Chapter Ninety-Five: The Clear and Subtle Heaven

The sensation was so strange that Zhao Fan could not help falling into a daze for a long while.

Looking at the pile of ordinary herbs on the ground, he casually picked one up and held it in his hand.

A thread of true energy climbed from his fingertip onto the herb, and in an instant he had thoroughly discerned the plant’s medicinal properties, even estimating the time when it had first been uprooted.

This was the terrifying aspect of the secret transmission of alchemy: to glimpse through a keyhole and know the whole scene, even to infer a pill formula from a single finished medicine.

True energy danced and changed at Zhao Fan’s fingertips as he continuously drew out and refined the herb’s medicinal essence.

At first his movements were awkward, but soon they grew more and more skillful.

By the end, they were as flowing as clouds and running water, pleasing to the eye.

The clear water before him surged under the force of his spiritual power and soon formed a great vortex. The herbs, having been preliminarily refined, were directly shredded within it, separating their essence from their dregs.

After a series of dazzling maneuvers, several pill-sized pellets had clearly settled at the bottom of the water.

Each one was lustrous and green, like jade carved from emerald.

Zhao Fan pinched one up, and a trace of excitement appeared in his eyes. He had not expected his first attempt at alchemy to succeed.

Although these were not spirit pills, he had every reason to be proud.

With the pill in hand, he immediately understood the various transformations of its medicinal properties. Without hesitation, he swallowed it and refined it with his own true energy.

Such pills, made from ordinary herbs, had no spiritual transformation, but they could still replenish true energy and were rare wonders sought after in vain by secular martial artists.

Just as he was preparing to press on and continue tempering his alchemical skill, the wooden door of the small courtyard was suddenly kicked open.

The tremendous crash at once made Zhao Fan, inside the room, frown.

“Junior Brother Zhao, impressive indeed! To think you could win the master’s regard like that! He is even bringing you along on this trip to Golden Province!”

Before the speaker had even shown himself, a mocking voice came first.

Then Senior Brother Li, his face full of arrogance, stepped in over the shattered door.

“Master has given orders: you are to serve aboard the ship and accompany us to the gathering in Golden Province!”

He gave Zhao Fan a sidelong look and relayed Hu Sheng’s command.

By now, the few pills in the basin had already been collected by Zhao Fan, but many herbs still remained scattered on the ground, and the proud young man saw them all clearly.

He looked at the water basin on the ground, then at the herbs beside it. At first he was startled, and then he sneered.

“So Junior Brother Zhao truly has grand ambitions after all! Sneaking about to study pharmacology, and you even set out a basin of water—what, do you mean to use it as an alchemy furnace? Ha ha ha!”

The several disciples of the Alchemical Cauldron Sect following behind him also burst into laughter at his words.

Zhao Fan’s expression remained calm as he looked at the few before him, as though he were watching a few monkeys leaping about.

Had this been before, he might have been furious. But now that he had stepped onto the path of immortality, his state of mind was utterly different from what it had been in his mortal days.

A little grievance, honor, or humiliation could no longer disturb him.

He did not strike them. After all, this was the Alchemical Cauldron Sect’s territory. If his full strength were exposed, Daoist Hu Sheng would certainly grow suspicious, and it might even implicate his Toad Teacher.

A gentleman keeps his weapon hidden and waits for the right moment to act. Once he reached the Red Pine Dao Palace, he would be like a fish entering the sea, severing his bonds; that would also be the time to settle old enmities.

He gathered the herbs from the ground and looked at the group with calm eyes.

The gaze was mild, yet it carried a terrifying pressure. In an instant, the few still mocking him all felt as though their throats had been seized, and they fell silent.

The young man was the same. Just then, he had seemed to glimpse, on this servant disciple, a trace of his master’s bearing, that unique presence belonging to an immortal cultivator.

The sensation lasted only an instant, but it was enough to make them all involuntarily close their mouths.

A flicker of anger passed through the proud young man’s heart. He came from a noble family in Yun Province and had entered the school of an immortal alchemist. His cultivation had already reached the perfection of the qi meridian realm, and he was only one step away from becoming a martial grandmaster.

And now he had been intimidated by a servant disciple with nothing but a look? If word got out, where would his dignity remain?

True energy surged through his entire body, and he was about to teach this servant a lesson, when the people behind him hurriedly grabbed him and advised:

“Senior Brother Li, do not make unnecessary trouble. What if the master wants him to fan the fire for alchemy? If he claims you injured him, would that not displease the master?”

“Exactly, that is precisely the issue. Better to wait until after the Pill Origin Assembly ends, and then settle accounts with him carefully. He is only a fire-fanning boy—Senior Brother, have you ever seen one who lived longer than two months?”

With their persuasion, the proud young man suddenly came to a realization.

He snorted and said to Zhao Fan, “Ordinarily, Junior Brother, such rudeness would warrant a lesson from me in rules and rank. But considering that you are about to fan the fire for Master’s alchemy, I will spare you this once. Behave yourself when you reach Golden Province!”

Behave well?

Zhao Fan smiled inwardly.

He would indeed behave well—just not as Daoist Hu Sheng’s attendant, but as the man opposing him on this journey!

Looking at the clown before him, Zhao Fan no longer wished to waste words. He immediately rose to see them out.

The proud young man gave him a deep look but said nothing further. Once they reached Golden Province, this person would have plenty to suffer.

So he waved a hand and left with the others.

Watching their retreating figures, Zhao Fan’s face remained utterly serene. He turned and took a wooden box from beneath the bed, set the golden toad inside it upon the table, and respectfully offered three sticks of incense.

“Teacher, this trip to Golden Province is the first step in your disciple becoming famous throughout the world and restoring the glory of the Alchemy Sect. By then, I will surely awaken you once more. Together, master and disciple, we shall rebuild the Alchemy Sect here!”

After praying softly for a while, Zhao Fan carefully put the golden toad away and placed it in his travel pack.

He stepped out the door and looked back at his dilapidated little courtyard.

He would return here again. And when he did, it would be the day he rebuilt the Alchemy Sect.

...

Soon after, on the Golden Orchid River, an extravagant great ship sailed downstream from the waterways near Alchemical Cauldron Mountain, its destination the city of Jinhua Prefecture.

At the same time,

a man and a woman, two young Daoists, quietly set foot in the land of Golden Province.

The man had sharp brows and bright eyes, and wore a robe patterned with stars and cloud seals. The woman, by contrast, was clad in a rainbow gauze flowing-sky dress, much like the attire of ancient female cultivators.

“Senior Brother, is this really the ancestral land the sect elders have kept in their hearts all this time? It doesn’t look as good as our Clear Micro Heaven at all! There isn’t even any spiritual vitality. By now, cultivation here must have already been severed, hasn’t it?”

The girl, who appeared to be only sixteen or seventeen, was filled with curiosity about everything around her. Even a peasant house could hold her attention for a long while.

The man nodded at her words and replied, “This realm is watched over by the Taichu Gate. A hundred years ago, one of our true disciples fell here beneath the sword of Taichu Gate. The path of cultivation in this realm was probably cut off along with him as well.”

At the mention of Taichu Gate, both of them showed a trace of fear, as though those three words were some sort of taboo.

The man did not wish to dwell on it and changed the subject.

“Don’t worry, Junior Sister. This time we carry the Concealing Heaven Talisman bestowed by the elders. As long as we do not go digging up the earth veins, we should not attract their surveillance.”

Although Taichu Gate watched over heaven and earth, its main concern was changes in the earth veins, so as to prevent cultivators from taking desperate risks and secretly excavating this realm’s terrestrial channels.

As long as they did not cross that line, the Concealing Heaven Talisman on their bodies would be enough to mask the aura of the small heavenly grotto they carried.

In any case, they did not plan to linger for long. Once they retrieved the things left behind by the true disciple from a hundred years ago, they would stay at most one or two years before returning to report their mission.

Surely they would not be so unlucky as to run into Taichu Gate emerging into the world.