Huang Lei quietly regretted the series of events that brought her to her current position.

Sitting at a table with a drunk noble scion, more interested in talking her ears off about heavens damned plants than closing his mouth for a moment and letting her steer the discussion towards a more fruitful topic.

An inaudible sigh was drowned out by the young scion’s unending chatter.

How had she even gotten to this point?

She’d woken up groggily from her sleep, still exhausted after a particularly intense cultivating session that ended in her advancement to the fifth step of the Constitutional Realm.

While the sensation of her body becoming stronger and of her physique refining itself further towards perfection was intoxicating, it simply wasn’t enough to chase away the mental and physical drain of such an expenditure of spiritual energy, so she decided to take the day off from training to relax and recuperate.

She prepared herself a steaming bath, something that she still wasn’t completely used to doing without her handmaidens, despite having been sent to the Golden Peak Sect more than a year ago now, then proceeded to untangle her long dark locks with a silver brush before sinking to the bottom of the filled tub.

That’s how she spent most of her morning, laying in a hot tub and only moving to massage various scented lotions and creams gifted to her by some of her admirers into her skin and hair.

Her beauty truly was one of the more useful weapons in her arsenal, Huang Lei mused as a particularly strong herbal concoction spread a pleasant numbness through her sore spirit.

She stayed like that for hours, having dozed off into a small nap before being woken up by her water’s chilling temperature.

She let out a despondent sigh as she finally exited her bath, admiring her own unblemished form for a few moments in the full body mirror that was placed a few paces from her bath, deep blue eyes traced every curve of her body with unabashed pride before she dried herself off with a flex of her spiritual energy, and put on her Inner Disciple robes.

Something that she had come to learn in her relatively short time as a member of this most illustrious sect was that most of its Elders did not care for grandstanding and opulent displays of wealth. Which was the main reason that both the inner and outer compounds looked so mundane when one disregarded the quality of their materials.

Despite its name, almost no gold could be found to decorate the sect’s buildings, something that had truthfully left her mildly disappointed when she first arrived here.

The same was true for the robes given to the disciples. While the materials and skill put into creating them were top notch, they none the less looked very plain compared to some she had seen from even Sects outside of the Great Seven.

Fortunately for her, Huang Lei had already found a solution to this predicament.

A quick visit to a seamstress had left her with numerous modified versions of the blue robes, to mix and match as she saw fit.

Today she decided to go with a violet gown over a tighter pair of mid calf pants, while a looser top showed off the jade like skin of her slender neck alongside just a hint of cleavage.

The perfect outfit to captivate the minds of cultivators and noble scions alike.

With her outfit for the day chosen Huang Lei finished her preparations by tying her hair up in a long braid before leaving her house.

Her beauty immediately attracted attention as she made her way through the compound. Hurried cultivators slowed to take in her appearance, some admiring her beauty others seething at her advancement and jealous of her captivating form.

Huang Lei didn't grace them with even a hint of her attention, but still, she hid a small satisfied smile behind an expensive fan decorated with a stormy ocean's crashing waves.

She took her time as she descended the mountain housing her adopted sect, enjoying the warm spring evening.

Unlike many of her fellow disciples, she often left the hallowed peaks of their sect to mingle among the inhabitants of the Golden City, not because she held any attachment for them, but simply because that was the optimal way to complete her mission.

Originally, Huang Lei had been born into a minor independent sect. A small group of cultivators that didn't even break past a hundred members and whose settlement couldn't even be found on a map.

The strongest cultivator in that small sect was a man in the Ethereal Realm, her father.

After she was born and started cultivating on her own, her talent immediately shone through, setting her apart from her peers and outstripping even her father's own achievements by reaching the Constitutional Realm by her seventeenth birthday.

So, as he found himself nurturing a young tiger, her father came up with a plan.

She would be sent over to the Golden Peak sect, where her talents could truly bloom with the help of the Great Sect's resources, and while she grew stronger with their help she would form alliances with both her fellow cultivators and the movers and shakers of the Golden City.

After all, not even a Great Sect could sustain itself without a mortal economy present to offer critical services.

While she still had no luck forming alliances with her fellow cultivators, mostly due to her talents and beauty rendering her an obvious target for jealousy and admiration aplenty, she did manage to make various deals with both nobles and merchant companies that had already afforded her natal sect various crucial supplies, so she simply told herself that it was but a matter of time before she found allies between her fellow disciples.

Speaking of which, a deal was exactly why she was currently down here.

After months of effort, she had finally managed to get an audience with one of the most influential merchants of the region, a man so rich that had bought a title from the rulers of the Golden City.

Or rather, a date with his son.

She swiftly crossed the city's streets, reaching the expensive looking restaurant that was to be their meeting place in a matter of minutes, where she found the man in question waiting for her alongside a middle aged man that she assumed was his aide.

She gently sent her aura towards the two, identifying the young man as a middling cultivator in the middle of the Natal Realm, while she was surprised to find that the older man was in the Constitutional Realm too, albeit only at the first step.

They greeted each other amiably, the duo having no idea that she had read them with her aura thanks to her expert control over it, then they finally entered the opulent building.

Once they sat down and placed their orders they finally began talking in earnest. They started with some small talk, conversing about the weather and any recent events that came to mind, until the conversation naturally stirred towards matters of cultivation, as any long conversation between two cultivators always does.

And that is where she made her first mistake.

The young scion humbly asked for tips from her as she was his senior when it came to cultivation, something she was more than willing to give as it would put him in her debt. She first told him about some exercises he could do to better learn how to control his chi, then she followed up by mentioning some spiritual herbs he should have no difficulty procuring for himself considering his wealth.

And that's when she saw it. A glint in his eyes, as if she'd showed an opening in a duel to the death.

An avalanche of words gushed from the man's mouth. Like a wave of daggers that crashed upon her defenseless form.

She tried to feed him some alcohol in the vain hope that it would slow him down, but it ended up only exacerbating the problem, and now she had to deal with a slurring, monologuing man that was too intoxicated to discuss the topic she had even come all the way here for.

And his aide wasn't even helpful, the best he could muster was an apologetic look sent her way!

How useless. How... incredibly vexing.

Fortunately for the young scion, a savior appeared from nowhere just as she was contemplating his imminent murder.

"Ohoh? Are you perhaps talking about spiritual plants?" A young man in inner disciple's robes bulldozed straight through the scion's verbal barrage, bringing him to a momentary halt as his addled mind tried to cope with the sudden interruption.

The green eyed man didn't let the scion get his bearing, and pounced on the defenseless drunk with no hesitation.

"You know, that's a really funny coincidence." He added as he sneaked an arm around the intoxicated man's shoulder. "Because my friend here is an alchemist that knows a whole lot about spiritual herbs!"

With an almost forceful movement, the man in blue pulled the noble scion towards another table, where an exceedingly pretty feline beastman was sitting and shooting the taller man a comically exaggerated look of betrayal.

After depositing the other man down like a sack of potatoes, he turned around and made his way to her seat.

He passed a hand through his neck length coppery hair, as if dragging the other man away had been a titanic effort, before he gave her a pleasant smile.

"Sorry about that." He said without sounding the least bit sorry. "But you looked you were about to take his head off his shoulders, so I assumed you wouldn't mind if I just brought him away."

She favored him with a genuine smile of gratitude. "You assumed correctly. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for the rescue." She added jokingly.

Then a question entered her mind, which she voiced promptly. "I do not believe I've ever seen either you or your friend around the Inner Compound. Were you perhaps cultivating in isolation?"

The green eyed man chuckled slightly before answering. "Not at all, we were simply not Inner Disciples yet until yesterday."

Huang Lei blinked in surprise for a moment before sending her aura out to feel the man out. "Then congratulations are in order." First step of the Constitutional Realm.

She hid her surprise with a shallow bow. "I am Inner Disciple Huang Lei, by the way."

The younger man responded in kind. "I am called Xiang Yu, but feel free to just call me Yu." He added with another pleasant smile. "Now if Senior Sister Huang will excuse me, I need to back up my friend before he decides to poison me in my sleep."

Huang Lei watched her Junior Brother walk to his table like a man walking towards his own execution, while she slipped away from the dining hall.

She would need to keep an eye on the latest crop of new Inner Disciples.