[Due to the author’s poor health, this part hasn’t been content edited, so some areas may change later.]

After a good twenty minutes of lecturing how to do the stance while hinting at the deeper meaning behind it, I ended my lecture. “Remember, this stance doesn’t work for all sword cultivators. But even if it doesn’t, learning something new is better than not knowing it.”

A couple of the kids vibrated with energy and immediately left to practice.

Little Spring scowled. “Isn’t this just what you’ve always taught me?”

Brat. “You’re fortunate enough to listen to my advice every day. These kids rarely get to talk to me. My time is precious, you know.”

He pouted. “I know.” Then Mad Tongue gestured at him to continue their sparring session. I waved him off.

He bowed and ran over to the teen.

When I glanced back at Salamander, his hand touched his bare chin. That was the same expression he had on his face when he was pondering the sword.

That new stance could help him further his path if he discovered its secrets.

Of course, there was always a risk. Knowing his Dao wasn’t perfect could cripple him if he let it.

But I’d rather see him work through his issues early, while he was still young and malleable, than wait until he was old and set in his ways.

“I think that I’ll have to try this stance out and see it working for myself.”

The scientific method. I approved! “You should record how your techniques feel and how much damage they do before practicing it, then once again a week after using it. You might surprise yourself.”

“And if it doesn’t work out for the better, I can always go back.”

I nodded. That was the nice thing about sword cultivation. A new stance or position didn’t usually fuck with someone’s Dao. At least, not in the same way it could for Dantian practitioners. Changing the looping pathways inner Qi traveled down could seriously fuck a person up.

Then again, that was just how this universe worked. Considering that most Xianxia I read in my past life didn’t have many details about shit like this, it was hard to tell.

The dumbass author may have thrown every type of cultivation into this world but — and I grudgingly gave him this credit — he also put in effort to make it work.

At least, I assumed he did.

Since I’d never read the original, he could have just tossed everything together like a big Xianxia salad and let the universe figure itself out.

I stepped up beside my teacher and grinned.

“So, Sword Master Salamander, when are you going to lend me your little pagoda?”

“When you finally call down your tribulation. Don’t think that I don’t know that you’ve been holding it back for at least a year now.”

“I still have a lot of things to prepare for it.”

“Isn’t that the same thing you always say to everyone who asks about when you’ll be going through your tribulation?”

The fuck? Was this an intervention or a personal attack?

“With the inclusion of this pagoda, what other preparations do you even need to make?”

I sighed. “First, I need to finish my body cultivation.” Little Spring and I still needed one last meal to reach the peak of Qi Condensation.

“Secondly, I want to forge a set of armor for myself.” I was still waiting on supplies I ordered for that.

He raised a brow.

“And the last thing I have to do is find better wood. I need it to make stronger formation flags since my previous version was destroyed,” I turned to Mad Tongue who was blocking an attack from the kid and yelled, “during the crab mission!”

“What happened on that mission, anyway?”

Clear Eyes ducked under an attack and called in from across the training ground. “We don’t talk about the crab mission!”

“What he said.”

“Fine. I won’t ask.” He sighed. “Great Martial Aunt Lin, there is such a thing as over preparation. Especially for something as small as a tribulation to reach Foundation Establishment.”

“Yeah, well, I’ll see if you can tell me that after you watch me go through mine.”

“And when will that be?”

I cleared my throat. “You know, the lecture I just gave took longer than I realized. It’s about time I get Little Spring to his lesson for immortal cooking.” I pointed to the brat who was once again sent flying over the training ground thanks to a well-timed blow by Clear Eyes.

He landed on his feet and slid across the sand, leaving two distinct tracks. His sword wasn’t stuck in the ground and instead he held it so it wouldn’t get damaged pointlessly. Then the kid jerked his head towards me. “What? Already?”

Both of these brats gained something from today’s sparring session. They probably wanted to continue, but it should be fine to leave now.

“Let’s go! You shouldn’t keep your teacher waiting.”

While Little Spring bowed and thanked a scowling Clear Eyes Mad Tongue, I pulled out my flying sword and stepped on it.

Salamander stepped in front of me.

“Little Senior Lin, know that I’m not trying to push you.”

“I do.”

“While I’ve seen many cultivators who don’t ever reach your level, I’ve also seen those who spend too much time preparing for their tribulation. They take so much time on one only to not have enough years left to reach their next.” His gentle eyes showed me that he really was concerned. “I just don’t want to see that happen to you.”

Of course, I pointed to my face. “You realized that I’m only eleven, right?” I obviously had plenty of time.

He placed his palm on top of my head. “And yet, when you lecture, I feel like I’m in the presence of an old Immortal Ascension master.”

Goddamn it. When would I look like the fucking adult I was?

I scowled up at him, and he removed his hand. Honestly, if I didn’t know that he had no idea about how my soul actually looked, I’d think he was teasing me about my original stage.

“Okay. I wasn’t trying to push you. I am only concerned. Just let me know when you decide to call down your tribulation and I’ll send you my pagoda.”

I grinned. Even if I didn’t like it, I still appreciated the care of my mentor. He was the same in this life as he was in the last. “Let me know when you get an influx of spirit stones, and I’ll work on those pills for you.”

“Thank you, Great Martial Aunt Lin.”

***

Out of all the weird groups within the Indomitable Will sect, the immortal chef cultivators were some of the oddest.

They didn’t have a mountain of their own, so they were scattered throughout the foothills between the inner and the outer sect.

Technically, they were considered inner sect disciples, but they always felt like outsiders since their locations ranged so widely.

They cooked spiritual meals for the peaks that didn’t practice grain liberation. Places like the massive mountain we called Beast Tamer Peak.

Many of the contracted spirit beasts here sampled the work of these chefs, even before any of the peak masters.

Since, in my last life, I used to avoid Beast Tamer Peak like it was the goddamn demonic vine plague; it had taken some time to get used to going there. Because that was where the chef Little Spring had chosen to teach him immortal cooking stayed a majority of the time.

Actually, I had regretted allowing him to find his own teacher as soon as I saw that she was the fucking shady chef who married Bloodsword in my past life — Fairy Garlic.

She was the same woman I suspected of orchestrating the spirit rabbit incident.

I mean, who takes the pet her husband gives his master/wife — a living creature at that — kills it, cooks it, then blames it on her husband’s martial sister?

Seriously, what the fuck was wrong with her?

Well, after a few classes, it was already too late… because she had agreed to continue to teach Little Spring for free.

I landed my flying sword at the entrance to her new open-air kitchen.

Little Spring tugged at my sleeve. “Could you please not get into an argument with Master Chef Garlic today?”

I eyed the brat. “I don’t start the arguments with her, but I damn well end them.”

Besides, it wasn’t entirely my fault.

Back when I’d realized who the teacher was, I’d been on edge from seeing Verdant Bamboo.

The last thing I wanted to see was a creepy weirdo flirting with my almost ten-year-old martial brother like my past-life’s master. Because of this, I stayed to watch several of their teaching sessions.

I’d gotten on the irritable chef’s nerves a number of times only to—

“You’re banned from the kitchen for a reason, you know,” the brat said.

This was so fucking embarrassing.

While I was watching her help Little Spring with knife techniques to cut different types of meats, I saw her helping him adjust his stance. She’d gone behind him and grabbed his hand.

From my angle it looked like she was being inappropriate when she hadn’t been.

I... may have started a fight with her that ruined a good section of her building, leading to it now being an open-air kitchen.

I cleared my throat and murmured, “That was my mistake. I thought she was a pervert.”

“A what?”

“Someone who touches chi—” He looked so innocent that I couldn’t say it. “Ah… someone who deserves to have their asses murdered.”

“Ah.”

“Remember, if anyone with a disgusting expression touches you somewhere you don’t want, murder them. Or call for an adult.”

His eyes hardened, and he nodded seriously.

Frankly, getting kicked out of the kitchen wasn’t the worst thing that happened because of that incident. The worst thing that happened was—

“Apprentice Chef Little Spring. I thought I asked you not to bring your little girlfriend here.”

The bitch always said shit like this, because she thought I was the protagonist’s goddamn romantic interest.

Me! The anti-relationship, cultivation addict, old monster.

Little Spring looked exhausted. “Master Chef Garlic, Fairy Lin is my Older Martial Sister. I don’t think she appreciates your teasing.”

Damn straight, I didn’t. I grabbed the jade sheath of my sword hairpin like I was about to throw down.

“Who is teasing?” Garlic threw her white hair over her shoulder and put her hand on her hip. Then she looked at me with glittering brown eyes.

Fuck. Maybe she was merely goading me into fighting her again. “I’m not falling for your instigation this time. I already made you several cooking spiritual tools to pay you back for the damages I did to your kitchen.”

She grinned. “Well, your tools are surprisingly worth it. If you’d just let me buy more off you, I wouldn’t have to resort to these tactics.”

Yeah… instead of being a creepy fucker like Verdant Bamboo, she was a cooking-obsessed psychopath.

After getting to know her more in this life, I realized that, between her and Effervescent Sea Pearl, Bloodsword had a type — older, super attractive, and batshit crazy.

Or maybe it was that damn harem author who had a type.

Whatever.

Mentally, I threw up my middle finger at the chef. “I’m leaving. I’ll be back here in four hours to pick him up.”

“Apprentice Chef Little Spring, you should really consider moving in with the other apprentices here.”

“Thank you for the offer but, I like staying with my older sister in our courtyard.”

“But you’d get to be around other boys your age, which would be a far better influence than hanging around your strange girlfr—martial sister.”

I closed my eyes and reminded myself that I could not punch this bitch because I could not afford the time and metal to make more spiritual tools for her.

I’d punch her after I transcend my tribulation and could actually take on a golden core practitioner. Of course, there were also things I’d done to secretly get back at her... like steal all of her chicken-type spiritual beasts and return them the next day.

I mean, I would have kept them, but they were pecking at the spiritual herbs in the space.

“Master Chef Garlic, my sister is the best teacher for everything aside from cooking.”

I glared at the psychopathic chef. “I have other things I have to do, so I’ll leave now.”

Little Spring waved goodbye while Fairy Garlic just smirked at me before starting a lecture on the next immortal chef technique the kid was going to learn.

She wasn’t my favorite person, but she was — fucking unfortunately — a fantastic teacher. And she at least didn’t bug me about my tribulation.