Clang!
A sharp, clear sound echoed through the quiet cave, vibrating against the stone walls as a luminous pill shot out from the alchemy furnace. It trailed a thin, fragrant ribbon of spiritual mist that smelled of sandalwood and mountain rain. Su Min's pale, delicate hand snapped out with practiced speed, catching the sphere mid-air. The pill pulsed with a soft, golden light before she deposited it neatly into a waiting jade box, the velvet lining cushioning its descent.
"All these pills they requested are for protecting meridians and aiding the breakthrough to Nascent Soul. Now that I have gathered enough materials for myself, there's no need to waste any more time on commissions. It's time to refine a few pills for my own trump cards."
She stretched lazily, her joints popping softly in the silence. Her dark hair fell over her shoulders as she gathered the finished jade boxes. Walking out of her inner workshop, she felt the temperature drop, the cool air of the main cavern refreshing her skin.
The intermittent refining had taken a considerable amount of time, spanning weeks of intense focus. Now, the descent of the Golden Core Heavenly Ranking was not far off. The very air itself was beginning to hum with a subtle, anticipatory energy that felt like the prickle of a coming storm.
"Fewer and fewer people are coming now," she observed. She looked toward the silent entrance of her cave abode, where the sunlight hit the floor in a sharp, unmoving rectangle. "It looks like we have entered the latter half of the Golden Core Avenue's cycle."
In this final phase, new secret realms had all but stopped appearing. The entire Golden Core Avenue had settled into a tense, waiting quiet. Every cultivator was holed up in their own retreat, desperately digesting the gains of the past few decades and converting plundered resources into tangible combat power. All that remained was to wait for the colossal heavenly ranking to descend and the final battles to begin.
"Have you noticed?" Xie Yingying remarked. Her gaze lingered on the box of pills in Su Min's hand, but her attention was fractured.
Ever since their contact in the northern lake, Xie Yingying had found it increasingly difficult to maintain her frosty facade. Standing this close to Su Min made the Taiyin Qi in her body churn with a restless, magnetic hunger. The "pull" was a physical weight, a gravitational force that made her skin tingle and her pulse thrum against her wrists.
She had to consciously lock her muscles to keep from leaning toward the alchemist, whose presence felt like a warm hearth in the middle of a blizzard. It was an agonizing, slow-burning sensation that left her mouth dry.
"None of the top-ranked prodigies on the Tianjiao Ranking have come to you for pill refinement," she continued. She forced her voice to remain level, though it held a slight, jagged edge. "They are all very confident in themselves."
"Who knows what they are thinking? But there's definitely something strange about that number one."
"Strange?" Xie Yingying's brow furrowed.
Su Min had spent a long time studying those recordings, but she had come up completely empty-handed. She had even secretly crafted a few countermeasures tailored against Xie Yingying's Lunar Sovereign abilities, but against that mysterious, all-encompassing light, she was completely clueless. There was no technique to dissect and no flaw to exploit. There was only pure, annihilating power.
"That woman might be a reincarnated ancient powerhouse. She is likely deliberately reborn as a mortal to conquer this era."
Su Min's lips twitched as she said it. This was a classic tactic veteran players used in the game. After choosing reincarnation, they retained their high-level comprehension of techniques and laws. They could often surpass their previous limits because the rebirth process tempered the soul in a new, pristine body.
"If that were the case, this person could be a truly ancient supreme expert. Such beings had already climbed to the pinnacle once. Their mastery of techniques and battle instincts would be overwhelming. As for her physique, it was undoubtedly a genuine mortal one. The more ordinary the better, for such a body offered the greatest compatibility and potential for growth. It remained unconstrained by any inherent elemental bias.
Alternatively, she might not be reincarnated at all, but someone who severed her cultivation, like the old demon queen," Su Min proposed another theory. "The difference is that this one went even further. She gave up everything—her cultivation, her physique, her Dao base—and started over completely from scratch. She traded all her past power for a new, untainted lifespan. I'm not sure about the specific method, but facing her will be troublesome no matter what.
Whatever. In the end, it doesn't matter. Tell the others that until the Golden Core Avenue concludes, I won't accept any more pill refining commissions."
If she could not find a reliable countermeasure now, there was no point in dwelling on it. What mattered most was boosting her own strength to its absolute peak. As for the romanticized idea of cultivating from a mortal body, Su Min inwardly scoffed.
Starting from a higher point was always better. There was no need to glorify hardship. Those who pursued such a path were likely trying to fuse myriad techniques within themselves to break past the inherent limits of a specialized physique. But what did ordinary cultivators truly have inside them? Nothing but a longer, harder road.
"I would still avoid the first pill when possible," she mused as she began the meticulous process. The crimson light of her forge reflected in her eyes. "Not because of the effects on me, but if people notice I'm not aging a single day despite visibly burning lifespan, it could raise dangerous suspicions."
"Five of each pill should be more than enough. Yingying doesn't want any, so I will keep them all for myself. Given her innate strength, she is unlikely to face any opponent she can't handle without resorting to such measures."
"Once the Golden Core Heavenly Ranking concludes, I will officially attempt to break through to fifth-tier alchemist."
She mused silently, her fingers tracing the air near the glowing spheres. Currently, refining fourth-tier high-grade pills posed no real challenge to her. She had not failed even once with these three notoriously difficult formulas, consistently producing two or even three high-quality pills per batch.
This was a stark contrast to her earlier struggles with the Golden Heart Pill, which had caused multiple cauldron explosions. The Desperate Gambit Trinity was considered even harder to refine, yet she had breezed through them.
Since emerging from her last seclusion, she had done little else but refine pills. Decades of constant, focused practice had honed her skills to the very peak of the fourth tier. As for fifth-tier pills, there was no immediate rush. She had no pressing need for them yet.
After the Golden Core Avenue concluded, she would shatter her core and advance to Nascent Soul. Her success rate for that was already high, thanks to her divine materials, though she would certainly not mind making it an absolute certainty. A fifth-tier Nascent Soul Pill would do just that.