We spent some time doing the boring but necessary paperwork, enrolling me into the guild, signing the standard agreements, and entering me into the tournament as a backup. Then I received the iron guild badge that symbolized my status as a youth member, as well as the stamped paper that outlined our agreement.

All of this cost us 800 spirit stones. My heart bled. Fortunately, I managed to not cough up blood this time, especially since I learned even used beginner cauldrons were priced at 2000 and up.

I used a bit of spiritual energy to stick my badge onto the left side of my chest like the rest of the guild members, then Employee Stone led us into a nice back room set up for private conversations.

A short time later the manager came in. With a wave of his hand, he made an extra-large cauldron appear and land on the table. The wood bent with its weight.

Worryingly, aside from a few spots where the original gold color showed through, the surface of the cauldron appeared covered with smoke stains from centuries of use. But what hit me the most was the smell. One I couldn’t ignore even after I closed my nose aperture.

Little Spring gagged and immediately covered his nose. I could not blame him.

Sure, I could describe it as a smoke odor but that didn’t do this intensely repugnant stench justice.

The only other thing that smelled close to this horrendous abomination was something from my first past life. Something I thought I had forgotten about.

I had, at one point in my stupid youth, microwaved a piece of frozen chicken. The instructions were to put it in for ten minutes on low... I did it on high... by accident... presumably.

But what appeared after that was a charred liquidy mass. It seemed to melt and boil unnaturally. And it stank like an Eldritch Poultrygeist had descended from the Demon Realm to curse my family’s kitchen... or exactly like Old Smokey.

That incident was also responsible for eternally turning me away from ever cooking. Fortunately, I became a cultivator and never needed to learn.

After taking one look at it, Little Spring quickly tugged at my sleeve. I patted his shoulder reassuringly; after all, it might not be as bad as it looked. Because it couldn’t possibly be as bad as it stank.

“This is Old Smokey.” The manager, gracefully pretended that he wasn’t giddy with joy to be rid of this monstrosity. But the corners of his lips turned up, giving him away.

After I scanned the cauldron with divine sense, I stared at this manager with all seriousness. “And how long until the tournament starts?”

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“We’ll begin around late-morning.”

I nodded. That was in about two hours. “Allow me to use this room until then.”

“Feel free,” he said before he and Employee Stone practically bolted from the room. They only stopped to swiftly slam the door closed, trapping us with the stench. I locked it behind them to give us privacy.

With his eyes watering, Little Spring said, “Fairy Lin!”

“I know!” I had already pulled out my flags and started the simplest obfuscation array since I didn’t have time or space to do a more complex formation.

As soon as I powered it with a spirit stone Little Spring vanished into his space. I followed shortly after, but I sent the cauldron directly into the weapon/item smithy while I sent my body to a spot near the lake.

I sucked in deep breaths of fresh air. Fuck, the smell was still stuck in my nostrils!

I jumped into the spring water and cleansed my entire body. A minute later, the unbelievable stench had vanished.

Seriously, this space was the best.

Now that I was free and able to think, I considered my options. Old Smokey was an interesting specimen of a cauldron.

Judging from that divine sense scan I did, it wasn’t a spiritual tool, but it was the highest level a non-spiritual pill cauldron could get. At least it had been at one point. The metal was excellent, but it had a lot of wear and tear from having actually survived many low-level explosions.

And, I could tell, that despite its current condition, the past owner had loved Old Smokey a lot. So much so that, even in this alarming state, they couldn’t bear to scrap it and instead entrusted it to the Alchemists' Guild to be sold to poor new students. Either that or they did it as a joke. But I doubted that. The guild would have trashed it were that the case. Likely this belonged to one of the higher leveled alchemists the guild couldn’t afford to offend. Someone who loved this old cauldron.

And it was loved for good reason. Beyond the excellent materials it was made with, it had a beautiful yet highly functional design for an antique.

Unfortunately, It was just a little too big for my preference. It was almost as if it had once been intended to be a spirit cauldron that was able to resize into a weapon but the smith forgot to add the right ingredients at the last minute. This, of course, caused it to become one huge bastard specializing in producing mass quantities of low-quality pills.

It made me wonder. If good Old Smokey had been turned into a spirit tool, would it have developed an item spirit by now?

Shit. There I went zoning out again. I didn’t have a lot of time. I had to plan how I was going to quickly get this cauldron in good enough shape to use during the tournament.

Little Spring suddenly appeared beside me, submerged his head into the lake, and stayed there for a full minute. Then almost two. I forcefully lifted his head up.

He coughed and I patted his back until he started taking in huge gulps of air.

“Um... so, this water might be really good for you but... you still can’t breathe it, no matter how much you want to.”

He sent me a look as if asking me if I understood who was responsible for his current predicament.

I ignored it. I also made a mental note to teach Little Spring how to close his nose aperture. Poor kid.

“If you’re done drowning, let’s get to cleaning.”