Chapter 53: Being an Alchemy Cultivator Doesn’t Require Being Too Normal

Just as everyone thought Guan Huailin was about to challenge Lian Mu, he unexpectedly stepped off the stage, giving the arena to others instead.

Lian Mu breathed a sigh of relief when she saw he had no intention of fighting. She had just replenished her spiritual energy—if she had to fight again, today’s supply of spirit-replenishing pills wouldn’t be enough.

She was about to slip away when someone called out to her.

“Junior Sister?” Guan Huailin had caught up from behind.

Lian Mu: “Senior Brother Guan, I’ve already reached my limit for duels this morning. I can’t take any more.”

She had no idea who this Guan Huailin was. She had just watched his match once—she couldn’t even begin to gauge his abilities.

“That’s not what I meant.” Guan Huailin blocked her path and scrutinized her carefully. “It really is you. When I heard people mentioning your name before, I thought it sounded familiar. But now that I see you in person, I remember.”

Lian Mu: “???”

If she recalled correctly, she didn’t know Guan Huailin. So why was he acting so familiar?

Wait a minute…

She didn’t know Guan Huailin, but that didn’t mean he didn’t know her—or rather, he might know the original owner of this body.

A guess formed in Lian Mu’s mind. She decided to probe him. “Senior Brother Guan, just say what you need to say.”

Guan Huailin smiled. “Have you forgotten me? We joined the sect in the same year. You lived near me and asked me to teach you swordsmanship. Later, you failed the re-evaluation and disappeared. I never saw you again… I never expected you to return. Now, I should call you Junior Sister.”

Lian Mu: “…”

As expected.

But she had no intention of revealing her situation, so she made up a lie on the spot. “Senior Brother, I had a severe cold a few years ago and forgot many things.”

Guan Huailin paused. “I see… no wonder you seem so different now.”

“Different how?” Lian Mu asked casually, though she was actually testing him.

There weren’t many in the sect who had known the original owner of her body. Even if someone recognized her face, they didn’t know much about her. But judging from Guan Huailin’s familiarity, he and the original owner must have been quite close, perhaps even neighbors.

Guan Huailin retracted his hand. “Never mind. It’s in the past, and you don’t remember it anyway. My apologies for bringing it up.”

Lian Mu said, “Senior Brother, the past is past. I’m a different person now.”

“I can see that.” Guan Huailin nodded. “You’re much stronger than before… I heard about what happened at Wu Nian Sect. That was your idea, wasn’t it? You used to be quite mischievous, but you never dared provoke powerful figures. Your courage has grown—your strength must have, too.”

Lian Mu: “…”

Why did it feel like he was mocking her?

Yet, with his gentle and sincere expression, he didn’t seem to be doing it on purpose.

“Are you planning to enter the next Grand Sect Tournament?” Guan Huailin asked.

Lian Mu: “Mm.”

She had many reasons for participating—to escape the dangers in her dreams and to find a way to repair her damaged dantian.

Guan Huailin started to say something, but before he could finish, Ji Mingyue arrived.

“Lian Mu, are you free this afternoon?” Ji Mingyue asked, then noticed Guan Huailin beside her and turned to greet him.

“Senior Brother Guan.”

Guan Huailin and Ji Mingyue were both expected to become chief disciples, so they were acquainted. Guan Huailin nodded slightly. “Junior Sister Ji, you’re here too?”

Ji Mingyue replied, “My master sent me. This is Lian Mu, a friend I knew before joining the sect. I have business with her.”

Guan Huailin had intended to continue speaking with Lian Mu, but seeing that Ji Mingyue had come specifically to find her, he decided not to interrupt. “I’ll leave you two to talk. I’ll go find someone for a spar.”

Once he was gone, Ji Mingyue half-squinted and stared at his retreating figure. “Judging by how you two were acting, you’ve known each other for a while? You sure have a wide social circle.”

She had made a point of befriending nearly every high-tier spiritual root cultivator in the sect.

Lian Mu couldn’t deny it. She hadn’t actively sought out Guan Huailin, but they did have a connection. “You could say that.”

“You really have a knack for making friends,” Ji Mingyue remarked. “Aside from Wen Yun, I haven’t even gotten close to many people in Gui Xian Sect. Tell you what—if you teach me how to socialize, I won’t charge you for the spirit herbs I gathered for your prescription.”

Lian Mu wasn’t about to turn down free resources, but she was curious. “With your talent and status, do you really need to take the initiative to make friends?”

“I usually don’t like dealing with strangers, but something happened in my family that made me realize connections are important,” Ji Mingyue said as she stuffed the rest of her pills into her spatial pouch. “You need useful friends to make life easier when trouble comes knocking.”

Lian Mu: “Didn’t you cut ties with your family?”

Ji Mingyue: “…That was Wen Yun. He’s the one who ran away. Sometimes I really don’t understand why anyone would voluntarily abandon their clan.”

“Alright.” Lian Mu didn’t press the matter.

“Do you have anything to do this afternoon? If not, you can come with me to Fragrance-Attracting Peak.” Ji Mingyue got back to the point. “I just got a message from my senior sister—my master and Lingshu have returned from the Eastern Azure Dragon Region, and the high-grade alchemy rooms in the Spirit Herb Garden are open.”

The afternoon was a time for free sparring, which meant Lian Mu would probably get challenged again.

She thought about it—going to Fragrance-Attracting Peak would be a good way to avoid that. Plus, her hand was injured, which gave her a legitimate reason to decline fights.

She also didn’t want to see Guan Huailin. His knowledge of the original owner made her feel like she might get exposed.

“Let’s go.”

—

—

At Fragrance-Attracting Peak, every afternoon, the alchemy rooms near the Spirit Herb Garden were filled with explosions.

Especially after new disciples officially joined, sometimes even a small mistake could directly result in an alchemy furnace exploding.

As soon as Lian Mu stepped inside, she saw a group of alchemy cultivator disciples running out, covered in soot, waving their arms frantically.

All around her, other alchemy cultivators were shouting all sorts of strange things.

“I did it! I finally did it! I can finally rest tonight!”

“This is just unfair! We picked the exact same spirit herbs, so why did mine refuse to fuse?”

“I’m starving, about to die… Can someone spare me a bite? If I had known, I never would have studied alchemy. Kind soul, please give me some food!”

Along the way, alchemy cultivators in various states of distress could be seen everywhere. The atmosphere of Fragrance-Attracting Peak was even more “rustic” than that of Cold Arrival Peak.

Ji Mingyue coughed lightly. “Ahem… This is normal after being an alchemy cultivator for a while. Don’t panic.”

Lian Mu was about to say it was fine, but the moment the nearby alchemy disciples noticed her sword cultivator robes, they instantly composed themselves, adopting serious expressions as they walked briskly out.

It was as if the chaotic scene she had just witnessed had been nothing but an illusion.

“…”

Lian Mu shook her head. As expected of alchemy cultivators—prideful and unwilling to show weakness, even at the cost of their dignity.

Ji Mingyue went off to find something, leaving Lian Mu standing alone in front of a row of alchemy rooms. She instinctively sought out the one she had entered before.

It was in the most remote area, yet its door was unlocked.

Back when Master Feng Tianche came to Gui Xian Sect, he personally built Yinxiang Peak’s spirit herb garden and alchemy rooms. Master Feng had decreed that the spirit herb garden should be open to the entire sect, as well as the alchemy rooms nearby.

However, this particular alchemy room seemed different from the others—it was noticeably more luxurious inside, and the fire source near the furnace was of a significantly higher grade than the ones in other rooms.

When Ji Mingyue returned with the herbs she had stored here last time, she found Lian Mu standing in front of that restricted alchemy room. Startled, she quickly went over and led her away. “Come with me. Our room is over there.”

Lian Mu asked, “The fire source in this room is Sui Spirit Stone, which is better than the Chiwood Crystal in the other rooms. Why not use this one?”

Ji Mingyue was stunned. “You can tell the difference between Sui Spirit Stone and Chiwood Crystal?”

Sui Spirit Stone came from spirit mines, while Chiwood Crystal was obtained from magical beasts. Their appearances were similar, and only close observation would reveal the subtle differences. A seasoned alchemy cultivator, who handled fire sources regularly, could distinguish them at a glance—but other cultivators? That was a different story.

Ji Mingyue narrowed her eyes. “You’re a sword cultivator. How do you know this? And how did you manage to pick out the only alchemy room here that uses Sui Spirit Stone?”

“You know how I am,” Lian Mu explained. “I come to Fragrance-Attracting Peak often to slack off, so I’ve seen a few things. Besides, I told you before—I switched cultivation paths.”

But Ji Mingyue wasn’t so easily fooled. “You said you only tried being an alchemy cultivator for a few days before switching. A few days wouldn’t be enough for you to instantly recognize Sui Spirit Stone and Chiwood Crystal…”

She lowered her voice and leaned in. “Lian Mu, you’re not just a sword cultivator, are you?”

Lian Mu: “…” Well, she’d been found out.

Ji Mingyue half-squinted. “You were the one who sneaked into my master’s alchemy room before, weren’t you? You made me take the blame for so long. If you knew alchemy, why didn’t you say so earlier?”

Lian Mu said, “I’m not skilled—I only taught myself to refine pills because I needed to rebuild my spiritual root.”

Then, when she found out her dantian was damaged, she learned how to refine spirit-replenishing pills. The cost-saving benefits of making her own pills quickly became clear, and after that, she never wanted to spend money on someone else’s pills again.

At first, she hadn’t intended to buy pills from Ji Mingyue. But some pill formulas were impossible to find, and the spirit herb garden was no longer freely accessible. Buying herbs at Star-Plucking Tower wasn’t cost-effective either, so she had no choice but to make them herself.

Ji Mingyue raised an eyebrow. “Self-taught?”

Alchemy was notoriously difficult to learn. The more advanced it got, the easier it became, but even she had needed a teacher when she first started. And yet Lian Mu had learned on her own?

A sudden thought crossed Ji Mingyue’s mind. “Do you want to keep learning?”

“What do you mean?”

Ji Mingyue said, “If you want to continue, I can teach you. But there’s a condition—you have to be my test subject. My master wants me to submit an original pill formula as part of my final assessment after the sect tournament. Since your dantian is damaged, I can experiment with creating a pill to repair it.”

“Don’t worry, you won’t be the first test subject. Any new pills I make, Wen Yun will try them first. If he’s fine, then you take them,” Ji Mingyue added. “I’ll teach you alchemy, and I’ll also show you how to minimize spiritual energy loss during refinement.”

Lian Mu’s eyes lit up. “A deal like this exists? It’s settled, then?”

Not only could she learn alchemy, but Ji Mingyue would also help her find a way to repair her dantian. No matter how she looked at it, this was a win-win.

“Of course. We’re fellow sect members—I wouldn’t trick you. It wouldn’t benefit me.”

“If you’re free at night, come find me at Hundred Flowers Courtyard. I’ll be there.”