"Urgh..."

  It was night by the time Qinghe woke up. She sat up with a groan as she rubbed her head, her eyes bleary as she grimaced.

  The door of the workshop was open, letting in the serene sound of chirping crickets and the fresh night air. There was the faint irritating buzz of bloodthirsty mosquitoes, but the Beast Warding formation kept them at bay.

  But the most precious guest was the smile of the moon; under the cloudless night skies, Baiyun sat on a stool by the doorway as he read a textbook under bright moonlight.

  He turned to her with an enigmatic smile and raised a hand to greet her.

  "What's with that look?" she grimaced and clutched her head. "We failed..."

  It seemed she was still feeling unwell. The grumble turned into a sigh as she looked to the night sky.

  "Take a look inside the cauldron." Baiyun said.

  "The cauldron? What's so interesting about a ruined pill?"

  Qinghe furrowed her eyebrows as Baiyun continued to smile annoyingly. She gnced at her cauldron before marching over. The mirage gem had deactivated by now, shrouding its insides once more.

  She pressed a node on the roof and watched as the pavilion rose into the air on stilts. With another press, a light lit up the World Chamber as she peeked inside. Qinghe's eyes widened at the sight.

  "Ah! How did the Cauldron of Many Mouths break? It was expensive!" she yelled.

  Baiyun began to cough awkwardly.

  "Ahem, let's look inside the Compression Cauldron, shall we?" he forced himself to keep smiling.

  "Huh?"

  Qinghe gred at him. Anyone could tell he had been up to no good!

  She shook her head as she pulled up the chains of a Greedy Hook and retrieved the cauldron. It opened with a faint creak and spewed a cloud of bck dust, its lid letting out pitiful creaks as it swayed on its hinges.

  "Ack!"

  Qinghe coughed and conjured a gust of wind to blow it away. Her face began to twitch as she realised just how charred it had become.

  "This cauldron is done for too..." she mumbled.

  But to Baiyun who feared for his wallet, it was like the whisper of a demon. He continued to cough.

  Within the ruined compression cauldron id an orb covered in a thin yer of bck grime. Qinghe was about to speak with anger when her eyes suddenly widened again.

  "This..."

  She quickly gathered the grime into an orb on her fingertip before flicking it away, revealing a pill with a cragged and rough surface. But its faint aura was unmistakable, it was an Earth Foundation Pill!

  Qinghe stared at it bnkly with a sck jaw. She shook her head and rubbed her eyes, but it was still there. In her daze, the compression cauldron slipped out of her hands and hit the ground with a loud cng, rattling noisily.

  "It... succeeded?" her voice was ced with disbelief. "And its... it's medium-grade? How is this possible?"

  Baiyun smiled, but he thought to himself that it was a subpar result. If it wasn't for the smallest sand-like particles from the shattered pot he couldn't deflect, it was possible the pill might have reached high-grade.

  "You did something didn't you? Tell me what happened." Qinghe said.

  Her eyes grew serious and seemed to bore into Baiyun, making him sweat.

  "Fine, but don't get mad." he said helplessly.

  He told her about how her fingertips were still spewing qi when she passed out, how he used them to activate the pavilion nodes, and the steps he took to save the pill.

  Of course, he conveniently omitted how he had used divine thread and made up some excuses as to how the mouth cauldron broke, also downpying how he had been throwing her around like a ragdoll.

  Qinghe's face grew more and more horrified as she listened to his expnation, her hands csped so tightly they began to turn red.

  Finally, she let out a long sigh and spat out a few words.

  "Crazy bastard..."

  ...

  There was a minute of painful silence as the two sat, neither looking at each other. Baiyun couldn't take it anymore and awkwardly asked a question that had been on his mind.

  "So... how much do I have to pay for the mouth cauldron?"

  He pursed his lips and watched as Qinghe crossed her arms, expecting the worst. But she only sighed.

  "Hah.... Forget it." she said. "Just treat it as a favour from me."

  "Really?" Baiyun was overjoyed.

  "I'm heading back right after this for a good long rest. There's a lot I need to study tomorrow."

  Qinghe walked to her cauldron and began to clean it, scooping up the pot shards with qi and tossing them into a trash basket. To the side where the burnt compression cauldron struck the ground, she grabbed it and tossed it into the trash as well.

  A sudden thought entered Baiyun's mind as he stared at it.

  "Since you're throwing it away, can I have it?" he asked.

  Qinghe pressed a node on the pavilion roof, cleansing solution pouring down from the Heavenly Library's storage and dissolving the impurities.

  "Hmph. Just take it." she huffed.

  Baiyun began to feel awkward. Was this considered digging through someone's trash? But he shook off that feeling. The pride of a former elder... hah, he had briefly considered much worse things.

  During Martial Elder Guan Qiang's tournament with the wolves, he was tempted for a moment to extract the essences from a used herb bandage merely because it had some rare essences in it. He didn't follow that impulse, but this was nothing compared to that.

  He took out a rag and wiped down the cauldron with some water before stashing it into his bag. Then he stared at the doorway that led to moonlit grass. Qinghe didn't seem too pleased, so he felt perhaps he should leave her be.

  "Should I go first?" he asked.

  Qinghe was silent for a moment as she scrubbed the inside of her cauldron. But she finally turned towards him and sighed again.

  "As unhinged as your ideas are... it worked out somehow. And if I didn't pass out, you wouldn't have to lug me around like a puppet just to save the pill... so that's on me." she said. "Truthfully, I should be thanking you. You don't have to be on such edge."

  Hah... this girl. She was so awkward and insincere even when thanking someone. At the sound of her words, Baiyun seemed to recover his usual temperament and was even tempted to chide her a little.

  But even if Qinghe wasn't good at expressing it, her gratitude got through to him just fine, making him quite pleased.

  "I'll help with the elixir tomorrow as promised," she continued. "When are you giving the mole the pill?"

  The mole? That was quite the sudden question.

  "Oh, I'll feed it to the mole once I head back to my room." Baiyun said casually.

  Qinghe suddenly shot up and rushed over.

  "Wait- so soon?" she spluttered. "I'm coming along then!"

  "Don't you need to rest first?" Baiyun asked.

  Her eyes were still slightly bloodshot and her posture was off. Even with the healing elixir and all the sleep she had, she still needed a full-night's rest to recover. It was rather strange to think of how she technically spent the most of today sleeping despite being productive.

  But Baiyun understood where she was coming from. What alchemist wouldn't want to see the results of their hard work? Affirmation aside, it was valuable data. Whether a pill succeeded or blew up a pitiful cultivator was important to know!

  "If you want me to rest, then wait until tomorrow." Qinghe huffed.

  "This... I'm afraid I can't." Baiyun raised his hands awkwardly.

  A single day was not a long time but he really didn't want to wait another day. It definitely wasn't because he was impatient. No, if he waited another day, the pill would lose about 0.1% of its effectiveness. His actions were sane and justified.

  Qinghe scrunched her face briefly but didn't comment.

  "Besides, the mole has a grudge against you, doesn't it?" Baiyun said. "Do you have any concealment arts you can use?"

  "Heh." Qinghe smirked. "No need for that. All we need to do is to shut it in my cauldron and watch the breakthrough from the mirage gem. I'm sure it likes dark enclosed spaces anyway."

  Baiyun was speechless. First him and now Qinghe, with how often the mole was tossed into cauldrons, one day it might mistake itself for a pill ingredient... Wait, that joke didn't even make sense. Not that it mattered since no one else could hear it.

  He felt a strange reluctance though. It was one thing with the shoddy hand-me-down cauldron he purchased from Qinghe, but was it right to use such an incredible cauldron as a mole's breakthrough chamber? Hm, but perhaps it was fitting for a "world" to have its own practitioners.

  "It's a bit weird, but fine." Baiyun said begrudgingly.

  Qinghe looked a little puzzled by his reaction and tilted her head a little.

  "Your ideas are a lot weirder." she said.

  The two of them packed up their tools and dismantled the workshop before returning to the inn together.

  At the counter, the innkeeper was still present and awake for some reason. He coughed awkwardly at the sight of them. Nosy old man...

  Qinghe marched up to him and tossed a pouch of copper tokens onto the counter.

  "Innkeeper, can we borrow the kitchen for a moment? We'll pay you if needed," she said.

  We? Baiyun grew concerned at the wording. Did that mean Qinghe was going to drag his funds into this? He was completely penniless...

  "The kitchen?" the innkeeper frowned. "Miss, you're an alchemist aren't you? The st time someone tried to concoct a pill there, the entire kitchen blew up!"

  Someone else? Baiyun wondered if Ying Shi's party had another alchemist unbeknownst to him.

  "We're not doing alchemy. Just pass me the key." Qinghe said. "Besides, my cauldrons aren't that shoddy."

  The innkeeper stared at her speechlessly.

  "...please don't blow up the kitchen again." he said.

  Huh?!

  The innkeeper held the key towards Qinghe. But as she reached over and grasped it, his hands cmped tightly with reluctance and she had to tug it free.

  "We got the key." she said.

  Her face was neutral as always, but Baiyun could hear a slight glee in her voice. Her fatigue from before seemed to have vanished somehow. Had he gotten the wrong impression of this girl?

  Qinghe fumbled with the key for a moment before unlocking the door. The two of them entered the kitchen, a pristine room with a floor of stone tiles. Cookware and cutlery had been neatly stashed away into cupboard and drawers.

  She reached into her bag for the world cauldron carefully, watching as it slid out gently.

  BANG!

  ...but it's immense weight smashed the floor tiles into smithereens anyway.

  "Tsk. Why are they so fragile?" Qinghe grumbled.

  "What was that?" the innkeeper yelled from outside.

  Baiyun suddenly understood why she wanted to borrow the kitchen. If she tried to pce the gigantic cauldron in her inn room, it might have smashed straight through the wooden flooring and onto a poor guest in the room beneath.

  "Help me push it to the side." Qinghe said.

  He watched speechlessly as she began to push the cauldron, but joined her helplessly. The rge apparatus slid across the ground with a horrific grinding sound as they shoved it away from the damaged ground.

  Qinghe squatted down and reached for the shattered tiles; they began to glow as they rearranged themselves like pieces of a puzzle before the cracks fused together into perfectly good tiles.

  "There." she said as she pat her hands clean.

  This girl...

  "I'll go get the mole." Baiyun said.

  He opened the kitchen door and left, just as the innkeeper rushed in and yelled at the sight of the giant cauldron.

  When he trudged upstairs and to his room, he marched over to the shoddy little cauldron where the mole slept. He could still hear the faint yelling of the innkeeper downstairs. If he was going to show the mole the completed pill, he should put on more of a show to make it more convincing.

  He reached into the cauldron with soulsense and sent an illusion directly into the mole's mind. In the dark confines of the vessel, the mole froze, unable to differentiate fiction and reality.

  An illusion entered its mind; it watched a pill-concoction scene as spectacur as what happened in Qinghe's World Cauldron!

  Baiyun popped the lid off and took out the dazed mole, putting the Earth Foundation Pill to its nose just as it roused. It snapped awake at the powerful herbal scent as its beady eyes widened.

  "KR!!"

  The mole squeaked and lunged forward for a chomp, but Baiyun hurriedly pulled it away.

  It couldn't speak, but its thoughts were evident. What was this? This pebble was way better than the garbage pellets the giant had been making!

  As Baiyun held it away from the pill, it began to fil its cws angrily. It was willing to give the giant a precious ginseng when in need, so why was he being stingy now?

  "Not so fast. We need to negotiate."

  Even with soulsense, the mole's complete ck of nguage made negotiation difficult. But they agreed on what was previously decided in the contract but with an added caveat; if this specific pill helped it breakthrough, it would accept.

  Finally! Baiyun let out a sigh of relief as he grabbed the mole by the back of its neck and ran downstairs to the kitchen.

  The World Cauldron was already open, with only the frowning innkeeper in the room. Baiyun rushed over and tossed the mole in with the pill as it squeaked.

  "She's hiding in there." the innkeeper pointed to a cabinet.

  Right... the mole would go into a frenzy if it saw Qinghe, its herb-thieving "worst enemy". It seemed she had expined what was going on to the innkeeper while Baiyun was messing about upstairs.

  With a creak and the sound of tumbling cookware, Qinghe revealed herself from the cabinet with a cough. She averted Baiyun's judgemental eyes as she reached out a strand of qi sense to shut the World Cauldron before the mole could notice her.

  "What took you so long?" she asked.

  "I was having a discussion with the mole." Baiyun said.

  The innkeeper and Qinghe gnced at each other, as if wondering if he had a few screws loose. Baiyun could only ugh awkwardly.

  With another flick of qi sense from her, a gem flickered before dispying a mirage of the mole. The innkeeper let out an impressed whistle as he watched.

  It sniffed about as it explored the cauldron, even climbing up to the various Environmental Pilrs with surprising dexterity. Finally, it hopped back to the bottom of the cauldron and hugged the Earth Foundation Pill before curling up to rest.

  Wasn't it eagerly trying to eat the pill earlier? Baiyun could only shake his head at the unpredictable thoughts of animals. A vein bulged on Qinghe's head and the innkeeper ughed.

  "I'm going to need you to keep quiet. I don't need any disruptions while I'm studying." she huffed.

  Baiyun and the innkeeper stared at her. Hah... why was this girl like that sometimes?

  Qinghe smacked a pavilion roof, and a few greedy hooks began to descend towards the Earth Foundation Pill rapidly.

  "Kr?"

  The mole let out a squeak of arm and snatched the pill away just as they were about to nab the pill! It began to run around the chamber, but the hooks persistently chased it. Finally, it let out a cry of indignation before swallowing the pill whole.

  "There!" Qinghe said.

  Baiyun had no idea why she looked so pleased with herself.

  Within the cauldron, the mole stood on its hind legs and brandished its cws as the greedy hooks retracted back into the cauldron sky above. It fell back on fours and seemed to be just as pleased as Qinghe outside.

  But suddenly, it tensed as a jolt shot through its body! Massive surges of qi erupted from its stomach and rushed through its meridians. Unable to keep up, the mole let out a panicked squeak.

  Qi erupted from every pore of its body like the spores of a ruptured puffball and spewed everywhere. The escaped qi quickly filled the Cauldron World and soon formed into what appeared to be a bnket of mist.

  It was not a good sign. If the mole had been resolute, with its talent, it would be able to absorb all the qi easily. But because of how weak-willed it was, it was overwhelmed and let qi escape from its pores!

  The mole shut its eyes and hurried began to refine the qi. It began to reach its limits quickly however, clutching its head as nausea began to overwhelm it. Qinghe and the innkeeper watched with clenched fists and worry. It was clear the mole was about to have a backsh!

  But Baiyun had been counting in his head. It was about time.

  The sudden thump of a loud heartbeat echoed through the cauldron. The mole's eyes widened and turned bloodshot; its heart began to thump a hundred times per second, its blood surging in a continuous frothing torrent!

  All its fear and pain seemed to melt away as it stood on its hind legs once more.

  "KRRRRRR!"

  It let out a warcry as the muscles of its body twitched and convulsed, its veins visible even through its fur! The innkeeper stared at Qinghe in horror, but she seemed just as horrified, staring at Baiyun instead.

  Baiyun had given it a dose of Pale Ashes enough to send an elephant into a frenzy, let alone a creature this small. It was way over the lethal dosage, even for the physique of a spirit beast!

  He could only shrug nonchantly in response to Qinghe's gaze.

  What could he say? It was going to be expelled after the breakthrough anyway, so it was perfectly fine. Well, it was possible the mole would have some withdrawal symptoms afterwards, but he didn't think it was a big problem.

  Gone was the timid mole. With its fury-tinged eyes now, it had the frenzy of a warrior on a battlefield, absorbing all the qi rushing through its body in an instant!

  The pill within its stomach disintegrated as its dantian sapped it dry in mere moments, and the air within the cauldron stirred turbulently as it sucked all the escaped qi back into its body.

  Its qi solidified within its dantian and a fsh of light erupted from the mole. From immaterial qi into actual being, the qi consolidated into a wisp of gaseous matter that shone with a lively light.

  A successful breakthrough, the birth of a Foundational beast!

  The mole breathed heavily as impurities burst out of its pores and spttered all over the cauldron. But instead of the usual bck impurities, they were mixed with rge splotches of grey from the sheer quantity of Pale Ashes compressed into the pill.

  Qinghe had been watching in awe. One moment the mole looked on the verge of qi deviation, but it broke through instantly when the Ashes took effect? But at the sight of the gunk spewing out, she recoiled.

  "Ew..." she scrunched her face. "I've never seen so much gunk from a breakthrough before!"

  An inevitable result of the Pale Ashes.

  The mole let out a triumphant cry as it felt power rush through its body. It had finally broken through a barrier it had been stuck at for years! Then it looked down at the muck beneath its feet and decided to retreat onto one of the Environmental Pilrs above.

  Baiyun smiled at the sight. Qinghe really needed to have a little more tolerance for the grotesque as an alchemist-

  ...

  ...

  !?

  A strange feeling suddenly made him jolt and his smile faded. What was that? Baiyun looked around abruptly, not understanding what it was at first.

  But his heart grew cold as the sensation deepened, and he lunged out of the room without hesitation, tumbling onto the ground in his panic!

  That feeling. That sensation. It was something he could not forget.

  From outside the room, he watched the mirage as a spiralling spatial distortion appeared above the mole and spat out a small golden stone. Then, it twisted into itself and vanished with a ghostly echo as if it had never been there.

  Baiyun's face was covered in cold sweat and his teeth were gritted. The strange reverberation felt almost like ughter to him.

  It was unmistakable. That was heaven's will, the very same force that chained his soul and reincarnated him! What was it doing here?

  That terror was something etched into his very being, something he could never forget.