As she paused, I really wanted to strangle her.

Fortunately, she didn’t leave me hanging too long.

“Hold on, let me start at the beginning.”

I glared, and she looked amused, but continued. “When I arrived, I noticed fluctuations of spiritual energy and immediately checked it out with divine sense. I found that Sword Master Salamander was fighting with that demonic cultivator. What did you call him again?

“Demon Thorny Devil Vine.”

“Right. Well, from the way our sword master was holding his own, I could tell that Thorny Devil Vine was a new Nascent Soul who had a recent power gain.”

No shit.

“His power had increased beyond his skill and he hadn’t become accustomed to his new powers. It was obvious that he was using the fight to condense his realm.”

Was she avoiding talking about Salamander on purpose? “Peak Elder, please!”

She smirked. “Just as I reached them, our sword master had an epiphany. Since it’s so rare to gain approval from the heavens like that, I immediately handed him a protection-type spiritual tool so he could safely absorb the beneficial energies. He asked me to take care of your team before I took over.”

My friend was safe, thank fuck! And he’d gained a lot from this incident.

“After that, I lured the demonic cultivator away so he wouldn’t prevent Sword Master Salamander from achieving greatness and furthering his path. Unfortunately, Devil Vine managed to catch me off guard and our fight ended up over the city.”

“So he’s safe and uninjured?”

“For now. I need to leave soon to protect him. Though the tool I left him should work in the interim.” I imagined that she was also keeping an eye on him with her divine sense just in case there were more demonic cultivators running around that we didn’t know about.

“But, before I left, I wanted to come down and tell you that you all did an amazing job of ending that slaughter formation! Even I couldn’t have stopped it so quickly.”

I eyed her. “That’s because you’re not a formation master.”

“Too true!” She chuckled, then she snapped her fingers as if she’d remembered something. “The Sect Master told me to remind you that your mission isn’t finished. At least not until the plague is completely gone from this empire.” She leaned forward and whispered. “He said something about making sure you earn your kiwis.”

I rolled my eyes. I figured he’d say that. The sect would likely receive substantial treasures from the empire if we were the ones most responsible for curing the plague. This would help my nephew pay for all those immortal cooking ingredients he had to give me once I succeeded. Muahahaha!

Unfortunately for me, just because the evil cultivator was dead, didn’t mean that his parasites would die. This wasn’t some movie where magic like that happens.

Then there was whoever or whatever organization was behind him.

Good thing it wouldn’t be my job to search them out. I pitied the sect disciples who would handle that job.

Actually, it made me wonder if this situation could have something to do with the wars between the demonic cultivators and the righteous sects.

My intervening here might push their plans back farther. Or, make them even more desperate, and force their hand.

She poked my cheek, startling me. “Peak Elder?!”

“Sorry, Little Aunt Lin is just too adorable when angry.”

Of course I was adorable! But I still wanted personal space! Even if I looked like a 10-year-old, I had the mind of an Immortal Ascension monster, goddamn it!

Whatever. She was a rare nice Nascent Soul cultivator, so I’d let her off for now.

“And you must be my Little Martial Uncle.” She turned to Little Spring who nodded.

“You did a good job helping your sister.”

He looked grim. “She took an attack in my place, so I wouldn’t say that.”

She smiled gently. “If you want to be the one to protect Little Senior Lin, then you’ll have to work harder.”

“I will.”

She nodded. “I have to leave now but, first let me do this.”

The Peak Elder stepped into the air and jumped high above us. Her hands moved through several seals before hundreds of tiny cauldrons appeared behind her. Then she gestured for them to move forward, and they exploded outwards.

I spread out my divine sense.

Every time a cauldron struck down, a vine monster burst apart.

The one that was about to attack a kid was smashed into debris. The Vine Wyvern going on a rampage through a side street, was flattened when the cauldron expanded. And the vine tumbleweed that was about to knock over a cart filled with apples was crushed mid jump.

Things like this kept happening throughout the city.

It took the peak elder two minutes to kill all of the demonic vine entities while we had struggled to kill a handful of them.

Frankly, this was the difference between a Nascent Soul and everything below it.

Fuck, I missed being strong.

She called down. “Be careful on your way back. There are several bands of mortals out looting empty houses. It would be bad if you accidentally killed someone.”

“I’ll be careful.”

Then she flew off right as Spear that Weaves arrived.

The spear cultivator ran up to us. “I thought we were all going to die! Twice!”

I jumped onto a nearby debris pile and looked down at my team members. “Each of you did well!”

“I know,” Clear Eyes said with a confident grin. “I did most of the heavy lifting.”

Yep. This teen was looking for a good ass kicking.

“Oh, you really think so?”

He coughed. “I mean, without your amazing knowledge on formations, we couldn’t have done it. But without me killing it, we also couldn’t have done it. I have the highest realm here, ya’know.”

I grinned evilly and gestured to the surrounding environment. Maybe this bratty teen needed his eyes cleared for once.

They all looked around themselves to see the torn up road, trashed walls, and buildings that were half destroyed.

“Fighting that monster without getting severely injured, was something only you could do in our group.”

He grinned.

“Taking down all those infected people, was something we needed Spear That Weaves to do. Without him, they could have easily overrun us.”

The teen’s smile froze and the spear cultivator grinned.

“And distracting the vine entities was something Little Spring and I had to do. We all did our parts.”

He looked chastised. “Hey, I never said that you didn’t.”

“Without any one of us, without the other team, we wouldn’t have succeeded. So, never say that any one of us did the most work.”

He held up his hands. “Okay, I won’t.”

“Because, we may have saved everyone. But it doesn’t stop here.”

“We have to go back and make more pills, right?” Little Spring asked.

“Let me ask you, do you think the people who own these houses will be able to sleep in them tonight?”

“Wait. Are you saying that we should help rebuild the city?” It figured that the previous young master would look shocked and horrified.

I grinned. Little Spring took a nervous step back.

What? Did I look scary? Whatever.

“We came here to help with the plague. If we’re going to resolve it so we can go back to the sect then we need every infected person to get healthy. That’s not going to happen if they have nowhere to rest.”

It wasn’t like we could just let these people die to save ourselves time and effort.

Spear That Weaves grimaced.

Clear Eyes Mad Tongue patted his shoulder. “That still sounds like something that the City Lord should handle.”

“I’m sure he will, but until he does, we’re going to do it. And our first step is to get all of those people that Spear That Weaves left just laying there, into the buildings that are still standing so I can treat them.”

Muahahaha. The look on their faces.

“What about the other team?” Little Spring asked.

“They’re going to help us by continuing to make medicine once they’ve recovered from their injuries.”

“What about my injuries?” Clear Eyes Mad Tongue said.

“Out of the four of us, I’m the one who’s the most injured and you don’t see me complaining. Now take your recovery pills, spend a few minutes healing, and let’s get moving.”

***

After a long ass day and night of getting plague victims into undamaged homes, helping the injured, and clearing away some of the rubble, we finally made our way back towards the courtyards we were staying in.

Clear Eyes stretched his arms and winced. “I’m not earning enough contribution points for this.”

“Good. That means you’re earning karma. It will make your tribulations easier.”

“Does that really happen?!” Little Spring asked.

I smiled. “Who knows?”

Just as our group turned a corner, a team of cultivators riding flying swords landed in front of the palace. It was obvious from their arrogant disposition that this was the group from the Alchemists’ Guild.

They turned their heads as if searching for the reception team that was either too busy or too dead to bother greeting the guild members.

A familiar woman with dark purple hair stood in the center of the group, slowly fanning herself. A spotted white pill testing beast was slung around her shoulders like a scarf. It turned its head and stared at me with beady, hate-filled eyes.

This must be a new beast, because Violet Pill Fairy hadn’t trained it well enough. Then again, she did go through them quickly.

Since I’d had a long fucking day, part of me wanted to walk right in, ignoring her and her group. But then I remembered that I still had some questions about this situation.

And if I waited until the next day, I might not ‌get a proper reaction from the evil pharma bitch.

Also, she was on my ‘Fairy Lin’s People to Kill (When You Can) List.’

Since I currently couldn’t murder her, I had to give her a hard time.

“If it isn’t my fellow alchemist, Violet Pill Fairy!”

Little Spring tugged on my sleeve. “Sister Lin! Why are you trying to pick a fight with them? I thought we were going inside to rest?”

Spear That Weaves leaned in and whispered, “Senior Lin, should we expect trouble?”

Violet’s black eyes darted to me. I briefly caught the sneer on her face before it morphed into a pleasant fake smile.

“Well, if it isn’t my junior in the guild, Little Fairy Lin. How have you been?”

“Alive and well, no thanks to the assassins that attacked me after I left Golden Aspect City.”

“You must have offended someone you shouldn’t have,” she smirked and fanned herself like the smug fucker she was.

“So you’re not surprised to see us alive?”

“Of course not,” her voice sounded sweet. “You had the protection of the guild, Senior Ruthless Divine Medicine and Senior White Lily. Who would dare touch you?”

One of the older alchemists in Violet’s group spoke up. “Little Violet Pill, who is this? Does she ‌know the genius who came up with the cure the guild informed us about on the way over here?”

“I’m sure her senior is the one who came up with it,” Violet calmly said. “Even though it’s named after her, I doubt that she’s the one who created it.”

This bitch!

She shrugged an elegant shoulder, causing the pill beast to cling to her robes. “Regardless, if I’d been the one to create that recipe, I would earn a huge profit off of it so that I could give it away to those who need it.”

“Sometimes I wonder if you’re too kind,” the older cultivator said. “You’ll never make much if you keep doing such philanthropic nonsense.”

“As you say, Senior Red Leaf. But I still think my way of making a profit is considerably better than the so-called genius who came up with the current cure.”

I glared. “Have you even seen the recipe?”

She shrugged again, this time causing the poor pill beast to bounce several inches off her shoulders. It quickly grabbed her robes and pulled itself back into scarf-pretending-position.

“Not yet. We’ve been spending all our energy merely getting here as quickly as possible.”

Good. “Then tell me, have you heard of the ingredient, Viridian Poison Pine Needles?”

Each of the alchemists in Violet’s group looked confused, including the pharma bitch herself.

Fuck. It was as I suspected.

The thing was, I had wondered how the mostly sheltered Pill Fairy would have come into contact with that herb in this era. The fact that the alchemists sent with her also appeared to not know about it was suspicious.

Now, since this was a different timeline, I didn’t exactly have proof. And I would never learn the full truth about what happened back then. But I could deduce that Violet did not come up with the treatment for the demonic vine plague on her own.

She had help in the form of Thorny Devil Vine, who engineered the spiritual parasite.

It was possible that she had even discovered him, and instead of killing him off like we did, she instead cut one hell of a deal.

One where Thorny Devil told her the recipe and she would make it so expensive that a majority of the infected would die from being unable to afford the cure.

This way, he still had a steady stream of life energy increasing his realm and the realms of those he worked for — all while she made a stupid amount of spirit stones.

Frankly, as long as Violet earned a profit and wasn’t affected herself, she wouldn’t give a shit about siding with a demonic cultivator, no matter how many mortals died.

In fact, she probably suggested that he spread the plague further so she could earn even more profit.

It was a win-win situation for the two of them.

This was absolutely something I could see her doing.

“Is that an important ingredient in the prescription?”

“Of course it is. And you’re correct, I developed the prototype with my master, then I created a new, improved version of the pill within a few hours of arriving.”

Violet looked like she’d never been more furious to be told that she was right.

Red Leaf studied me with interest. “So you’re the one who came up with the current treatment?”

I puffed up my chest, pretending like I was a proud 10-year-old. “Yes! I’m Alchemist Lin and I developed the cure for the Demonic Vine Plague.”

God, this was getting tiring. How many more years until my body grew the fuck up and I could stop pretending to be a child? Six? Eight?

Red Leaf nodded, his old eyes gleaming.

Violet must have been trying to get on his good side because she glowered at me. Oh. I knew that look. This fucking spirit-stone-hoarder was about to throw down.

It had been a while, but I was in the mood to verbally spar. Bring it, bitch.

“And who is your master?”

“That’s a sect secret.” For safety reasons, considering that Little Spring and I don’t need that kind of target on our backs.

Violet’s eyes narrowed. “You know, it’s naughty to take credit for work that’s not your own.”

Said the woman who likely would have taken the prescription from a fucking demonic cultivator and claimed it as her own.

“First of all, I created the current cure based on the one my master and I developed. He’s above taking credit for such things.”

“He should at least be the one to earn most of the profits, am I right?”

“My master has no need for a few spirit stones.”

She scoffed. “Not only are you stealing from your master, but you’re also practically claiming his work as your own. Are you sure you’re not being unfilial?”

Clear Eyes Mad Tongue must have been exhausted from holding it in because he stepped forward, cutting off what would have been my epic comeback.

“Excuse me for a minute, but I think you’re misunderstanding something here.” He gestured to our group of four. “You see, we’re from the Indomitable Will sect.”

She crossed her arms. “And? We’re here on behalf of the Alchemists’ Guild.”

“Our Senior Lin just kicked the shit out of the demonic vine plague—”

Both figuratively and literally.

“—by finding a cure within hours of arriving. Then she discovered that there was a demonic cultivator behind the plague while you were casually strolling up here. Finally, she saved this entire city by disrupting a massive slaughter formation. You’re going to speak to my senior with respect or we’re going to have a problem.”

He put his hand on his sword and glared.

Okay, maybe I’d only kick his ass a little once I reached Foundation Establishment.