Once we’d gone through the line and collected our jade Con badges, Lina returned.

“We apologize for the inconvenience earlier. Our Guest of Honor, the Azure Pill Sage, had difficulties and accidentally held everyone up.”

Ah… I remember that stuck-up asshole. He invented some decent hand seals. Everyone had fawned all over him in my past life because of them until a group of researchers developed something better. Though they based a significant portion of their research on his seals.

“Although we cannot give you back the time you spent in line, I thought you might like your own personal map of the convention. Every building and shop is listed on it.”

Grass Sprout nodded. “This should save us some time.”

As soon as I received my map from Lina, I set out to memorize it. An old habit I’d picked up from visiting theme parks in my past-past life.

The egg-shaped island wasn’t large. The half to the east was merely noted down as untamed land. It probably had beautiful trees, bushes, and wildlife. Meanwhile, the west side had the convention buildings. The nearest structure to the untamed area was the Grand Lecture Hall, that could fit a few thousand.

Four smaller halls named after famous alchemists flanked it. A few lessons were taking place in them later this week by masters I’d never seen before. I looked forward to hearing them. They might even share concepts that would boost my understanding of alchemy even higher. Or they’d be completely off.

The Grand Lecture Hall was where I’d hold my money-making lesson. I had even spent a few days preparing for it — mostly so I wouldn’t sound like the time traveler I was.

According to the schedule they gave me, I would begin later tonight. This left me about five hours to roam around the shop and lodging area. I needed to hurry and trade for some rare spiritual herbs and pick up souvenirs for my juniors. Poor Unyielding and Early Rise Swift Brush deserved a little something for the trouble they’d go through due to my absence.

Whatever mess Little Spring was about to start would hopefully occur after my speech. If it led to us getting kicked out before I earned our cultivation resources, I might murder that brat... with more training.

According to the map, all the shops were located west of the lecture halls. Since our Indomitable Will Sect needed to show off — especially after the demonic infiltrator incident — we’d set one up as well.

Further west was a teleportation formation area. This was a place that allowed groups to set up an exit that could also be used in an emergency. Not that the convention expected one to happen.

With a nod to Enduring Flame and myself, Four Directions Eagle left for that area to set up our array.

After that there was the entrance — our current location — then the teleportation zone where we first arrived, and finally the harbor.

The map of the island was well-made. It was good for those kids who didn’t have a Nascent Soul level divine sense. Not that I could use mine at that level just yet, because I needed to keep the seal on my soul intact.

Little Spring looked up from his own map and studied the colorful orange buildings. He practically vibrated with energy… Maybe I should bring him to see the sights before he runs around making a mess of the convention. That way, he could come to appreciate it. Then, if he accidentally destroyed it, he would feel that much worse. That could be a valuable lesson for a main character.

I hoped that teaching this little protagonist to appreciate the beauty of different places would mitigate some of his possible destructive tendencies. While I hadn’t noticed anything from Little Spring yet, I’d read too much Xianxia in my past life to not know how everything they touched could get obliterated as long as it benefited them.

Even Bloodsword would go around destroying every secret realm or sect resource that asshole went to. One reason I disliked that reprehensible ass bucket so much was because of the destruction he left on his path toward immortality. He’d consume resources and leave nothing behind for future generations. Okay, that wasn’t entirely fair. He left some things when the assets belonged to someone. But then, his reparations were only beneficial to the owners and not the people who needed the tools.

For example, a fellow Daoist had a one-of-a-kind spiritual tool that removed harmful foreign energy from the body. He’d originally purchased it to help cure his sister. Sadly, while it did what it was supposed to, the energy she had in her body wasn’t foreign, but part of her special constitution. He started renting it out to save up contribution points to buy her medicine. At one point, I had been injured and needed it. I even paid the man, but before I could get my hands on it, Bloodsword grabbed the tool and accidentally destroyed it.

Now that I thought about it, it probably had something the space could use to upgrade or something that activated his special constitution... The kid should probably try to find it.

But, once that one-of-a-kind spiritual tool broke, Bloodsword compensated the man by having Violet Pill Fairy make his sister a treatment plan for her condition... Which was great. Fantastic, even.

And it left me high and fucking dry!

To take care of my injury, I had to spend months developing a technique to remove foreign energy from the body. It was actually the same one I used to cure Little Spring when he almost died from lingering Ascendant Beast energy.

“Where are we going first?” Little Springs’ voice brought me out of my contemplation.

“We should help set up our store.”

Enduring Flame frowned. “No need. You’re still young. Why don’t you take your junior brother to look around?”

I blinked. “Are you sure?” I mean, that was my plan, but...

“Absolutely. With your map, you won’t get lost and no one here would dare hurt you.”

Lina nodded. “The Alchemy Convention has the best security, so nothing bad will happen.” She paused and showed us a brilliant professional smile. “Keep in mind that your lecture will start right after our Guest of Honor’s speech. Because the association appreciated your work with the Demonic Vine Plague, they reserved seats for you and your sect for his lecture.”

Wait a second... The Azure Pill Sage had been insanely popular for decades around this time. His lecture would be completely full. So if I could keep all those people there… that would mean I would earn a couple thousand high-tier spirit stones!

It was a good thing I knew just what to say to those alchemy nerds to get them to stay. Then all of those cultivation resources would be mine! Muahahaha!

That could last me through Golden Core! I absolutely had to keep everyone there.

“I’ll be there if I have time.” I’d already heard his lectures in my past life, so I wasn’t that interested. “But I’m sure my fellow disciples would love to hear it.”

***

Little Spring and I walked around the main street. With its orange buildings and overly excited alchemist attendees, I could almost imagine that I was really still in my past life. That the Con just changed venues.

Most of the crowd headed toward the overflowing lines for the various lecture halls, but there were a few alchemists who gathered in corners to discuss the Dao. I even overheard one snippet of conversation, where a group argued about who invented a specific technique that was now widely used.

Bunch of nerds.

Then again, they wouldn’t be here if they weren’t.

Little Spring pointed to a small orange building with unusual tools. Kinds that I hadn’t seen in a few hundred years. Stepping into the store was like visiting a museum that would let me buy the antiques.

The kid asked questions about each item and I quickly explained. While I was tempted to buy a few to study them, we only had my pills and the Kid’s spiritual spring water that we could use to trade, so we had to be picky.

I took him through the crowd to several stores. Each one had insane markups on their unique and useful spiritual herbs. Fortunately, a few of those stores sold seeds that I purchased so we could start growing them in the space. While it would take a few decades or even a hundred years for them to produce anything, filling out my garden now was for the best. I also planned to take this opportunity to teach the brat the original use of the word cultivation.

Because each of these places was set up by different large sects, clans, or academies throughout the world, Little Spring was able to learn more about this massive planet we lived on.

Seriously, I didn’t know exactly how big it was, but being the size of Jupiter or larger wasn’t out of the question. As much as I loved science, it couldn’t fucking explain this shit. Then again, I was in a Xianxia novel and those were all inspired by Chinese myths. Asking for mythology to make sense was a lesson in insanity.

As we neared the center of the shop area, the scent of spiritual tea and cakes spread. The scent of this tea invigorated the mind and eased fatigue. It would be good to drink after a long day of dealing with shitty paperwork. I absolutely had to get some for my poor juniors back at the sect.

Well, what was a convention without con food? Though most cultivators practiced some form of grain liberation, they would make exceptions for things like medicinal meals or spiritual tea, so seeing a shop like this wasn’t rare.

There was already a line forming at the teahouse. I grabbed Little Spring and queued up.

The older woman in front of me turned and gave us a smile. “These tea cultivators are invited to every Alchemy Convention. I can’t believe I actually managed to get here before they sold out of their tea wheels. They even have a brewmaster here making fresh batches of tea and serving it to special guests. I hear he’s almost reached Nascent Soul, just from following the Dao of Tea.”

Shit. Someone who knew we were a captive audience.

“But look at me talking your ear off. Are you two here buying tea for your master?”

Little Spring puffed up his chest. “Aside from being an alchemist, I’m an Apprentice Immortal Chef.”

“Ah, so you’re interested in tea as part of a meal? Very good! The best dishes have proper drinks paired with them.”

The kids’ eyes sparkled, then they widened. He covered his nose.

Actually, everyone in line put their hands over their nose and mouth. One particularly sensitive woman actually fainted into the arms of the body cultivator accompanying her.

The stench then hit me.

Fuck. Why did I have to smell this twice in one day?! It was worse than old socks, bad eggs, and rotten potatoes mixed together.

“Where is this coming from?!” someone said through their fingers.

Several people in line ran away. The lady in front of us stayed, even though her eyes watered. Her determination to buy tea at this Con was impressive.

I wanted to use my cleaning technique to remove the smell, but it would only be a waste of energy if I didn’t sterilize the asshole that farted this stink...

While I searched for the culprits, half the line vanished — probably to go puke somewhere.

The large body cultivator, obviously acting as that little alchemist’s bodyguard, flexed his muscles. “Who dares?”

Someone pointed toward an alley. “They escaped that way.”

He grabbed the girl and bolted in that direction.

And that was when those assholes from the unorthodox sect stepped in line.

These rude-ass motherfuckers!

I once again used my cleaning technique to remove the scent from the area. Shocked gasps sounded from all around. Some fellow Daoists shot appalled glances my way. I glared at everyone, half-daring them to say shit after I removed that horrible smell. Also, because I was from the Indomitable Will sect.

When I looked behind me, the unorthodox group feigned shock. Alchemist Noxious Fangstrike acted like I’d offended him and turned his blushing, morose face away from me.

The girl with the lion ears put her hands on her hips and yelled, “How could you be so rude? This is twice now you’ve set out to embarrass our esteemed Senior Alchemist! He has a condition he can’t control. Highlighting it like you did is the same as offending him!”

Ooo. These shameless fucking con artists.

Little Spring stepped forward. “How dare you offend my older martial sister with your horrible stench!”

I nodded while feeling like I did not teach this brat in vain.

“She also has a condition!”

What?

I glared at the kid, but he wasn’t looking at me.

“My poor martial sister… has a cleanliness obsession.”

“Hey! That is not a problem. That’s just common sense.”

He gestured to me and then pretended to wipe away a tear. “See. She doesn’t even realize she has it. I suffer through her powerful cleaning techniques twenty times a day!”

I opened my mouth, trying to find some way to argue with this kid. I mean, we had gone over a few lessons on how to tell lies, but this was too much! He wasn’t supposed to tell them about me!

Obviously, it wasn’t that many. Maybe ten... or fifteen. But not twenty!

The lady who had been in line with us looked at the brat with sympathy. “You are such a brave young man.”

This fucker. He turned a fight between a pretty man with a condition and a healthy, beautiful master, into one between two people with conditions.

Apparently, while we’d been busy arguing, the tea shop employees and a Golden Core Brewmaster came out and glared at both Noxious Fangstrike and me.

“You! You were here last decade! And you pulled this same nonsense back then. I won’t let you get away with it this year. Throw this group out! They’re not welcome here.”

Two Nascent Soul cultivators in black robes with the icon of the Alchemist’s Association on it appeared next to the unorthodox disciples. They used their cultivation base to suppress everyone for a second before they released us and looked menacing.

The three unorthodox cultivators straightened their clothes, flicked their sleeves and got out of line. Alchemist Noxious Fangstrike looked particularly cool when he did so. Seriously, how could such a horrible smell come out of someone so pretty? What the hell kind of spiritual snake did he have parts of?

“We didn’t even want your tea,” the panda-eared guy said from just outside the line. “Our Senior Alchemist here just wanted some spiritual cakes, but from what I can see, they’re not worth it.”

Another black-robed security person arrived, but this one stopped a teahouse employee from jumping on Panda Ears.

I smirked at their bad luck.

“Don’t look so high and mighty,” the Brewmaster said while looking at me.

What? What did I do?

“They may have ruined the scent of my tea, making it impossible to get the full effects, but you…” He closed his eyes as if remembering something horrible. “Your cleaning technique made my brewed tea vanish!” His eyes bulged larger than Chancellor Gowron's in those Star Trek memes from my past-past life. “And that had been the most perfect tea I’d ever… And no one had the chance to taste it!”

His eyes blinked like he had stopped himself from tearing up.