In the days since Wu Jian left, Hou Jingshu had been training the cultivators under Mei Xilan’s command. She woke them up every day at the crack of dawn and drilled combat into them. They would practice their forms, then spar with each other, and it would end with them sparring her in teams of three.

The forms she taught them were the same ones used by the Shang Kingdom’s army. Uncle Chu Yuechan would not approve of her teaching another kingdom her nation’s combat, but it wasn’t like their combat style was some big secret. It was a slightly modified version of a popular combat style used across the continent.

While Mei Xilan might have been in charge, Hou Jingshu had begun earning a reputation among the cultivators. Many a cultivator called her draconic because of her harsh teaching methods. She had even earned herself the nickname Fierce Dragon Lady and The Undefeatable Noble Dragon. The only two people who could keep up with her in sparring matches were Shuchang and Youmei, whom she sparred with regularly to keep her own skills sharp.

She was not doing anything like that at the moment, however.

“Haaaah… Mmmm… Hnnn…”

Within the privacy of her bedroom, Hou Jingshu lay on the bed, her feet pressed against the mattress as she spread her legs and rubbed herself. She had one of Wu Jian’s boxers in hand and was inhaling the scent as she played with her little pearl.

It had been nearly a week since Wu Jian left now. She already missed him. The past year had been rough on her.

Dragons had a high libido, which made them quite prone to getting horny, especially after a battle. Loong Chen had explained it to her one night after he caught her masturbating to thoughts of Wu Jian.

Dragons were creatures of passion, vitality, and ferocity, and these traits were imbued into the very essence of dragon cultivation techniques. They emphasized connecting with one’s instincts and tapping into your primal urges. This meant that, during the heat of battle, when survival instincts were at their peak, practitioners would experience a surge in their libido as those instincts took over, driving them to seek pleasure and gratification.

Basically, dragons were good for two things.

Fighting and fucking.

Hou Jingshu groaned into Wu Jian’s undergarments as she lifted her hips off the bed. She was working her fingers overtime, furiously rubbing herself. Sweat formed on her legs, back, and chest, and juices dripped down her inner thighs and onto the bed. She was so close… so close…

Just a little more. Just a… little… further…

Her head was already feeling cloudy and pleasant. Her breathing had grown heavy and her muscles were contracting. Intense surges of pleasure made her thighs shake as she clenched the bed’s fabrics with her toes.

Masturbating wasn’t anywhere near as good as having sex with Wu Jian, but she would take what she could get.

Ooooh! I’m gonna--

“Jingshu, are you in there?”

A voice suddenly echoed from the other side of the door. It was Zhou Lihua. The sound of someone talking was akin to having a bucket of ice cold water dumped on Hou Jingshu’s head. All that burning passion and fire she had built up fizzled out like an afternoon breeze.

“I-I’m here! Gimme a second,” Hou Jingshu called out. She leapt out of bed, removed the sheets, and ran over to the small bowl filled with water. Dousing a rag, she began cleaning herself off. She wiped between her thighs, down her thighs, her toes, and everywhere else she could think of that wasn’t clothed.

After checking to make sure she was presentable, she opened the door and smiled at Zhou Lihua. Youmei was with her.

“Sniff sniff.”

Oh no…

“Sorry for the wait,” Hou Jingshu said, warily eying Youmei as she smelled the air.

“It’s fine. May we come in?”

“… Of course. Come on in.”

“Thank you.”

Zhou Lihua and Youmei entered the room and sat down on a pair of chairs. Hou Jingshu was extremely thankful they didn’t go over to the bed. The sheets were currently rolled into a ball and hidden under the bed, but the mattress was still damp, and she was positive it was covered in her scent.

“Sniff sniff…”

Youmei was continuing to smell the air as Hou Jingshu prepared a small pot of tea for everyone. The girl stopped when she set the tea down. It was a tea with a strong spicy scent, which she hoped to use to mask the smell.

“Was there something you needed?” asked Hou Jingshu.

Zhou Lihua shook her head. “Not particularly. I just… don’t have much to do here right now. Unlike you, I’m not really a combatant anymore. My fighting prowess has declined ever since I chose to follow the path of alchemy. I’ve already refined all the pills I can with the supplies we have on hand, so now I just have a lot of free time.”

Hou Jingshu was about to say something, but she paused and studied Zhou Lihua for a moment. The young woman was hiding it well. However, she had clenched her hands together and there was a furrow in her brow.

“Is something wrong?” asked Hou Jingshu.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“No… well, not really.” Zhou Lihua paused, then sighed. “I suppose I’m feeling a little anxious about how much help I am right now. I chose to become an alchemist because I thought it would be best for my family. I do love alchemy, of course, but that wasn’t my biggest reason for choosing to become an alchemist. Now that I am an alchemist, however, I find myself wondering if I chose the correct path. If I was a strong cultivator like you, I could probably help Wu Jian a lot more. I can’t fight on the frontlines like you can.”

“I think I get where you’re coming from since I sometimes feel the same way,” Hou Jingshu admitted.

“Really? But you’re so strong! You’ve already reached the Seeker Realm!”

“That’s true… but I sometimes wonder if Wu Jian needs another fighter by his side. He’s already so strong on his own. Can my strength really benefit him? I have occasionally wondered if I wouldn’t have been more helpful if I chose to become an alchemist.”

If she could refine alchemy pills, then she could help Wu Jian reach new levels of strength. Wouldn’t that be better than just being another sword?

“I guess… we both have our insecurities,” Zhou Lihua muttered with a slight smile.

“It’s not bad to feel this way, though. At least, I don’t think it is,” Hou Jingshu said. “I’m just going to use these feelings to push myself as far as I can. So long as I can be strong enough to stand beside Wu Jian, I’ll be fine.”

“Stand beside him, huh?” Zhou Lihua’s eyes glazed over as though gazing into the distance. “I wonder if I’ll be able to do that, too.”

Hou Jingshu was about to say something to reassure her friend, but Youmei suddenly leapt to her feet with a little “Ah!” like she had realized something. Hou Jingshu felt nothing but trepidation as Youmei rushed over to the bed. Those feelings of worry became ever mounting horror when the magical beast sniffed around.

“Youmei! Don’t sniff around my bed! Why don’t you--”

“Ah ha! Youmei found it!” Youmei suddenly exclaimed in victory as she raised Wu Jian’s underwear into the air like it was a trophy. “Youmei knew she smelled master in here! But, um, why is master’s underwear here?”

A pronounced silence followed her words. Zhou Lihua gazed over at Hou Jingshu, who, unable to look her friend in the eye, turned away. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

***

Queen Medusa’s legacy tomb was located within the heart of Sandstorm Abyss. After walking over innumerable dunes of sand, climbing between craggy cliffs, and fighting hordes of magical beasts, they arrived at the tomb, which stood like a timeless monument hailing the unparalleled might and grandeur of the woman who’d had it built.

The tomb was carved from the very bedrock of the earth and was a marvel of ancient craftsmanship and enduring strength. Rising from the shifting sands like a sentinel of antiquity, the tomb’s towering structure commanded reverence and awe. Its weathered sandstone walls bore the marks of millenia, etched with the passage of time and the whispers of long-forgotten history.

At the entrance, a grand staircase majestically ascended, its steps worn and slightly eroded by time and the desert sands. Flanking the threshold were a pair of stone guardians, their silent vigil serving as a testament to the tomb’s power and mystique. Standing before the entrance, Wu Jian felt as though he could feel the vicissitudes of time.

“We finally reached it. Marvelous. Simply marvelous,” Master Yun Chi exclaimed as he looked at the massive structure. He seemed giddy almost like a child.

Master Ruong Cho also looked quite excited, though her eyes were filled with greed instead of excitement. She looked like someone who had just seen a pile of spirit stones in front of them and was already imagining what she would spend it all on.

Wu Jian had come to the conclusion that Master Ruong Cho was a very greedy person, and the most likely cause for the hatred Master Yun Chi felt for her. She took every opportunity she could to insult the other alchemy master, seduced members of their escort into her bed, and made everyone wait on her. They might have arrived sooner if not for the fact that she enjoyed sleeping in and had refused to get up until Master Yun Chi dragged her out of bed in a fit of rage.

It had taken them roughly two weeks to reach the legacy tomb thanks to her. They had run across several other cultivator groups. Not all of them were traveling to Queen Medusa’s legacy tomb, but some of them were, and they’d wound up fighting several times since nobody wanted to share the spoils to be had inside. The legacy tomb had only appeared recently, so there were still a lot of treasures inside.

“We’re going to set up camp,” Shā Shing Yue informed Masters Yun Chi and Ruong Cho. “I suggest you rest up before heading inside. Queen Medusa’s tomb is a dangerous place with many traps. You don’t want to head in there with an unfocused mind.”

“Hmmm. That’s a good suggestion,” Master Yun Chi said. “I think I’ll take you up on that.”

Master Ruong Cho snorted. “Well, I certainly won’t be following your advice. I came here for one reason and one reason only. I will be the one who acquires Medusa’s Tear. But I certainly won’t stop you from resting up here. In fact, I encourage it. I think you should just wait outside until I return, tear in hand.”

She did not wait for Master Yun Chi to say anything, gesturing to her apprentice and the guards she had brought before walking up the stone steps. Wu Jian didn’t like the woman at all. It was clear the disgust he felt was also shared by the others. Shā Shing Yue had wrinkled her nose as she watched the woman and her entourage disappear into the legacy tomb.

“Vile woman,” Master Yun Chi muttered with a disgusted shake of his head.

Nobody said anything more about Master Ruong Cho and instead began setting up camp. They made their tents and created a cooking area out of stones. One of the guards working with Shā Shing Yue began cooking with a large pot, filling it with water and adding ingredients once it was all brought to a boil. The food wasn’t much, just soup, but it would tide them over.

While everyone else worked, Wu Jian sat with Tang Tiantian, Lili Ling, and Master Yun Chi to create a plan for entering the legacy tomb. Shā Shing Yue had also joined them.

“How much do we know about the legacy tomb?” asked Tang Tiantian.

“Not much,” Shā Shing Yue confessed. “We didn’t explore it very much, so there are many parts that we haven’t mapped out yet. However, we do have some knowledge of the traps the tomb contains.”

Legacy tombs were ancient burial sites or mausoleums that held the remains, treasures, and legacies of powerful cultivators. Tombs like these were often made by cultivators in case they failed to ascend. Since ascending to a new realm always became more difficult and dangerous as one climbed the cultivation ladder, people would make tombs like this so they’d have a place to store their worldly possessions.

As such, they were often riddled with traps, hidden mechanisms, guardian beasts, illusions and challenges, ancient curses, and even environmental hazards. That also wasn’t getting into other cultivators who they might run into.

Shā Shing Yue summoned a sheet of parchment from her storage ring and spread it out on the ground. It was a map.

“This is the area we’ve mapped so far. These areas we’ve circled are known traps. Each one resets after a certain amount of time has passed, so you need to be wary.” Shā Shing Yue dragged her finger across the map and ended at one point. “This is the lowest section we have traveled. It was here that someone claimed to have seen Medusa’s Tear. I did not see it, but we have sent several teams in to confirm its existence.”

“So we only need to follow the mapped parts to get what I need,” Master Yun Chi mumbled.

But Shā Shing Yue shook her head. “The entrance we used to reach this area caved in when we were attacked by a Scorpion King. We’ll need to find another way to reach it, which means exploring the areas we haven’t been to yet.”

As they continued to discuss the matter, Wu Jian glanced back at the entrance, wondering what kind of dangers and wonders awaited them inside.