We arrived at Grand Elder Lao's home, unexpectedly, it was not as big as I thought it would be. The whole terrain was no larger than a normal villa, which compared to some disciples was small. But it had a great smell coming out of it, herbs.

The elder took me on a tour around his villa.

The walls around the garden of the house were short enough to allow people to take a peek at the Elder's beautifully designed garden of spiritual herbs. And the house inside it was small enough for him to live in and have a few extra rooms for study and what seemed to be alchemy.

"So many furnaces…" I muttered.

"And none of them is worth a fart if one cannot use alchemy. While being inflicted with this cursed poison, I could no longer handle this, every time I would touch a spiritual herb it would wither or turn to ice." The old man sighed in sadness.

"I think this is why you took in a disciple." I deduced.

"Right, I remembered you had a beef with my disciple." The old man pointed.

"Yeah, but that's not the problem right now. I think he won't dare harm anyone related to me anymore." I replied in a shrug.

"The vengeance of a vindictive person can go beyond reason. I would be a failure of a master if I were to go against my own disciple. But the only advice I could give you is to keep your distance. Right now, even with the sect master's symbolic protection, he could still apply sneaky methods to harm you, so be careful." Elder Lao advised.

"Thank you elder, I'll keep it in mind, and out of respect for you, I won't kill him," I replied.

Elder Lao had a worried look on his face, he probably knows that I would be no match for his disciple who is leagues above me in terms of cultivation. Yet my poison technique doesn't really care about the cultivation gap. Or at least, the gap of cultivation I know of. Perhaps people in higher realms would outright dismiss my poison breath and would whack me before I even realize I was killed. So, it is better to keep being discreet.

Once we were inside the Elder's abode, I asked him to hand me his hand. I used the same method of absorption and took in the poison from the elder's fingers. He too had enough will to suppress screeching from pain. But compared to the sect master's grunt, the old man was huffing and looked to be resisting pain rather forcefully. He was definitely below the sect master's level in cultivation due to the immense amounts of sweat that came out of his forehead from the extraction.

After a few minutes, the elder was fully healed up.

"T-thank you," the elder said, his tone betrayed his demeanor, it was shaky and weak.

"No worries, this is actually beneficial to me too," I replied to the old man.

"Speaking of which, why aren't you gaining more Qi?" the Elder questioned as he rubbed his hands.

"Oh, even you know about this now," I replied.

"Basically, all four of us would understand now, me and the sect master and her two disciples. But fret not, none of us will speak a thing. I'm bound to the sect master, and she had informed me to keep everything secret so I will, even at the cost of my life." the old man waved his hand.

"You don't need to make it sound so serious," I replied.

"But it is, child. You'll know in the future how grave your methods are. Anyway, if there is anything you wish me to do, I'll help you with it." he said in a kind nod.

"Right, I was always interested in the topic of Alchemy, do you have any way for me to start on that path?" I questioned.

"Hmm, most people who begin the road of cultivation begin by cultivating their bodies, and only when they are encountered with a bottleneck that stunts their growth, would they seek alchemy to keep moving forward in the world of cultivation, yet you wish to start by the second choice?" the old man gave advise in a question.

"Well, I only need general information," I replied as I didn't want to expose many of my secrets.

"I don't mind teaching you, but it will not be easy, it will cost you a lot of your time. And most of the alchemy is memorizing herbs their attribute and their reaction to one another, so you'll be wasting time that you should be using in cultivating in memorizing things." the old man tried to persuade me out of it.

"Did you forget that I don't need to actively cultivate to increase my cultivation base?" I bragged.

"True. And with the poison in our sect master, it would be enough to fuel you to higher cultivation levels. Still, there is one thing that still bugs me. Why are you not gaining so much? The Sect Master has so much poison Qi in her body you should be torpedoing through the early cultivation level." Elder Lao kept questioning.

I took a moment to formulate my thoughts before I replied, "I think it's a failsafe, my cultivation is not allowing me to take in more than I can handle, though it's wasting a lot of poison Qi, I'm slowly building up my base. If I were to fully digest the poison Qi I'm extracting from the sect master, I'll probably blow up or turn into a popsicle."

the old man tilted his head as he spoke "Though I don't know what a popsicle is, I think it's a bad thing and you're right. Then if your case is like that, there is nothing to worry about, we should start by giving you a list of some of the Ninth level spiritual herbs, here."

The elder said and handed me a black tome that read, "Spiritual Garden First tome."

"It's a book made by a great alchemist, Bei Yulong, it has nine tomes in total and it encompasses the majority if not all of the spiritual herbs of the ninth grade. Once you have memorized the first tome, I'll give you the latter versions."

"I believe I won't be needing that." I handed the book back to him.

"Sure, I know you have an alchemist cultivator manual, I already asked to procure it from you, but I don't think that you should skimp on the basics." The old man replied in a slightly offended tone.

He seems to be a person who doesn't like it when his gifts are returned nor a person who likes people who skip on the basics.

"How about you quiz me then?" I asked with a wide smile.

The elder frowned then asked, "What are the properties of the Blood Ginseng?"

"Unlike its name, the blood Ginseng has no correlation to blood whatsoever, it's only its color that is crimson, and once soaked in warm water, the water will turn vicious and thick as blood. The Blood Ginseng is good for treating infections and could be used in increasing one's spiritual cultivation by slightly enlarging the meridians of the person. It comes with a downside that is if one were to continuously use it, they'll suffer from addiction and will have withdrawal symptoms once they stop using the ginseng for a few days, mainly headaches and nausea and such," I replied in one breath.

The old man was stunned as he looked at me as if I was a monster, "I'll be damned. That's even more than what Bei Yulong had in his book, though I can confirm the rest of your statement is correct due to tests I did myself on the Ginseng. Good, I'll ask you something else."

The elder began mentioning more herbs.

It was so much that he was engrossed in it more than I was, as he pulled up a note and began writing on it, he said that some of the notes I gave him were more exhaustive than what he had, and with this newfound knowledge he could increase the potency of his pills. We kept on exchanging ideas and knowledge about plants for a while until the Elder had to stop, looking at the time it was well in the night.

"You'll need a place to rest, you don't need to walk all the way back to your cave, I have a guest room you can use it's upstairs," the Elder kindly offered.

"Right, but I'll need to contact Elder Yun for the cultivation manual that the sect master asked me to obtain," I replied.

"Just tell me which cultivation manual you need and I'll have it delivered to you by morning." Elder Lao offered.

"Right, that would be perfect, I'm feeling a bit exhausted, and I'll need to be fresh enough to help the sect master in tomorrow's curing session," I thanked the old man.

"Right, off you go Shen Bao, I'll manage the rest." Replied the elder and pointed me to where I'll be spending the night.

Usually, cultivators don't need sleep, nor do I, but what I meant with rest was to go into meditation for the rest of the night, tomorrow was gonna be a good day, and I'll be learning the Star Weaving technique.

****

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