Once I had left Janassa for her studies, I moved immediately to my next challenge.

Creating a proper alchemy room. It wasn't exactly a great challenge. While alchemy knowledge didn't come with plans on how to set one, my two alchemy techniques came with hazards to avoid. Some were easy to predict — steady heat and no Qi fluctuations from outside — while the others had been more esoteric.

Ideally, creating a room like that in the form of an artifact was the best option. It would be expensive, but the longevity benefits would have been worth it. Unfortunately, artifact refining was one area I had been lagging behind significantly, so I had to rely on formations to handle most of them.

It was far more expensive to maintain the environment, but once again, I wasn't exactly lacking Qi.

Once I had arranged my pill refinement room, I pulled the Black Medium-Grade cauldron from the System space, enjoying its perfect, gleaming surface. It was a true masterpiece. "Let's see how far I can push this bad boy," I chuckled, treating it as a luxury car.

For my first attempt, I chose to refine a batch of alchemical fertilizer. Not exactly a glorious product, but it was the best way to handle it.

Just like the talisman plans I had received from the System, the pill recipes were not singular, strict guides that required the collection of a strict list of materials, but ones with many alternatives. It meant that I should be able to produce all Qi Gathering stage pills and products easily.

With the System, learning how to make things was much better than angling for a specific gift.

I took a deep breath and started using my new alchemy room to its best effect, but even then, it took an hour for me to finish preparing the fertilizer. It was a bluish liquid with a soft glow. "Yellow Medium-Grade," I muttered as I examined it. Not as good as I hoped.

Of course, any other alchemist would have stabbed me for daring to complain about it. For any itinerant alchemist, a steady rate of success above twenty percent was impressive enough for the title of the Alchemist. However, once again, a cheater like me had different standards.

"Maybe I should delay the martial arts talent pill until I could improve it further," I decided. For the next few hours, I had refined a few more rounds. I also tried to automate the production of the fertilizer, but it didn't work.

My alchemy knowledge wasn't good enough. I decided to try again once I could reach the realm of Immersion, or maybe even Integration.

Instead, I visited the garden I had created for the ginseng plants, and used the fertilizer on the plants. They started to grow much faster, but their consumption of Qi had reached a truly extreme point. For the first time, I was using the Qi production of the spirit vein to the limit.

"Well, that was a surprise," I muttered. I was used to treating the spirit vein as a limitless source, but it seemed trying to forcibly mature a hundred Black Grade ginseng was actually the limit. But, after thinking a bit, it made sense.

If a grade one spirit vein was limitless, it would be valuable enough to move the whole Kartpa Valley into action rather than one outer sect elder moving without support.

"It looks like I need to continue adding spirit plants to turn it into a bigger ecosystem, just in case," I said. One or two gardens wouldn't be able to match the production capacity of the spirit vein, but what about a hundred … or a thousand.

One thing that the mortal kingdoms didn't lack was the land. Of course, that meant putting a lot of effort into planting the plants, which I currently lack. Even with formations, it couldn't be completely automated.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

With the alchemy ploy done, I decided to pay a visit to the capital, to the ruins of the Spring Palace. Initially, I didn't intend to test the stone gate there, but the discovery of the random Nascent Soul cultivator in Linnass scared me.

The Capital of Zaim was already defended with the intricate formation I had put in, which would certainly detect the presence of any Golden Core, and I was ready to bet that it would also notice the presence of a Nascent Soul cultivator.

A bet that I wasn't happy to make, but I didn't want to delay things too much. At least, the being in there had been imprisoned.

Once I arrived, I couldn't help but feel fascinated by the stark difference. Just a few days ago, the streets were half empty. Now, they were filled with crowds that looked far happier than I had expected. Having a Queen that was strong enough to kill a Foundation Establishment cultivator was clearly paying off.

As much as I wanted to stop by Aisnam's new royal guard and talk with them about the current status, I ignored it momentarily. It had been less than a week, and they were competent enough to keep everything together in such a short time.

Also, if there had been an emergency, they would have dropped a letter to one of the emergency spots, which would have triggered the formation to send me an alert. With that in mind, I directly walked to the ruins of the Spring Palace.

"What a waste," I muttered. The ruins had been cleaned based on my orders, but there was no building, instead replaced by a beautiful garden. Still, I couldn't help but miss the Palace. I had a lot of pleasant memories there.

With a sigh, I walked into the tunnel and stood in front of the stone gate. With the new formation in place, there was no cursed Qi slipping out, but that didn't make the place any less dangerous. For that reason, I had started building multiple formations, far more complicated than anything else I had built.

The outer layer was to isolate the gate from anyone else. Then, there was a containment layer that was stronger than the stone gate, to make sure nothing would escape. Inside it, I had added several killing formations that would have easily killed a Golden Core cultivator … assuming, of course, he walked into the trap obediently.

Then, I started building similar formations around myself, creating a Qi equivalent of a diving suit. At the same time, I pulled a stack of talismans from my ring and kept them around my belt, ready to be used, be it for purification, shielding, or offensive means.

And, if the worst happened, I could always activate the flying boat for another layer of defense.

Only after all of the preparations had been completed, I had removed the protections on the stone gate and opened it.

The moment I opened it, the disgusting cursed Qi had spread, thick enough to kill me in a second despite my cultivation if it wasn't for my defenses. However, while it was tempting to start purifying it, I decided against it.

Instead, I walked forward, aware of the risk I was taking. But, it was a better idea than just ignoring the risk. After following a short corridor, I found myself facing a spiral stairway, going deeper into the darkness.

I tried every detection method I could think of, but it detected nothing more than the cursed Qi. I decided to ignore every lesson I had learned from the horror movies and actually started to climb down. A scary process, but one that was inevitable.

Interestingly, there were no mysterious whispers tempting me this time, suggesting that the imprisoned being inside was still unconscious after its knowledge transfer. It can technically be a ploy, but I didn't want to delay it any further.

I didn't have the luxury of waiting until the conspiracy started moving.

The stairs had been taller than I expected, bringing me two miles deep underground, cutting deep. The deeper I got, the darker and the more corrupted everything had become, like even the stone itself had been sick and diseased.

The stairs ended up in another corridor, but this time. There were the remains of another gate there, but it had been long corroded, turning into dust. I followed the corridor … and it led me into a throne room, once again corroded and cursed.

The walls had been covered with rusty, corroded weapons, and flags that turned into garbage. However, even in their destroyed state, I was able to see the sigil of the Everdawn Empire in half of them. The other half had some kind of wolf, with the sigil of the sun still behind it.

Be it positioning or color, it was clear that it was some kind of noble of the Empire.

However, those barely held my attention compared to the figure at the center of the room. A corpse with half of the flesh rotten off, wrapped in golden chains, with a glowing, throbbing crystal sword stabbed through his chest.

I think I have finally found my forceful teacher.