Winter eventually gave way to a tentative spring, yet within Su Min's small courtyard, the flames in her bronze cauldron burned day and night without rest. The heat radiated from the metal in shimmering waves, baking the air until it tasted of dry copper. As she had suspected, forging the Tiger Bone Ring was proving exceptionally difficult and painfully slow. Just the massive tiger skull's initial refining had consumed more than three months of steady, focused effort, and the process was still not complete. Stepping into the Qi Refining stage had expanded her capabilities, but it didn't grant her an endless well of energy.
"Haaah..."
After what felt like an age of concentrated effort, Su Min finally exhaled a soft sigh, extinguishing the furnace's flame with a flick of her wrist. The roar of the fire died, replaced by the sharp, metallic pinging of cooling bronze. She carefully retrieved the tiger skull from within the belly of the cauldron. The bone, once large enough to belong to a beast that could swallow a man whole, had now been condensed down to the size of a basketball. It possessed a dense, heavy weight and glowed with a faint, malevolent light. She knew the smaller it became, the more arduous the refining would be, but she had finally completed about eighty percent of the work.
"In the game, forging a single high-level artifact might casually take two or three years of in-game time," she mused to the quiet room.
Back then, refining was nothing more than watching a progress bar fill up before skipping ahead with a click. A player never truly felt the weight of those passing seasons. But this wasn't a game. Here, every second of the meticulous, spiritual grind dragged on, a genuine test for her patience and will. Fortunately, her alchemy skills had improved considerably alongside her cultivation. With her new furnace's help and her accumulated experience, her pill refining speed had skyrocketed. She could now finish a full batch of Detoxification Pills in just half a day.
The winter just passed had been particularly brutal. She had heard from villagers that several nearby settlements had suffered heavy losses, with many succumbing to the cold. The mountain folk, long accustomed to tropical climates, were utterly unprepared for such a harsh season. The young and healthy could endure, but the elderly, the sick, and the frail had fallen in droves. Even if she had lived among them, she doubted she could have saved them all. Nature's indifferent devastation was beyond words.
The only silver lining was that the mountains were rich in timber. Although the local chieftains ruled with firm hands, their territories were sparsely populated, making every life precious. They had attempted some remedial measures, but in the end, most who perished were those already on the brink. Compared to the relative isolation of the mountains, Great Wei's heart was said to be far grimmer.
This was a topic she discussed with Lan Ningsheng, the Fuding Merchant Guild envoy who was currently seated across from her. He sipped his tea, his hands wrapped around the warm porcelain cup. With the mountain paths finally clear of snow, he had returned, leading a caravan laden with a large medicinal herb shipment. The pack horses in the courtyard were lean from the winter, their coats shaggy and caked with dried mud.
Among the goods were not only the specific materials Su Min had requested for her pills, but also a bounty of rare, high-grade spirit herbs that the merchants themselves barely understood. These were meant as a generous compensation, for she was the only true alchemist of her caliber in the entire region.
"Fairy Su, your Black Jade Bone-Mending Ointment sold out the moment it reached the capital," Lan Ningsheng said, shaking his head slowly. "As for the Detoxification Pills," he continued, his posture straightening, "they were snatched up by nobles who traded treasures worth far more than their weight in gold. Prince Fu was so pleased that he opened his entire private medicinal stockpile to us. We have handpicked every herb, ore, and piece of spirit wood that holds even a trace of spiritual energy and brought them all here."
"Very well," Su Min replied simply, her tone neutral.
She flipped through the ledger he provided, noting that beyond the spiritual herbs, there were indeed ores and spirit woods she would likely need for future projects. Such things couldn't be bought with mere money. They were clearly a princely household's generations of accumulation.
This time, she didn't bother hiding her abilities. With a casual wave of her hand, the entire supply mountain piled in her courtyard vanished into thin air.
"What—what is this?!" Lan Ningsheng leapt to his feet, his teacup clattering to the table. His eyes went wide as he stared at the empty space where the crates had sat just moments before. He was a man who had seen much of the world, but he had never witnessed a spectacle like this.
"A spatial ring. Are you interested?" Su Min said lightly. She watched his jaw hang open as he looked at her finger. "Since you brought me so many fine things this time, I can craft one for you as a bonus."
She had chosen not to conceal her storage ring any longer. It couldn't stay hidden forever, and there was no point in maintaining the pretense. Spatial rings required specific, rare materials, but the act of refining them was straightforward compared to the Tiger Bone Ring's nightmare. With the materials from this shipment alone, she could make seven or eight of them, though their capacity would be minuscule compared to her own system-granted ring.
"Then... my deepest gratitude," Lan Ningsheng said at once, his hands trembling slightly as he sat back down.
"By the way, how fares Sect Master Zhao these days?" Su Min asked, changing the subject.
At her words, Lan Ningsheng's expression grew heavy, and he let out a long, weary sigh.
"This year's snows sealed off the mountains, and Great Wei fared no better. Even before the disaster in Minshan had settled, refugees were flooding the lands. The great cold, ironically, solved that problem for the officials." He grimaced, his eyes fixed on the table. "Over ninety percent of the refugees perished, and countless farmers with them. Now, Great Wei's roads are strewn with unburied corpses. The night is now livelier with scavengers than the day is with the living."
"Tch." Su Min clicked her tongue softly but said no more. It was a grim picture, yet unsurprising.
"To deal with the chaos, the Great Wei Emperor formed the Demon Slaying Division," Lan Ningsheng continued, his voice dropping to a whisper. "Though in name they hunt demons, their true duty is to monitor the provinces and crush any sign of rebellion. Sect Master Zhao ventured into the capital last month, employing every means to uncover a critical truth."
"What truth?" Su Min asked, her gaze steady.
"That the Demon Queen can't stray far from the Emperor, and the Emperor himself now dares not leave the palace. Because of that, unrest spreads unchecked across the provinces. As for the Demon Slaying Division," Lan Ningsheng said with a grimace, pausing as if the words were foul in his mouth, "they are composed almost entirely of abominations, the very poison puppet monsters Sect Master Zhao once destroyed by the dozens." But after confirming this intelligence, Sect Master Zhao fell. Without his banner to rally behind, the martial world is scattered and leaderless.
"It seems," Su Min mused, a distant look in her eyes, "Great Wei's fall has yet to reach its destined end."
After pondering briefly, she said no more on the matter. She signaled for Lan Ningsheng to take his leave; she needed time and quiet to refine both the pills and his promised spatial ring. As for the so-called Demon Slaying Division, she knew of its kind. Compared to actual demons, it was always humans who posed the greater threat to emperors. Demons had little interest in human thrones. But humans would stop at nothing for power. Thus, emperors always struck hardest at their own kind. For Su Min, crafting the items for the merchant would take no more than a week.
She saw him out and settled back into her routine. Spirit herbs still needed time to grow, and the world had yet to reach an age of abundant spiritual energy. The profits the merchants might make later meant little to her. Among the materials they had given her was a rare spirit herb crucial for her next cultivation breakthrough. She wasn't in any rush, though. Her foundation still needed more tempering before she could safely advance further.
However, her peace was shattered just a few days later. While she was deep in meditation, several unfamiliar auras crept into the mountain. Their energy felt foul and corrosive, making her skin crawl, and they were moving with purpose straight toward her courtyard.
"Filthy pests," she muttered, her voice cold as ice. She opened her eyes, her gaze sharp. "And their strength isn't bad either." She assessed the approaching threats with her spiritual sense. Two enemies were at the peak of Body Refining, and three were at the mid-stage.
A year ago, facing such a group would have meant certain death. Back then, as a newly arrived soul in this world, her cultivation system was still in its infancy. Divine abilities, martial skills, magical treasures—everything had been just beginning. But now, things were different.