to avoid the large sized ones if possible.
Most of the ingredients had been purchased after a day. There were still two supplementary ingredients that were unavailable even in the large stores.
Jiang Chen felt it a bit odd. Although these supplementary ingredients were a bit uncommon, they weren’t to the point of being unpurchasable everywhere.
He asked around privately and finally understood that it wasn’t that there were none of the ingredients available, but that all major storefronts had hidden them and weren’t selling them.
The reason was simple. The Azure Heaven Southern Palace planned to hold a great exhibition in the capital in a few days. The contents of this exhibition would be rich, with the Southern Palace sending out many spirit alchemists at that time.
Apart from the public clinic, there would be all sorts of transactions and pill medicine exhibition displays.
It would seem then that many of the best items wouldn’t be sold in the lead up to the event. The shopkeepers all wanted to see if they could sell them for even higher prices due to storing them up previously for the transaction fair.