“Is Terra a male or female name?” “Who knows. I never checked.” Shao Qing’s smile dimmed slightly as he tried to decide the best route onto the tortoise. “It’s eating now, but it should still be safe to get on. We’ll fly on from the left side, follow my lead and don’t startle it.” Tao Yun nodded.

The tortoise paid little attention to them as they flew towards its back at a slow, steady pace. After a couple of minutes they safely landed without incident, entering into Shao Qing’s ‘garden’. Sections of the tortoise’s back were made up of large trees and unkempt grass digging into dark brown soil, but the majority of it had been converted into various sectioned-off gardening plots.

“Hm. There are a lot of formations set up here.” As Shao Qing responded, a trace of pride creeped into his voice. “I set them all up myself over the past few decades. How are they?” Tao Yun’s response came immediately. “Horrible. An apprentice could do better. Since you have a lot more qi and spare spirit stones than an apprentice they held though, and I guess that’s enough.”

A sigh escaped from Shao Qing’s mouth. “Yes, that they did. I guess that’s the best I can expect from only a few books worth of learning.” He paused. “Anyways, I’m going to go check up on my plants and harvest what’s ready. I’d appreciate it if you could set up some sort of concealment or protection formation around the garden, and if we’re still here after you’re done fix a few of mine.” “Got it.”

With that, Shao Qing began his harvest. It was not short, nor was it easy. High-grade spiritual plants came with their own dangers, particularly the sort he reared for his explosive and poisonous pills. For example, his Flaming Jumping Beans. On the surface they sounded harmless, the name almost cute, but they ended up causing both him and Tao Yun trouble.

Fully matured Flaming Jumping Bean plants took in spiritual energy from the surrounding area and imbued it with a fire attribute. This process could be beneficial to cultivators practicing fire-related techniques, or in growing similar plants, but when trying to set up a formation it made things difficult.

Setting up a formation relied on working with the spiritual energy and layout of an area via a series of long, complex calculations and sets of formation lines. Random spots with fiery spiritual energy that threw off said calculations were not conducive to a working formation. As such, Shao Qing had to harvest the Flaming Jumping Beans before the formation could be finished.

“Gloves?” “They’re flame-retardant. I had a refiner craft them for harvesting- more than a few alchemists have been injured picking their plants.” “I see.” After securing the pair of elbow-length gloves made of a dull, grey leather, Shao Qing moved in to work.

Picking Flaming Jumping Beans was a precise task. Too little qi, and you wouldn’t be able to snap them off the impressively strong vine. Too much qi, and the bean you were picking would explode into a burst of scorching-hot fire, risking a conflagration of the entire plant that could leave an Acupoint Opening cultivator covered in a patchwork of burns.

Fortunately, Shao Qing had taken the proper precautions. While picking the plant one of the beans did detonate, more a result of coincidence than incompetence, but it didn’t do more than scorch Shao Qing’s gloves and momentarily terrify the both of them.

Besides that minor incident, the Flaming Jumping Beans were harvested without incident. Shao Qing now had important ingredients for many future batches of explosive pills, and Tao Yun could continue on with making the formation. The day went on a lot like this, with Tao Yun building the formation and Shao Qing harvesting any plants creating anomalies along the way.

To say that today was a day of great profit was an understatement. The more powerful the plant the longer they generally take to mature, and after several decades many of Shao Qing’s had finally bore fruit. In exchange Shao Qing had been minorly scorched, scratched, and poisoned, but due to due diligence nothing untoward happened- it was only a select bunch of the plants that were dangerous anyways. Many were completely harmless.

After a day full of work, a concealment formation had been set up to hide the garden from casual passerby (although the tortoise itself was impossible to hide), and many of Shao Qing’s aging, amateurish formations had been completely fixed. The most important of which was a peculiar formation surrounding a tiny black weed.

“Weren’t you worried about keeping such a shoddy formation around… that? What if it broke and that thing’s aura spread? Wouldn’t that hurt your pet?” Shao Qing shrugged. “It’d just kill a few plants. This Death Weed would need at least a century to threaten the tortoise on its own- they normally don’t grow to be that strong unless left for a long, long time past maturity.”

Tao Yun wasn’t an expert in anything spoken about besides the formation now restraining the Death Weed, so he let the topic drop there. “If you say it’s fine it’s probably fine. Make sure to check up on that formation next time you come by though- that thing creeps me out.” “Will do. I need the Death Weed for an important pill, so I won’t let any harm come to it.”

After a short rest in a crudely built dirt house Shao Qing had constructed on the tortoise many years ago, it was time to depart. Shao Qing wished Terra farewell, but the tortoise didn’t give any sort of response. Not disheartened, he left some plant clippings as a snack for the creature before flying away. Soon enough, both of them had returned to the Ironwood Estate.

Upon arrival, Tao Yun went to the Formation Division, while Shao Qing returned to his workshop. Attached to his workshop was a simple but sizable storage room where Shao Qing kept most of his ingredients for alchemy. The vast majority of herbs could survive within an interspatial pouch, but they tended to keep much better outside of one.

Unloading the plants was a relatively simple task, and since Shao Qing could effectively memorize the entire room organization wasn’t a problem. With that task done, it was time to turn his attention to the order Grandmaster Kang Bao had passed onto him. “I suppose I’d better start with the soul recovery pills while I get in the swing of things… where did I put that pill testing equipment.” Shao Qing grumbled as he went to retrieve a few objects from a cabinet. He normally didn’t test the efficacy of pills beforehand, and most clients didn’t care about that, but this time he had to. Damn bureaucracy.

Beads of sweat rolled down Shao Qing’s forehead as he sat in front of the pill furnace, only using a minimal amount of qi to guard against the heat it emitted. Inside of the furnace a sea of grey flames could be seen, half-formed pills hidden behind them.This pill concoction had taken roughly five hours, and was only now coming to an end.

With a final burst of energy the pills floated out of the dimming flames and began to congeal. Instead of forming into the traditional oval shape the final product was somewhat lumpy, resulting in a product that more closely resembled a pebble than a normal pill. Four of these ‘pebbles’ fell into Shao Qing’s hand as he began examining them.

“Good… these should more than meet the requirements.” He kneaded his temples after putting the finishing touches on the pills. “Stone Wound pills are a pain. Why couldn’t they just order something simpler…” He stood up, still grumbling, and walked towards a nearby table.

On the table were several peculiar pieces of equipment and a small cage. Inside the cage was a creature that looked like a large, exceptionally fluffy rat. Its white fur extended several inches off of its body, nearly brushing against the edges of the cage. As Shao Qing approached it instinctively cowered, his aura terrifying the Dantian Creation-level creature..

Shao Qing opened the cage and expressionlessly grabbed the creature. “Calm down little guy, I don’t get to write off many of you on the testing expenses." With his other hand, he grabbed a complicated metal tool inscribed with tiny formations, a product of the cooperation between a master refiner and formation master. He poked one end of it into the pill, and a tiny portion came off without affecting the efficacy of the rest of the pill.

Tool in one hand and creature in the other, Shao Qing nonchalantly poked the creature in the side, wounding it underneath its white fur. It struggled slightly, but couldn’t escape his grip. With the other hand, he fed it the tiny portion of a pill. The creature’s unique metabolism caused the pill to be processed near instantly, and by instinct it directed the energy within to the correct area, causing its wound to be covered with a thin layer of stone.

“There we go. Knew it’d work.” Shao Qing returned the creature to its cage as he said this. He continued after letting out a quiet sigh. “Now for the rest.”

Once Shao Qing was done testing the pills, a knock came on his workshop’s door. He momentarily disabled the room’s formations. “Come in.” Tao Yun entered, turning them back on. “You came because you wanted to discuss something, right?”

“Yes.” Tao Yun responded simply before glancing at the caged animal. “Are you sure you aren’t trying to be a beast tamer?” “Unfortunately, no. That’s just one of several breeds of pill testing beasts, which are themselves part of several competing testing standards which no one can decide between. You should know how it goes, assuming the Formation Guild and the Alchemists’ Guild are anything alike.” Tao Yun grimaced. “I do. Moving on then.”

The two switched to voice transmissions despite the room’s concealment formation. “Whoever made the formations surrounding the Centennial Tree really is a genius.” “Did you come here just to say that?” Tao Yun shook his head. “No, but it’s worth saying. To break that formation quickly I’m going to need more than just time to study it.” A frown unconsciously tugged at Shao Qing’s lips. “Like?” “Er… blueprints for the formation? Special tools? I don’t think I’ll be able to quickly break through a high-level grandmaster’s formation without something like that, no matter how much time I have to examine it.”

“You’re sure it’s just a grandmaster’s right? Not a sage’s?” Tao Yun immediately shook his head. “No way. I’d know if that were the case- as much as I hate to say it, at my current level there’s no hope of me breaking through a Formation Sage’s formation.” Shao Qing’s expression lightened up slightly. A problem, but not an insurmountable one. “We’re saving up spirit stones and contribution points now, so if there are tools that can help we should be able to purchase them. For the time being you just need to keep studying it until you know the thing inside and out.”

This promise seemed to satisfy Tao Yun. “If you say so then it should be fine.” He paused for a moment. “Are you thinking of breaking anyone else out of their soul contract?” “Not really. We should be able to take care of things ourselves, and each additional person is a big risk. Although…” Shao Qing thought for a moment. “If we can make it so a bunch of people get freed immediately after our heist, it could be a big help. Cause some chaos to cover up our escape, help some people, it’s a win-win. Would just need to work out the specifics.”

Their conversation continued on for around 15 minutes before they were interrupted. One of the room’s formations suddenly failed, flooded with qi, and the door opened. A lanky man with short, unkempt black hair entered the room. He didn’t restrain his energy, emanating the aura of Early Soul Foundation. As the confused pair stared at him, he just grinned.

After an uncomfortably long silence, Shao Qing was the first to speak. “Who are you?”

“My name is Gong Jiang, and I’m a captain in the Kang Clan’s security division. In simpler words… I’m a spy.”