Gao Yang gasped for air, his hands slick with fresh blood.
The little Worm's expression had frozen on its twisted face, lips curved faintly upward — almost smiling.
Gradually, Gao Yang's vision returned. Two overlapping scenes flickered before him.
In one, the Worm's head was gone, blood pooling around a decapitated centipede and its translucent fluids. In the other, there was no gore — only a massive, headless insect and the rising steam of the cauldron.
"My eye…?"
He reached for his right eye and felt a perfectly whole eyeball beneath his fingers.
He froze.
He remembered tearing the worm from that socket with his own hand. Had he failed? Or was everything just an illusion — a trick of the Immortal Mistress's cauldron? Perhaps there had never been a little Worm, only a monstrous centipede.
As he pondered this, the lid of the cauldron opened. The world spun again — and suddenly, he was outside.
The Immortal Mistress examined him closely, her eyes gleaming with satisfaction. "Foundation established. You've succeeded."
Gao Yang blinked in confusion. That's it? He had killed a centipede — and somehow that counted as success?
The Immortal Mistress extended her hand. "The Immortal Pill. Spit it out."
Gao Yang hesitated, then opened his mouth — empty.
Realization struck him like a blow. So that was why he had succeeded.
The Immortal Mistress's expression changed instantly. Her palm lashed out. "Where is it?!"
The slap sent him flying several meters. His cheek ballooned with swelling. If not for the protection of newly awakened Qi, that blow might have shattered his skull.
That pill — the Immortal Pill — had been meant for her own ascension. A treasure only a true post-Tribulation cultivator could refine. She had paid dearly to obtain it. And now, it was gone — consumed by her disciple during a mere Foundation Building ritual.
Her face darkened, trembling with fury. The air around her rippled with killing intent. She wanted to crush him where he stood.
But he had swallowed the Immortal Pill. Killing him outright would waste the precious medicine now within his body.
Her gaze turned cold and calculating. There were other ways to retrieve it.
Gao Yang shuddered under her stare. He couldn't guess her thoughts, but he knew the value of what he had taken. In her position, he would have wanted blood too.
Trying to keep his voice steady, he bowed low. "Master, I don't know how the pill was absorbed, but if you wish, I can offer myself as an ingredient. Use me as the catalyst to refine another Immortal Pill."
The Immortal Mistress's lips curled. "Is that so? Then climb back in."
Gao Yang was gambling.
If she truly possessed the power to refine an Immortal Pill, she wouldn't have raged so much. If she didn't — then entering the cauldron might actually save him.
He took a breath, steadied his Qi, and leapt into the cauldron once more.
Sitting cross-legged, he said calmly, "Master, I'm ready."
Her killing intent faltered. She hadn't expected him to obey so readily.
If he had tried to run, she would have slain him without hesitation — even at the cost of the pill's energy. But this display of devotion stirred something else: greed, control, satisfaction.
For now, he would live.
"Good." Her tone softened. "Come out, then. It's only a pill. If you've eaten it, so be it."
Her expression revealed nothing — no anger, no warmth, just that same detached calm. "Rest. Attend morning class tomorrow. I'll teach you the cultivation incantation."
Gao Yang exhaled, relief flooding through him. He climbed out of the cauldron and bowed deeply. "Thank you for the pill, Master."
He turned to leave, but her voice halted him. "Wait. Circulate your Qi. Let me see."
A chill crept up his spine. Sweat beaded along his brow as he remembered the crushed worm.
"Hurry," she said sharply.
He obeyed, guiding his Qi through his body. The flow was smooth — clearer than ever before, strengthening bone and muscle alike. When the current passed through his right eye, Gao Yang stiffened.
The Immortal Mistress's gaze fixed on that same eye.
The Qi flowed freely — no distortion, no tremor, no trace of resistance. The lurking presence from before was gone.
She studied him for a long moment, then smiled faintly. "I see now. So that's what happened. Go rest."
Gao Yang didn't understand what she had realized, but he knew one thing — his time was running out.
After Foundation Establishment, disciples would soon be sent on external trials. That would be his only chance to escape.
He returned to his quarters, shut the door, and slumped against the wall, exhaustion crashing over him.
After catching his breath, he rose and reached for The Detailed Explanation of Foundation Building. He flipped through its pages — but found nothing resembling what he had experienced. Not a word about flesh worms or illusions.
Something else caught his eye, though: the text said one must rely on external aids to open meridians and achieve Foundation Building.
Yet the Immortal Mistress had said the opposite — that cultivation was the mastery of the self, and no external object could guide it.
Which was true?
Gao Yang closed the book and reached for the unnamed one beneath it.
Inside were strange tales — curiosities collected through the ages. One story in particular drew him in.
It told of a scholar traveling to the capital for the imperial examination. One stormy night, he took shelter in a ruined temple and met a beautiful woman. They spent the night together, and afterward his mind grew sharper, his stamina stronger. He could study for days without sleep or fatigue.
With this newfound vigor, he topped the exams — became the number-one scholar in the empire.
But during the palace inspection, a eunuch detected demonic energy clinging to him. The scholar, it turned out, had achieved Foundation Building — using the inner core of a fox demon.
Such corruption violated the laws of both heaven and empire. Scholars could not be cultivators, and cultivators could not serve as officials.
He was executed for deceit and sorcery.
The day he was beheaded, an old fox deep in the woods lost its tail — three hundred years of cultivation undone in an instant. In its grief, the fox slaughtered two nearby villages before imperial cultivators subdued it.
Rumor said the palace later sent the scholar's corpse to the forest. The old fox refined his body into a pill and fed it to a young, broken-tailed cub — saving the creature's nascent cultivation.
Gao Yang closed the book slowly.
The story felt uncomfortably familiar.
The way the Immortal Mistress had looked at him earlier — it was the same way one might look at a pill.
He exhaled a long breath, the tension easing only slightly. Through his eyelid, he touched his right eye — perfectly whole.
Perhaps it had healed because he had absorbed the Immortal Pill.
He recalled her soft, knowing laugh. Maybe she already knew.
Knock, knock.
The door trembled under a sudden knock.
A burning ache flared within his Dantian. Qi surged violently through his body. Gao Yang's muscles tensed, every nerve alert.
Someone was outside.