"Mm."
Su Min did not deny it. The woman's deduction was correct, and her directness made her intentions clear. She had come with a specific request. And truthfully, Su Min needed a powerful ally herself. Though this Tianjiao had been awakened prematurely, the very fact that her residence had reappeared in the world meant she had likely prepared contingencies for such an eventuality long ago.
Still, being forcibly awakened was undeniably annoying. And Su Min had her own pressing troubles to face. Chief among them was the need for a Golden Core beast core to refine her Golden Spirit Pill, a crucial resource for her own advancement.
In the current spiritual landscape, there was likely only one known Golden Core beast available, and its emergence was tied to a specific side quest from her memories. The game had always made a clear distinction between random world events and these scripted side quests, like the one involving the twin Flame Earth Elders.
At this stage, she could only recall two major side quests: one concerning the fire and earth elders she had already dealt with, and the other involving a Golden Core stage beast that was due to emerge in the near future. That beast was not a legendary entity with a royal bloodline or profound ancestry; it was a typical, newly advanced Golden Core demonic beast. Its combat strength, while formidable, was not overwhelmingly so for its realm. But even so, Su Min was not confident she could take it down alone.
Now that she had a potential helper of Xie Yingying's caliber, the situation looked far more manageable.
"You know the standard rules of commissioning an alchemist, right?" Su Min asked, getting straight to business.
"I do." The woman's voice was cool, but her words were pragmatic. "I acknowledge the life debt for awakening me. I will provide all required materials. And I will not ask how many pills are yielded from a single batch. You keep the surplus."
Her terms made the onlookers still within earshot twitch involuntarily. What kind of incredibly one sided, favorable terms were these? Even the members of Prince Yong's faction were stunned. Su Min had never made such demanding arrangements with them, but then again, they realized, if she encountered a problem they could not help solve, they would just be cannon fodder anyway. Their relationship was different.
"This is not the place to negotiate details. Let us move."
Su Min glanced dismissively at the scattered crowd below before turning to her companions.
"You all head back to the estate first. I will find you later."
With that, her magnificent Vermilion Bird flame wings unfurled from her back with a soft whoosh, and she shot into the sky like a blazing meteor, leaving a trail of heat haze in her wake. At the Foundation Establishment stage, she no longer had to meticulously hoard her spiritual energy for combat alone. Even the most basic Vermilion Bird fusion could be liberally used for travel. Xie Yingying followed without a moment's hesitation, her form becoming a streak of dark light, and in the blink of an eye, the two figures stood facing each other on a lonely, windswept mountain peak far from prying eyes.
"Netherworld Soul Pill—a third tier high grade pill." Su Min scanned the complex recipe Xie Yingying mentally transmitted to her, feeling slightly puzzled. "Third tier alchemists are exceedingly rare in this current era—but in your time, before the great sealing, there should have been plenty. Why come to me now? Did you not have it refined back then?"
"Spiritual herbs are different from finished pills," Xie Yingying explained, her tone matter of fact. "Raw materials, stored properly in a spatial treasure or a sealed garden, are far easier to preserve for millennia. Pills… their medicinal essence actively deteriorates over time, no matter the preservation method."
"You saw that half degraded Foundation Establishment Pill in my mansion, did you not?" she continued. "I need this Netherworld Soul Pill to stabilize my soul for my upcoming Golden Core breakthrough, but once I successfully reach that stage, the energy upheaval will be too great. I will not be able to easily seal myself again to wait out another alchemist."
"Ah, a fair point," Su Min nodded, understanding the dilemma. A cultivator could only undergo the severe hibernation process so many times, and the breakthrough to Golden Core was a point of no return for such methods.
"But I must be honest," Su Min stated, her expression serious. "I cannot guarantee success yet. The highest tier pill I have personally refined to date is the Foundation Establishment Pill, which is a mid tier Grade 3. This is high tier Grade 3. If you are willing to let me use a portion of your materials for practice runs, I do not mind taking the commission."
"..."
A faint, almost imperceptible ripple of annoyance passed through Xie Yingying's icy demeanor. She could feel the vibrant, powerful vitality and formidable soul strength radiating from Su Min. With her innate talent and that legendary flame, mastering the high tier pill should not take an inordinate amount of time. Yet here she was, already trying to negotiate for extra practice materials. And the most frustrating part?
Xie Yingying could not even refuse. She had prepared a new set of sealing materials, but they were precious and finite; she could not afford to waste them by going back to sleep now only to wake up in another few centuries with the same problem. So she mentally braced herself for Su Min's real, underlying demand.
"Just tell me what you truly want as compensation," Xie Yingying said, cutting to the chase.
"Help me kill a Golden Core demonic beast."
"!!!"
Xie Yingying's eyes widened a fraction, the first true sign of surprise she had shown. The gap between Foundation Establishment and Golden Core was not a small step; it was a chasm. A typical early Golden Core beast could effortlessly crush a dozen peak Foundation Establishment cultivators. And this girl, an early stage Foundation Establishment cultivator, had the audacity to suggest hunting one?
"What kind of beast?" she asked, her voice laced with sudden caution. "If it possesses an ancient bloodline or special innate talents, even the two of us together would be walking to our deaths. I am preparing for the Golden Core Path myself; I will not recklessly throw my life away on an impossible task."
"Just an ordinary one," Su Min assured her quickly. "No ancient bloodline, no special destructive talents. I just need its core. It is a fresh breakthrough, its power barely consolidated at the Golden Core level, really."
"…Fine," Xie Yingying agreed after a moment's consideration, seeing the logic. A newly advanced, ordinary beast was a feasible, if extremely dangerous, target for two elite Foundation Establishment cultivators. "But if it does turn out to have some hidden bloodline or talent we did not anticipate, I am running. I will not die for your pill."
"Phew."
Su Min exhaled a quiet sigh of relief. The deal was struck.
The beast's emergence was, according to her knowledge, only a few years away at most.
With this powerful woman's help, what seemed like an insurmountable task was now manageable.
"Deal. I am Su Min. And you?"
"Xie Yingying."
"Then it is settled. Just to confirm, you are biologically in your twenties, right? Your body's age was frozen by the seal?" At Xie Yingying's slight nod, Su Min continued. "Good. Give me about ten years. I will use that time to reach the requisite proficiency and then refine this pill for you."
Xie Yingying might not have the seemingly infinite lifespan of a "player" like her, but she was young enough by cultivator standards to have plenty of productive years left. That made the timeline much simpler and more reliable.
"Acceptable," Xie Yingying agreed. The timeline was reasonable for mastering a high tier Grade 3 pill. "I will use this time to reach the peak of Foundation Establishment and adjust my condition before attempting the breakthrough."
Since she was already awake and her resources were accessible, she might as well make the most of it and prepare optimally before re entering hibernation or attempting her tribulation. So Xie Yingying had no objections to Su Min's proposed schedule.
"By the way," Su Min added, as an afterthought. "That guy you killed back there? He was the son of this land's current nominal ruler. His father is politically powerful but weak personally, mostly irrelevant to us. But his mother… she is probably that old demon hag from the Hehuan Sect."
Su Min did not know the Demon Queen's real name, but in the game's lore and common parlance, this was what she had been called.
"That disgusting creature?" Xie Yingying's lip curled in a rare show of distaste. "I defeated her once before, long ago. She fled with severe injuries. Later, with my clan's resources, I arranged this sealing. I heard a rumor she eventually reached the Golden Core stage but had used such vile methods that she could not seal herself again to survive the spiritual winter."
To Su Min's surprise, Xie Yingying not only knew of the Demon Queen, but there seemed to be a personal history between them.
"She only survived the great shift by forcibly severing her own cultivation and foundation," Su Min confirmed. "She has been slowly rebuilding it using vile arts. She probably has not fully recovered to her former peak yet."
Su Min allowed herself a cold smirk. Apart from her most heinous trump cards, the demoness had been forced to discard everything else. But now, with the Three Mysteries Netherwood in hand, Su Min had the key component for a countermeasure. Next time they met, her chances of winning would exceed ninety percent.
"Hmph. Serves her right," Xie Yingying snorted, showing no concern over the prince's death. So what if they had killed him? The idiot had brought it upon himself by recklessly yanking her out of her sealing. Her estate had clearly defined inner and outer chambers. The outer ones were filled with things she did not particularly care about, left as distractions or minor tests for intruders. But if anyone had been foolish enough to trespass into her inner sanctum?
She would have annihilated them without a second thought.
"I am heading back to my base now to begin research on your pill," Su Min stated, ready to conclude their meeting. "You are welcome to accompany me if you wish, or you can go your own way and I will contact you when ready."
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You can visit Auxiliary Volume for more information, there are chapter for "Rank and General Information" and "Picture". I really suggest that you should read and watch both of the chapters, along with it comments, or the "paragraph comments" especially on "Picture" chapter. There I will attach the "Image" of Su Min and Xie Yingying. Make you more easy to imagine how the look like.
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So, what's your first impression of her in this chapter?? (＾▽＾)
Anyway, I'm currently refining this translation, and now that I'm rereading it, knowing what happens between them in the future actually feels kinda funny to me.
Xie Yingying is biologically in her 20s, even though she's been sealed away for, what, several hundred years or maybe even a few thousand? She's an ancient cultivator after all. Meanwhile, Su Min is in her early 40s, the "modern" cultivator. And in case you didn't know, in this story, when someone is sealed away, time basically stops for them—time just can't touch them.
Suddenly I got this image in my head: doesn't it kinda feel like an old cow eating tender grass?
Especially since later, Xie Yingying will seal herself away again for, I think, another 200-300 years. That means by then, Su Min would be around 200-300 years old, and Xie Yingying would still be in her 20s.
I know, I know, when we talk about cultivators, we usually focus on their cultivation level rather than their actual age. But still… you know what I mean, right? "( ๑‾̀◡‾́)σ″"