The experience rush from killing the wraith hit Alexei like a dopamine hammer. His level counter, visible only to him in the corner of his vision, jumped from 12 to 31 in one massive surge.
That guy was worth nineteen levels? he thought, staring at the number.
Then reality set in: he had a crafting table sitting on the ground, along with scattered wooden sticks and planks left over from making his shield and sword. And he had no way to carry any of it back.
His inventory was full of iron ingots and other materials. The crafted items wouldn't fit.
After a moment of consideration, he used Deconstruction and started breaking everything back down. The crafting table dissolved into planks. The sword and shield reverted to iron ingots. The wooden materials he just dropped on the ground.
He'd tested this before: MC-ified items that dropped would disappear after about eight hours if not picked up. Regular non-MC items stayed forever. It was a weird quirk of how the system worked, but useful for cleanup.
"We should go," Qingxue said quietly.
Her hand found his and squeezed gently. There was tension in that grip. She'd nearly lost him because she'd underestimated the enemy. The wraith had gotten way too close. Only the fact that Alexei's weapons could apparently damage spiritual entities had saved him.
He squeezed back, then pulled his hand free and looked around the clearing. Something felt wrong. Like he was forgetting a crucial step.
"Oh."
"What is it?" Qingxue asked.
"The loot," Alexei said, already starting to search the area. "We killed the guy. We should loot the body."
Qingxue blinked at him. "Loot the...?"
"We should check the corpse for valuables and take his stuff."
He was already scanning the ground, looking for where the corpse had fallen. "He was some kind of grandson of a sect elder, right? He's got to be carrying valuable shit."
Qingxue looked confused by this line of thinking, like the concept of searching a dead enemy's belongings had never occurred to her.
Alexei stopped and stared at her. "You've never done this before."
"I... have not had many opportunities for combat," she said carefully.
"This is how protagonists in stories get rich! They kill someone, take their stuff, use that stuff to get stronger, kill bigger enemies, take their stuff. It's a whole cycle!"
"Uh…" Qingxue hesitated a little. Killing someone and taking their treasures, she really hadn't done that before and wasn't very familiar with it… Mainly because she'd never had the chance.
Cultivators in the Eastern Region were poor, every last one of them. Their pockets were cleaner than their faces.
More than 99.9% of cultivators couldn't even afford the lowest-grade storage pouch, which was worth five mid-grade spirit stones. The only things they carried were a few bottles of healing pills meant for mortal martial artists, most of them already used and basically worthless.
Frankly, it was rather off-putting.
"Don't you want to know why they were chasing you? Maybe there's a clue on the body."
That got her attention. Her confusion gave way to consideration. She'd been wondering about the Ghost Sect's interest in her. Why they'd sent someone specifically to hunt her down.
"I suppose there's logic to that. And he did try to kill us. It would be foolish to leave potential clues about why they were hunting me. Alright, let's look."
She extended her spiritual sense, sweeping the area. Within seconds, she'd located the corpse, or what was left of it.
They found it impaled on a tree branch about fifty meters from where they'd been standing.
The sight was impressively gruesome.
The body had been cut into pieces by her finishing sword strikes, then fallen from several hundred meters up. The lower half had landed on a thick branch, legs spread, in a position that made Alexei wince sympathetically.
The branch had snapped from the impact, leaving the dried-out corpse dangling at an angle.
"That looks painful."
"He was already dead."
"I know, but still. That's just... unfortunate positioning."
He stepped closer, trying not to look directly at the more disturbing parts of the scene. Death didn't bother him much anymore, he'd died enough times himself that corpses had lost their horror. But there was something viscerally uncomfortable about this particular death that transcended logic.
He reached out to touch the corpse, focusing his MC-ification ability on it.
Nothing happened.
Huh. Can't assimilate human bodies, apparently. He wiped his hand on his robe, trying to shake off the feeling of touching dead flesh. Either that or I don't have enough experience.
Qingxue was already using her sword to search through the corpse's clothing. She cut through fabric without damaging what lay beneath. A moment later, a gray cloth pouch floated up from the remains, dangling from the sword's tip.
"Storage pouch," Alexei identified immediately.
This one was way nicer than Qingxue's, decorated with pearl tassels and made from expensive-looking material. Probably cost a fortune.
Qingxue nodded and formed a hand seal. Light rippled along her sword. The storage pouch shuddered, then burst open in a shower of items that piled up on the ground in front of them.
Clothes, bottles, miscellaneous objects... The pile was over a meter high.
Alexei's eyes went wide.
Too bad about the storage pouch itself getting destroyed. Those things cost five mid-grade spirit stones according to Qingxue, which converted to about five hundred gold taels. A fortune by itself.
"When the owner dies, the soul imprint inside breaks down," Qingxue explained, seeing his disappointed expression. "The formation circuits destabilize. Eventually the pouch tears itself apart. So far, there's no way to salvage it."
Sounds like planned obsolescence to me, Alexei thought. They design it so customers have no choice but to keep buying new ones.
He had reason to suspect that the inventor of storage pouches had done this deliberately, though he had no proof.
He crouched down and started examining the pile of loot.
First item his hand landed on: a white jade bottle, small and elegant.
Information flooded his mind the moment he touched it.
[Peach Blossom Pastry]
"Peach Blossom Pastry?" He turned the bottle over. There was a paper label on the back with the pill's name written in characters that looked similar to Russian Cyrillic but weren't quite the same. "Huh. Sounds like a dessert."
He was about to open it when Qingxue's hand pressed down on his, stopping him.
"That's not for you," she said, and was that a slight flush on her cheeks?
"Why not?"
"Trust me. Give me the bottle."
Something in her tone made him hand it over without arguing. He grabbed another bottle instead, this one blue and thumb-sized.
[Great Buddha Rod]
"Great Buddha Rod? What kind of pill has a name like—"
"Drop it!" Qingxue slapped the bottle out of his hand, sending it flying into a tree trunk ten meters away where it embedded itself into the bark.
Alexei stared at her. "Was that really necessary?"
Her face had gone distinctly red now.
He picked up two more bottles, reading the names as information filtered into his mind.
"Silk-Leading Powder. Dripping Compassion. And... Spring-Heart Pill? Dreamy Spring Companion Elixir?"
Qingxue started knocking bottles out of his hands before he could even finish reading the names.
"Fierce Maiden Hundred Charms? Iron-Staff Golden Spear?"
He finally caught on when Qingxue missed one and he tossed it away himself, suddenly understanding exactly what kind of pills these were.
"Oh. Oh." He looked at the pile of colorful bottles, almost as tall as he was. "These are all..."
"Yes," Qingxue said quietly.
"That explains why the guy looked half-dead. If he was using this much..." Alexei shook his head. "Even Dwayne Johnson would look like a skeleton after this kind of regiment."
"Who?"
"Never mind. Point is, this guy had serious problems."
Qingxue was already going through the pile more carefully, face still flushed, using her sword to sort items from a distance so she wouldn't have to touch most of them.
After several minutes of increasingly embarrassing discoveries, she finally found something useful:
Three bottles of Ninth-Grade Muscle-and-Bone Pills, nine bottles of Ninth-Grade Qi-Gathering Pills, two bottles of Eighth-Grade Vitality-Enhancing Pills, one bottle of Seventh-Grade Life-Restoring Pills, 353 low-grade spirit stones, 12 mid-grade spirit stones, various unidentified spirit herbs, 13 communication talismans, two Mystic-grade magical treasures... both clearly designed for evil cultivation practices.
"That's a decent haul," Alexei said, eyeing the spirit stones. "How much can you buy with twelve mid-grade stones?"
"Quite a lot in the Eastern Territories," Qingxue said. "Most cultivators here never see that many in their entire lives."
Before they could discuss further, her expression hardened. She turned and unleashed several massive sword strikes, each one over ten meters of concentrated frost energy that tore across the clearing. The remaining pile of inappropriate items, along with the unfortunate corpse still impaled on its tree branch, was reduced to dust and scattered on the wind.
"Wait," Alexei said, catching a glint of light in the debris. "There's something—"
A blue glowing object tumbled through the air, knocked loose by the sword strikes. It embedded itself in another tree trunk.
Qingxue retrieved it: a smooth, semi-transparent pearl about the size of a marble, glowing with internal blue light.
She examined it carefully, clearly trying to identify what it was and failing.
Alexei touched it.
[Soul-Anchor Pearl]
"It's called a Soul-Anchor Pearl," he said. "No idea what it does beyond that."
Qingxue shook her head. "I don't recognize it either. But if it was important enough for him to carry, it's worth keeping. We can research it later."
She tucked the pearl away and they prepared to leave. But first, one more detour, back to where they'd left Bessie tied to a tree, peacefully grazing.
"You are the most chill cow in existence," Alexei told her while retying her lead to the sword.
"Moo," Bessie agreed, chewing grass.
---
The rest of the flight passed without incident.
Less than half an hour later, Qingxue's voice took on a note of excitement: "We're here!"
Alexei looked where she was pointing.
He squinted, using the moonlight to make out details. There, at the peak of the mountain, was a small cluster of buildings that looked more like a rustic village than anything else. Maybe twenty or thirty brick houses of varying sizes. Some open areas that looked like they might be farmland. The only thing remotely "cultivation sect" about it was the sea of clouds rolling around the mountain base.
That's the sect?
They flew past the village and Alexei felt a surge of relief. Okay, so that was just some outpost or satellite location. The real sect must be further... Qingxue banked sharply and descended.
They landed in a small, simple courtyard built against the mountainside, behind the village they'd just passed.
Since the handful of disciples at the Aureate Summit Sect were all in closed-door cultivation, and since Qingxue had concealed her spiritual aura during their approach, their arrival went completely unnoticed.
Alexei didn't fully process where they'd landed until both feet touched grass.
"This is where you live?" he asked, looking around.
The courtyard was spacious enough, maybe five or six hundred square meters, surrounded by low stone walls. Stone pathways crisscrossed the space, while most of the ground was overtaken by wild grass and weeds. In one corner stood a tree, easily two or three meters thick, its canopy spreading like a massive umbrella over half the courtyard. Beneath it sat a stone table and stools.
The buildings themselves consisted of exactly two structures: one proper room and what appeared to be a cave carved into the mountainside.
Maybe fifty square meters total for both.
"The larger building is the main residence," Qingxue explained, already walking toward it. "The cave beside it is for cultivation practice. There's a spirit-gathering formation inside."
Alexei's interest perked up slightly at that. A cultivation chamber with a formation? That might be worth investigating. Though from the outside, shrouded in shadow as it was, he couldn't make out any details.
They left Bessie to graze freely in the courtyard and followed the stone path to the residence. The wooden door creaked as Qingxue opened it.
Inside was exactly as he had expected: simple, and sparse.
No interior walls divided the space. Everything was visible at a glance: a couch, a wardrobe, a table with chairs, a vanity with a mirror, and a folding screen that partially concealed what looked like a wooden bathing tub. A jade ornament hanging near the couch began glowing softly when Qingxue made a gesture, providing light.
And that was it. No other furniture.
The room felt empty despite not being particularly large.
This is even more bare-bones than my treehouse. At least that had a second floor.
"You've lived here for how long?" he asked Qingxue.
"A few centuries," she said, as if that were a completely normal timespan.
"Oh." He looked around again, trying to imagine spending centuries in this spartan space. "I'm going to build myself a proper place outside. There's plenty of room in the courtyard."
"If that's what you prefer. Though you're welcome to stay here as well. At least until you've finished building."
"I'll set up a temporary bed for tonight," Alexei said, already planning how to organize his space. "But yeah, I'm building my own place. No offense, but I need more room than this."
"None taken," Qingxue said quietly.
He got to work immediately, pulling materials from his inventory and reassembling his crafting table, furnace, and storage chests. The bed came next, placed against the far wall, giving him some privacy.
More importantly, sleeping in it would reset his respawn point. That was critical. If he died now and respawned back at his original spawn location in the Silkspore Basin, he'd be completely screwed. Qingxue had flown in a straight line for an entire week to get here. Finding his way back on foot through territory filled with monsters would be impossible.
He organized his inventory, sorting items into chests by category. The whole time, he had the distinct feeling of being watched.
He glanced over at Qingxue, who was sitting on the couch with her fox ears and tail visible now that they were in private. She appeared to be meditating or resting, eyes closed, breathing steady.
She must feel relaxed now that she's back at her sect, he thought, and went back to organizing.
Tomorrow he'd need to set up an infinite water source in the courtyard, make fishing more convenient. And he'd survey the area properly before starting construction on a real base.
By the time he finished and lay down on his bed, maybe thirty minutes had passed.
Qingxue opened her eyes and waved a hand, dismissing the light from the jade ornament. The room plunged into darkness.
---
Morning arrived with sunlight streaming through the window directly onto Alexei's face.
Unlike the game version where beds forced you to sleep only at night and wake at a fixed time, the real-world MC bed had no such restrictions. He'd slept until his body was rested.
He stretched, feeling surprisingly good.
"Time to get started."
He looked around the room. No sign of Qingxue. The couch where she'd been sitting last night was empty. He checked the cultivation cave next. The door was open, and aside from a stone platform and a meditation cushion, there was nothing else inside.
She must've gone somewhere in the sect.
He walked to the edge of the courtyard, intending to explore the area, but he gave up.
Beyond the low wall was a sheer cliff drop. The only path leading up toward the main sect buildings was a narrow trail, maybe half a meter wide, carved into the cliff face with zero safety railings. And it looked like it hadn't been maintained in years. Moss covered everything. The footing would be treacherous at best, lethal at worst.
He retreated back into the courtyard and started scoping out potential building sites. As a dedicated Minecraft survival player, he had strong opinions about base construction. Location and layout mattered. Even if he wouldn't admit it out loud, aesthetics were important as well.
A proper base needed space for crafting stations, storage, farming, and animal pens. Maybe a small fishing pond too, now that he thought about it. The courtyard had plenty of room. The question was where to build for maximum efficiency and minimum interference with Qingxue's existing setup.
---
Meanwhile, in a bamboo grove elsewhere in the sect...
Qingxue sat across from a thin man in white robes at a low tea table. Zhengxing poured tea.
"You're saying a grey mist attacked you during your tribulation?" His expression was grave.
"Yes. Though I dealt with it." Qingxue kept her voice neutral, not wanting to worry him unnecessarily. One purpose of her visit was to borrow a Spirit Testing Monument from the sect master; another was to explain the whereabouts of the Radiant Lightning Talisman.
"Were you injured?" Zhengxing asked with concern.
"No. The situation resolved itself." That was technically true. Now that the matter had passed, she didn't wish to make him worry.
Zhengxing studied her face, trying to assess whether she was downplaying the danger. Her aura was stable. She didn't look like someone who'd nearly died.
"I see. That's fortunate. I assume the Radiant Lightning Talisman I lent you was used?"
"I'm sorry I couldn't return it. The talisman was consumed during the tribulation," Qingxue said.
"Don't apologize. That talisman was meant for exactly this purpose." He set down his tea cup. "I'm simply grateful it worked. If I hadn't given it to you..."
He didn't finish the sentence. They both knew that without the talisman, Qingxue would likely be dead. And the Aureate Summit Sect, already desperately short on talent, would have lost its strongest member.