I decided to take a brief dip in the spring water. Since I was there, I checked the unnamed lake. It did not look any worse off for having scoured Old Smokey for us, but I’d expected that. Spiritual spring water cleaned and purified like a boss.

I changed my robes and redid my hair, before heading out of the space and into the conference room.

Little Spring appeared next to me and we sat down. As we rested, he handed me a cup of spring water and waited for me to take a sip before he asked, “How are you going to explain the fixes to the cauldron?”

I nearly spat.

Coughing, I sent him a glare.

He patted my back.

I briefly wondered if he’d done that on purpose but doubted it. My family’s Little Spring was still a cute innocent little kid, after all.

“If they even recognize it, I’ll tell them that I used a secret technique from our master.”

He nodded.

It didn’t take long for Employee Stone to return and knock. After we let him in, he awkwardly wrung his hands. “One of the contestants was mugged earlier and is in no condition to participate.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said politely.

I was, in fact, expecting this. Earlier, when I had scanned the poor mugging victim, he had seemed familiar. When I went to enter the tournament, everything clicked.

I had met him at an alchemy contest, back in the day. He was very good but extremely jealous of Violet Pill Fairy. He had complained how, if only he hadn’t been robbed and beaten twice just before the tournament started, her special cauldron would have belonged to him. The guy even boasted that he’d been the better alchemist at the time.

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Now that I thought about it... had Violet and that stupid genius separately hired people to stop this guy from entering?

Whatever. I couldn’t prove anything, but I wouldn’t put it past her.

Stone nodded his head like a chicken picking up rice. “The thing is, this competition is not appropriate for a little child. There is a cultivator at golden core participating, after all.”

Ah, I knew they were going to try and get me to back out. I merely pulled out my letter stamped by the guild. “It says right here that as long as I purchase Old Smokey, that I get the slot if someone isn’t able to make it.”

“Of course, of course. But the thing is. We’re worried—“

“Our master would not have sent my sister here if he didn’t think she could win,” Little Spring lied, surprisingly skillfully.

Stone opened his mouth but closed it for a moment. “And which esteemed alchemist is your master?”

Little Spring turned to me for help. Right. I actually hadn’t really talked about our original master to him.

In this life I would not take her as a master. I’d also considered if there was anyone who I believed could be a master to us. Someone who knew things even I didn’t. There was only one name that came to mind.

At one point in my life, I had been struggling with learning alchemy and ashamed that concocting pills was so difficult, when it seemed so easy for others. Then I ran across a pile of old notes inside the sect library. Notes from one of the many sect elders who’d Ascended to Immortality around 300 years before I even arrived at the sect.

It was these notes that explained so clearly what had been bothering me the whole time I was learning alchemy from others. They broke down and even listed the reason things were in near scientific detail as opposed to the ‘It happens like this because this is the way things have always been’ bullshit that the other elders kept trying to shove down my throat.

It was these notes and these theories that I later proved and expanded on that allowed me to become an alchemist that could compete on the same level as those who make alchemy their Dao.

So, in this life, if I had to take a pretend master, then I would confidently claim him as mine. It also helped that he was in the immortal realm and couldn’t exactly nay-say me.

“Our master likes to keep his privacy, as he’s an immortal. We’re also currently on our way to the Indomitable Will Sect to officially worship him.”

He peered at us skeptically.

I grinned.

“I’ve memorized all the esteemed immortals that ascended from the Indomitable Will Sect. Which one are you referring to?”

I raised a brow.

Little Spring added. “Are you even capable of keeping his name secret?”