Alex opened up a shop on the Northern side of the city. As it was further away from the palace, the buildings there didn't cost as much and Alex got a single room on the 2nd floor of the building for about 100 True spirit stones for a month.
At first glance, it looked like a bargain, but the location wasn't as visited by the normal visitors from everywhere, so it was actually a proper price.
Still, Alex decided to bet the popularity on his product that wasn't available anywhere.
He was sure that many of the sects and families knew about medicinal pastes, and maybe even have a few from the Demon realm. However, none of them had gotten recipes for it.
If they had, it wasn't public at all.
Today was the opening day, so Alex put up a board that simply said 'Yu Ming's Medicinal Clinic'.
As a subtitle, he wrote 'Sells medicinal pastes for all types of wounds, sickness, and diseases.'
Once that was up, he went upstairs to his empty clinic.
Inside the clinic were two rooms. One was a waiting room, while the other was the checking room.
Alex placed a sound and spiritual sense dampening formation plate on the ground and used it.
He wanted to simply carve the formation onto the wooden floor, but there was no energy source to connect it to.
Once he was inside, Alex walked up to a seat at the end of the room and sat on it. Then, since he had nothing else to do, he brought out Pearl to let him roam free.
At the same time, he took out a book on formations and started reading it.
This was an interesting topic on formations that he had been reading on. This book explained how sect running formations worked and how one could create them.
According to the book, the sect running formation was actually multiple different formations all linked together by one linking formation that took the energy from the source.
It was the communication between the formations that aided them in running without a power source.
There was more for Alex to learn there, so he simply kept on reading.
He did feel a little bad that no one came to the shop, but being a new shop and being at a weird location, he couldn't fault anyone but himself.
Still, about an hour later, a man walked through the door with a confused look on his face.
"Is… is this the clinic?" he asked after seeing the empty room with a kid and a kitten.
"Yes, it is," Alex said as he closed the book.
"Oh, I need to speak to the phy— ah, the physician," the man said, holding his stomach as he grunted in pain.
"I am the physician," Alex said. "What troubles you?"
"Uhh… are you really the physician? Aren't you a little too young for that?" he asked.
Despite his age reaching mid-20s, Alex still had the face of a teen as that was when he reached the True realm. Since then, his growth had been rather slow.
Usually, people wouldn't be surprised as the people he was around were people that were used to people looking young despite his age.
However, currently, Alex was with a person that barely had a cultivation base in the Muscle Tempering realm, and he himself had completely hidden his cultivation base so as to not scare away any customers.
Even Pearl was hiding his cultivation base using the Immortal Concealment technique that he taught him after writing it down for his mother.
"Don't judge my skills by my age," Alex said with a smile. "Tell me what is the problem?"
"I… I'm just feeling a little pain on my left side," he said. "I thought it was because of what I ate, but it doesn't seem to go away."
That did sound like food poisoning to Alex, but he needed to be sure it wasn't something else like parasites in his stomach or something else.
So, he called the man and scanned him with his spiritual sense. He then sent his Qi inside the man's body to check and didn't find anything either.
"It does seem to be a simple stomach ache from food poisoning," he told the man. Alex then brought out a simple thyme-like plant and gave it to him.
"Here, chew on this for 5 minutes and swallow the juices. If the pain still persists, tell me," Alex said.
"Ok," the man looked weirdly at the plant and wondered if he was being fooled here.
"You can sit on the bench and chew. You can pay me after you are healed," Alex said.
The man finally nodded and sat down to chew the plant. At first, he nearly gave up due to how bitter the plant was, but he forced himself to continue.
Slowly, he felt the pain in his stomach lessen bit by bit. By 5 minutes, the pain was completely gone, and the man felt like he was reborn.
"Woah, that was amazing," the man said. "It totally worked. How much do I need to pay you."
Alex smiled and said, "3 Spirit stones."
"3?" the man asked in surprise.
"Yeah, it costs that much because I have to diagnose and give you a plant," Alex explained.
"No, no, no," the man shook his hands. "I was just surprised how cheap it was. Usually, I would have to pay 10 to 20 spirit stones for a pill that would do the same thing."
"No worries," Alex said with a smile.
The man brought out the 3 spirit stones and winched a little when he was about to hand them to Alex.
"What's wrong?" Alex asked.
"Oh, nothing. It's just some back pain," the man explained. "I might have pulled a muscle or two back there while sword fighting in the arena."
"You want me to help you with that?" Alex asked.
"Uh… no?" the man said. "I don't have that kind of money. Well, I do, but I have other things I need to spend it on."
"It will only cost you 5 spirit stones at best," Alex explained.
"What? No, that can't be right. I've talked to the Alchemy guild and they said a minor healing pill would cost me about 40 spirit stones when including the ingredients," the man said.
"Well, that's because those are pills, these are not," Alex said and brought out a medicinal paste jar.
"I will just need to apply it to you, and you will be fine. Although, if the pain still persists, I might need to apply a second one too, which will cost you another 5 spirit stones. Are you okay with that?" Alex asked.
"Okay? Are you kidding me? I would be mad if I didn't say that was okay. But are you sure I will heal?" the man asked.
"Same thing as before," Alex said. "Pay me if you get healed."
"Well, if you say so," the man said and started pulling off his robes when Alex stopped him and pointed to the room.
"Ah sorry," the man said and went into the room.
"Let me know if anyone comes," Alex whispered to Pearl who was still roaming around the room, looking at every nook and corner.
Once inside the room, Alex activated the formation and waited for the man to take off his upper robes.
"urgh," Alex made a cringing sound. "That's quite bad."
The man's right shoulder blade area was blue and black, and quite sore. "I think you did more than just pull a muscle back there."
Alex quickly scanned his back and said, "Your shoulder is a little dislocated as well. While you won't notice any problems on the outside, there are problems on the inside."
"What? Can that be healed too?" the man asked.
"Yeah, don't worry," Alex said and pulled out a scoop of the paste. He placed it on the man's back and gently rubbed it all around the wounded area.
The man's body sucked in the medicinal paste-like water on a dry sponge. Alex waited for a bit and saw the bruised shoulder go back to being skin-colored.
Still, there was more healing needed there, so he applied another scoop of the medicine.
After 2 minutes, the man's back was finally healed of the wound, but there was one more thing remaining to do.
Without telling the man anything, he grabbed his shoulder and popped it up a bit back into place.
"Argh!" the man cried out in a sudden jolt of pain, but after a few seconds, he realized how relieved he felt.
"Wow, I feel like I was never injured," the man said.
"Yes, that's what my medicine does," Alex said.
"How much is it again? 10 Spirit stones?" the man asked.
Alex nodded. "5 spirit stones per scoop of medicine," he said.
"So cheap too," the man quickly took out 10 spirit stones and stopped. "What about the last part? With the shoulder?" he asked.
"That one is one the house," Alex said with a smile and took the spirit stones.
"Thanks," the man said moving his shoulders a little. "Damn man, this place is so cheap for what it does. I would never go to the Alchemy guild if I knew this place was here before."
"Anyway, I will be sure to come by again if I need you. Thanks again," the man said and left.
Alex returned back to the empty room and was about to open up his book again when he closed it and thought.
"Right, I should put up the prices too to show how cheap this place is," he said to himself. "Only that way will more people come around."
