While traveling toward the outside, Yasenia's face was full of complaints. "Who even does that?"
The treasures laughed awkwardly at Yasenia's grumbles.
"Was your previous owner eager to make people do extra work needlessly? It doesn't even make sense!"
Sui Xing had no excuses, so he coughed lightly before speaking. "That… It might have a purpose."
"Yeah, it must." Yasenia smiled sarcastically. "He probably liked making people walk a lot back and forth."
The reason for Yasenia's anger was that once she read the formula for the pill, the other formulas etched on the rest of the houses were hidden away. So, following that method, Yasenia would need to go back and forth several times to get all the herbs she was lacking.
Soluna chuckled. "Well, since you are going out, it would be nice to get a stock of herbs you encounter on the way, right? That way, you have a chance of luckily collecting the herbs for the next one."
Yasenia sighed and shook her head. "Sui Xing said that there are over a hundred of them just in the 500,000 area. Randomly picking some of them up has a one percent chance of being part of the next formula. What I can do is take extra of the types that this pill is made out of. Probably, the five pills have things in common. So, stocking the same materials will reduce my journey time between them."
Dramel chuckled when she heard Yasenia's voice. While she was talking calmly, there was still some annoyance in her voice. She spoke lightly. "Well, at least you have a map that you didn't have before. Otherwise, searching blindly for them would be a nightmare!"
Yasenia nodded at that comment. After she read the pill formula, Yasenia noticed a map appearing on the plain wooden door. That map was a circular map of the entire garden. In this garden, Yasenia could see countless light spots, pointing at where each plant was located.
So, after memorizing the map and locating herself and the directions, Yasenia was able to travel straight to the plants that she needed to craft the [Star Limb Pill]. The two spiritual herbs Yasenia needed were called [Star Arm Rose] and [Star Leg Orchid]. They were the core of the pill's formula, and plants that, eaten by themselves, could strengthen the arms or legs of those who ate them.
They were true treasures that many would covet.
Even then, Yasenia didn't really find them attractive enough to risk her life. Of course, it was different now that she needed them to complete the pill formula to get the garden.
"Hm…" Looking around, Yasenia jumped out of the stone path and traveled in a straight line toward the distance. As she moved quickly, her dark mantle covering her body, Yasenia encountered some attacks from the half-million-year-old plants. Thankfully, her strength was well above theirs, so she just needed to swing Draheart as she traversed the garden lightly.
Roots were cut everywhere she passed, but Yasenia didn't flinch. 'Hm… An hour at this speed should do the trick.'
Her current speed was near her limits, so she couldn't accelerate much more without getting too tired.
An hour later, Yasenia arrived at the place where the flowers were. Thankfully, while these two were different spiritual herbs, they grew nearby. The reason was that, since their effects were complementary, their plants were as well. So, growing them together would result in better quality herbs than growing them separately.
In the distance, Yasenia observed two tall white flowers. The white rose had a large number of stalks, each connected to one petal of the rose. Similarly, the orchid's many stalks are also connected with the petals instead of the central area.
Yasenia looked at the two flowers and blinked her eyes. "They look so odd…"
When she spoke, the two flowers noticed her, and a barrage of attacks went her way. Yasenia lightly swung Draheart at ridiculous speeds, cutting all the branches that approached ten meters in her vicinity. "Hm… Their strength is not bad at all. An average Level 1 Transcendent person with an Intent Domain would probably die during this barrage of attacks."
Still, it was far from enough for Yasenia, who had the ability to fight cultivators far beyond her cultivation realm. With light steps, Yasenia approached the rose first. As she approached, the one getting nervous was not the rose but the orchid. It felt like a partner trying to protect their close one with their all.
"Don't worry, I'll pluck you later as well, so calmly come into my spatial ring."
Yasenia said something villain-like calmly and then got to work. With movements guided by the manual on how to pluck the rose, Yasenia slowly cut it from the ground.
"It's annoying that the orchid is still attacking me. Well, without the rose's support, the strength and energy of its attacks are quite lacking; my tail is more than enough to defend myself."
So, systematically, Yasenia took off the flowers from their roots and placed them into her spatial ring. "Great."
A smile appeared on her lips, satisfied with her work. "Thankfully, there is no one who came to bother me!"
"Hey! Who goes there?"
Yasenia started sweating. "[Celestial Intent Domain]!"
Her body merged with the space around her, disappearing from sight. Right after, a bunch of people arrived, attracted by Yasenia and the herb's battle.
"They escaped?"
"Yeah, it was only one person with a dark mantle."
"...Hm? Isn't that the mysterious woman who opened the garden?"
"Was it? From what I know, there are quite a few people with mantles, right?"
"Yeah, but I can easily distinguish her because her mantle is of much higher quality than the others. The craftsmanship on it is sublime."
Yasenia, who listened to their conversation, smiled wryly. 'Evelyn, dear, your craftsmanship has made my mantle recognizable. Would you be proud or sad that a mantle to hide my presence is recognized?'
Thinking of her mischievous dear, Yasenia could already see her boast while puffing her chest and grinning at her. As she recalled Evelyn's lively expressions, Yasenia's eyes softened and her lips arched. "... I really miss her silliness."
How much she wanted to hug her mischievous dear and shower her face with kisses? Sadly, she couldn't.
"Sigh."
After listening for a little while longer and not earning any new information, Yasenia stepped away and exited the Celestial Intent Domain. "While I can hide perfectly there, it's still very complicated to gauge distance while traveling within it. Speaking of which… Where am I?"
Looking around her, Yasenia tried to recall the map she saw and find a resemblance. "Hm… Ah. Isn't that a [Burning Skydaisy]? Then… Right, this way there should be more [Star Arm Roses] and [Star Leg Orchids]."
While traveling and gathering a few sets of plants, Sui Xing asked Yasenia curiously. "By the way, Yasenia. Will you eat the pill? While it might strengthen your limbs, your current body is in such perfect balance and harmony that you might become destabilized and weaker despite gaining strength."
Yasenia chuckled. "There is no need to worry. My constitution, [Yin and Yang Celestial Body], spreads all localized effects all around my body evenly. So, even if I eat a pill to strengthen my pinky to insane levels, my body will deconstruct and share that strength throughout my entire body evenly."
"Wow." Sui Xing was genuinely impressed. "That's a really powerful effect. You are truly someone with many hidden cards and worthy of being called a genius."
"It has its drawbacks," Yasenia admitted. "Before I reached Transcendence, my lust was always out of control. How much I would've suffered if I didn't have my family members to quench my thirst constantly is not something I can overstate enough."
Sui Xing hummed. "Right. Since that balances everything, your accumulated Yin and Yang essences would grow laterally. The quantity, searching to transform into higher quality, would need an outside source to push it over a certain age. Until then, your body would accumulate the same-level Yin and Yang energies, making you hopelessly aroused as if in heat."
"Yes." Yasenia smiled. "Now I don't have that problem because I can control my body to the degree of telling it to focus on one for a little while and create the imbalance I previously needed outside sources for."
Yasenia returned to the central area while talking, always trying to hide her presence as much as possible. Since the path was serpentine and far from straight, the dragoness couldn't really use her Celestial Intent Domain. "If I had better control over it, I wouldn't need to be worried, sigh."
Soluna cheered her up. "You are already plenty strong! Don't put yourself down!"
"No." Yasenia shook her head. "I am far from being strong. I can't relax until…" The dragoness paused and sighed. "I just can't relax. No conditions attached."
Soluna pouted. "You can relax! And if you can't…" Soluna giggled. "I will drag you to bed and relax you!"
Yasenia chuckled and walked in front of the house that needed to evaluate her pill. "Alright, let's start. To craft a Transcendence-ranked pill, I need to use all my focus. So… Soluna, Draheart, Dramel. Come out and guard me."
All three of them materialized in their humanoid forms. Dramel and Draheart couldn't really fight in that state yet outside of Yasenia's soul. Still, if it was for appearances, it was not difficult. If someone came to bother Yasenia, Draheart and Dramel could always revert to their weapon forms and fight on their own.
After summoning a wide wooden table, Yasenia took out some basic alchemy tools like a herb-essence extractor and others, and then started to work. Her hand movements were fluid, and her energy flowed through her agile fingers as she manipulated the herbs.
The key to creating a pill was, first and obviously, to follow the steps for it. Beyond that, the quality of essence extraction and control of fire were the most important. To create the [Star Limb Pill], Yasenia first threw a few auxiliary herbs into the cauldron and ignited an Alchemy Fire below it.
The herbs began burning, dripping with essence that touched the bottom of the cauldron. Yasenia lightly manipulated the essence to coat the lower part of the cauldron.
As the flow of energy changed the temperature all around the cauldron, Yasenia's hands slowly extracted the pure essence of the hardest pills and separated them into different glass containers that could retain their pure energy.
After she was done with half of them, Yasenia threw them into the cauldron and placed the lid on it. Right after, the alchemy fire roared to life, enveloping over half of the cauldron. Inside, the auxiliary herbs that had yet to melt were slowly evaporating, impure and pure gases appearing at the same time.
Using her spiritual sense, she separated them and slowly transformed the materials, mixing them to form the pill. Yasenia's eyes were focused, but inside, she was slightly worried. 'This will take a while… I hope I don't get too entangled and end up lost.'