Pill Otaku had a stunned look on his face. It must have hit him that he’d become the first person to create a pill like this in public without having a Pure Yin Body.

He placed the bowl in front of White Lily. She really held it together well. The only sign that her emotions overwhelmed her were two unnecessary blinks.

”And, how do you feel, fellow Pill Master?”

”I'm in perfect condition. There was a little situation in the middle but it just required a reapplication of the powder.”

She nodded. ”Then we have to congratulate, Apprentice Lin, for winning this youth contest.”

I stood up and bowed to the Pill Masters and Violet who did not look happy.

”Did you come up with this theory yourself?”

I grinned. ”My master came up with the initial idea, but I worked on it until it was viable.”

”In that case, according to the guild rules, for coming up with an original recipe, for the next 150 years, you will receive 20% of the profits from any powder that is sold. And during that same time period, if an alchemist uses your powder to create a pill, you will receive 1% of those profits.”

That was new. When I came up with this in my last life the guild wasn’t that generous, but since this was White Lily handling this I imagined that she considered it a gift for helping Pure Yin Body cultivators hide better. Of course, they could also choose to not pay and let people suspect, but that was their freedom.

In general, the fact that the guild even had something like copyright for things like this was what helped rocket the level of pills and pill making in the future.

But I imagine the author merely used this to let Bloodsword earn more money in the original novel. Well, it benefited me so I wouldn't complain.

I happily smiled at the judges.

”Apprentice Violet Pill,” White Lily said while a guild employee ran up to her and handed her a storage bag. ”You did well in this tournament, you helped others and contributed to the guild. You may have lost in the end, but you still won second place. I present you with a beginner’s cauldron and 1000 spirit stones. It’s not much compared to the top prize but it is still something.”

Violet Pill Fairy accepted the bag with her prize inside it with grace and confidence. She bowed to the judges, then to me.

“Thank you, Pill Masters. Congratulations Fellow Apprentice Lin.” She then elegantly walked out of the hall with her head held high.

Damn, but her acting was good. Knowing her she would wait until she got into a private place then break the shit out of everything not valuable. But leaving this way allowed her to save face and possibly caused some cultivators to have more respect for her.

A guild employee ran up to White Lily then handed her another storage bag. She nodded and smiled gently at me.

“Apprentice Lin. Congratulations on winning today’s youth tournament! Please come up and collect your prize.”

I cautiously walked to the judges’ table. White Lily, after some swift hand movements I couldn't see with my current realm, placed a small storage ring in front of me.

“The ring is yours too,” she said. “It’s my donation to first place and it will resize to fit your finger. It holds the Spiritual Cauldron as well as a little gift from Pill Master Ruthless.”

I took it and imprinted my own signature onto it then took a look at the contents. It had a very impressive and familiar cauldron in it, space for almost a cubic li, three jade slips that would prove my guild copyrights and a protective talisman that could defend against an attack from a Nascent Soul cultivator once, or thirty attacks from a peak Golden Core.

That talisman could also defend against cauldron explosions allowing me to stop hurting myself by using techniques above my realm. Pill Otaku was seriously the best.

“Hey, don’t leave me out of this.” Pill Master Burning Tyrannical Stallion tossed me a cheap storage bag. “I recently purchased some prep tools but found that I don’t like the looks of them. Since they’d just go to waste, I’m donating them to be part of the first-place prize.”

Did... did this guy just turn into a tsundere? Well, I did need new tools so I wouldn't reject them.

“Thank you, Pill Masters!” With a bow, I gratefully accepted my prizes.

When I turned around I stilled in shock at the crowd. It had somehow become even larger since I last noticed it. And there were various people in the peak of Foundation Establishment or in Golden Core who looked like they wanted to eat me up. This amount of attention was not good. Why had I joined this tournament again? A spiritual cauldron... And it was just supposed to be a simple youth tournament.

I jerked back to the judges in panic. I mean, I’d been powerful in my past life and given lectures to crowds larger than this, but as I was now, these people could crush my body like a bug. And I didn’t know what they wanted from me. Did I need to escape or something?

White Lily smiled gently at me. “The appropriate response here is to thank the crowd for coming to watch you win. It’s not every day a young child beats out the city’s famous Golden Core alchemist. I believe everyone here is interested in hearing more about our Alchemists' Guild’s new young genius.”

What? They were here just for that? As the forever second place, I usually ended up leaving like Violet during these things.

Heh. Now that I thought about it, after one thousand years of being in second place, I finally fucking won.

I bowed to the crowd. “Thank you seniors for coming to watch me win. Though I’ve only joined the guild recently, please look forward to seeing more of me in the future.”

***

Thanks to a little help from Pill Master White Lily and Pill Otaku, Little Spring and I managed to escape the guild without getting involved with the crowd that wanted to converse with me. Since it had been such a long day, I really did not want to explain how I spent years coming up with a solution for that powder.

I was also too damn tired to come up with a plausible lie.

Eventually, I found a nice hotel in the city and paid to spend a week there.

That was right. Now that we finally reached a city, it was time to make some spirit stones. But first, I needed sleep so I could concoct my medicine the next day.

After I had laid down on the bed and covered myself with the blanket my little brother came in and crossed his arms over his chest. He looked like he had something serious to say that he’d been holding in for a while. “Fairy Lin!” he yelled loudly, with a face more furious than I had imagined.

I jerked and stared at him with wide eyes. “What?!”

“You are not allowed to risk your life anymore!”

I blinked. This little cutie. Slowly, and painfully, I sat up. I couldn’t let myself be in a disadvantaged position for this conversation. “Hey. Listen. It wasn’t supposed to be dangerous. I was even more surprised than you were.”

“You noticed that it was about to explode. You could have run away and saved yourself. Then you wouldn’t have gotten injured! Tell her, Senior Ghosty McGhostface.”

The middle-aged gentleman floated right outside our bedroom door, peered inside the room. He nodded seriously. “Your life is too important to risk for a simple spiritual cauldron.”

Et tu Ghosty?

But... it wasn’t a simple cauldron. It was a spiritual cauldron that made history in my past life. Granted, given enough time, materials, and my original cultivation realm, I could make something much better, but it wouldn’t replace the history of a thing...

But that history hadn’t happened yet.

I sighed. And also, I’d participated to finally defeat my rival in alchemy. But considering how she was just a young apprentice, even that win felt a little hollow... Only a smidge though. The rest of me still felt pretty good about it.

Humph. The only reason that bitch managed to come so close to defeating me was because of the unscrupulous tricks she (probably) played.

Back to the point, Little Spring had already lost everyone close to him at this point in his life. I was his very last family member, though I was technically just his elder martial sister. But seeing me get hurt over and over again had probably caused him to have a bit of a complex... maybe?

I sighed. “In dangerous situations, I will always act before I think, so I can’t promise I’ll run away when it’s possible to. While, it’s only recently I’ve remembered everything from my past life, those memories of being powerful affect how I think when dealing with situations. But I will try to avoid meaningless dangers. Are you satisfied with that?” I still hadn't told anyone that my past life was technically the future. Nor did I ever plan to.

Little Spring hugged me. His weight was a bit too much for my injured self so I fell back onto the bed. He buried his head into my shoulder and nodded. “As long as you’re safe.”

I awkwardly smoothed his hair. This poor kid.

I thought he was going to head to his bed but instead, while still hugging me he quickly passed out. Well, whatever. Everyone needed comfort sometimes, and this kid had already been through too much in his life. Stupid fuckin’ author of this dumbass harem Xianxia making his young protagonist go through unnecessary hell during his youth. Like, fuck, if you wanted your reader to sympathize with him, I understood but isn’t this a little fucking much? Leave him at least one or two friends or family members for him to care about. After all, why would someone strive to live longer when their life was shit? Revenge could only take a person so far.

And giving a character a harem wasn’t a fucking replacement for family! It was a damn collection. Especially in Bloodsword’s case since he seemed to just marry them, and leave them in the sect so he could go on his next adventure and collect more. As if he married them but couldn’t stand actually getting close to any of them because of losing too many people in the past. I don’t know. Maybe I had it all wrong and he really did love each of his wives but also decided to live a life of constant adventure and improvement?

I gently stroked the kid’s hair. Was I Little Spring’s last chance to have a normal life... well, for a cultivator? If that was the case I’d kind of been fucking that up.

That was it. From here on out, I would focus on our safety. There would be plenty of time for adventure once he was older.

We also still needed to reach the damn sect sooner rather than later. But I was certain that we could avoid dangerous adventures while traveling there. Probably.