Chapter 141
“Uh, what do I do?”
Baek-cheong’s mind went blank, and only her eyes darted around.
It was already far too late to deny it.
After all, there was no denying that she had passed those pills off as ones refined by Yak-seon at the arbor in Cheong Un pavilion and happily sold them off.
“W-well… Grandfather Yak-seon.”
She barely managed to speak, her voice shrinking into itself.
“The pills sold so well that I just…”
Even to her own ears, it was a pitiful excuse.
Baek-cheong quietly hunched her shoulders and squeezed her eyes shut.
She felt certain a fierce scolding would come flying at her at any moment.
But unexpectedly, what slipped from Yak-seon’s lips was a kindly chuckle.
“Heh heh.”
When she cautiously opened one eye, Yak-seon’s face had already softened into a benevolent smile.
“It is fine. Even before this, word had already reached me that you had turned Biun Sect’s Pill Refining Peak upside down.”
“…Pardon?”
“They say you lined up famed alchemists and instructed them one after another.”
Yak-seon stroked down his beard, his eyes narrowing with amusement.
If anything, he looked plainly pleased.
“After causing such a commotion at Pill Refining Peak, what point is there now in hiding a few bottles of pills from Cheong Un pavilion?”
Baek-cheong only blinked, unable to understand.
“You may use this old man’s name as much as you like. Rather, claiming I refined them is better for you and for the clan.”
“Can I really do that?”
“It is not a skill that can be hidden simply by trying. It will reveal itself little by little regardless, and that cannot be helped.”
Yak-seon waved a hand as if it were nothing at all.
Only then did Baek-cheong’s rigid shoulders slowly loosen.
She had braced herself, certain she would be scolded harshly.
Instead, what she received was closer to praise than reprimand, leaving her utterly bewildered.
“Um… then I’m not in trouble?”
When she asked while carefully watching his expression, Yak-seon put on a deliberately stern face.
“Shall I scold you, then?”
“N-no!”
As Baek-cheong frantically shook her head, Yak-seon burst into hearty laughter again.
“Even while I was in seclusion, you took it upon yourself to polish your pill refining. If anything, that is commendable.”
“Gok-cheon, you turn terribly soft whenever Cheong-yi is involved.”
Grandfather, who had been silently watching the two from the seat of honor, added his laughter.
“Mu-ae, you yourself are no different.”
Grandfather and Grandfather Yak-seon exchanged warm banter.
Soon, grandfather turned his gaze to her.
“Cheong-ah.”
“Yes, grandfather.”
“That is not the only reason I called you here today.”
Grandfather continued in a gentle manner.
“I hear you will soon enter seclusion.”
“Yes. I plan to begin as soon as matters in the Eastern Region are settled.”
“With your talent, reaching foundation establishment during this seclusion should not be difficult.”
Up to that point, his voice was filled with nothing but satisfaction.
But his next words carried a subtle weight.
“However, there is one matter that weighs on my mind.”
Grandfather’s gaze briefly lowered toward her Dantian.
“I speak of the savage spiritual root lurking deep within your Dantian.”
Baek-cheong quietly closed her mouth.
He was talking about the unification latent spirit root coiled deep within her Dantian.
Only Yak-seon, grandfather, and father knew of the savage spiritual root that gnawed away, little by little, at the nourishment of her Five Elements Spirit Root.
“As you raise your realm, I fear that savage spiritual root may run wild again. Has it caused you no trouble in ordinary times?”
Baek-cheong could not answer right away, her lips merely parted and closed.
In truth, when it came to the latent spirit root, she knew more than grandfather did.
She knew what the savage spiritual root truly was, and she knew that all she had to do was faithfully suppress it every month with Inscribed Attribute Pills.
All of it was something she had learned thanks to a dao friend on the Nameless Forum.
But she could not lay that out honestly.
There was no way she could say that some dao friend whose name and face she did not know had told her.
Besides, saying too much would likely only add needless worry for grandfather.
“I’m fine. I’m managing it well with pills.”
Baek-cheong smiled brightly and pretended it was nothing serious.
At that, Yak-seon took a small jade box from his robe and held it out to her.
“I made this during my seclusion.”
When she opened the jade box, a single pill sat neatly inside, shimmering faintly with five colors.
“I named it the Five Elements Latent-Sealing Pill. If, by any chance, that savage spiritual root erupts, swallow this without delay.”
“Five Elements Latent-Sealing Pill?”
“It will bolster your Five Elements Spirit Root and allow it to resist the savage spiritual root for a short while.”
Yak-seon’s expression grew far more serious.
“But remember this. It will only buy you time.”
“Yes.”
“In the end, your life and death will depend on how you control it. You must never rest easy simply because you have a single pill to rely on.”
Beside him, grandfather nodded heavily as well.
“It would be best if we could remain by your side and protect you, but secluded cultivation is something one undertakes alone. Gok-cheon put no small amount of effort into making it.”
As Baek-cheong accepted the jade box, she tilted her head slightly inward.
'Aren’t both of them overthinking this a bit?’
The latent spirit root had long since been obediently suppressed with pills.
All this talk of life and death did not really hit home.
But she soon reconsidered.
Grandfather was a golden core cultivator who had reached the Half-Immortal Realm.
As for Grandfather Yak-seon, he was an alchemist who had crossed two whole grades to reach 5th grade.
Both were cultivators who had stepped into realms she could not even begin to fathom.
Perhaps they could see things she had failed to notice.
Once her thoughts reached that point, the complaint hovering on her lips disappeared completely.
More than anything, both of them were sincerely worried for her.
For no particular reason, a spot in her small chest seemed to warm.
Baek-cheong clasped the jade box tightly in both hands and bowed her head respectfully.
“Thank you, grandfather. You too, Grandfather Yak-seon. I’ll keep it firmly in mind.”
Only then did the heavy mood ease.
Grandfather smiled in satisfaction and stroked her head.
Yak-seon, too, returned to his benevolent manner and stroked down his beard.
After that, they chatted quietly, catching up after so long apart.
They talked about how Yak-seon had spent his seclusion and what she had seen and heard on her trip.
By the time they finished talking, the sun was already high in the sky.
* * *
After returning to her abode, Baek-cheong quietly stared at the jade box.
The Five Elements Latent-Sealing Pill, faintly glowing with five colors, still sat prettily within.
'Well, I doubt I’ll ever need to use it.’
It was a precious pill, so there was no harm in keeping it safe.
She tucked the jade box into her Storage Platform.
Then she plopped down on the bed, moved her Divine Sense, and connected to the Nameless Forum.
After just one day, familiar posts had appeared one after another on the Nameless Forum.
The righteous-Demonic debate still showed no sign of cooling.
Only, its tone had changed from before.
The argument had dragged on for so long that the participants, no longer content with picking at one another’s flaws, were now veering into personal attacks.
[Dao friend(45.88): By that logic, aren’t all those righteous path bastards hypocrites?]
└Dao friend(32.248): A demonic path lackey is running his mouth.
└Dao friend(284.7): Looks like both of them have rocks in their heads instead of spiritual roots.
Unlike at the start, when they had still been arguing right and wrong, now it looked like a contest to see who could hurl the better insult.
Even though she was technically the one who had lit the fire, she could not get into it.
“Ugh, this is too childish to watch.”
At this point, even the Nameless Forum felt stale.
Baek-cheong left the Nameless Forum without the slightest regret.
It was about time to prepare for secluded cultivation.
Every time she raised her realm, the wall in her Dantian blocked her path.
Most cultivators ran into the wall of a minor realm only rarely.
But for her, a wall just as thick appeared without fail every time she advanced by one star.
It was because her spiritual root and Dantian had strangely changed due to five elements mutual generation.
Others could tear such walls down with relative ease even without realm-Breaking pills.
Baek-cheong, however, had to struggle every time.
“If I take a realm-Breaking pill, the problem is the pill toxin…”
Her thoughts reached that point, and Baek-cheong suddenly paused.
After thinking it over carefully, she realized pill toxin did not have to be a headache at all.
The Dust Cleansing Pill she had received from Biun Sect would wash the pill toxin clean away.
No, there was no need to bring up the Dust-Cleansing pill in the first place.
She only had to refine a 1st-Grade Inscribed Realm-Breaking Pill with the inscription worked in from the start.
Pills engraved with inscriptions contained no pill toxin.
'No, why didn’t I think of this sooner?’
Time and again, those thick walls had held her back and left her groaning.
Yet she had never even thought of the simplest solution.
Because she was caught up in her trip and putting it off day after day, the idea simply had not occurred to her.
“There was no need to agonize over it.”
Baek-cheong rapped herself lightly on the head and sprang up from her seat.
Her steps toward the pill refining room felt wonderfully light.
For the record, realm-Breaking pills existed across all grades.
However, in terms of difficulty, they were troublesome pills that ranked near the top of their grade.
On top of that, if she wanted to engrave an inscription, she had no choice but to refine it herself from beginning to end without relying on puppetry.
But she was planning to hole up in the Eastern Region anyway, cultivate, and indulge in forum-surfing.
With the Nameless Forum in the middle of a stale topic anyway, working hard for a little while was no big deal.
“Oh, right.”
On her way to the pill refining room, she remembered the matter of puppetry, which she had forgotten.
When she had fought a Foundation Establishment cultivator in the Cloud Sea Secret Realm, even Baek-roe, the sturdiest of them, had ended up with a crack in its torso.
Clearly, the 1st Tier Five Elements Golem had its limits.
“I should get the 2nd-tier Five Elements Golem from uncle.”
Only then did she remember the 2nd Tier Five Elements Golem that was supposed to have been completed long ago.
It would be better to receive it from uncle before starting secluded cultivation.
Cultivation, pills, and even puppetry.
As she thought through each thing she needed to prepare, excitement welled up on its own.
“Now this is cultivating immortality.”
In high spirits, Baek-cheong pulled open the door to the pill refining room.
And so, one by one, she began making every preparation before entering seclusion.