Since we were in a slight time crunch, Enduring Flame quickly planned out an ingredient list with me.

The great thing about working with a big sect — all the plants I specified, the Peak Master added to the list.

Well, most of them.

He caught a few that I put in there just to see if I could get away with it. The glare he sent me was, hands down, hilarious.

“One of my Elders, Fairy Grass Sprout, will manage all the teams on this mission from the sect. She’s readying all the ingredients as we speak, and she’ll send a portion of them to each of the teams before you leave.”

I nodded.

Now that we took care of that, it was time to see a young old friend of mine. Someone who may have survived this mission in my past life.

I turned to Sword Saint Three Eyes Sun Blade. The old master looked expectant.

“I’ve heard good things about a sword cultivator named Salamander. If he’s going, I’d like to be on his team.”

He blinked. “Sword Master Salamander? He’s leading the sword cultivators for one of the teams.”

It was strange hearing him be called Sword Master again instead of Sword Saint.

Actually, the author who wrote this fucked up universe had a love for titles. Regular cultivators had ones attached to their Daoist name, like ‘Fairy’ or ‘Immortal Zhenren.’ And starting from Golden Core, Sword cultivators (and the even rarer Spear cultivators) had names that differed from others.

Basically, Golden Cores were given the title Sword Master; Nascent Souls were Sword Grandmasters; Immortal Bone Creation practitioners had the honor of being called Sword Saint; and if a cultivator was lucky enough to reach Immortal Ascension, they were given the mouthful title of Venerable Sword Immortal.

I had a theory that they had these cooler titles because the dumbass author had a hidden obsession for sword cultivators.

Or maybe it was because, since they relied on epiphanies to improve, reaching those stages was more difficult for Sword cultivators, so they deserved a more badass sounding title. Whatever. It was the original author who came up with this shit. I just lived here.

Seriously though, epiphanies were hard as fuck to earn. In a thousand years, across my various practices, I’d only had around twenty.

They were like lightning strikes of inspiration that struck so close to the truth of the universe that the practitioner gained approval from the heavens. This approval significantly increased the practitioner’s cultivation or gave them inhuman insight into a path to immortality.

It helped that this world was like most Xianxia, where sword cultivators were some of the strongest people within their realm. Most of them could take on a senior with a cultivation one whole stage higher and survive. A few were so good they could kill those same seniors.

This strength was the reason the sword remained my principal weapon until the day I died — even if I wasn’t technically a sword cultivator myself.

“Sword Master Salamander has been looking after my grand disciple, Clear Eyes Mad Tongue, who is going on this mission to gain experience.”

Oh, no… That naming sense was just awful. I hoped young Mad Tongue would earn a better Daoist name when he grew up.

I smiled at the Sword Saint. “I’ll be sure to look after your grand disciple while I’m there.”

“As long as you can keep the cultivators from my peak plague-free, I’ll be more than satisfied, Martial Aunt Lin. They’re there for your protection. Not the other way around.”

This was why I loved working with sword cultivators. They were the absolute best people to watch your back. “With me around, even if the plague touches them, it won’t be for long.”

Enduring Flame cut in, “When will you have a finished recipe to hand over to my disciples?”

“Once I’ve confirmed its efficacy and patented it at the Alchemists’ Guild. It should be finished within a day. Two at most. The guild can spread it to more alchemists in the area than we can.” And it will prevent Violet from earning money from it. Muahahaha.

I also refused to make it free. After watching a few people I knew in my past-past life almost die from the bullshit the drug companies pulled with insulin — where they turned a necessary life-saving prescription into an opportunity to squeeze people dry — I had zero expectations that anyone outside of my sect would give the pills away to those who needed it. That was why, once I patented it at the guild, I would only set a high percentage of the net profit of each pill to go into my pocket. From my experience with alchemists, this would encourage them to give it away or sell it at cost just to spite me.

Of course, there would still be a few alchemists who would hike up the price anyway, but they’d do that regardless.

I also didn’t worry about having too few alchemists creating these pills. The ingredients weren’t rare, but they were still limited. If fewer alchemists fought over them, that should help keep the prices lower.

Peak Master Enduring Flame nodded sagely.

***

Once we’d settled on a few more details (and after I handed the Sect Leader his package), they gave me two hours to get my shit together and meet Sword Master Salamander at a specific teleportation platform on Majestic Sword Peak.

I hurried back to the courtyard I shared with Little Spring and ran to where he diligently practiced with his blade. He sheathed the new basic sword I’d made for him using some of the Spiritual Silver I’d received from the Sect Leader. Honestly, I’d wanted to make a better one for him, but my realm was too small. I could only wait until I reached Foundation Establishment to forge him the sword he deserved.

Actually, after we’d entered the sect, I’d made it a point to ‌return the sword that was a keepsake from his mother — the one he’d given to his first wife after marriage in my past life. The kid had refused to take it back, saying that I could return it only when I had one that was better.

The adorable child was worried for my safety. After getting his sword broken in the tournament, he must have realized that a good quality sword could save my life.

Little Spring turned to me with the biggest grin on his face and his eyes glowing with excitement.

“Sister Lin?! It finally finished!”

Huh?

Without explaining any further, he vanished.

The kid’s space finally completed its upgrade!

He hadn’t used an obfuscation array, but my divine sense hadn’t picked up any strange spatial fluctuations or hidden treasures being used.

Wait! I think the kid mentioned that part of this upgrade would include better security features or something. It made sense that a space like this would have a way to hide itself so the owner could use it as an emergency escape. I mean, if other cultivators could notice it, then it would make for a pretty fucking useless escape route.

Originally, it might have been able to perfectly hide its owner from their enemies.

Knowing what I did of Xianxia and magical spaces, it was possible that it had long ago become old and damaged. The spirit must have shrunk the area it covered and removed unnecessary features.

After the kid fed it several special items, it had repaired itself a little.

Little Spring likely had several more special items to go until it upgraded back up to full strength.

Since the kid had given me access to his space, I went inside it, choosing to land right in between Fairy Lake and the cottage. Except that the cottage looked more like a small palace now.

It had red walls, intricate gold trimming, and a beautifully curved hip-and-gable roof.

And the spiritual spring water, which had been about the size of a small pond originally, had enlarged to the size of a large lake.

In order to hold a lake of that magnitude, the land had expanded by about ten times the previous size.

Surprisingly, all the plants we’d left in here were now at their most perfect harvestable time.

The vines had flowers ripe for making more Lin’s Super Awesome Repair Dan.

I even spotted a couple of peach trees that had sprouted from the pit’s Little Spring must have planted.

What the actual fuck was going on?

Little Spring ran to a gazebo that had definitely not been there before and sat on a stone bench. He grinned and grabbed at something in midair.

The air shimmered with a glittering yellow light and a small, spectral golden dragon appeared in the kid’s hand. It started to squirm until the kid released it.

“Sister Lin, this is the spirit of this place. And Spirit, be polite to my sister.”

The tiny dragon crossed its little arms and wiggled its tiny noodle body at me tauntingly.

Hmm, a spirit of a space like this was not something to take lightly. Little Spring could since he was essentially the master here, but both myself and it knew that I was only a temporary guest. If that was the case, then it would be better to be polite to it, similar to how I treated Senior Auspicious Paifeng. I bowed politely to the little dragon. “This junior greets Senior Spirit.”

The little dragon seemed to ignore my greeting. It flew out of the gazebo, did an irritated lap over the lake, only to return and hiss at Little Spring. “Fine! I’ll be polite!”

Then, as if it were a petulant child, it bobbed its horned head towards me, causing its wavy whiskers to straighten. “The Spirit of the Spatial Expanse greets Fairy Lin.”

“I’ve already told it to follow your orders.”

Well, if that was the case... then nothing changed.

I sat down at the table. At this angle, it looked a lot like a semi-translucent golden toy.

“So, Senior Spirit needs to accept my instructions?”

It glared at me and blew out a small stream of bubbles.

This thing was fucking fascinating.

In this world, there were three types of beasts. Spiritual beasts who originated from animals or monsters (reaching human intelligence at their High Golden Core equivalent). Then there were Mystical beasts (creatures like Nine Tailed Foxes or Mystical White Snakes) who had human intelligence at birth.

The last type was Ascendant beasts. These were mythical creatures like Qillins and Phoenixes. They had above human intelligence at birth. However, they were so rare that even after living in this world for a thousand years, I’d never seen one in the flesh. However, I didn’t doubt that they existed. This was a Xianxia universe, after all.

But that didn’t mean I would see one in my lifetime. They were that rare.

This little spirit was probably the closest I would ever get to seeing an Ascendant beast. At least until I ascended to immortality and had a few thousand years to casually look for one.

Of course, main characters had a habit of getting into hidden places where they encountered mythical creatures as if they were stray cats.

Maybe if I stuck with the kid long enough, I might meet a real one sooner.

While the space being open was great and unexpected, and while meeting the little dragon was really fucking intriguing, I still had a time limit.

There was something important I had to discuss with my martial brother. “Little Spring!”

“Yes, Sister Lin?”

“I volunteered for a mission, and I need to leave in two hours.”

“What’s the mission?”

I briefly explained about the plague, how I knew a possible cure, and how I had to go with them to help.

He nodded. “So we only have a little over an hour to prepare? It’s a good thing the space opened.”

Right. He probably wasn’t going to like this. “I think you should remain here where it’s relatively safe.”

And just as I thought, his lips thinned into a straight line, and he looked at me with obvious hurt. “So you want me to stay here… alone?”

I almost rolled my eyes.

“You’re not alone. There are plenty of seniors who can look after you.”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “The people here are fine, but they’re not you. They’re not family.”

Hey, this wasn’t the world of Lilo and Stitch. “Part of the reason I wanted to come to this sect was to give you a stable environment to grow up in. If you follow me to every mission I go on—”

“—Then I can watch your back.”

I raised my brow at the kid. “I’d rather have you safe than in danger.” Sure, I’d dragged the kid here when he was only 8 years old, but being on the move was always a temporary state. The plan was to stay protected in the sect and grow stronger as we grew older. Not to gallivant around where a pissed off Nascent Soul having an off day could squash us like flies for the hell of it.

“If I’m close to you, then you’ll have access to my space. You’ll be able to use it to escape if you get in danger. But if I’m not, then I don’t know if it will work for you. You need to take me with you.”

The kid was adorable and made some good points. But, as the adult, I couldn’t give in.