446: Chapter 446 Alchemist Training Program

The next afternoon, Tao Zhe handed in the proposal.

“Universities of Chinese medicine?” Su Mingyuan placed the proposal on the table. “You want to poach people from the Chinese medicine System?”

Tao Zhe nodded.

“It's not poaching. It's screening. First, we'll screen a large group of one hundred thousand people, then train them. In the end, finding one thousand usable ones will be enough.”

Su Mingyuan's hand paused as he flipped through the proposal.

“One hundred thousand? Isn't that a bit too many?”

“It's not many,” Tao Zhe sat down, crossing his hands on the table. “Hear me out.”

Su Mingyuan didn't ask further. He lowered his head and continued to flip through the proposal Tao Zhe had handed him.

The first few pages of the proposal were the framework.

The training period, stage goals, assessment standards, and teacher allocation were all written in a standard, proper manner.

Han Li would serve as the chief instructor, the Randan Spirit would hold the title of advisor, and the training location would be set in the expanded area of Dawn City's underground experimental zone.

This was not surprising.

Flipping to the third page, it was the candidate screening plan.

The sources were clearly listed: thirty-four Chinese medicine universities across the country, provincial Chinese medicine hospital Systems, Chinese medicine decoction piece factories, and Chinese medicine cultivation bases.

The recruitment scope covered all students and active practitioners in Chinese pharmacology-related majors.

Su Mingyuan looked down.

The proposal divided the candidates into two categories.

The first category was students currently in school, aged between twenty and twenty-eight, majoring in Chinese medicine-related fields, with a bachelor's degree or higher, and record of practical class hours in Chinese medicine processing or formulas during their school years.

The second category was active Chinese medicine practitioners, with the age limit relaxed to fifty-five, requiring at least five years of clinical or pharmacy work experience.

In the remarks column for this category, Tao Zhe had added a sentence in parentheses: 'Focus on veteran herbalists in provincial Chinese medicine hospitals, especially those with rich experience in manual processing.'

Su Mingyuan flipped to the appendix.

The first appendix was a list of Chinese medicine universities nationwide, thirty-four in total, with the number of enrolled students in Chinese pharmacology majors marked next to each school.

Added together, it was just over one hundred and twenty thousand.

The second appendix was a statistic of practitioners in provincial Chinese medicine hospitals and Chinese medicine enterprises.

The technical staff of hospital pharmacies, decoction piece factories, and cultivation bases was roughly estimated at around six hundred thousand.

At the bottom of the appendix, Tao Zhe had drawn a line and written a number in red ink: Total candidate pool of approximately 720,000 people.

Beside it, another line of small text was written: First batch recruitment target of 100,000 people, accounting for about 14% of the total pool.

Su Mingyuan put the appendix down.

“Scooping one hundred thousand out of a pool of 720,000. How do you plan to scoop them?”

“In two steps,” Tao Zhe said. “The first step is registration screening. We will issue a notice in the name of the National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine to publicly recruit from the national Chinese medicine System. The registration requirements will strictly filter professional backgrounds and practical experience, weeding out the purely theoretical ones first. According to this standard, there are about two hundred thousand people who meet the criteria.”

“Selecting one hundred thousand out of two hundred thousand?”

“Yes, the second step is document review and interviews. We will focus on two things: first, the years and depth of practical experience in processing, and second, physical condition. Those with more years of experience and those with better physical foundations will be prioritized. After this round of screening, one hundred thousand people will remain to enter the spiritual energy enlightenment stage.”

Su Mingyuan didn't speak, flipping to the training process design at the back.

Tao Zhe had divided the training into three stages.

The first stage was called 'Spiritual Energy Enlightenment,' lasting for one month.

One hundred thousand candidates would undergo basic Cultivation training in batches and across different bases. The goal was to introduce spiritual energy into their bodies and reach the Qi Refining Early Stage.

They didn't need a high cultivation level, as long as they could perceive spiritual energy and initially control its output.

The estimated elimination rate for this stage was written very bluntly in the proposal: 85% to 90%.

In other words, after the one hundred thousand people passed the first barrier, it was estimated that only ten thousand to fifteen thousand would remain.

Su Mingyuan looked at this number and raised his head slightly.

“Is there a basis for this elimination rate?”

“Yes. The Guixu Project team previously conducted a small-scale test, randomly selecting two hundred ordinary people for spiritual energy guidance experiments, with a success rate of 15.5%. Calculating based on this ratio for one hundred thousand people, about fifteen thousand people will pass.”

“Even so, that's fifteen thousand, not one thousand. Are you going to cut another fourteen thousand later?”

“Yes, the second stage will cut another portion of people,” Tao Zhe said.

This stage would be taught by Han Li. The core content was to let the candidates use their existing Chinese medicine processing experience to handle Spirit Medicine, starting from the simplest tier-one Medicinal Pill and practicing repeatedly.

The elimination standard for this round was whether they could actually get their hands on Alchemy.

Being able to perceive spiritual energy was one thing, but being able to control spiritual energy steadily in front of a Pill Furnace was another.

Tao Zhe's estimation was that no more than thirty percent would pass this stage.

Thirty percent of fifteen thousand is around four thousand five hundred people.

The third stage was whether the students could independently refine herbs.

These candidates had to independently refine three consecutive batches of tier-one Medicinal Pills with a success rate of over sixty percent to graduate.

The final estimated number of passing students written on the proposal was one thousand to one thousand five hundred.

Su Mingyuan closed the proposal.

One hundred thousand go in, and one thousand come out.

One in a hundred.

He didn't speak immediately, leaning back in his chair and thinking for a moment.

Then he asked a question that was not written in the proposal.

“Why Chinese medicine?”

Tao Zhe was waiting for this question.

“I thought about it all last night.” He stood up, walked to the whiteboard, and picked up a marker. “At first, my thinking was the same as yours—selecting people from existing cultivators. But I reviewed the process of Han Li's Alchemy and found a problem.”

“What problem?”

“Why did Han Li pick it up so quickly? Her Ten Thousand Wood Spirit Ruins Body talent was part of it, but not all. Do you remember when she was learning Alchemy from Sun Liang, where did the other students get stuck?”

Su Mingyuan didn't reply, waiting for him to continue.

“They got stuck on the medicinal ingredients,” Tao Zhe answered himself. “The Pill Formula says 'remove the roots of the nine-origin herb and take three inches of the middle section.' When a cultivator sees this line, what is their first reaction? To find a ruler to measure it. But Han Li doesn't need to. She picks up a nine-origin herb, pinches the stem, smells the break, and knows exactly where to start.”

Tao Zhe continued to write a line on the whiteboard.

“What is Spirit Medicine?”

Then he wrote the answer below it himself.

“The essence of Spirit Medicine is simply the herbs spoken of in Chinese medicine.”

Su Mingyuan looked at the whiteboard.

“The nine-origin herb is a herb, the white tiger ginseng is a herb, and the red vein vine is also a herb. They contain spiritual energy, grow in special environments, and their medicinal efficacy is countless times stronger than the herbs of the Main World. But in the final analysis, they are still plants. They have roots, stems, leaves, flowering periods, and harvesting seasons. During processing, they need to be cut, washed, steamed, dried, temperature-controlled, and the timing of adding ingredients must be mastered.”

He turned back to look at Su Mingyuan.

“If you make a cultivator learn from scratch, just recognizing herbs would take three months. But if you find a veteran herbalist who has worked in a Chinese medicine hospital pharmacy for twenty years, he can tell the family, origin, and moisture content just by grabbing a handful of medicine with his eyes closed, and know how to process it. If you give him a nine-origin herb and tell him to what extent it should be turned while steaming, or at what color it should be collected while drying, he might not understand the words 'spiritual energy catalysis,' but as soon as he gets his hands on it, he knows how to tend to a herb.”

Tao Zhe put the marker back on the whiteboard tray.

“Because herbs are herbs. Change the world, change the name, the principle of how to treat a herb remains the same. Throwing one hundred thousand people who have dealt with herbs all their lives into the sieve is always better than one hundred thousand laymen.”

After listening, Su Mingyuan didn't immediately express his stance.

He stood up and walked to the window.

In the hallway, someone pushed a small cart past. Several boxes of Jade Slips were stacked on the cart, heading in the direction of the sorting center.

“One hundred thousand people undergoing spiritual energy enlightenment at the same time, are the existing venues enough?”

“Not enough, so we have to do it in batches,” Tao Zhe walked over. “It's written on page eight of the proposal. My plan is to set up eight temporary enlightenment points across the country, distributed in the training bases directly under the eight military regions. Each point will receive twelve hundred to fifteen hundred people per batch, operating on a rolling basis. To go through all one hundred thousand people, it will take about three months.”

“Three months,” Su Mingyuan repeated the number.

“The spiritual energy enlightenment stage doesn't involve the core secrets of Medicinal Pills and Spirit Medicine, it's just basic Cultivation. It can be completed in the Main World. Those who pass the first stage will then gather in Dawn City to enter the second stage.”

Su Mingyuan flipped to page eight, took a look, and nodded.

“What about confidentiality? One hundred thousand people is no small stir.”

“No need to hide it,” Tao Zhe said.

Su Mingyuan turned his head to look at him.

“The Otherworld development government work report has already been released, and the rejuvenation pill has also been made public. Ordinary people across the country all know about the existence of Medicinal Pills. Recruiting publicly from the entire System in the name of the National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine under the title of the 'National Medicinal Pill Talent Reserve Program'—we recruit openly, and everyone can see it.”

“Since it has to be made public sooner or later, we might as well open the floodgates now. One hundred thousand Chinese medicine practitioners collectively applying—once this news spreads, it will be another shot in the arm for confidence in the daxia currency.

By then, the whole world will know that Great Xia is mass-producing Alchemists.”