Chapter 189
Inside the alchemy room, several alchemy furnaces were glowing hot side by side.
The Five-Element Puppets lined up before the furnaces diligently brewed second-grade body-tempering Danmun elixirs.
Baek Cheong took charge of the one remaining furnace and devoted herself to the Five-Element Spirit-Sealing Pills.
She went over the pill formula Yak-seon had passed down to her again and again, putting her heart into the work.
At first, the qi clumped together, leaving behind nothing but a murky lump.
But from the second batch onward, pills shimmering with five-colored light rolled out one after another.
It was enough to make Yak-seon's advice—that she should come to him if she encountered any blockage—seem pointless.
Since she was at it, she even inscribed Danmun without hesitation.
In the past, whenever she inscribed Danmun, she would first check the sky outside the window.
But now there was no reason to worry about pill tribulation.
Thanks to that, she could stockpile Danmun elixirs to her heart's content without having to watch herself.
The Five-Element Spirit-Sealing Pills piled up neatly in jade bottles.
Even if she took one every month, she had enough to last for quite some time.
‘A medicine addict's storeroom is better stocked.’
She also put the body-tempering Danmun elixirs brewed by the puppets into jade bottles.
.
.
.
Thus, she placed even the final Five-Element Spirit-Sealing Pill into a jade bottle.
Having finished all the alchemy she had put off, both her body and mind felt wonderfully light.
Baek Cheong banked the fires in the furnaces and took a breather.
Then, without even getting up, she opened the Nameless Forum.
She intended to check whether the Five Elements Pills she had put up in the marketplace had sold.
But no sooner had she logged in than notifications began pouring in.
[All of Daoist(913.14)'s items have been sold.]
[126 premium spirit stones in payment have been sent to the spatial magical treasure.]
Everything from the mid-grade pills to the Danmun Five Elements Pill had sold out without a single one left.
The pendant hanging against her chest somehow felt reassuring.
‘As expected, alchemy is the best.’
Even as she savored her satisfaction, the notifications showed no sign of stopping.
Replies had piled up beneath the last post she had left.
[Daoist(237.309): I only managed to get the supreme-grade and Danmun ones. Please put up more.]
[Daoist(423.110): They sold out in the blink of an eye... You don't have any low-grade ones? I'd be grateful even for low-grade.]
[Daoist(82.73): At least I managed to get the mid-grade one! I drained my clan's spirit stones, but I have no regrets!]
[Daoist(377.33): I was wondering where a five-element spiritual-root cultivator got spirit stones lol]
[Daoist(451.0): Great senior, I beg you to put up plenty of low-grade and mid-grade pills as well. I shall kowtow three times and pray for it.]
Every one of them was an earnest request for her to sell more Five Elements Pills.
Looking closely, every one of the clamoring replies was for either low-grade or mid-grade pills.
There was not a single voice asking for the high-grade or supreme-grade pills.
‘Well, what money could five-element spiritual-root cultivators possibly have?’
Anyone born with a five-element spiritual root was treated as an unwanted burden by both their clan and their sect.
With so little support, they had no choice but to be short on spirit stones.
The costly high-grade and supreme-grade pills were things they could not even dream of affording in the first place.
Thanks to that, Daoist(237.309) seemed to have swept up the supreme-grade and Danmun pills without any competition.
‘But there is more demand than I expected.’
In any case, if she put her mind to it, she could brew as many Five Elements Pills as she wanted.
Taking it as a chance to be generous, she figured she could brew and sell more the next time her spirit stones ran low.
Leaving the deluge of replies behind, she moved to the chatter board.
No sooner had she opened the board than a string of eye-catching posts appeared.
Every one of them was bait stirred up around her.
『Daoist(624.15): The Five Elements Pills look like Spirit Realm elixirs, but Danmun ones?』
[It makes no sense unless Daoist(913.14) is a True Immortal's avatar, yeah.]
└Daoist(553.24): Daoist(913.14) had always been exceptionally deep in observation and enlightenment.
└Daoist(88.4): Daoist(913.14) is certainly a veteran when it comes to deception, but the avatar theory is just speculation.
『Daoist(11.23): Why Daoist(913.14) isn't a True Immortal's avatar』
[Go look at the very first post. As a newborn Qi Refining cultivator, even the character count was tiny. If Daoist(913.14) were a True Immortal's avatar, there would never have been a problem with lacking spiritual energy to write in the first place. And if Daoist(913.14) had lost their memories, they would have written freely without knowing the restrictions. Therefore, the avatar theory makes no sense.]
[Daoist(88.4): Agreed. Looking at how they desperately sought attention in the early days, there's no way they were an avatar.]
The Danmun Five Elements Pill had reignited talk of Daoist(913.14) being a True Immortal's avatar.
But countless Daoists had watched Daoist(913.14)'s conduct from the very beginning.
Even as the debate raged back and forth, the opinion that Daoist(913.14) was not an avatar gradually grew dominant.
Baek Cheong merely watched at her leisure with her arms crossed.
‘If I step in and insist that I'm not, I'll only make myself look suspicious.’
It was not her place to intervene in the first place, and she had no good way to do so anyway.
The best course was to watch as though it were someone else's business.
More than anything, there was a strangely satisfying pleasure in watching her own story as though it belonged to someone else.
But her downward gaze stopped dead at one particular post.
『Daoist(443.88): But 913.14 is a realm number I've never seen before, isn't it?』
[Even when realm numbers overlapped or Daoists changed, only familiar realm numbers kept repeating. Haven't we ever seen a brand-new realm number suddenly appear before?]
[Daoist(8.1): Rare, but not unheard of.]
[Daoist(1.9): Even if a realm perishes because of the Dharma-ending age, a new Heavenly Dao is born and forms a new world, so it takes over an empty realm number.]
[Daoist(11.23): True, the Nameless Forum was created back in what was called the ancient era. If new realm numbers had kept appearing all this time, Daoist(38724.531613) would be what we were looking at by now.]
Every one of the Daoists who had replied was far from ordinary.
Daoists with single-digit realm numbers were so rare that one could rub one's eyes and still struggle to find one.
And now two such Daoists had appeared, casually discussing realm numbers as though it were nothing.
‘Is this bait about to get bigger?’
Baek Cheong watched with keen interest and found herself craving a snack.
At this rate, she would have no trouble enjoying forum browsing for a full half month.
‘I'll go to the east and finish watching it there.’
Since the alchemy was over, there was nothing holding her back.
She left the Nameless Forum, gathered up the jade bottles, and walked out of the alchemy room with light steps.
And the moment she crossed the threshold, she froze in place.
Xuanxu Perfected Person stood outside the door with his hands clasped behind his back.
“At last, your alchemy is finished.”
Xuanxu Perfected Person beamed as though he had been waiting for this moment.
“Alchemy is the sort of thing that goes awry if an outsider interferes. Thus, I have been waiting for you to finish.”
Baek Cheong felt a chill run through her entire body.
She had spent several days on the alchemy alone.
Could it be that he had been standing guard outside the door all this time?
‘When on earth did you get here...!’
Though she was screaming inwardly, she composed herself and bowed politely.
“I'm sorry to have kept you waiting.”
“Hoho, no need to apologize. My business happens to be wrapped up as well, so from today onward, I shall personally teach you formations—I mean, your grandfather shall.”
Her plan to lounge around comfortably and enjoy the Nameless Forum shattered before her eyes.
Yet she could not let her disgust show.
A Nascent Soul grand cultivator was offering to teach her personally. What could an insignificant Foundation Establishment cultivator possibly do but accept?
“...I will gratefully accept your instruction.”
Baek Cheong obediently lowered her head and meekly followed behind him.
Her resignation came so quickly because she had been through something similar before.
***
Xuanxu Perfected Person's residence was a detached courtyard attached to her second older brother's quarters.
The moment she stepped inside, Baek Cheong clicked her tongue inwardly.
The pillars, doorframes, and even the rafters were packed with talismanic characters.
As befitted a house inhabited by a walking formation, even the house itself was covered in formations.
Formation implements were arranged neatly in one corner of the spacious courtyard.
There were stakes, tiny banners, bundles of spirit stones, and even carving knives.
It looked as though he had prepared everything for the lesson long ago.
“There is an order even to instruction. I must first see how much you know before I can determine the path forward.”
Xuanxu Perfected Person pointed toward the center of the courtyard.
“There is no need to feel pressured. Just lay out what you know.”
Baek Cheong pondered for a moment in front of the implements.
She could not take out the Five-Element Banner she had obtained from the Nameless Forum.
And if she strung together the talismanic characters fluently according to the rules and deployed a formation, she would be treated as a monster beyond a genius.
The fact that she had used formations while in seclusion had already become known through her family.
So she only needed to show that much.
‘By the book, and unassuming.’
She dug into the courtyard soil and first prepared the locations for the formation eyes.
She buried spirit stones beneath each formation eye, then set up the stakes and banners one after another.
There was no need to calculate the routes along which the energy would flow.
The flow of spiritual energy circulating around the courtyard was plainly visible to her divine sense, so she quickly identified the positions.
Finally, she infused it with spiritual energy, and the formation quietly awakened.
The spiritual energy in the courtyard slowly began to circulate along the formation eyes.
It was a level of skill that would have left any ordinary formation master speechless.
But Xuanxu Perfected Person, who had been watching silently, opened his mouth.
“Your intuition is too exceptional, so your work is crude.”
Baek Cheong almost asked him to repeat himself.
‘Crude...?’
She was, after all, someone who could freely wield formations.
If he had called it praise, she might have understood, but this was the first time in her life she had heard anyone call her work crude.
When she merely blinked, half bemused and half curious, Xuanxu Perfected Person continued.
“You identified the locations where the energy flows based on intuition alone. That is a talent found in perhaps one person out of a hundred. But you rely on that talent and wield the formation glyphs carelessly.”
Xuanxu Perfected Person approached the courtyard and yanked out one of the stakes.
“Even the same formation glyph can have its efficacy vary severalfold depending on how it is wielded.”
He then traced the patterns engraved on the stake with his fingertip.
If the engraving was too shallow, the energy would skim across the surface, while if it was too deep, the energy would instead pool there.
He also explained that the channels through which energy entered and exited changed according to the order in which the strokes were drawn.
On top of that, the efficacy could live or die depending on whether the spacing between neighboring formation glyphs was tight or loose.
Every one of these techniques was something she was hearing for the first time.
“Thinking that good implements and plentiful spirit stones are all you need is the way of a low-level practitioner. A true formation master makes full use of even a single formation glyph.”
Xuanxu Perfected Person added a diagonal stroke atop the pattern on the stake.
Then he drove it back into the ground about half a handspan farther back than where Baek Cheong had placed it.
“This way, the formation glyph that drew in power also serves as a fence.”
No sooner had the stake settled into place than the spiritual energy in the courtyard visibly grew denser.
The implements were the same, and so were the spirit stones.
But the density of the circulating spiritual energy was entirely different.
Baek Cheong's eyes went round.
‘So this is the hard-earned experience of a quasi-fifth-realm formation master?’
If it was a matter of interpreting the meaning of the glyphs, she was clearly one step above him.
But what had unfolded before her eyes was a technique that lay beyond mere interpretation.
Perhaps that was because it was practical knowledge learned through centuries of trial and error.
Her expectation that this would be a boring study session had been thoroughly overturned.
‘More useful than I expected?’’