From what she remembered, the orchid had been perched on the trunk of a giant pine tree, about halfway up, clinging to the bark just inside a natural hollow. The tree stood in a small grove on the gentle slope of a low mountain.
Yue Rin only knew two things about it back then: the flower looked valuable, and that a spirit beast guarded it.
She'd stumbled into that territory by accident while running from a few cultivators. She remembered it clearly, because she'd seen the orchid first, bright and strange against the dark bark, and her mind had registered its worth in the same breath her body screamed at her to keep moving.
Though she didn't stop.
The cultivators chasing her did.
Maybe they thought the flower was more valuable than whatever she carried. Maybe they thought she'd be easy to finish later. Either way, they stepped toward the pine.
Yue Rin still remembered the heart-wrenching scream.
She'd looked back once, just once, and seen a giant monkey drop from above. Moss and dark growth covered its crown and shoulders, blending it into the surroundings like a living patch of rot. It crashed down on the first cultivator and smashed them into the ground with a wet, sickening sound.
Before Yue Rin could even process that, the beast grabbed the nearest one by the head and crushed his skull as if it were soft fruit.
After that, she stopped looking behind her. She ran until her legs went numb and her lungs felt shredded, and when she finally reached somewhere she could breathe without dying, she vomited until her stomach was empty.
Now, she forced that memory away.
From the book entry, the beast was a moving boulder with fists. It uses its weight and muscles as weapons, and that mantle of moss and lichen let it disappear into the forest until it chose to move. It hunted with ambush, tried to end fights in one strike, and if it couldn't, it adapted. Throwing stones, tearing branches, slamming opponents into the ground to break their posture.
It wasn't clever like a human.
But it was smart enough to be terrifying.
Yue Rin tapped her chin, thinking.
The easiest plan was a simple one. The registry said it liked sweet things and raided hives for honey. So she could buy a honey cake and lure it out, or at least draw it away from the orchid for a few breaths. Then she could snatch the plant and run for open ground.
To make that work, she would need speed. If her movement technique wasn't enough, a Light-Step talisman would be her safety net. And if she could find something to muffle her footsteps, her chances of slipping away unnoticed would rise.
And If she could veil her scent too, that would raise her chances even higher.
There was also a second plan that came to mind, but she didn't like it.
Use another cultivator as bait.
Unlike a cake, a living distraction could move, shout, struggle, and keep the ape's attention longer. It was safer for her… and disgusting to think about.
Yue Rin exhaled through her nose.
Besides those two, nothing else came easily. A trap? The thing could smash through rock. Confronting it? Just imagining that made her shiver. She had the title of a cultivator, sure, but in the four years since transmigrating, she hadn't fought a real battle. Yes, she cultivated, and yes, she did boring missions for income, but when true danger appeared, she ran.
Even in the secret realm last time, she'd done the same. Run, dodge, collect what she could when she had the chance.
So the first plan seemed to be the best option.
With that decided, Yue Rin began building her supplies list in her head.
Last time she entered the secret realm, she'd gone in with nothing but Qi-replenishing pills and healing powder, because that was what protagonists did in the novels she remembered. She'd paid for that mistake with misery she didn't want to relive.
Because the formation teleported you into a random place, you never knew if you'd appear near water, near animals, near shelter… or near someone who'd stab you for your things the moment your feet touched the ground.
So this time, she needed to pack at least three days of rations and water. Enough to keep her body going until she found a stable source, and enough to keep her head clear.
So she sorted what she needed into three parts.
Essentials: what she had to have, no matter what.
Helpers: what would keep her alive and make things easier.
Plan items: what she needed specifically for the ape strategy.
Essentials were simple. Water. Food. A sturdy travel bag to carry everything.
Helpers were the usual. Qi-replenishing pills, healing powder, and talismans, including defensive and movement ones.
Plan items were the key. The honey cake. Something to veil her scent. And something to muffle her footsteps.
Memorizing the list, Yue Rin began heading to the the central market to begin a second shopping spree.
Hopefully the amount she had would be enough. Besides the 470 spirit stones in her card, she had 14 spirit stones on her, 2 gold coins, 13 silver coins, and 82 copper coins.
* * * *
Arriving at the familiar central market, Yue Rin went straight to a stall stacked with travel goods.
"Hello, do you sell a good bag for traveling?"
"We do. For traveling, I'd recommend this one."
The vendor turned around, lifted a backpack-style travel bag, and set it on the counter. The cloth had a faint sheen, like it had been treated against rain, and the seams were double-stitched. Thick straps, reinforced corners, and a flap that buckled down over the opening.
Plain, but sturdy.
Yue Rin tested the weight with one hand and tugged at the strap. It didn't even creak.
"How much?"
"Four silver."
She took out four silver coins from her cloak and placed them on the table. Then she swung the bag over her shoulder. She asked about rations and waterskins too, and the vendor pointed her toward a provisions shop in a nearby street.
Since it wasn't in the central market, Yue Rin decided to finish the purchases here first.
Next came pills.
She found an alchemist stall and, for once, didn't try to be stingy. If she was going to gamble her life on a flower, she wasn't going to cheap out on the only thing that kept her Qi from running dry.
She bought 10 low common Qi-replenishing pills for 70 spirit stones, then 3 mid common ones for 63 spirit stones.
133 spirit stones in total.
Painful.
But necessary.
After that, she headed to a nearby spirit herb stall.
She bought a pouch of hemostasis powder for 48 spirit stones. It would stop bleeding and help the skin knit faster, with less chance of a scar. Then she bought an infection paste for 13 spirit stones.
Her cultivation wasn't high, so her body wasn't currently strong enough to shrug off everything. And damp forests were the kind of place where small wounds turned ugly if you treated them like nothing.
Then came talismans. And Yue Rin made sure not to visit a certain stall she remembered all too well.
She bought 4 mid common shield talismans for 80 spirit stones. They wouldn't make her invincible, but they could dull or reduce an attack that came out of nowhere.
Then she bought 3 mid common Light-Step talismans for 66 spirit stones, enough to cover her if she needed bursts of speed more than once.
Finding something that truly muffled footsteps proved harder. She checked stall after stall until she gave up and settled for what the sellers did have: 2 mid common breath-muffling talismans for 32 spirit stones.
Not perfect.
But better than nothing.
As for scent-hiding, no one sold it as a talisman. The best she found were powders and sachets.
So she returned to the herbs stall and bought 2 pouches of scent-veiling powder for 20 spirit stones.
While she was there, she noticed another item on display: smoke pearls.
Curious, she asked, and the vendor explained they were thrown tools that shattered on impact and released a thick smoke screen.
So like a smoke grenade. Yue Rin nodded. A useful way to break sight. So she bought 2 for 8 spirit stones.
Then she remembered the most important part: if she actually got the orchid, she needed to keep it from being crushed or losing its potency.
So she bought a preservation box designed for spirit herbs for 12 spirit stones and tucked it carefully into her new bag.
With the plan items mostly handled, she headed to a more luxurious bakery instead of a street stall. If she was using sweets as bait, she wanted it to actually work.
"I want a honey cake," she said to the staff behind the counter. "Made with the best spirit ingredients possible. Add nuts too."
The staff's eyes brightened at the words spirit ingredients.
"Will you be paying in coin, or spirit stones?"
"Spirit stones."
"Thirty five spirit stones."
After paying in advance, the staff told her she could return by tomorrow afternoon to collect it.
Having marked another thing off her list, Yue Rin went to the provisions shop the travel vendor had recommended.
There, she bought two filled waterskins and three days' worth of travel biscuits, then added a flint-and-steel set after spotting it on the shelf, plus a small bag to tie on her belt to store the talismans and be able access them quickly.
When the shopkeeper named the total, Yue Rin didn't bother counting copper out one by one. She placed two silver coins on the counter instead.
The man scooped them up, then pushed a small stack of change back toward her.
Ten copper coins.
Silver really was easier when you had it.
Her bag was almost full now, and the weight pulled at her shoulders. Her pockets, on the other hand, felt too light. Yue Rin decided she wouldn't check her Ledger card again until she returned from the secret realm. Some pains were better postponed.
Usually this kind of shopping would have taken way longer, but due to the secret realm opening, so many people have opened stalls directed at cultivators entering it in the central market, so she didn´t have to waste time walking from one shop to another.
After returning to the inn, she would eat, sleep, and tomorrow she would go to the training grounds to practice her techniques. Lately, she'd been feeling rusty, and the secret realm was no place to discover that her body no longer obeyed her the way it used to.