Joseph removed himself from the situation. The snake-dragon was clearly hostile, and he had already been wounded by its acidic spit bomb. A tactical retreat made more sense. He moved deeper into the woods, away from the lake.

The white squirrels were still in disarray. When he looked back to the lake, the shore had already cleared out, and the critters had made their way to nearby trees.

He moved a bit further away since his relationship had soured with the little animals. Without their antics, he could’ve befriended the snake-dragon properly, which would’ve made his stay in the basin a lot less boring.

As soon as he thought himself alone, Mo Li Bei appeared from behind him. The head flew around frantically, as if he really wanted to get his attention.

“Finally! I’ve been trying to get your attention for minutes! You need to kill that dragon!”

Joseph rolled his eyes. “You’ve been hiding ever since I’ve met the squirrels, old man.”

Mo Li Bei’s head sighed. “It’s as I feared. You are subconsciously suppressing me in the presence of others. I can only help you when we are alone. But that doesn’t matter! You need to kill that dragon!

“Dragons before their ascension to the energy realms are great ingredients for a variety of potions. You could skip months of the cleansing stages with the ingredients from that mongrel!”

Joseph wasn’t really interested in faster advancement. If he kept to his current speed, he’d still be in the dantian cleansing realm in a few weeks as soon as his meridians showed up. Based on what Mo Li Bei had told him, ascending from a mortal to the dantian cleansing realm typically took around two years. He would be done in two months.

“Why would I need to go any faster? My current rate of progress is already quick. I don’t want to be seen as a once in a millennia genius that is sent to all the big events by the sect. That sounds like way too much work.”

Mo Li Bei stared daggers into him. “Brat, what are you saying? Cultivators would literally kill for your advantages. The faster you ascend the realms, the more time you have left when you hit bottlenecks! Do you think it’ll be that easy a few realms in? Those take decades to millenias! My last realm ascension took me three quarters of my whole life! Every second matters!”

“Won’t I be immortal at some point?”

The head spat at his face. The spit dissolved midair, but Joseph still flinched slightly.

“Immortal! Immortal, he says! Little brat, there are no true immortals here. Your life span just gets longer and longer, but everything dies. Why do you think this is called the mortal plane? It’s in the name, idiot. Ascend or die. That’s the game.”

The head sighed, as if he had resigned to his fate. “I didn’t want to resort to this. You’d find out in a few weeks anyway, but I thought seeing is believing works better with you. But this chance is too good for you.

“Do you think the meridians of a baby and those of an adult are the same?”

“No?”

“Brat, it’s a rhetorical question. Of course they are different. A baby’s meridians are thin and useless. It is actually the toxins acquired from the body that widen them. Some sects even believe that especially clogged meridians are an advantage. While they are harder to cleanse, they also allow for a higher rate of Qi transfer and have much more robust walls.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“Yours will be useless. Even if you hadn’t cleansed your body for years to come, they’d still be at a toddler’s strength.”

Joseph smirked. “And let me guess, you know the one secret meridian widening technique that will solve all my issues?”

The head looked at him as if it were tired of living. “No. There is no cultivation method to expand or strengthen meridians. The only known way is to fill them up with so much gunk that they naturally expand. It’s actually a somewhat common process, since you can use any type of foreign essence as replacement toxins, with the added benefit of ‘flavoring’ the meridians with that type of essence. It’s a way of naturally increasing your Qi affinities.

Dragon essence is basically the king of Qi essences. I had already planned other affinities for you, but this chance is too good.”

“Which affinities were your first pick?”

“Oh, just blood and war. They are common but rarely used since so many cultivators think them distasteful. In my experience, they don’t know what they are talking about, since they rank among the strongest affinities available. I had theorized that the combination would be nearly unbeatable, since war cultivators get stronger the longer they fight, while blood cultivators can heal with the blood of others.”

Joseph shouldn’t have asked. He knew that Mo Li Bei tended to have the most insane takes. He wondered if that level of bloodthirstiness was normal with all higher realm cultivators or was unique to Mo Li Bei.

“I still find it distasteful to kill.”

Since his leg was still hurting, he inspected the wound. Apparently, adrenaline was still running high, since half of his shin had melted away. A big red splotch larger than his hand was leaking puss and blood, the edges of his pajamas sticking to the wound as if it was melted plastic.

As if he were a little child, only experiencing pain after seeing the wound, his whole shin flared up like fire.

“Okay, I changed my mind. That bastard needs to die.”

Mo Li Bei snorted.

“Brat, before you get a big head, you need to care for your leg. You’ve passed more than enough alchemical ingredients already to craft enough tinctures, tonics and elixirs three times over.”

Joseph thought back on his lessons, which made some bile rise involuntarily. Those weren’t his happiest moments.

“I could use some graft-moss, mixed with some pink hydrangea extract to accelerate the healing...”

“You are years too early to come up with your own recipes. Sticking raw graft-moss into wounds might close them, but you’ll get horrible scarring. And pink hydrangeas require alkaline soil. Not to talk about you not having any tools to process them.

“Instead, find a big stone, mash the graft moss with soothleaf blossom and aetherlinden bark. That tree you climbed was an aetherlinden. Afterwards, you can apply the juice directly to the wound. It’s horribly inefficient, but without tools or Qi, it’s the best you can do.”

Even with Mo Li Bei’s instruction, it took Joseph hours to find all the required ingredients for the healing balm. He’d found some of the nuts the squirrels preferred on the way, which allowed him to satiate his hunger at least.

According to Mo Li Bei, the balm would still take days until his leg healed completely. It accelerated healing and didn’t replace it like a proper pill. Joseph had expected faster results, but if he told someone on earth that he could heal acid wounds large enough to require a skin graft by mashing some random plants, they’d still think him insane.

“So how do I actually beat that thing?” Joseph asked his flying Wikipedia.

“It’s a peak dantian cleansing beast. It shouldn’t even be here. I can help you concoct some poisons, but you’d still need to get them into the beast by yourself. And simply poisoning some nuts won’t work. Dragons have an excellent sense of smell. The only way will be to hurt it.”

“So this is the moment where I learn your secret martial art?”

“I’m an alchemist, dumbass. I kill with trickery and poison, not brute force. If you were in the energy realms, I’d be able to teach you proper poison arts, but I have no idea how mortal realm fights work. It’s the same as me asking you if you know any fighting techniques for toddlers.”

Joseph fell into contemplation. He had no plans to put himself in danger without a chance to win. If all he needed to do was to poison the stupid snake, he’d get someone else to do it for him. Or multiple someone else’s. Those little furry assholes were still on his shit list.

He sighed. Before he could enact his plans, he’d need multiple days of recovery and a proper base. Without tools, he wouldn’t be able to create any weapons. And without weapons, he wouldn’t be able to kill the dragon-snake.