"What happened!?"
The moment the explosion rang out from inside, the disciples of the Goddess Alchemy Palace startled so hard they nearly stumbled. They dropped the treasure boxes they were carrying and rushed toward the source of the sound, eyes wide.
"Isn't that from the direction of the Forbidden Hall?"
No one knew who said it. But the moment they heard it, every face went pale, because only one person was ever permitted to enter that place.
The Alchemy Empress!
The younger disciples rushed in. Passing through the back herb garden, they caught sight of a long column of white smoke curling high into the sky. The wooden structure had been blown to pieces, with nothing left but rubble, and their senior sisters were standing before it, staring in stunned silence.
When the smoke cleared, what came into view was a young woman standing amid the wreckage. Bai Fanxian remained exactly where she had been, perfectly calm, a current of qi drawn around herself and the middle-aged woman behind her both.
The portrait of her was now glowing with a soft pale-blue light. Though the force of the explosion had struck it directly, the canvas bore not a single scratch.
"...What is that?"
Mu Xia was the first to notice. She could sense that behind the portrait was a door — one that led down into the earth below. Bai Fanxian looked back at the middle-aged woman, who showed not the slightest sign of alarm at what had just occurred. More than that, her eyes held a faint gleam of delight.
Bai Fanxian swept a hand to move the portrait aside. She now stood before a door leading somewhere hidden from the world. She glanced back at the middle-aged woman once, and when she saw her give a small nod, Bai Fanxian opened it and went in.
Click!
A soft sound, marking the opening of the door. Neither of them could see clearly into the darkness beyond. But Bai Fanxian had come this far. There was no hesitation left in her. She walked straight down, the Alchemy Empress following behind in silence.
Thoom...
The moment the door shut, the ground trembled. Countless runes rose up from the earth where the wooden building had stood, converging around the door and forming an impenetrable border, its workings beyond anyone's understanding, sealing off whatever lay within from all disturbance. Outside, the disciples of the Goddess Alchemy Palace gathered around it in a tight cluster, faces tight with worry.
"Senior sister, what do we do?"
One of the younger disciples asked Su Lin in a rush. Su Lin herself was no less anxious. Since the Palace had fallen into decline, its senior figures had either died or drifted away, leaving her, the eldest remaining disciple, to carry the weight in their place.
Just then, her gaze caught Grandmaster Lu Qing walking over to assess the situation.
"Elder... what should we do?"
In her mind, this elder was one whose full abilities had never been revealed. But surely someone who served as an elder to that heroine must be at least her equal in strength.
Grandmaster Lu Qing, faced with the expectant eyes of the Goddess Alchemy Palace's disciples, could not let any concern show on his face. He cleared his throat and asked in a steady voice,
"...She went inside as well, didn't she?"
"Do you mean Lady Heroine? Yes — she went in together with the Alchemy Empress..."
"..."
"Then there's nothing to worry about..."
The old man raised a hand, cutting off the unfinished reply, and spoke in an even tone. He kept his expression neutral as he turned and walked away, adding over his shoulder,
"I'll keep watch here myself... The rest of you, go help move those treasures somewhere safe."
His unhurried manner settled the disciples somewhat. Mu Xia and Su Lin exchanged a nod and turned to direct their juniors back to work. Only Grandmaster Lu Qing remained, quietly letting out a long, heavy breath once they were gone.
"...She's caused trouble again, hasn't she?"
"Still not used to it?"
The Dragon Queen — no one knew when she had flown in — glided down and landed on the old man's head with surprising gentleness. Her cheeks were stuffed, both of them, and she was chewing away steadily at something sweet.
"Has the great Dragon Queen gotten used to it herself?"
"..."
"...I gave up being surprised the day I myself got heel-dropped into the ground."
"...That must have been rough."
"Mm... you too."
"Indeed..."
.
.
.
Deeper along the underground passage, Bai Fanxian extended her Heaven Sense to survey the space within. Something was interfering — she could not perceive anything beyond the reach of her own eyes. A similar thing had happened once before, when she was still in the human world.
It was when she had tried to sense the whereabouts of the one called "Vepar" — of the Night Shadow group.
Back then, she had been unable to locate that person either.
This must have been built to prevent anyone from finding this place from the outside.
Bai Fanxian set aside the thought. The passage was pitch dark, yet the air flowing through it was clear and fresh, circulating constantly. Either it had been built and designed with great care, or it connected to the world above from somewhere.
Clunk.
Less than two minutes, and the passage ended. What met their eyes was a vast hall, pitch dark. Without Heaven Sense, Bai Fanxian fell back on experience — and even so, she could estimate that this single room occupied a full quarter of the Palace grounds.
"..."
Something was here?
Before she could speak, the feeling of this place stirred something familiar in her. The atmosphere was like a room she had once owned.
Or was it...
Thoom...
Bai Fanxian ran a test. She drew the vast qi within her body outward, slowly. The moment she did, the room's atmosphere shifted. It drank in her qi the way a starving person consumes food. She stood still and let it take what it wanted. At the same time, she could feel some kind of mechanism beginning to stir back to life.
Flash!
The moment it had drunk its fill of her qi, the room began to operate on its own again. A burst of white light from the ceiling spread across the entire space, bringing everything into clear view. And it was exactly as she had thought.
This room ran on the same principle as Bai Fanxian's own workshop!
It required the owner's qi as both its fuel and its key. Once given that, it ran itself and tended to the needs of whoever worked within.
The moment light returned to the room, the middle-aged woman behind her dropped to her knees without a moment's hesitation. Her body was not up to it. The resolve in her heart drove the pain from her mind for a time.
"Luo Qingyan pays respects to the First Alchemy Empress!"
"...First Alchemy Empress?"
Bai Fanxian raised an eyebrow, feeling something odd.
This was the first time anyone had ever addressed her by that title. But looking at Luo Qingyan's unwavering gaze, she understood that this woman was not jesting.
"I beg your pardon for not paying my respects sooner..."
The middle-aged woman's face was full of remorse. But Bai Fanxian had never been one to stand on ceremony over such things. What she was curious about was something else entirely.
"How did you know it was me?"
"I wasn't entirely certain before... but I recognized your face from the portrait above."
"...But even that wasn't enough to be sure, was it?"
How could Bai Fanxian not see it? Luo Qingyan's eyes had told her everything from the first moment. And bringing her here — that, too, had been to verify what she suspected.
"Yes... According to teachings passed down from generation to generation, each who receives the title of 'Alchemy Empress' must protect this Palace — and wait for the day the 'First Empress' returns..."
Luo Qingyan explained plainly, without reservation. Her eyes shone with quiet joy, knowing she had, at the very least, honored the final wishes of those who came before her, the ones who had been her masters.
And the Goddess Alchemy Palace had not fallen to ruin in her time.
"The teachings say that when the First Empress appears, she alone will be able to open the door behind the portrait. Her qi will be the key that links the knowledge of the past to the present. And the Goddess Alchemy Palace will soar toward the heavens once more."
"Soar toward the heavens?"
Looking at how far the Palace had fallen in her absence, the words seemed no exaggeration at all. Bai Fanxian met Luo Qingyan's expectant gaze and let out a quiet sigh.
Because what she saw there was not only expectation.
There was exhaustion, and grief, and relief, and a letting-go that had mingled together into something that had grown far too heavy to carry long ago.
A woman who did not share Bai Fanxian's power, not even close, and yet had single-handedly kept this Palace alive, pushing it forward until her own body was nearly spent.
A sharp ache moved through Bai Fanxian. She looked at the body that shook and stiffened at the mere act of kneeling. This woman had never met her. She was dozens of generations removed, perhaps a hundred, and yet she had given everything to preserve this place and pass it on intact to the next in line.
She owed this woman a debt... No. Did she owe a debt to every "Alchemy Empress," each generation down the long line, far more than she had ever considered?
Bai Fanxian closed her eyes. Her heart filled with gratitude for every Alchemy Empress who had ever lived, from the first to the last. She had never met a single one of them. And yet because of all of them, the place that mattered most to her had endured across ten thousand years...
...She owed them that much. Now that she was back, she would pay it — with her own hands.
She would carry the torch from all of them. And lead this Palace soaring up to the heavens.
...Starting with you.
"Get up..."
Her mind made up, Bai Fanxian swept a breath of qi outward and lifted the middle-aged woman to her feet.
Snap!
She caught Luo Qingyan's wrist and channeled the power of the Eternal Myriad Heavens into her body. At the same time, she flipped her other hand — a medicine appeared in an instant, its strange radiance sending a tremor through the very air around it, and she shoved it into the woman's mouth and forced her to swallow before she could react.
"Wh—!?"
Luo Qingyan had not expected this at all. She tried to cough the medicine back up, but Bai Fanxian's qi had already locked down any resistance.
"First Empress — to use something this precious on someone like me..."
The moment it touched her tongue, Luo Qingyan knew. This was no ordinary high-grade medicine. Not merely high-grade. "Very high-grade" would be closer to the truth!
"Don't be stubborn..."
Bai Fanxian patted her between the shoulder blades. All resistance dissolved — or rather, it would be more accurate to say it was "made impossible" to resist.
How could she not understand, after seeing those eyes?
This woman had already made peace with not living much longer.
In the state her body was in, the moment she handed everything over to someone else, Luo Qingyan would have been ready to go quietly.
"...Oh?"
When the power of the Eternal Myriad Heavens merged with the medicine she had just swallowed, Luo Qingyan felt as though her body might burst apart. Enormous power flooded through her like a dam breaking open. Meridians that had been dry and withered for years were drenched at last, filled to overflowing. And then — in a single sweep — every impurity that had built up in her body was washed away.
"...Who did this to you?"
Bai Fanxian murmured it to herself, not expecting an answer. She had already read this woman's body thoroughly. The depleted qi was the least of it. There were deep wounds, in multiple places, that had never fully healed.
These were not fresh injuries.
"...You were once a peak-stage Sage."
Bai Fanxian felt it land in her chest. Someone who had reached a level that was respected by most, even ten thousand years ago, now reduced to the state of a dying invalid, vulnerable to anyone even at the Martial Master level. The pride that must have been ground to nothing over all that time was something she could not begin to imagine.
"...I will seek justice for all of you."
Her eyes turned cold as ice. With two fingers, she struck every blocked meridian point in a single sweeping motion. As every channel opened, the medicine's power, packed dense throughout the body, surged and roared like a storm. White silk threads wove together from qi and began to envelop Luo Qingyan, inch by inch, until she was entirely encased. She looked like a small caterpillar about to shed the body it was born in and emerge as something magnificent.
The space around the cocoon was shifting. Bai Fanxian could sense the faint scent of countless herbs drifting outward. It was the reflection of the "intent" of the person within, made tangible and given form, taking shape as a "Domain" uniquely and entirely her own.
If this had happened outside, it would have caused an uproar, because this was a sight that the age of declining cultivation had not seen in generations.
It was the kind of thing people only dreamed of.
...One step from the Transcendent. Witness the birth of a new Ancient Sage!