In a vast, sun-drenched valley, cradled by towering, mist-wreathed peaks, a herd of young Kirins huddled together, their slender legs trembling. They stared with wide, liquid eyes at the woman who stood before them, a figure wreathed in a palpable, shifting shroud of dark energy that seemed to drink the light from the air around her.
Like the little Golden Crow she had found before them, these Kirins were born with power thrumming in their veins, their innate cultivation at the mighty Golden Core stage. However, their minds were still soft and unformed, their understanding of the world no more sophisticated than that of eager, clumsy puppies.
At this tender age, no matter the creature, their untamed energy was always at its most volatile peak, and these divine-beast younglings were certainly no exception to this rule.
"Stay put," Su Min's voice cut through the air, flat and commanding. She gestured with a sharp nod at the surrounding cliffs. "See this valley? If any of you dare step one hoof out of it, don't you blame me for turning the whole lot of you into braised meat!"
"Whimper…"
Faced with the terrifying, bone-deep pressure of Su Min's aura, the little Kirins shivered as one, their heads bobbing up and down in a frantic, desperate nod.
Though these little ones were all at the Golden Core stage, there were plenty of powerful experts within the Immortal Gate who could easily suppress them. However, since they had been personally brought in by Su Min, and were so crucial to the future goal of obtaining the Central Earth Essence, no one in the entire sect dared to say much against her methods. As a direct result, absolute chaos had ensued in her absence.
Of course, part of the reason was that these Kirins were genuinely adorable, with their shimmering scales and innocent eyes, and many of the female cultivators simply couldn't resist doting on them, sneaking them treats and spoiling them rotten. Given the heavily skewed gender ratio in the wider cultivation world, the male cultivators, in turn, tended to indulge the female disciples' whims, making any attempt at proper discipline even harder to enforce.
Now that Su Min had returned, she put an immediate and decisive stop to their antics. Not only did she confine the entire pack of Kirins strictly to the valley, but she also completely isolated them from the rest of the sect's disciples. As for the displeased female cultivators who complained? Su Min truly couldn't care less. Were they really going to rebel over this? She highly doubted it.
"Headache," she muttered under her breath, the word a low sigh of exasperation. "Speaking of which, where's the Black Kirin?"
After dealing with the little ones, Su Min turned to where Tian Yinzi stood waiting. Xie Yingying, she noted, seemed to be in one of her deep seclusion sessions and hadn't emerged yet.
What surprised Su Min, however, was that the royal Black Kirin wasn't among the herd in the valley. No wonder there was no one to keep them in check. Had that precious egg they had worked so hard for been a complete dud?
"Grand Elder Su, shortly after you left for Future Maitreya Mountain, the Black Kirin hatched," Tian Yinzi explained promptly. "However, divine beasts grow very differently from humans. They require truly vast amounts of energy to mature. Knowing that you specifically needed the Central Wutu Divine Earth to complete your mastery, the sect provided her with abundant resources immediately after her birth."
"I see…"
Su Min nodded, the information coming as no real surprise to her.
Every divine beast race meticulously prepared ample resources for their most important descendants. The Golden Crows had their Fusang Ancient Tree, the dragons had their legendary Dragon Nurturing Pool, and the Kirins supposedly had the fabled Five Elements Vein, though that was located deep within their own secret realm. Unfortunately, their home had been thoroughly ransacked, leaving the entire race in a rather pathetic state.
The direct and inconvenient consequence was that all of those ancient resources were now completely inaccessible, forcing the sect to step in and fill the void.
Supporting one single Kirin's rapid growth wasn't a major issue for an organization of their stature, but an entire pack? The sect's treasuries would be drained dry in a heartbeat. Besides, Su Min only truly needed the Central Earth Essence. Once the one Black Kirin matured and produced it, that would more than suffice.
And if she were to think a little more cynically, which she often did, if that Black Kirin ever dared to renege on their deal, well, these little Kirins made for excellent, highly persuasive hostages.
"What about the Central Wutu Divine Earth?" Su Min asked, getting straight to the heart of the matter.
She was well aware of these underhanded tactics. They were just a form of insurance, a backup plan. It was always best not to have to use them unless the situation became absolutely necessary.
"After her birth, Grand Elder Xie forced her to sign a binding contract," Tian Yinzi reported. "The terms are clear. Once she matures and reopens the Kirin Secret Realm, she will hand over the Central Wutu Divine Earth as agreed."
"Seems I worried for nothing."
Su Min gave a slow, inward nod of approval. It was always best not to have to resort to extreme measures. A clean, businesslike transaction was far more preferable.
"Where is the Black Kirin now?" she asked.
"She has recently reformed into a dormant cocoon and is currently incommunicado," Tian Yinzi said. "As for her precise location, she is situated near the roots of the Fusang Ancient Tree. The primordial energy there is the most abundant in the entire sect, and with Donghuang Taiyu personally watching over her, it is undoubtedly the safest place for her to be."
"Then there's nothing left to worry about."
A smile of genuine satisfaction touched Su Min's lips. Establishing this sect all that time ago had definitely been the right move. It was meant to handle all these miscellaneous, tiresome tasks for her. Now, after years of building it up, it was finally proving its true worth.
After guiding them onto the right path and setting down the foundational laws, she had mostly left them to their own devices, focusing instead on her own pursuits and power. And now, after all this time, the sect was finally pulling its weight properly.
The people of this world seemed to have an inherent, almost ingrained sense of devotion to their sect's high-ranking members, which made them incredibly easy to manage. They followed orders without the constant need for explanation or reassurance.
Then again, it made perfect sense. Without Su Min, and without the little Golden Crow, and the other powerful beings she had gathered acting as protectors, they would all be in the same dire straits as the rest of the struggling cultivators in this harsh world.
"I should continue my seclusion and attempt to break through to the eighth-tier alchemist realm," she decided aloud. "The gains from this last trip have been substantial. It is time to put them to use."
With nothing else urgent left to handle, Su Min decided to focus entirely on her next great goal, becoming an officially recognized eighth-tier alchemist.
"An eighth-tier alchemist?!"
Tian Yinzi was utterly stunned, his jaw going slack. Currently, there were only two known seventh-tier alchemists on the entire continent, Su Min and one other who had very recently broken through. However, that other alchemist was still far, far from being able to refine something as profound as a Dao Comprehension Pill, making Su Min's prowess in the art utterly unmatched by any living soul.
"Indeed. Whether I'll succeed or not remains to be seen, of course."
With a faint, almost imperceptible nod, Su Min turned on her heel and left, her form swallowed by the shadows of the corridor.
~
Back in her own small, spartan room, Su Min took out her trusted alchemy cauldron, its familiar weight a comfort in her hands. As she slowly traced the intricate, worn patterns on its bronze surface, her expression darkened slightly.
"This cauldron is also suffering," she murmured to the empty room. "A high-grade Earth-tier alchemy furnace, after accompanying me for so long and through so many trials, it's about to be retired."
She let out a soft sigh. This cauldron had been a gift from the Great Thunder Temple all that time ago and had served her exceptionally well. But for the demands of eighth-tier pills, a high-grade Earth-tier furnace was simply no longer sufficient.
While she estimated it could probably still handle the very lowest grade of eighth-tier pills, anything of a higher grade or complexity would inevitably cause a catastrophic explosion.
Thus, crafting a proper Heaven-tier artifact had to be prioritized. Unfortunately, Su Min currently completely lacked the ability and the specific knowledge to forge one herself.
"Let's just begin refining," she told herself, pushing the frustrating thoughts aside. "Who knows how long this will take?"
Suppressing her swirling thoughts, she sat cross-legged on the floor and waved her hand in a smooth, practiced motion. Over a thousand different medicinal ingredients flew out from her storage ring, hovering in the air around her like a cloud of exotic, fragrant blossoms.
Eighth-tier pills required an incredibly complex and delicate refining process. Though not all of the ingredients were supremely top-tier, many of them were still exceptionally rare and precious, some nearly impossible to replace.
Alchemy was, at its core, a money-burning profession, and even someone as formidably wealthy as Su Min felt a distinct pinch seeing them all laid out like this.
"Hah…"
Taking a deep, centering breath, she focused her entire being. The pill she intended to refine was a standard eighth-tier healing pill, the most basic and foundational of its illustrious grade.
She had already failed several attempts before this, the failures piling up until she was forced to stop out of sheer, gut-wrenching frustration.
But now, with her soul power enhanced and refined from her recent experiences, she felt a new, solid confidence.
In an instant, the temperature in the small room skyrocketed, the air wavering with intense heat.
Like flowing water, the ingredients entered the cauldron one after another, each one instantly purified into a glistening essence upon contact with the shimmering, controlled flames.
The sheer speed of her refinement surpassed anything any known alchemist on the continent could possibly achieve. A thousand ingredients were all purified in the space of half a single day.
"Much faster than before," Su Min noted with a thread of satisfaction.
She exhaled slowly, observing the thousand separate medicinal essences now floating suspended inside the cauldron, each one meticulously wrapped in a delicate sheath of her own soul power.
Maintaining them all in this perfect, separate state was incredibly taxing on her mind. Each essence required its own precise temperature, neither too high nor too low. The sheer complexity of the task was enough to make even a seasoned seventh-tier alchemist's head explode from the strain.
Previously, she could just barely complete this step, but her soul power would be nearly depleted afterwards, leaving her with nothing left in the tank to proceed with the critical fusion stage.
Now, however, she could finally, truly take that next step.
"Begin fusion," she commanded herself.
With a silent mental command, the shimmering essences began converging toward the center of the cauldron, merging together like moths drawn irresistibly to a single, brilliant flame.
In the blink of an eye, the multicolored liquids swirled and fused into one large, chaotic mass.
Even for Su Min, a wave of profound dizziness washed over her. Eighth-tier pills were absolutely no joke.
"Pill Formation!!!"
Knowing she couldn't delay a single second longer, Su Min slammed her palm hard onto the hot side of the cauldron. The fused liquid violently compressed, shaking the entire furnace.
And then…
BOOM!!!
Outside, high above the sect, dark clouds gathered with unnatural speed, blotting out the sun as thunder materialized out of nowhere, rumbling with apocalyptic fury.
"Holy shit, I succeeded on the first try?!"
Su Min's eyes widened in pure shock, before her body gave out completely and she collapsed onto the cool ground like a dead fish, every ounce of her energy utterly drained.
"Damn it, the tribulation's coming, and I can't even move a finger!"
She honestly hadn't expected to succeed so quickly. Now, with her spiritual and physical energy completely spent, she was utterly defenseless against the incoming lightning.
With no other choice left, she mustered every last bit of strength in her body and shouted at the very top of her lungs, her voice cracking with strain,
"YINGYING, SAVE ME!!!"
BANG!!!
From deep within the Immortal Gate's territory, a figure burst out from a frozen pond, sending shards of ice flying in every direction. She shot into the sky like a vengeful meteor, moving faster than the eye could follow.
In the very next instant,
CRACK!!!
A blinding, thick pillar of tribulation lightning slammed down, colliding head-on with the figure in a mid-air explosion of pure force that shook the entire sect to its foundations.
"Which lunatic is provoking a tribulation inside the sect itself?!"
Countless cultivators both inside and outside the sect trembled in fear and confusion. The Immortal Gate stood at the very heart of Eastern Mulberry Land, the largest and most populous city on the entire eastern continent, with a permanent population numbering in the tens of millions, rivaling even the greatest modern metropolises.
Naturally, countless powerful cultivators resided here. Though they hadn't heard Su Min's desperate cry from within her sealed room, the monumental clash between a Dao Comprehension expert and a genuine heavenly tribulation was impossible for anyone with a shred of cultivation to miss.
Many cursed aloud, the sheer, overwhelming pressure of the event making their knees buckle and their hearts quail.
The tribulation's lightning lit up the sky, its destructive aura covering hundreds of kilometers, forcing even the proudest, most arrogant experts to cower and hide like frightened birds.
Tribulations were universally known to be no joke. Even a mere Golden Core tribulation could become exponentially more deadly if an outsider dared to interfere.
But soon, as the initial shock faded, people realized something was distinctly off.
"This lightning, it's far too strong. I'm at the Nascent Soul stage, and even I feel my heart pounding just looking at it!" one old cultivator stammered, his face pale.
"Same here, and I'm already at the Divine Transformation stage!" another cried out, his voice tight with anxiety.
"What in the world is the Immortal Gate doing? Even their own patrol teams look just as clueless as the rest of us!"
"Did someone come here specifically to drag the whole sect down with them by triggering a tribulation on their land?"
"Impossible! The Immortal Gate has countless experts and layers of formation. No Golden Core cultivator could just waltz in with an active tribulation and expect to survive for a second!"
Then, someone with keener senses and older knowledge finally recognized the truth, his voice ringing out with stunned realization.
"This isn't a breakthrough tribulation, you fools, it's a Pill Tribulation! Someone inside the sect is refining an eighth-tier pill!"
A dead, awed silence fell over the crowds.
Pill Tribulations were the stuff of legend, events spoken of only in ancient texts from the long-lost golden age of cultivation.
"An eighth-tier alchemist, appearing in less than a thousand years after the end of the end times?!"
The implications were staggering, enough to reshape the entire balance of power on the continent.
And as the stunning realization spread, cultivators from all over the city began fleeing the area, not out of fear for their safety, but with a desperate urgency to spread the world-altering news.
The Immortal Gate had just birthed a monster, a true eighth-tier alchemist.
===
Su Min, sorry but...
I really laugh at your desperate cry to Yingying...
LOL