The members of the Changguang Guild looked dazed as they stepped into the town.
Did they really all make it back to the city alive?
Everyone hurriedly stuffed the injured—who had been dancing on the edge of death—into the emergency pods, then stiffly craned their necks, staring at Sheng Yu like zombies.
Countless hands reached out, grabbing Sheng Yu by the shoulders.
They shook her hard!
“Where did all the Revival Potions come from?!” Excitement and barely suppressed joy filled everyone’s voices.
The Changguang Guild was ranked at the bottom of the region’s top hundred guilds, with most members around the Foundation Establishment Stage.
The two types of potions for mortals that Li Yunxian provided were nearly useless for cultivators at this level.
But who could resist when there was so much and it was unlimited?
Over two hundred Revival Potions had kept them barely clinging to life for half an hour—something they’d never seen before.
Sheng Yu couldn’t hide her excitement and said enthusiastically, “No, I bought these at the Trading Market.”
Sheng Yu quickly shared with her members what she’d seen at the Trading Market.
Upon hearing that no one at the scene had recognized the goods, the guild’s schemer’s eyes lit up immediately:
“In that case, can we talk to the owner and just buy out her potion supply long-term?”
Even though the potions weren’t that effective and didn’t make much difference in battle, the price made up for it.
They could easily use them as emergency supplies. Even if they didn’t end up using them, it wouldn’t hurt!
Sheng Yu jumped up, excited:
“Let’s go! Let’s find the owner!”
While the Changguang Guild was turning the Trading Market upside down, Li Yunxian was peacefully asleep.
***
The next day, Li Yunxian woke up feeling refreshed and headed to school. She even personally taught her enthusiastic classmates a few self-defense moves.
After a bunch of high schoolers screamed and hollered through practice, Li Yunxian leisurely finished her school day.
She went home and had dinner.
This time, Li Yunxian didn’t log into the game. Instead, she took out the Bloodbone she had exchanged for.
Today was a perfect day for a medicinal bath.
Bloodbone was a spiritual medicine, so tough that ordinary people could hardly process it.
At times like this, the advantages of the modern world over the cultivation world became clear.
Li Yunxian took out a blender from the kitchen and, with a whirr, ground the Bloodbone and other ingredients into a mush.
As for the challenge of long simmering and insufficient heat to extract the medicine’s properties… Li Yunxian just turned on the pressure cooker.
An hour later, the bright red medicinal bath materials were ready and poured into a bathtub that could maintain a constant temperature.
This was what it meant for technology to change lives!
Li Yunxian lay in the bathtub, closed her eyes, and felt the medicinal properties seep into her bones and blood.
Numbness, soreness.
Before long, a weak patch of flesh couldn’t withstand the energy and ruptured, only to be repaired by even more energy.
The pain started at the surface of her skin and gradually sank into her bone marrow.
Li Yunxian calmly observed it all, finally remarking with some disappointment that the pain was manageable.
It wasn’t nearly as terrifying as her first medicinal bath in the cultivation world, where she’d wanted to roll around the floor in agony.
Well, that made sense.
She had started out as a Sword Cultivator.
For a cultivator whose life was all about fighting and killing, injuries were a daily occurrence. Enduring pain and not letting wounds affect her battle had become second nature.
Not to mention the Sacrifice that finally brought her back to this world.
That was soul-rending pain—literally, her soul torn to shreds. Now that was the ultimate pain.
Since she could handle it, Li Yunxian straightforwardly bit down on a straw and, with her head and all, sank into the potion.
***
After four hours, the last trace of medicinal power faded, and the once-bloody bathwater had turned crystal clear.
Her body didn’t seem to be at its limit yet—she felt she could soak again.
Li Yunxian carefully felt the changes in her body, and only after evaluating them did she sit up in the tub.
As she moved, clumps of residue broke off like chunks of earth, falling away to reveal skin as white and smooth as jade.
Her already thick hair had grown even longer, black and glossy as if the finest ink had been poured over it.
Her long black hair draped down her back, the contrast of black against the white of her skin creating a striking effect.
Li Yunxian didn’t care much about these bodily changes. She simply closed her eyes and focused on her empty meridians and the faint spiritual energy floating around her.
Qi Absorption!
Within a five-meter radius, the spiritual energy was instantly sucked dry.
Feeling the thinnest meridians in her fingertips barely filled, Li Yunxian felt a headache coming on.
The good news: she was on the cultivation path again.
The bad news: if the spiritual energy in reality was always this thin, she’d be stuck at Qi Refining for life.
These hair-thin meridians numbered in the billions.
Li Yunxian recalled the dazzling, spirit-filled materials in the Material Exchange Shop in Ten Thousand Things.
If she wanted to keep cultivating and leveling up, she’d have to keep working hard in the game.
But selling potions… maybe not.
If she hadn’t been lucky yesterday and met a rich lady buyer, most of the potions she made would probably have gone unsold.
She’d just assumed that, since it was a game, red and blue potions would be easy to sell.
But the effects of the potions were hard to show off. She couldn’t just cut herself now and then to demonstrate their healing power, could she?
And Yunling Water was impossible to demonstrate, too.
People would just think it was mint water or chili water.
She needed to sell something more practical.
Li Yunxian sighed, a little nostalgic for her old companions in the cultivation world.
But most of those friends had faded into dust as she climbed higher, swept away by the years.
Now she could only rely on herself.
Li Yunxian wisely learned from her failures and adjusted her business plan.
Now that she was at Qi Refining, even though spiritual energy was scarce in the real world, there seemed to be plenty in the game.
She’d sell Symbol Talismans instead; their effects were the easiest to demonstrate.
Li Yunxian thought about this while washing away the grime from her body.
It was getting late, so she’d post a request for Symbol Talisman materials when she logged in later, and start drawing and selling them tomorrow.
But as for tomorrow…
After school, she should go to an institution for a preliminary test of her [spiritual power], [innate talent], and [spiritual root] stats.
These were all topics for the Xueshi exam.
Spiritual power was probably just cultivation level, but as for innate talent and spiritual root, Li Yunxian had no idea.
She needed to get a baseline first.
After washing up, Li Yunxian logged into the game.
She didn’t go to the Trading Market, but contacted the merchant she’d bought materials from last time, made a request, and logged off.
Sheng Yu waited in front of Li Yunxian’s stall at the Trading Market all day, eyes glazed.
Why… hasn’t she… shown up yet…
iz……
iz……
Ming QAQ!
Wake up, go to school.
Today, no one pestered Li Yunxian to learn new killer moves.
But there were a lot of people at school who would yelp at the slightest movement and walk around like zombies.
“Young people—passion comes fast and goes just as quickly.”
Li Yunxian commented, utterly lacking in empathy.
Her girlfriends burst into laughter at Li Yunxian’s obliviousness.
It wasn’t that everyone couldn’t handle tough training.
It was just that Li Yunxian had suddenly become so much more beautiful that everyone was awestruck; these suffering ‘zombies’ didn’t dare talk to her for now.
After everyone finished laughing, they couldn’t hold back their curiosity and asked about Li Yunxian’s change in appearance.
“How did you get so much prettier in just one day?”
“Your hair is gorgeous too!”
“How did you do it?!”
Li Yunxian didn’t try to brush off her friends. The source of the spiritual medicine was hard to explain, so she simply gave them a substitute recipe.
It couldn’t cleanse the marrow, but it still had beauty and health benefits.
Her friends gasped at the sight of the ridiculously expensive herbs in the recipe.
They were only seventeen or eighteen—no one at this age was as rich as Li Yunxian.
Still, everyone happily copied down the recipe, and then someone brought Li Yunxian some news.
“There’s word from the Special Class, Yunxian. That Liu Chen was asking about your family yesterday.” The girl speaking sounded worried. “He seems to think your family has a cultivator lineage.”
Li Yunxian always struck at Liu Chen’s weak points, showing an uncanny understanding of cultivator techniques. No wonder Liu Chen would think that.
“He won’t cause trouble for your family, will he?” the friend asked anxiously.
Li Yunxian frowned.
She was used to being an orphan and had honestly forgotten to consider this.
But her parents’ main business wasn’t in Jincheng at the moment, and Liu Chen was only at Qi Refining Stage One. He probably didn’t have the means to stir up trouble across regions.
So Li Yunxian asked back, “Do any of you know what the highest cultivation level in Liu Chen’s family is?”
Her friend replied quickly, “They say it’s Foundation Establishment Early Stage—Liu Chen’s uncle.”
Plenty of people disliked Liu Chen, not just those in the Ordinary Class, but even in the Special Class.
It took Liu Chen time to investigate Li Yunxian, but if she wanted information on him, it was like tossing a stone into the sea—everything came back.
She could find out anything she wanted.
Foundation Establishment Early Stage? That was higher than Li Yunxian expected, and it didn’t seem right.
Jincheng was just a tiny county town; cultivators who stayed here couldn’t be that powerful.
After all, people always strove for higher places.
Besides, according to her teacher, Liu Chen’s uncle only held a position at the Xueshi, not particularly high status.
So by normal reasoning, Foundation Establishment Stage cultivators shouldn’t be that rare in this world.
With spiritual energy this thin in Jincheng, there couldn’t possibly be so many Foundation Establishment Stage cultivators if it were the same everywhere.
—This world must have areas rich in spiritual energy, like the spiritual veins in the cultivation world, where many cultivators could train.
With just a little thought, Li Yunxian realized why all the Special Class students strove so hard to get into those exclusive cultivator universities.
“Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.” Li Yunxian reassured her friends with a carefree tone, but when she packed up after school, she quietly slipped the small knife from her pencil case into her pocket.
She was a Sword Cultivator, but if necessary, a pencil sharpener blade would do.
Meanwhile, Liu Chen was feeling frustrated.
He had indeed investigated Li Yunxian’s family, hoping his uncle would take revenge.
But when his uncle heard the other side was just ordinary people and that Liu Chen wasn’t even injured, he didn’t want to get involved. With the Xueshi exams coming up, he was busy as an examiner.
If only Li Yunxian was a cultivator, Liu Chen thought.
Just then, he spotted Li Yunxian not far away, completely ignoring him.
Li Yunxian walked right past.
Liu Chen froze.
It wasn’t her disregard that stunned him, but the fact that as she passed, the spiritual energy around him was instantly drained.
The center of that absorption was, unmistakably, Li Yunxian.
“Brother Liu, did that girl reach Qi Refining?” Liu Chen heard his lackey ask in disbelief.
Only then did Liu Chen realize that what he’d just felt wasn’t an illusion.
“Brother Liu, this time we can openly teach her a lesson.” The second lackey sounded excited, even rubbing his hands together.
Liu Chen’s mouth twitched.
Just a few days ago, Li Yunxian was an ordinary person, and he couldn’t even beat her. Now that she was at Qi Refining, Liu Chen really didn’t want to get beaten up again.
But with his two lackeys around, he couldn’t lose face.
Watching Li Yunxian’s back, Liu Chen hesitated for a moment, then finally waved his hand:
“Let’s follow her.”