Xi Sanji pursed her lips. “If you need it, I guess we can follow the recipe.”

“Yes, yes,” Hui said, nodding. I don’t care that much about waking the cultivators, but if I don’t stop Elder Sister, I’ll end up dead from her, er, genius pill cultivation! For example, that green liquid. If I hadn’t been aware of it and able to defend against it, if I hadn’t been here to toss it away, I would’ve been hit by a deluge of acid with no warning. I could have… been seriously injured and had to take some time to regenerate my body!

“Formula. Why did you call it a recipe? It’s a pill formula,” Xi Sanji said, tilting her head in confusion.

“Elder Sister can call it whatever she pleases, as long as we follow it,” Hui agreed, nodding. Whether it’s a recipe or a formula, Elder Sister, please mind it!

“Hmph. Well, I suppose you are a low-realm cultivator…” Her eyes passed over him, and she finally registered his apparent age. Her brows furrowed faintly, and then she shrugged. “…an ordinary low-realm cultivator such as yourself naturally needs to rely upon such props as recip—formulae if you are to properly cultivate pills.”

Ah! Did I just watch Elder Sister ignore reality in order to impose ordinariness upon me? Not that this small cultivator minds. No, no. In fact, since my quick growth is in fact false, only because of my actual high rate of cultivation compensating for my slow actual rate of growth, Elder Sister is the only one not blinded by the apparent state of things! Everyone else sees a fourth-stage cultivator as young as I appear and assumes I must have some talent, but only Elder Sister, who’s willing to disregard reality so thoroughly, can pierce through to see the truth. Hui put a hand on his chin, raising a brow thoughtfully. To be so ignorant as to loop around and find truth once more… an interesting concept.

“Right, right. So that recipe?” Hui prompted her, tilting his head.

“Formula.” Xi Sanji ran a hand over the metal ring around her wrist. A script appeared from the ring. Giving it a cursory glance, she quickly handed it over to Hui, almost as if burned. “There. The script for the wakefulness elixir.”

Hui looked over the script, then nodded at Xi Sanji. “Elder Sister is indeed wise. By splitting the work, we can proceed at twice the speed!”

“Huh? Aren’t you going to cultivate the pills yourse—”

Hui cut her off with an exaggerated sigh. “Such an advanced pill, how could this small, ordinary cultivator possibly cultivate such a difficult pill as the very first I’ve ever made? But to watch a genius like Elder Sister in action from up close, while I read out the instructions then watch Elder Sister execute them perfectly… ah! Elder Sister must be not only a genius pill cultivator, but also a genius teacher! What an incredible plan Elder Sister has come up with!”

Xi Sanji frowned at him. She crossed her arms and shook her head.

Hui bit his lip. Uh oh, did I go too far with the flattery? I thought Xi Sanji had a big head… did I miscalculate the size of that head of hers? Is she less prideful than I thought?

Brows furrowing, eyes narrowing, Xi Sanji leaned toward him. Hui leaned back, holding his breath. Elder Sister! I’m sorry! Please don’t take offense to a small bit of attempted charm!

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Abruptly, Xi Sanji laughed. She ruffled Hui’s hair, a pleased smile spreading wide across her face. “Who would think? After all this time, someone who recognizes my genius finally comes along! You’re more than a mere ordinary disciple. You’re a mere ordinary disciple with a discerning eye! You’ve picked the right teacher indeed. In fact, you can consider this scenario as a windfall for you! Indeed. You read out the instructions, and I’ll perfectly replicate them to a T, to assist in your learning. Ah! I’m just too magnificent, too beneficent. Naturally, I would never need to stoop to the level of using a formula, but just this once, especially for you, I’ll use one.”

Hui beamed. Excellent! I’ve successfully stoked her large ego into a raging bonfire. She’s fallen for my devious bait to get her to actually properly pill cultivate, and swallowed it, line, rod, and all! Although originally she was only someone with an ego, to think, it was this easy to provoke her into becoming a total egomaniac. Easy, too easy! Ah, I think just a little push more would give her a heart demon…

But that’s for another time. Right now, we nurture the rules-following part of Xi Sanji, so she makes the pills she needs to take, and these poor disciples don’t spend hundreds of years sleeping!

Plus, in terms of sabotaging Eight Tiers Palace… Well, from what I saw, Xi Sanji actually has prodigious talent as a pill cultivator. It’s true, she’s busy self-sabotaging to the point that she seems completely useless, but to be able to see the precise moment to add new herbs to cause a pill begin to form… even if it failed in the end, getting so close to success on an entirely novel pill she made up herself is a marker of impressive talent in and of itself.

In other words, aside from her preference for attempting novel pill formulae instead of creating pills from existing ones, Xi Sanji is actually a formidable pill cultivator! The only problem is her ego, which is what prompts her to attempt things high above her realm, such as uniquely cultivating fresh pills.

Now, all this may not seem like much sabotage. But consider! If Xi Sanji cures everyone’s sleep status before her father returns, using a pill she created—even if she didn’t develop the formula—it will raise her standing in the eyes of the Tier Masters. She’ll begin her meteoric rise to the top of the sect. Now, under ordinary conditions, she would simply revert to her old habits and quickly fall from the minds of those Tier Masters.

But if I’m at her side, providing information, helping her actually follow recipes… I can ensure her meteoric rise is locked in, and whisk her all the way to the top! Once she’s installed in a high location, I’ll leave her to do her own thing, and she’ll instantly revert to her pill-creation ways. With the reputation I’ll build for her, she’ll have access to more expensive materials and more favorable locations. Therefore, any mishap she inflicts upon the sect will be more expensive for them to recover from.

I can’t expect her to remain as a favorable candidate in the eyes of the Tier Masters for long once I stop providing assistance, but I can guide her to more powerful and dangerous pills that require more and more extreme ingredients as a way to rid Eight Tiers Palace of its resources. Meanwhile, I can reduce the number of eager young battle-ready cultivators through sending them on near-impossible quests to collect the herbs Xi Sanji desperately needs, and I won’t even need to blame their deaths on anything other than what killed them! After all, cultivators die to monsters all the time, and high-level herbs are almost universally guarded by dangerous monsters… or if not monsters, then dangerous terrain, or even scenarios like mazes or mausoleums.

Hui nodded to himself, lost in the idea of his beautiful plan, his eyes slightly glazed.

Annoyed, Xi Sanji stomped over and snapped in his face. “Hello? I asked for the first instruction! Are we doing this or not?”

“Ah! Many apologies, Elder Sister, small cultivator was merely caught up in basking in the light of your presence,” Hui quickly bluffed.

“Well, get over it and read the first rule,” she demanded.

Not that much of an egomaniac, huh? Or rather… could it be that she likes pills even more than herself? Wary of Xi Sanji leaving, and entirely voiding his clever plan, Hui cleared his throat and started reading. “First, heat the furnace to…”