Fortunately, the disturbance was brief.
The cultivators from the other peaks didn’t shout for long before their respective peak leaders grabbed feather dusters and gave them a good beating, forcing them into silence—not daring to utter a sound.
Then…
Qingjin Peak’s Peak Leader: “Divine Team is awesome!”
Starfall Peak’s Peak Leader: “Warfare Team is number one in the world!”
Fahé Peak’s Peak Leader: “Bah! Cultists!”
Starfall Peak’s Peak Leader: “Bah! If you don’t agree, come fight!” And then those peak leaders started brawling.
Luckily, Sect Leader Yuan Shouyi intervened just in time, preventing a full-scale battle.
Yuan Shouyi: “Warfare Team is the strongest! Who dares to disagree? Hmm? Peak leaders don’t want to be leaders anymore and would rather sweep the latrines? Fine, I’ll make it happen for you.”
The assembled peak leaders:
Dog management!
Though inwardly resentful, the various peak leaders obediently shut their mouths.
At last, the world returned to peace.
Jiang Ke’er smiled and mounted her Crane, heading to find Luyia.
Today, Luyia was still teaching her Dan Refining Arts.
There was no way around it—Dan Refining Arts were vast and profound.
Even at Luyia’s pace, it would take more than a day to cover everything.
“Did you really remember everything I taught last time?” Luyia persistently asked, unwilling to let it go. “You can’t lie! Advanced Dan Refining is very dangerous!”
“I really did remember,” Jiang Ke’er admitted sheepishly.
“I know Luyia-jie worries about my dull aptitude and slow progress… but rest assured, what you taught last time wasn’t much and wasn’t difficult to understand. Even a weakling like me took only ten minutes to fully grasp it.”
“Ten minutes.” Luyia’s mouth twitched as she sighed to the sky. “Fine then—dull, dull, dull little fox…”
“?”
Was that too much?
Jiang Ke’er’s ears twitched as she tilted her head, looking at Luyia in confusion—was Luyia-jie subtly telling her that she really was stupid?
Wuwu, I’m just too trash after all!
“Sigh…”
The two sighed simultaneously, and their night class began under this strange atmosphere.
Late at night, Jiang Ke’er rode her Crane out of the cave and spent another ten minutes digesting what Luyia had taught her today.
Only then did she enter the System Space, satisfied, to continue her cultivation.
System dummy, I, Huhan San, am back again!
Hmph, I refuse to believe that tonight I won’t beat you!
The next morning, Jiang Ke’er stepped out of the System Space with two huge dark circles under her eyes and a whole body filled with silent resentment.
After morning class, Jiang Ke’er went to Starfall Peak to treat Qian Yue’s injuries.
While treating her, Jiang Ke’er dabbed at tears, sniffling intermittently.
“Wh-…”
“I’m fine, really fine. Don’t ask anymore. It’s all my fault, I’m just too trash!”
After finishing the convalescence treatment, Jiang Ke’er rushed to the Alchemy Room in Lingyin Valley.
Alright, time to calm down a bit. Serious Dan Refinement work can’t be mixed with personal emotions.
She was ready to start experimenting with her “Transformation Origin Pill”—the kind of Dan mentioned before when talking with Yiqin Shifu, a pill capable of transforming the nature of cultivation to enable medical cultivators to have combat strength.
Now she had the initial funds and enough materials—enough to keep herself busy for a while.
Hopefully, she could find the secret of the Transformation Origin Pill before running out of supplies. Creating a pill formula wasn’t simple, especially given her clumsy aptitude…
Clumsy means double the effort!
“Little junior sister, my father told me to come assist you.”
Yuan Tiangang stood reluctantly at the door of the Alchemy Room—he was the Sect Leader’s only son, after all. Even without that identity, coming to assist a newbie kid like this was quite humiliating.
Jiang Ke’er vaguely remembered this was the case but frowned. “I don’t need an assistant. You should go handle other things.”
“Huh?”
Yuan Tiangang was stunned, a flash of anger rising in his heart. How dare she look down on me! Bah! This assistant job is mine for sure!
“Father’s orders can’t be disobeyed!” Yuan Tiangang straightened his back and spoke firmly all of a sudden.
“Fine then,” Jiang Ke’er said helplessly, tossing him a Dan robe. “I still need someone to test pills. How about you?”
What? Test pills?!
Yuan Tiangang instantly chickened out.
Few dared to take semi-finished pills. The best case was cultivation deviation; the worst was dying on the spot!
Poison and medicine are always separated by a thin line, and the test pill person’s job was to endure the dangerous phase when poison was transforming into medicine.
Normally, death row prisoners bore this risk. And now this person was daring to make the noble Sect Leader’s only son endure it?!
Yuan Tiangang sneered—no way!
He didn’t believe that anyone in Taiming Sect would gamble with his precious life!
He bet that Jiang Ke’er wouldn’t dare to do anything too extreme.
“Test pills it is, bring it on!”
Yuan Tiangang braced himself. It’s just testing pills, no need to show fear and lose face!
At dusk, Yuan Tiangang staggered back to Fahé Peak.
“Hey, Yuan Tiangang, what’s wrong with you?” a senior brother at the same peak asked in horror. “Are you okay?”
“I… What could be wrong with me?” Yuan Tiangang lifted his head, rolling his eyes lifelessly like a dying man.
“Okay? But… you’ve got mushrooms growing on your head!”
“Hmm…” Yuan Tiangang reached up to touch his head, smiled numbingly, then suddenly tugged hard and popped a mushroom off with a “pop” sound.
He nonchalantly put it into the basket slung at his waist, his voice hoarse as he said, “Don’t worry, this is very normal.”
“Normal?!”
As he spoke, a large cluster of colorful mushrooms rapidly sprouted from his elbow, visible to the naked eye.
The nearby cultivators gawked: “You sure that’s normal?!”
Yuan Tiangang expressionlessly reached out, plucked the mushrooms, and placed them in the basket with a practiced motion, as if he had done this many times before.
He gave a bitter smile: “Stay calm, just a small matter.”
Small matter?
What on earth have you been through?!
The cultivators stared blankly as Yuan Tiangang calmly returned to his room.
The candlelight flickered, casting his dark shadow through the window.
Mushroom after mushroom sprouted from his body, and he picked them one by one, placing them into the small basket before him.
By morning, the basket was piled high with mushrooms.
The first day of experimentation was undoubtedly a failure.
Jiang Ke’er had once found a substance in the mushrooms that could decompose spiritual power and convert its nature, so she made a pill to experiment.
Unexpectedly, during the mushroom refinement process, something went wrong, and she accidentally extracted the mushrooms’ powerful reproductive ability.
Fortunately, it didn’t harm the human body—it only consumed cultivators’ spiritual power growth.
The amount consumed was very small, but the visual effect was quite scary.
Just right—there weren’t many of these mushrooms available, and Jiang Ke’er hadn’t found a suitable mushroom cultivation medium, so she decided to make the best of it.
From then on, Taiming Sect had a mushroom-picking Yuan Tiangang, or rather, a mushroom-growing Yuan Tiangang?
Jiang Ke’er couldn’t help but recall the story of the little girl—yes, the mushroom-growing little girl, which was kind of creepy…
Although the method seemed a bit inhumane, the results were good at least.
When Yuan Tiangang arrived the next day, he brought a basket overflowing with experimental materials.
“Continuing today?” Jiang Ke’er asked.
“Continue!” Yuan Tiangang bit his teeth fiercely and straightened his back. “What’s the big deal?”
“Very good, you’re tough,” Jiang Ke’er sincerely praised. She hadn’t expected Yuan Tiangang to be such a stubborn character.
“Since you’re so tough, then I’ll go all out today.”
Yuan Tiangang shuddered.