Chapter 142
“At last, it’s finished!”
In the middle of the personal pill refining room, Baek Cheong thrust a jade bottle high into the air.
Inside were three 1st-Grade Inscribed Realm-Breaking Pills.
It was her first time refining a pill comparable to an upper 1st-Grade Pill, so there had naturally been some trial and error.
Perhaps it was thanks to all the pill refining she had observed while wandering around the Biun Sect’s Pill Refining Peak.
Or perhaps she had somehow gained experience herself while giving everyone else advice.
Either way, she soon found the knack and succeeded in making them.
‘I’d like to make more, but…’
If she refined here any more, the black clouds filling the sky would look ready to drop a heavenly Tribulation on her head.
So she had no choice but to stop her pill refining here.
‘This should be more than enough to reach great perfection.’
Baek Cheong tucked the jade bottle into her Storage Platform with satisfaction.
With that, the pills she would use to break through realms were ready.
Only one preparation remained.
She immediately headed for her uncle’s residence.
“Uncle! I’m here to collect what you promised me!”
Her uncle, who had been going through account books in the study, first let out a long sigh.
“You little thing. You’re no different from a debt collector.”
Despite saying that, her uncle rummaged through his Storage Platform without complaint.
A moment later, five differently colored golems stood lined up in the middle of the study.
It was the long-awaited 2nd Tier Five Elements Golem.
Compared to the 1st tier puppetry, they were a full head taller, and their frames were far sturdier.
Perhaps thanks to the spirit stones inside them, spiritual energy flowed through every joint without the slightest obstruction; even at a glance, they were on another level.
“Whoa…”
“Yuk-muk put a great deal of effort into these. They are high-quality even among 2nd tier puppetry, so do not handle them too roughly.”
“Yes! Uncle, you really are the best!”
“You certainly love calling me the best. That is what emptied out the Merchant Guild’s storehouse.”
Her uncle grumbled, but he could not hide the smile tugging at his lips.
Baek Cheong reverently stored the 2nd Tier Five Elements Golem in her Storage Platform.
With pills and puppetry both prepared, everything was ready for her secluded cultivation.
Now all she had to do was wait for the cave abode to be completed.
And only a few days later, welcome news arrived.
* * *
“The cave abode is complete. Come, let us go see it together.”
Baek Cheong had barely finished paying her morning respects when father rose from his seat.
After they left the clan head’s hall, father held out his hand.
When she took it, her body floated lightly into the air.
The Pavilions below grew distant beneath her feet, and the clouds drew so close they seemed about to brush her fingertips.
Soon, a peak with a belt of clouds wrapped around its waist came into view.
‘There are more than enough clouds here.’
Thinking that the cloud spirit Pearl in her Storage Platform would not go hungry, she felt inwardly pleased.
But where exactly was the cave abode?
Even as they flew, Baek Cheong kept looking around.
When she thought of a cave abode, the first thing that naturally came to mind was a cave dug into a mountainside.
Even the cultivation room on the clan’s Back Mountain, which she had entered before, had a stone door at the end of labyrinth-like tunnels.
‘…Is this a cave abode?’
But when she actually landed on the peak, the scene before her was entirely different.
The summit had been broadly leveled.
A tiled annex stood at its center.
Around the annex lay a charming little garden, thick with spirit-infused flowers, plants, and fruit trees.
With every breath she took, spiritual energy curled sweetly over her tongue and made its tip tingle.
On top of that, she could feel an enormous power deep beneath her feet.
When she extended her Divine Sense slightly, she found a current like a silver river coiling around the entire peak.
“Your Dantian is so peculiar that, while its size is like a vast sea, I was concerned about your meridians. So I had a quasi-2nd-grade spiritual vein transplanted here.”
Father spoke as he walked ahead.
“Thanks to that, spiritual energy pools throughout the entire peak. Even walking around the courtyard will allow you to perform Qi Absorption.”
“Is th-this really my cave abode?”
“Yes. What do you think? Do you like it?”
The question felt almost absurd.
Instead of answering, Baek Cheong simply opened her mouth and nodded.
The inside of the annex was even more astonishing than the outside.
No sooner had she crossed the threshold behind father than his explanation continued.
“The interior was built to withstand even 2nd tier techniques and spells. Neither the walls nor the floor will take so much as a scratch. So you may practice your practice your techniques without worry.”
Baek Cheong inwardly clicked her tongue in amazement.
At the very least, she would not have to worry about damaging the cave abode while handling her flying sword.
Before long, the pill refining room appeared along the corridor.
A gleaming pill furnace stood there, rows of medicine cabinets lined the room, and every drawer was packed full of medicinal ingredients.
In the study opposite, the bookshelf was filled with books and jade slips.
There were all kinds of fields: pill refining, formation, talisman crafting, and more.
‘I could shut myself in here for days just looking through all this.’
While Baek Cheong stared around wide-eyed, father opened the door to a room deep inside.
A hazy aura rushed out through the crack in the door.
Inside the room, spiritual energy hung as thick as mist.
“I installed a Spirit Gathering Formation directly connected to the spiritual vein. If you perform Qi Absorption here, the amount you absorb should increase severalfold.”
The spiritual energy was so dense that the outside courtyard could not compare.
Just standing there, she felt as though spiritual energy were forcing its way in through every pore.
Her little chest was already fluttering with the urge to settle down right away.
Then she noticed the bed placed to one side of the room.
It was a large bed with a dark jade sheen.
“If you grow tired while training, sleep there. It is a bed carved from a single block of profound jade. Even lying down and sleeping on it will help fill your Dantian.”
‘Sleeping counts as training?’
Baek Cheong wondered if she had heard wrong. This was beyond imagination.
To think such a dreamlike bed existed in the world.
When she lightly placed a hand on it, a cool energy seeped into her palm through the smooth feel of the jade.
As they stepped back out into the courtyard, father added another explanation.
“Also, before raising the cave abode, I called in a geomancer to examine the terrain.”
“A geomancer?”
“They said the geomantic lay of this peak is exquisite. Even without laying down a formation, it naturally hides this place from outside eyes. Neither I nor even the old Ancestor will be able to carelessly peer inside.”
Without realizing it, Baek Cheong looked around.
To the naked eye, the terrain seemed ordinary, but there seemed to be some principle at work that she did not understand.
And wherever her gaze fell, formation glyphs shimmered faintly.
The guard formations surrounding the courtyard and the formations wrapped around the pavilion were each as excellent as the formation in the Training Room on the clan’s Back Mountain.
In other words, after layering formations of that caliber upon one another, they had also used the terrain to conceal them once more.
Once she grasped that much, she was left dazed.
Needless to say, rogue cultivators could not enjoy such a training environment, and likely even most heavenly talents from sects could not either.
‘I thought a cave abode was just supposed to be like a cave…’
Then again, she had never actually had the chance to see an intact cave abode before.
She had seen father’s and grandfather’s cave abodes, but every one of them had been half-wrecked after a heavenly Tribulation swept through.
This was the first time in her life she had seen a cave abode that was not merely intact, but luxuriously furnished.
‘Long live the privileged! Long, long live the privileged!’
After inwardly shouting three cheers, Baek Cheong looked up at father.
“Father! I’ll devote myself only to training here!”
When she boldly declared that, father smiled with satisfaction and stroked her head.
“Good. And if you find yourself lacking any ingredients while doing pill refining, tell me how much you need.”
“Yes!”
“I have also stocked plenty of Bigu pills inside. They were made with 1st-grade Jade Bee Honey, spirit beast meat, and spirit fruit, so they should be more than enough to sustain you. If they do not suit your palate, you need only say so. I will have warm food sent up for every meal.”
‘A meal tray for every meal during secluded cultivation.’
Baek Cheong barely held back the laughter that threatened to slip out.
If the rogue cultivator on the Nameless Forum heard this, they would weep.
There were plenty of complaint posts from people saying they survived a week on half a Bigu pill.
“Thank you, father!”
“Devote yourself diligently. But do not cling to it so hard that you harm your body.”
Only after giving that final reminder did father turn away.
His robes seemed to catch the wind, and then his figure vanished beyond the clouds.
Following father’s instructions, Baek Cheong poured spiritual energy into the formation eye at the entrance.
Then the door to the cave abode closed smoothly without a sound.
No sooner had the door closed than a tranquil silence descended over the peak.
“Hehe…”
Baek Cheong let out the laughter she had been holding back all this time and stretched her arms wide.
There were no maidservants, no elders, and no formal greetings.
The summit of a peak where there was no one to watch her belonged wholly to her.
Feeling a strange sense of liberation, she thought that secluded cultivation might not be so bad after all.
‘Then, before I begin training in earnest… should I just take a quick peek?’
As it happened, the righteous-Demonic debate on the Nameless Forum was entering its final stages.
The bait that had once blazed so fiercely now had only a few faint embers left.
[Dao friend(45.88): Hah, forget it. I was wrong to argue with someone like you.]
└Dao friend(32.248): Fine. Go live your whole life like that.
└Dao friend(284.7): Is it finally over? Good work, both of you. Now piss off.
After becoming thoroughly sick of one another, they were fizzling out and scattering.
Instead, a new piece of bait was rising.
“Dao friend(77.31): Why do those bald monks keep telling everyone to take refuge?”
[They’re out there recruiting everyone, mortals and immortals alike, telling them to take refuge. Something about how anyone who takes refuge joins their ranks and gains eternal life.]
[Dao friend(208.5): You’ll be in serious trouble if you believe that.]
[Dao friend(112.40): Buddhist cultivators (Buddhist cultivators) are more evil than those on the righteous path or the demonic path.]
The battle that had been fought over the righteous path and the demonic path had somehow shifted into an attack on Buddhist cultivators.
‘Fresh bait is impossible to resist.’
Baek Cheong popped a Bigu pill into her mouth and hopped onto the Profound Jade Bed.
When she lay down on her back, cool energy seeped into her through the feel of jade.
The energy soon became spiritual energy and rolled straight into her Dantian.
Sure enough, it was a bed that filled the Dantian even when she was only lying down.
‘Father said even sleeping on it counts as training.’
In that case, browsing the forum while lying down counted as training too.
The bed would fill her Dantian, and she would browse the forum.
‘Now this is training.’
Thus, Baek Cheong devoted herself to browsing the forum with a clear conscience.