Ivor was in the Ginseng Roast Restaurant, a popular restaurant stuffed full of customers, colorful decorations, and the smell of ginseng. He was packing his stomach full of spiritual meat with amazing vigor. Venison, wolves, and even tigers were all swallowed by his gluttony. He squeezed out some words in a short gap between swallowing and taking another bite. “Keep bringing the food until the pills run out!”

Ivor jammed a chunk of roasted spiritual boar into his mouth and washed it down by chugging some 30-year ginseng wine. “Begone, pills! Hello, food!”

After he had thoroughly eaten far too much, Ivor was ready. He pulled out a pouch and threw it to the waiter, who casually caught it in their left hand. His face turned deadly serious. “Waiter, I’m spending my last 200 energy pills. I’d like a shot of Ginseng Roast Restaurant's famous 300 year old ancestral ginseng liquor.”

A black-haired, sharply dressed man in a bright red suit and white undershirt facing away from Ivor clicked his tongue. “You can’t HANDLE a shot of the Ginseng Roast Restaurant's famous 300 year old ancestral ginseng liquor.”

Ivor’s eyes were filled with a cautious light as he responded in a tone half-filled with mockery. “Who are you, fellow Daoist, to tell me what I can and can’t handle?”

The man in the flamboyant suit shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know, just the owner of the restaurant, the young master of the Renshen Clan, Renshen Lian. Pleased to meet you. But seriously, the ancestral ginseng liquor can kill anyone without an open stomach meridian if they’re unlucky. I wouldn’t recommend taking it… but fine, if you insist. Actually, you’re probably going to try to use it to open your stomach meridian. I want to see how this turns out. After all, I hear you’re good at eating pills… Ivor.”

They looked towards the waiter, who had a cold, unmoved expression on his face. “He paid for it, so give it to him. If he dies, then that’s on him. If he doesn’t, well I’ve heard he’s pretty skilled and we could use some new blood.”

Renshen Lian turned towards Ivor as the waiter went to the back to fetch the liquor. A silence Ivor hadn’t even noticed dissipated, and the restaurant returned to it’s hubbub that it was hard for even cultivators to hear through. “How about it, kid? Us meeting here is a bit of karma between us, and you’re one of the top ones to watch in the outer sect, since you went from a mortal to near the peak of meridian opening in a week and a half. I could sponsor you if you agree to help me vie for the inheritance of the Renshen clan, the Timeless Heritage Ginseng. You’ll only be helpful if you can hit Concept Refining by then, but I’m betting you’ll be able to with my backing.”

All of this took a while to describe, but was actually said in an instant. Ivor’s brain was still trying to catch up with this course of events, mainly because Renshen Lian was spitting out words like a silver-tongued machine gun. I might die? Renshen clan? Timeless Heritage Ginseng? Backing? Oh, backing. I want backing. “I’ll do it.”

The waiter casually walked through the crowd with a silver platter carrying a shot glass. He placed the glass in front of Ivor, who gulped when he smelt it. It had a powerful scent, rich with qi. Ivor’s mouth was watering, but at the same time, beads of cold sweat were forming on his forehead. He reached his right hand towards it, picked it up, and drank it down in a single gulp. The liquor burned his throat, but he felt refreshed even as it did so.

However, the refreshed feeling quickly turned into nausea as his body was overloaded with qi. His spleen felt like it was on fire processing the food in his stomach. Ivor decisively stood up and clapped his hands together. The energy from the ginseng liquor began to seep into his stomach. At this point, he popped a red marble into his mouth along with the rest of his volcano tree bark and leaves. The leaves ignited in his stomach, forming a fire that began to melt the obsidian-like bark.

Ivor focused inward and began forcing his gallbladder to produce his special bile. He then used the qi in it to manipulate it, shaping the bark into the shape of a furnace, which the fire from the leaves entered. Then things went wrong. The ginseng liquor from the spleen had been affected by the corrupted qi in the cancerous cells of Ivor’s lymphatic network. When it arrived, it fueled the fire, which grew much stronger, but it also transformed it into a demonic flame. Damn, that’s not good. What to do… I guess I’ll fight fire with fire.

A yuan fire ignited in the furnace in Ivor’s stomach, devouring the rest of the leaves and ginseng liquor before the demonic flame could. Instead of corrupting it, the yuan fire purified the ginseng liquor before absorbing it. The yuan and demonic fires clashed, almost beginning to blend with each other. Ivor noticed their blending so he activated his small intestine meridian, harmonizing the two flames. Maybe the yuan fire will purify the demonic fire.

An explosion of sound resounded throughout the restaurant, leaving the customers in shock and awe. Ivor was vomiting blood into a bucket held by Renshen Lian. After he finished with that, Ivor spoke with a strained look on his pale face. “That did NOT go according to plan.”

Inside Ivor’s stomach, there was next to nothing. Even his water-element bile had evaporated, leaving only countless openings pouring in blood. The volcano tree bark had been totally annihilated; the only thing left was the marble. It used to be red, but it had turned blue due to some strange property of the explosion. Clear fluid began to secrete out of the wounds in Ivor’s stomach as he started to heal himself, but his wounds had been scarred with qi; they weren’t even close to being easy to heal.

Before he knew what had happened, the blue marble in his stomach, no longer being supported by the makeshift furnace or bile, fell to the ground of his stomach. The moment it touched his stomach wall, it dislodged the impurities in his stomach meridian which had been weakened by the blast, displacing them and entering his meridian.

Luckily for Ivor, Renshen Lian was still holding the bucket, because he began puking out more blood, black this time rather than the previous red. “Alright, stomach meridian opened. I have no clue what the hell it DOES, but it probably has something to do with refining treasures. Wait, did I say probably? I mean hopefully. Hopefully it has something to do with refining treasures.”

Renshen Lian sighed in a mix of disappointment and exasperation before addressing Ivor with the most realistic excitement he could muster. It sounded more forced than Oven Inc. employees not quitting their jobs because of the massive economic guillotine that was the breach of contract fee. “You didn’t die, so you’re sponsored now! Congratulations. Now I’m just going to… get rid of these impurities. They’d smell like shit if I wasn’t covering them up with the scent of ginseng, and this is taking a considerable amount of effort.. See you in the inner sect!”

A few moments after Renshen Lian left, Ivor blacked out and flopped to the ground. His last thoughts were, I hope nobody tries to ransom me now that I have a sponsor. Eh, this place is owned by said sponsor. There’s no way someone would dare to do something like that.