Outside the inheritance site, cultivators from the four great families stood watching the stone door.
It had been five days since Bailu left the trial area.
Most of the others had already given up and left. The outer perimeter was nearly empty now, leaving only the four families camped out, stubbornly holding on to the hope that their prodigies would emerge victorious.
The real problem was time.
Less than four days remained before the secret realm closed, yet none of the four so-called geniuses had appeared.
---
Inside the Trial Area…
Four cultivators sat in a circle around a block of emerald-green flame.
The atmosphere was awkward.
Cheng, the Shen cultivator, and the Xiao cultivator all wore the same strained expression, like they had something stuck in their throats but refused to cough it up. They all understood the situation. There wasn't enough time left to refine the spiritual flame. The secret realm would close before any of them succeeded.
But no one was willing to leave first.
Their talents were close enough that any one of them might succeed with just a bit more time. If someone gave up and walked away, only for another to succeed moments later…
That would be hard to live down.
In the cultivation world, reputation was everything.
These weren't ordinary disciples. They were future family heads, and every action they took would be remembered, analyzed, and talked about for years.
Losing was one thing. Being the first to give up would be embarrassing. So they stayed where they were, silent and unmoving, pretending they weren't sweating.
As for Li…
He wasn't from a major alchemy family. He didn't have generations of expectations weighing on him. What he wanted was simple. He wanted to prove he was just as capable as the others.
His original plan had been straightforward. Refine the flame first, then use that success to shut them up. Unfortunately, things hadn't gone that way. At best, he had managed to keep up.
Now, pride was the only thing keeping any of them here.
Cheng cleared his throat, breaking the silence.
"We all have people waiting outside. Perhaps we should leave together. There is no need to delay everyone any longer."
The Shen cultivator stood immediately, smoothing out his robes with an easy smile. "Indeed. We shouldn't keep our families waiting. They'll worry."
The Xiao representative and Li rose as well.
Honestly, they had all been sick of staring at this damned flame anyway. The four of them made their way back through the trial corridors, conjuring small flames for light as they walked.
That's when they started noticing something strange.
"Did someone remove all the lighting pearls?" the Shen cultivator muttered, frowning at the bare walls.
The corridors had been lined with Brightglow Pearls when they entered. Now, every single one was gone.
"Who would bother taking those?" Li asked. "They're not even that valuable."
Nobody had an answer.
They made it back to the entrance in just over half an hour. The trial area wasn't very large, just a dozen or so black stone rooms connected by narrow passages. Most of the time had been spent on the refinement process, which would normally have taken months to complete.
As the stone door ground open, the family members waiting outside nearly collapsed with relief. If something had happened to their future heirs inside this realm, the consequences would have been unthinkable.
"We apologize for the delay," the Shen cultivator said as he stepped through the doorway. "The flame's grade was higher than expected, so the refinement took longer."
One of the guards, a large man who looked like he relied more on muscle than brains, immediately asked, "Did you obtain the inheritance, Young Master?"
The Shen cultivator's expression darkened. This fool really didn't know when to keep his mouth shut. Before he could come up with a proper response, the thinner guard beside him kicked the man hard in the shin.
"Idiot! The flame was already claimed by Alchemist Hua. Where would the Young Master get an inheritance from?"
The Shen cultivator felt a flicker of satisfaction as the brute winced.
Then the words sank in.
"What did you just say?"
The other three prodigies, drawn by the noise, turned to look over.
"Hua Bailu obtained the spiritual flame?" Cheng asked slowly. "When?"
The thin guard, clearly a devoted fan of Bailu judging by how animated he suddenly became, started explaining in detail.
He described the flame's color, its spiritual properties, and even the way Bailu had summoned it. He copied her posture, her expression, and even her tone with surprising accuracy.
Watching a middle-aged man imitate a woman's movements was a bit uncomfortable. The guard, however, seemed completely unaware.
As he continued, the expressions of the four prodigies gradually changed.
The flame he described was emerald green, formed from pure wood-aspect spiritual energy, with no heat at all. Every detail matched the one they had been studying for the past five days.
And Bailu had left the secret realm five days ago, at the exact time they had begun trying to refine it.
Oh.
Oh no.
The realization hit all four of them at the same time.
They had spent five days trying to refine a flame that Bailu had discarded on her way out.
A long, painful silence followed.
Then they exchanged glances and came to a silent agreement. This would never be mentioned again. If anyone found out they had wasted nearly a week meditating over leftover fire…
No. It was better to pretend it never happened.
The Shen cultivator cleared his throat and forcibly changed the subject. "Where are the rest of our family members? I expected more people here."
The thin guard's expression shifted instantly.
"Reporting, Young Master. About 400 kilometers from here, several cultivators discovered what appears to be an ancient battlefield pocket realm. Most of our family's forces were dispatched two days ago to investigate."
All four prodigies froze.
"A pocket realm inside this secret realm?"
"Is that even possible?"
"Technically..." Li said. "Secret realms are fragments of larger worlds carved out by powerful cultivators. There's no reason one couldn't contain smaller spaces within it."
The Xiao representative nodded. "That makes sense. If the original world had an ancient battlefield, that battlefield would be part of the carved-out fragment."
"Let's go take a look," the Shen cultivator decided. "We still have roughly four days before the realm closes. At full speed, it takes about ten hours to reach this location from the outer boundary, and only two days to exit from there. We have time."
The others agreed. After wasting five days on nothing, at least they could salvage something from this trip.
---
Outer Region of the Verdant Vine Secret Realm...
By now, Alexei had already left the fissure in the core area.
He hadn't stayed near the crack. There were too many high-level cultivators coming and going. Instead, he followed the general flow of people heading toward the outer regions. There was safety in numbers.
On the way, he heard rumors that the realm would be closing soon, something about fluctuations in spiritual energy. Apparently, it was a serious matter.
He hadn't felt anything himself, but that likely meant his cultivation was too low to notice.
As he traveled, bits of conversation drifted over from passing cultivators.
"...ancient battlefield discovered..."
"...some noble girl buying pill essences for 30,000 spirit stones..."
"...at least a dozen cultivators already died there..."
The ancient battlefield part caught his attention.
He remembered Qingxue mentioning those places back when he first arrived at the Aureate Summit Sect. According to her, ancient battlefields were where you could find immortal-grade or even saint-grade artifacts.
Most of those weapons had lost their spiritual essence over the centuries, reduced to mundane metal. But even a degraded saint-tier sword was still sharper and more durable than anything a mortal blacksmith could forge.
For a brief moment, he considered going back. Then he thought about the logistics.
He had learned about the battlefield two or three days after its discovery. By now, every cultivator within a thousand kilometers probably knew about it. The place would be swarming with treasure hunters. And he only had a few days before the realm closed.
The chances of finding anything worthwhile in that chaos were close to zero.
"Such a pity," he muttered as he adjusted his course toward the outer boundary.
Besides, he had more important things to figure out.
For the past three days, he had been obsessively checking his status panel, trying to understand how the Verdant Lamp Cultivation Method worked.
"What am I missing? There has to be some condition I'm overlooking," he said, pulling up the Verdant Lamp panel again as he flew.
He had tried meditating with it open, cycling spiritual energy while focusing on it, and even attempting to activate it through sheer will. At one point, he had gone as far as speaking to it out loud, which made him feel ridiculous but still seemed worth a shot. The only result was a few strange looks from passing cultivators, who likely thought he had lost his mind.
Unfortunately, nothing worked.
---
"Finally."
Alexei landed near the exit of the Verdant Vine Secret Realm, ignoring the curious looks from nearby cultivators. The massive gateway was still open, but only just. It had shrunk to half the size it was when he first entered. Cultivators were still passing through, though the flow had slowed to a trickle.
Most were staying inside until the last possible moment. With cultivation speed ten times faster in the realm, even a single extra day was worth the risk.
Fair enough. If he cared about cultivation speed, he would probably do the same, but he had other priorities, like getting back to the inn and unloading this ridiculous amount of loot.
Also, he missed real beds.
The half-hour walk to the exit felt longer than it should have. Bright sunlight streamed through the narrowing gate, forcing him to raise a hand to shield his eyes as he stepped out.
The plaza beyond looked exactly the same as before.
He had just started scanning the area, trying to remember which way the inn was, when he spotted three familiar figures making their way toward him.
Qingxue reached him first. Yan followed close behind, with Mengyao trailing a step behind, slightly out of breath.
Before Alexei could say anything, Snowdrift suddenly appeared and jumped onto his head.
"If you had taken any longer, your master might have worried herself sick," Yan said, casting Qingxue a teasing glance. "Right, Qingxue?"
"I was not worried sick," Qingxue replied at once. "I was simply concerned for his safety, as any responsible master would be."
Alexei grabbed the fox and pulled it off his head as it tried to lick his face. The little thing had gotten far too affectionate while he was gone.
"Yeah, well, I am fine."
He glanced around. The plaza was crowded with cultivators, and more than a few were likely listening in on anything nearby.
This wasn't the place to talk about what had happened inside the realm. Still, there was one thing he could share without causing trouble.
He reached into his storage pouch and pulled out the red-gold pill spirit essence he had taken from his first pill spirit.
"Here," he said, holding it out to Mengyao. "I got you something."
Mengyao blinked, caught off guard.
"This is the first essence I collected after killing a pill spirit. I figured you might like it. Just don't try to refine it. Your cultivation is still too low."
She accepted it and held it up to the light.
"Thank you," she said softly.
After a brief pause, she added, "Thank you."
Alexei raised an eyebrow. "You already said that."
"I know. But it is worth saying twice."
She smiled at him.
Without thinking, he reached out and ruffled her hair. She didn't pull away, which was unusual. Normally she would swat his hand aside and complain about him treating her like a child.
This time, she just stood there, tucking the essence into her robes while he messed up her hair.
It was a bit weird. But he didn't think too much about it.
----------
[POV: Yi Mengyao]
Mengyao stared at the pill spirit essence in her hand. She studied its color, the faint spiritual pressure it released, and the way light passed cleanly through its crystalline surface.
A sense of familiarity rose in her chest.
She had never seen it in person before, but she knew of it from her previous life. There had once been a legendary pill spirit essence, discovered by a rogue cultivator on a remote corpse and later sold at auction for an astronomical price. The detail that stayed with her all this time was oddly specific, since someone who attended that auction had once remarked that its color was identical to her eyes.
Now, that same essence, or something indistinguishable from it, had appeared in her senior brother's hands.
Which meant the timeline had already diverged far more than she had initially realized.
She lowered her gaze slightly and tucked the essence close to her body, making sure it was secure before letting her sleeve fall back into place. Whether this was truly the same item from her past life or merely a similar one no longer mattered to her. She had no intention of using it.
Her path forward had already changed, and it wouldn't follow the same course as before.
This life was no longer the one she remembered. People who should have died were still alive, and events that should have unfolded had either shifted or failed to happen at all.
Ji Huan, the Blazing Sun Sect's Holy Son, was supposed to have died in this secret realm. Instead, he had left over a week ago, reportedly having refined a mid-grade Heaven-tier spiritual fruit. His talent had jumped significantly, approaching mid-grade Heaven spiritual root.
Luan Jin, the Firefeather Sect's young master, should have died as well. But there had been no news of his death. In the cultivation world, the death of a second-rank power's heir would have caused massive waves. The fact that nobody was talking about it meant he was probably fine.
Meanwhile, the Radiant Peak Sect had lost contact with the outer elders and core disciples they had sent into the realm.
More than forty cultivators had disappeared without a trace.
From what she remembered, they should have passed their promotion assessment within two years and risen to a second-rank power. Now, they would be lucky just to hold on to their current third-rank status. More likely, they would fall to the fourth or even fifth rank after the next Immortal Alliance evaluation.
The thought made her pause.
Her presence in this timeline was already changing things. Some people were surviving when they shouldn't have, while others were dying when they should have lived.
She could no longer rely on her memories. The future was becoming harder to grasp with each passing moment.
It was a bit unsettling, but at the same time, strangely freeing.
----------
[POV: Alexei]
"Should we get moving?" Alexei asked, shifting the fox to his other arm. "Or are we just going to stand here all day?"
Yan glanced at him, then at Qingxue, clearly considering something.
"Perhaps Mengyao could carry the fox. That way I can hold both of your hands."
Mengyao shot her a flat look.
Yan coughed lightly and looked away. "It was just a suggestion."
They set off soon after, heading back toward the inn. To avoid drawing attention, Alexei rode on Qingxue's flying sword instead of using his own. His sword flight was far too noticeable.
Yan flew alongside them on a standard spirit sword. She had given her specialized flying artifact to Alexei weeks ago, so she had been making do with basic equipment ever since. It didn't seem to inconvenience her in the slightest. At her level, the difference between a high-grade flying sword and a regular one was barely worth mentioning.
The return trip took less than fifteen minutes.
When the inn came into view, it looked exactly the same as before.
"Where are Quan and Changgui?" Alexei asked as they landed.
"They left on a trip a while ago," Yan replied. "They should be back in a few days."
Quan had probably grown bored of waiting around and dragged Changgui off on some kind of training excursion.
Alexei didn't linger. He headed straight for his room, already thinking about the bed waiting inside.
He opened the door, crossed the room in a few quick steps, and dropped onto the bed, landing with all the grace of a falling boulder.
CRASH
The wooden frame gave out the moment his full weight settled onto it.
It didn't simply crack under pressure. It collapsed outright, splintering apart as the mattress slammed into the floor. The impact sent a dull tremor through the room.
Cracks spread across the floorboards beneath him, thin lines branching outward in every direction. The walls creaked in protest, and somewhere below, a voice shouted in alarm.
He lay there in the wreckage for a moment, staring up at the ceiling as everything settled.
"...blyat."
It took him a second to realize what had gone wrong.
He was still wearing the full set of enchanted diamond armor. Each piece weighed as much as a small boulder, and together they put far more strain on the bed than it could handle.
Of course it had collapsed.
The strange part was that he had been wearing it for so long. It didn't feel uncomfortable, and most of the time, it didn't even feel like he was wearing armor at all.
He pushed himself upright, testing the floor before shifting his weight, and took a look around the room.
The bed was completely destroyed. The floorboards beneath it had cracked badly, and judging by the way they sagged, there was a real risk that too much pressure in the wrong place would send him straight through to the level below.
"I am never going to hear the end of this."
From the hallway, the sound of hurried footsteps was already getting closer.
---
The bed incident had caused quite a commotion.
The innkeeper arrived moments later with several attendants in tow, all of them staring at the wreckage.
"I apologize for the inconvenience. I will cover the damages."
Alexei also declined Yan's suggestion that he share a room with her and Mengyao. The mere thought of having to explain that arrangement to anyone was enough to make him reconsider breaking the bed in the first place.
For compensation, he reached into his storage pouch and pulled out a handful without bothering to check. There were three low-grade stones and two mid-grade ones.
The innkeeper accepted them. His expression shifted from gratitude to disbelief as he realized what he had just been given. It was more than his inn had likely earned in years.
His grin spread wider and wider, until it almost looked painful.
"Thank you! Thank you! I will have the room repaired immediately, better than new! You won't find a single speck of dust when we are finished!"
He turned toward his attendants. "Go and fetch more workers. I want this room spotless. Use fresh linens if you must."
The workers scattered at once.
Alexei watched them hurry off before glancing at Yan.
"Was that too much?"
"For a broken bed and a few cracked floorboards?" Yan replied with a faint smile. "A little, perhaps. But I doubt the innkeeper sees it that way."
---
A short while later, Alexei was in Yan's room, quietly sorting through his inventory. Mengyao stood nearby, watching what he was doing, while Qingxue played with Snowdrift.
Most of his unused items had already been moved into a chest on the spirit boat, leaving only the essentials in his hotbar. He still had 372 MC mid-grade spirit stones, 21 golden carrots, 13 ender pearls, the Verdant Wood Alchemy Furnace, a handful of spiritual plant seeds, and his usual tools, including his trident, bow, and pickaxe.
For a moment, he considered condensing the spirit stones into higher-grade clusters or blocks, but the process would take more effort than it was worth. He would have to clear space first, break down wood into planks, craft a workbench, and only then start combining the stones.
In the end, it was far simpler to just get rid of anything he didn't need. All it took was a piece of flint and steel, a quick spark to light a block, and he could toss everything unwanted into the flames.
Back in the game, it would have been even easier, since he could simply drop items and let them disappear on their own.
"So," Yan said at last, glancing at him from the side, "what was that surprise you mentioned earlier?"
She had clearly been waiting for him to bring it up. When he didn't, she decided to take the initiative herself. With a faint smile, she pulled out her storage pouch and held it up between them.
While Alexei had been exploring the secret realm, she hadn't been idle. With the help of the Bronze Pill Furnace, she had earned a total of 23,000 mid-grade spirit stones.
In just a few days, the price for asking her to refine pills had risen to 1,000 mid-grade spirit stones per request, not including materials. The reason was simple. Her results spoke for themselves.
From the eighth and ninth grades all the way up to the third and second grades, every batch she refined contained at least eight patterns. When the herbs were in good condition, nine-pattern pills were almost guaranteed.
Of course, refining took time. To avoid drawing too much attention, she limited herself to two requests per day. Even so, she still earned no less than 2,000 mid-grade spirit stones daily.
"Guess how many spirit stones I earned while you were in the secret realm."
Alexei glanced up from his inventory. "I don't know. How much?"
Yan raised two fingers, her smile already forming.
"200,000 mid-grade stones?" he guessed without hesitation, recalling his recent transaction with Bailu.
Yan's smile froze.
"200,000? In twenty days? What do you think I was doing, robbing the Immortal Alliance headquarters?"
Mengyao, sitting nearby, covered her face with one hand. Her senior brother clearly had no concept of how much spirit stones were worth.
Even by her master's standards, that kind of earning ability was extraordinary. Across the entire Eastern Territories, there were only a handful of people who could compare.
20,000 mid-grade spirit stones wasn't a small amount. For a top-tier family, it represented several months of income.
In her previous life, the Celestial Path Sect, with its 28,000 disciples and 10,000 servants, distributed around 60,000 mid-grade spirit stones each year in salaries alone. Its total income, including disciple missions, pavilion fees, and surrounding businesses, barely reached 100,000.
Once expenses were taken into account, formation maintenance, spirit boat travel, and the purchase of rare materials, the sect's annual profit came down to roughly 20,000 mid-grade spirit stones.
In other words, what her master had earned in less than a month was equivalent to an entire year of the sect's profits.
Mengyao had never seen that level of wealth in her entire previous life.
Yan clicked her tongue, clearly irritated. "Be reasonable. I didn't make that much."
Alexei's excitement faded immediately. "Oh."
If it wasn't 200,000 mid-grade spirit stones, then the possibilities narrowed quickly. It had to be either 20,000 mid-grade, 200,000 low-grade, or 20,000 low-grade.
He paused as another thought occurred to him.
Yan's storage pouch only had a capacity of about two cubic meters. There was no way it could hold 200,000 stones of any grade.
That eliminated one option, leaving only two.
After a moment of consideration, he chose the safer guess. "20,000 low-grade spirit stones?"
Yan drew in a steady breath, then turned her storage pouch upside down over the table.
Spirit stones poured out in a steady stream, clattering loudly as they struck the surface and piled higher and higher, forming a mound nearly thirty centimeters tall.
"I earned just over 20,000 mid-grade spirit stones," she said, unable to keep the pride out of her voice.
Alexei watched the pile for a moment, taking in the size of it, then gave a small nod. "That's pretty good."
Yan's eye twitched. Pretty good?
20,000 mid-grade spirit stones was a fortune by any reasonable standard. It could support a small sect for months, buy rare cultivation resources and high-grade artifacts, or even secure land in a prosperous city.
And his response was "pretty good."
"You have no idea what these are worth, do you?"
"I mean, I know they're valuable," Alexei said. "Just…"
He trailed off, searching for a way to explain without revealing too much.
The problem was perspective.
To him, 20,000 mid-grade spirit stones was no longer an unimaginable fortune. It was a number he could easily relate to something familiar.
More importantly, he had far more than that.
If he converted everything into solid blocks and laid them out in the real world, they would take up entire sections of a room. With that as a reference, the pile in front of him, impressive as it was, simply didn't feel like much.
He kept that thought to himself.
"But what?" Yan asked, picking up on the pause.
"But it is still good. You did well."
Yan narrowed her eyes slightly. "You are terrible at lying."
"I'm not lying. You did well."
"But you're not impressed."
"I didn't say that."
"You didn't need to."
Mengyao watched the exchange from the side. Her master looked dissatisfied that such an impressive haul had failed to get the reaction she wanted.
"Here," Yan said at last, pushing the pile of stones toward him. "Take them or leave them. I don't care."
Alexei didn't hesitate. He took out his pickaxe and collected the stones.
[Mid-Grade Spirit Stones: 7]
His total rose to 379.
Yan let out a slow breath and shook her head, deciding not to dwell on it before it started to annoy her.
"So," she said, leaning forward slightly, "what about you? How was your harvest from the secret realm?"
They had only been back for about fifteen minutes, and most of their conversation during the flight had focused on what he had seen inside the realm rather than what he had gained from it.
Aside from the pill spirit essence he had given Mengyao, Yan knew nothing about his profits.
And judging by his complete lack of reaction to her 20,000 stones, she couldn't help but wonder what kind of absurd haul would make that amount seem insignificant.
At Yan's question, Alexei suddenly remembered the other item he had brought back.
He waved his hand, and an alchemy furnace appeared on the recently cleared table. Green leaves were carved into its surface, and the craftsmanship was immediately obvious even to someone who knew nothing about alchemy.
All eyes turned toward it.
Pure wood-attribute spiritual energy radiated from the furnace in steady waves. Even Mengyao, still in the early stages of Qi Refining, could sense it clearly.
"Is that..."
Yan's eyes widened slightly as she pulled the furnace toward her, examining it from every angle.
"This is a Heaven-grade alchemy furnace?"
She ran her fingers along its surface. It was smoother than anything she had seen before, even smoother than her own Bronze Pill Furnace, which she had once considered exceptional.
"It's called the Verdant Wood Alchemy Furnace. I found it in the inheritance site. Figured you could use a nicer one."
Alexei's understanding of the Profound Sky Continent's artifact grading system was limited.
To him, magical treasures were judged first by how they looked. Function came second. If it wasn't visually appealing, he wasn't interested.
Treasures were also very different from tools. Even at the same grade, a treasure could cost ten times as much as a tool, sometimes dozens of times more. If it had special abilities, the price could rise by a hundredfold.
When Qingxue had explained the system to him, she had focused mostly on tools. When it came to treasures, her explanation had been much simpler:
Yellow-grade treasures were expensive. He couldn't afford them.
Profound-grade treasures were expensive. He couldn't afford them.
Earth-grade treasures were even worse.
Heaven-grade treasures? He had never even seen one, and there was no way he could afford it.
The most direct way to determine a treasure's grade was by examining its spiritual energy circuits.
After some experimentation, he had figured out the pattern:
Level 1 circuits = Yellow-grade
Level 2 circuits = Profound-grade
Level 3 circuits = Earth-grade
Level 4 circuits = Heaven-grade
Level 5 circuits = Immortal artifacts
Of course, circuits alone weren't enough to determine value. Otherwise, treasures of the same grade wouldn't have such massive price differences.
If the Spiritual Energy Circuit enchantment established the base value of a treasure, then the other enchantments were what truly determined its market price.
But with three hundred Brightglow Pearls now in his possession, he was starting to think that even immortal artifacts weren't that impressive. If he wanted, he could easily combine them into an immortal-grade Bright Radiance Pearl.
He only needed 16 Bright Radiance Pearls to synthesize one with Spiritual Energy Circuit V and Spiritual Energy Absorption V.
That would actually be useful. He could carry one while mining and never need a torch again.
The only question was whether the legendary sacred artifacts or divine artifacts required Level 6 or Level 7 circuits.
But the problem was, in the original version of Minecraft, the enchantment limit seemed to be Level 5.
"This is for me?" Yan asked, still holding the furnace as if it might vanish if she let go.
Mengyao thought her master looked like she was about to start crying from happiness.
Alexei nodded. "In my hands, it is just a juicer or a candy-making machine. You will get more use out of it."
Besides, using his own spirit stones to refine candy couldn't compare to freeloading spiritual energy from Yan. That was far more satisfying.
Hmm... since the Spiritual Energy Absorption enchantment could absorb surrounding spiritual energy, maybe he could try adding Spiritual Energy Absorption V to this furnace later.
Yan was too absorbed in examining the furnace to tease him.
Alexei noticed the way she was looking at the furnace and decided it was probably time to change the subject.
Unfortunately, he had a more immediate problem.
Qingxue was holding Snowdrift and looking at him expectantly, clearly waiting for her own gift.
But this time, he hadn't found anything suitable for her.
"Um... I didn't find an appropriate gift for you in this secret realm."
Qingxue's expression dimmed slightly. Even the fox's ears drooped.
The Verdant Vine Secret Realm had belonged to an alchemy expert, so it was naturally better suited for someone like Yan. For a sword cultivator like Qingxue, there wouldn't have been much of value.
The inn staff worked quickly.
In less than an hour, the room had been fully restored, looking even better than before, if the innkeeper's enthusiastic claims were anything to go by.
After settling everything with him, Alexei and Qingxue left Yan's room.
----------
[POV: Ji Huan]
Not far from the Verdant Vine Secret Realm plaza, inside a luxurious spirit vessel bearing the crest of the Ji clan...
Huan sat in a high-backed chair, one hand idly toying with a Yellow-grade spiritual fruit. The vessel's interior was decorated with expensive furnishings, all of it paid for by his family's wealth.
He had been in a good mood ever since leaving the secret realm. The Flameheart Fruit he had refined had pushed his talent to new heights. His spiritual root had improved dramatically, approaching mid-grade Heaven quality.
And now, another opportunity had presented itself.
"Have you finished investigating?" he asked without looking up.
A cultivator knelt thirty meters away, head lowered. "I have completed the investigation. While we couldn't identify the target's sect, there is no indication they belong to any major power."
Huan's eyes sharpened. "Explain."
"They are currently staying in the mortal district on the outskirts of Jade Prosperity City. They arrived about twenty days ago and are traveling as a group of five. Three are adult cultivators, accompanied by one teenager and two children of similar age. They dress plainly, and nothing about them reveals their sect. Their spirit vessel is well maintained but clearly old, with signs of repair. This suggests limited resources."
"According to the Third Elder's personal investigation, two of the adult cultivators are at the peak of the Spirit Condensation stage. The third, a woman, likely possesses a concealment artifact. Even the Third Elder couldn't clearly determine her cultivation level from a distance, but her strength is at least at the Nascent Soul stage."
"There is also a woman who keeps her eyes closed. She appears to have dealings with the local Alchemy Alliance, though the details are tightly guarded. It likely involves a batch of pills she sold to them. After her departure, the Alliance began gathering large amounts of spirit stones, presumably for a follow-up transaction. Since then, she has been visiting them daily. Many factions in Jade Prosperity City have already turned their attention to those spirit stones. If we act within the city, the Alchemy Alliance will intervene. It would be safer to strike outside the city limits to avoid drawing the attention of the Immortal Alliance."
Huan listened without interrupting. He had been prepared for a troublesome opponent, but what he found instead was a group with no real backing, carrying treasures far beyond what they could protect.
His attention settled on the white-haired cultivator. More specifically, on the spiritual fire he possessed.
The fact that it could ignite a peak Nascent Soul pill spirit wasn't something that could be ignored.
Pill spirits were formed from concentrated pill essence and spiritual fire, making them living masses of alchemical energy. Because of their nature, extracting any useful information from them through conventional means was nearly impossible. At most, cultivators could estimate their strength based on their attacks, but determining the exact grade of the spiritual fire that created them was beyond reach.
Even so, some conclusions were obvious.
The pill spirit within the secret realm had almost certainly been formed from the realm owner's own pill aura and spiritual fire. That alone meant its grade had to be extraordinarily high. Yet ever since the secret realm appeared, no one had been able to ignite it.
Until now...
That single fact was enough to prove that the white-haired cultivator's spiritual fire had reached at least the first grade, and perhaps even higher.
Spiritual fire didn't vanish with its owner's death. As long as the origin flame could be extracted, it could be refined and claimed by another.
Huan's eyes flickered slightly as the thought settled in his mind.
Ever since he had survived that near-fatal encounter in the secret realm, his fortune had been steadily improving. First, he obtained a Heaven-grade spiritual fruit. Now, another opportunity had appeared right in front of him.
It seemed that surviving a great calamity truly did bring unexpected fortune.
In the Eastern Territories, naturally formed spiritual fires rarely rose above the seventh grade due to the thin spiritual energy. Any fire of higher quality was usually found within secret realms, and even then, obtaining one was far from easy.
With his family's influence and his own strength, even competing for a fifth-grade fire would normally be a challenge.
A first-grade spiritual fire, on the other hand, would be completely out of reach under normal circumstances.
But this opportunity had come to him, and there was no reason to let it slip away.
"Contact the family. I want additional personnel sent here immediately. Have my grand-uncle come as well," he said at last, setting the spiritual fruit aside as his decision solidified.
"This time, I want to be certain we secure that spiritual fire."