Needing to make a breakthrough pill for the mole was quite the conundrum.

  While Baiyun seemed to be doing fairly well considering he had gathered the ingredients for it along with a proper cauldron and even an artefact brazier... he was still ultimately unable to use any proper alchemic techniques due to his ck of meridians.

  All the pills he made st night were in a sense merely simple toys, cking the powerful effect of true alchemic products.

  It was fine. He already had an idea on how he could circumvent that, but it was unreliable and even a little risky. Worst of all, he would have to rely on someone else...

  But for now, he reached into his bag and pulled out a rge gss bottle of Vital Heart Brew, drinking it slowly. He had produced quite a rge amount of brew st night, but thankfully, the rge amount of gss bottles he bought from the market could be reused.

  Processed essences found in alchemic products were usually a lot more spatial-stable than natural essences in fresh herbs, so he could safely store the Vital Heart Brew and the assorted pills into his storage bag without too much worry.

  That was why he was in such a hurry to use up all of the herbs he bought, otherwise their effect would continue to degrade. He eyed the mole's herb pouch slightly resentfully. It would be so much easier to store herbs if he just snatched that away. Fei An gave that pouch to him anyway, didn't she? He was the rightful owner of the herb bag!

  Because the mole "stole" it from him, he had to store the bckhorn root and a few stolen herbs from the mole in a closet in his room, hoping no one would steal it. Otherwise, they would degrade in his low-grade spatial bag.

  Baiyun briefly checked the cauldron was at a safe temperature before tossing the mole in as he returned to his inn room. The cauldron was still comfortably warm from residual heat, and its insides were tinged with the subtle fragrance of cooked herbs; the little mole found it quite comfortable and dozed off shortly.

  Under the light of morning, Baiyun noticed his room was getting a little dusty. He was going to move out in less than a week, but it got on his nerves so he spent 10 minutes cleaning up anyway. Not being able to use an instant-cleansing spell was quite the bother.

  Done.

  Now, it was time for the long awaited breakthrough! Baiyun reached into his bag and retrieved every single jar of Qi Replenishing pills. They were misshapen and covered in burnt oil, but Qinghe didn't have to see them so he didn't care.

  He grabbed them by the handful and started scarfing them down. With their whitish colour, from a distance, Baiyun almost looked like he was chowing down on oversized rice grains; it was safe to say he wouldn't need breakfast today.

  Undignified? No one could see him here anyway. He needed a huge burst of qi quickly, so he needed to eat them fast!

  Dozens of partially chewed pills tumbled down his gullet and into his stomach. Around them, bdes of soul sliced and chopped them up, pulverising them into dust. It was a good thing the pills were retively brittle, or he would be bleeding and convulsing on the floor like back in the prison with Undying Basalt.

  Condense! Baiyun willed his soul to extract the qi from the pill matter.

  A muddy-green mass of qi oozed out and floated within his stomach, swirling ominously. It was polluted wood qi teeming with impurities, the side effect of using heavily degraded qi grass.

  Wood absorbed earth to nourish itself and grow stronger, much like how the spreading roots of grass could crack even stone and brick. To Baiyun who had an earth constitution, wood qi was akin to poison! Qi grass was only suited for wood and fire cultivators.

  But he had prepared for this.

  Without hesitation, he reached into his bag and pulled out a brownish-bck pill covered with strange gnarly swirls; it had the awful scent of rotting earth and felt just as disgusting to the touch.

  It was a Wood Rotting pill, a recipe from his old world. He wrapped it up in a random herb leaf before swallowing it, not wanting the awful taste to get into his mouth.

  Baiyun struck the awful pill with soul as it tumbled down, and it turned into an awful miasma of swirling bck murk. He hurriedly channelled a thin soul barrier to protect his stomach walls, not wanting to deal with stomach ulcers for the next few weeks.

  Bck rotting miasma collided with muddy-green qi and mixed together. The wood qi seemed to flicker as bck and brown spots began to taint it. They spread over the green qi like mould and overtook it, slowly withering it into nothing and rotting it away.

  All that was left was a pulsing bck lump floating within his stomach.

  But from rot came earth. Baiyun slowly used his soul to separate the mass. Purified mud qi was separated from the lump of impurities, floating as a separate orb.

  And now for the unpleasant part. Baiyun lowered his head to a jar and made awful retching sounds as he vomited out the poison into it. He also took the chance to expel some other impurities he had accumuted in the past week.

  Urgh... Baiyun grimaced as he wiped his mouth with a cloth.

  He stashed the impurity jar away unwillingly. He hated the idea of putting this into his bag, but he had no expnation for a servant being able to expel that. It would need to be discreetly disposed of somewhere in the forest ter.

  Baiyun could finally continue advancing his cultivation; he absorbed the purified mud qi into his dantian slowly.

  If the scant qi he had obtained from the spider and various herbs was the flickering fme of a candle, a whole campfire's worth of fmes had been introduced. Each pill he ate had qi equal to 100 days of servant meals. In just a few minutes, it was as if he had eaten 30 years worth of servant dinners!

  Breakthrough! Breakthrough! Breakthrough!

  Aura surged through his body and rushed towards his pores as if excited about the continuous breakthroughs, only to crash into sealed servant pores anticlimactically.

  4th level of Qi Gathering!

  5th level of Qi Gathering!

  6th level of Qi Gathering!

  It was an absurd progression in cultivation for a single day of effort. But it was not as glorious as it seemed. Qi accumuted from herb discards, the beast core of a spider filled with remnant will and now low grade mud qi.

  If cultivation were compared to tapestry, his would be an amalgamation of incoherent coloured strings holding patchwork cloth together. Meanwhile, the young masters in the hunting party had tapestries woven from the finest silk, the result of high quality cultivation materials from their cns.

  Hah... well no use compining about it. It was perfectly serviceable for now.

  But Baiyun clenched his fist anyway. Once he was stronger and got better opportunities, he would destroy his cultivation without hesitation and start anew! If he wanted to make good progress down the line, he would need a high quality earth foundation.

  With his experience as a reincarnator, recultivating was very fast as long as he had the right resources prepared, so he didn't think it was a big deal.

  It was a shame he couldn't cultivate the Pure Qi path from his past life, but he had to compromise due to his servant constitution.

  He began to consolidate his cultivation and let his body adjust. The streams of qi coursing through his veins grew denser as his dantian pulsed with life, a warm and comfortable feeling.

  But he didn't like the idea of sitting idly, so he also shaved down the various pills and beautified them in the meanwhile.

  An hour passed before the qi settled. Baiyun took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

  Between his teeth came a thread of divine sense that spiraled around him, growing longer and longer.

  10 metres, 20 metres, 30 metres!

  Baiyun opened his eyes and nodded in satisfaction before slurping the thread back down like an oversized noodle. Good, good! His divine thread was finally getting to a semi usable length.

  Next, he summoned 5 separate threads of divine sense, each 10 metres long. They coiled together and formed a rotating sphere around him, imitating a field of qi sense with a 6-metre diameter.

  Shorter threads had less diminishing returns, so it was easier to make many short threads than a single long thread. 5 threads totalling to 50m in length had the same expenditure of a single 30m thread.

  Baiyun estimated once he was able to make a single 100m divine thread, he would be able to create hundreds of short threads and weave together some basic spells.

  It was an absurdly inefficient approach to spellcasting, but it was the best workaround he could come up with. The servant constitution truly was depressing.

  Cultivation complete. It was time for the next task.

  Baiyun's current robes were a little sooty from the alchemy residue, so he switched to a new pair and headed to Qinghe's room and knocked.

  ...

  She opened the door and gred at him for a moment, but it quickly faded a look of resignation.

  "Oh. You again. Why am I not surprised?" she said.

  Hah... Qinghe was a good kid, but he wished she would be a little kinder for once.

  Baiyun entered the room and immediately noticed it had gotten messy again. He frowned as he walked towards the table.

  "Ah! I already know you’re about to get on my case again! You're here for something, so let's just get to business." Qinghe shouted.

  But he began to rearrange the equipment and textbooks on it before she could stop him, his hands blurring as he worked. The mess was reorganised at record speed.

  "...can you not?" Qinghe huffed. "You're being very rude, you know?"

  Baiyun didn't back down.

  "Aren't you the young master of a cn? You should learn to be presentable for the sake of their dignity." he said.

  "Oh, shut up. It's none of your business. None of my cn elders are here anyway, so what's wrong with rexing for once?" Qinghe smacked the table. "If you're done rolepying as an old man, again, let's get to business."

  Rolepying as an old man?! Baiyun almost spluttered.

  He wanted to retort and say something about good habits and integrity, but Qinghe was getting really miffed so he decided not to push it. Honestly, he had already tried his best to hold back.... but how could he not lecture her after seeing she had made a mess of her room again?

  Whatever.

  Now that the clutter on her table was sorted, half of it was free. Baiyun reached into his bag and plopped jar after jar of pills onto it.

  Qinghe's eyes widened.

  "No way." she mumbled. "You're not telling me you made this many pills in a single night?"

  Baiyun chuckled.

  How would she react if she knew he made over 100 Qi Replenishing pills on top of all these? He also had jars of pills he couldn't show her, since they were recipes from his old world.

  "A lot of these pills are inedible, so you might not want to test them with your pill hamsters," he said. "These are Heatstone pills, Mudroot fasting-"

  "No. Seriously, how is that even possible? Do you have some sort of secret secondary constitution that lets you use Qi Control despite being a servant? Or is someone making the pills for you?"

  Qinghe stared at him with suspicion and Baiyun began to sweat.

  He had been trying to shock her and convince her he had some credibility, but he began to wonder if he had gone too far. Was it really such a big deal that he had made a bunch of low-grade pills overnight? He had already shown her he could concoct Iron Strength pills after all.

  "Er... Mohei and Jingfeng were watching me the entire time st night. You can ask them for evidence." Baiyun forced a smile.

  "No need for that."

  Qinghe checked Baiyun's fingernails and confirmed they had pill residue on them. He helplessly presented her his robes and tools from yesterday as well, since she was looking for evidence.

  "Hmph."

  She brushed the filthy robes aside and stormed to his room where the alchemy cauldron was, then opened it. The mole woke up and screamed in rage as it lunged at her!

  "Ah! Why is it inside the cauldron again!" she yelled.

  Qinghe smacked it aside reflexively as it flew towards her, and it flopped to the ground unconscious. Baiyun sweated. He didn't think it could jump that high, was that a boost from the iron strength pills?

  At this rate, it was going to get trauma, thinking Qinghe was a bandit that returned to rob it every single day...

  "Oops..." she said.

  Qinghe checked on the mole briefly, silently apologising to it before examining the inside of the cauldron for evidence. Her frown grew deeper and deeper as she identified essence after essence that matched. She even lifted it up and checked its bottom for evidence of the brazier's use.

  She stared at Baiyun, then at his nails again. Her disbelief seemed to grow deeper and deeper and she took a deep breath.

  There was a minute of silence as she collected her thoughts.

  "Okay. I still don't fully believe you." Qinghe said finally. "But what are you after?"

  She fed the mole a healing elixir of sorts.

  "You're paying for this by the way."

  LunaTheGhost