Su Wei smiled with confidence.
“Your Majesty must be joking. There’s no pill in this world that I, Su Wei, cannot refine.”
Then he continued, “The method to refine the Pureblood Pill is simple, but the difficulty lies in the rare ingredients it needs. For example, the White Lingzhi Root that grows beneath the perpetual ice of the extreme north. It’s completely white and perfectly blends in with the snow.
Even divine sense can’t distinguish it—you have to dig through the snow by hand and tell with your eyes. I spent a whole year digging in the snowfields, yet couldn’t find a single one…”
“White Lingzhi Root.”
A piece of milky-white herb was placed before Su Wei.
“And also, the Flame Grass, which only grows when watered with the blood of a Golden Crow. As far as I know, only the Great Sun still has Golden Crow Blood, so only there can you find the Flame Grass. But the moment you pluck it, a remnant will of a Golden Crow will appear, and only by defeating that remnant will can you…”
“Flame Grass.”
A crimson herb was already lying before him.
“It also requires the Essence of Earth. The Essence of Earth is intelligent—it can sense danger and flee. It’s extremely difficult to capture…”
A lump of pitch-black soil was set before Su Wei.
“And… you’ll need the complete shed shell from a Flood Dragon right before it transforms into a True Dragon. That sort of thing is near impossible to find…”
In front of him now lay the intact, scaled shell of a Flood Dragon. Jiang Li gave him a glance, motioning for him to continue. Whatever you need, just say it.
Everything’s available in the System Store. Su Wei swallowed.
“Uh… the rest are all rather common. Which beast bloodline do you intend to refine?”
He had expected to spend months gathering materials, but the young human emperor actually had all these unimaginably rare herbs ready at hand. The young attendant’s lips twitched slightly. She too knew the kind of ingredients required for refining a Pureblood Pill.
Her teacher had indeed said they were “common,” but only in the sense that none were priced by Spirit Stones—they were materials that could only be bartered with other treasures or found in forgotten lands where no man lived.
“Common,” to pill refiners, meant common inside the herb vault of the Pill Refining Peak.
“White Marsh Blood.”
Su Wei’s pupils shrank slightly. In that instant, he understood what Jiang Li meant. In this world, there was only one creature whose veins carried White Marsh Blood—the hybrid White Marsh Empress.
The Pureblood Pill had only one purpose: to purify the bloodline flowing within a beast. Beasts were not like humans, who cultivated using spiritual roots. Their cultivation relied on their bloodline.
The purer and closer to the source it was, the stronger they became. Of course, the power of bloodlines was only effective up to the Union Stage. Upon reaching the Tribulation Transcendence Stage, they still needed to break through by their own effort.
To this day, not a single beast on the Nine Provinces Continent had reached Tribulation.
“That’s troublesome,” Su Wei muttered with a frown.
“To refine a Pureblood Pill, a primer is required—a single drop of pure blood from the very bloodline you wish to refine. Moreover, that drop cannot have been separated from its host for more than twelve hours.”
If it were Kunpeng, Qiongqi, Luwu, True Dragon, or Kirin, that would be fine. Those pureblood beasts could still be found across the Four Seas; if Jiang Li went to request a drop of their true blood, they might even cheerfully carve their wrists open and offer him a whole pool.
But White Marsh… there were no purebloods left in the Nine Provinces. Jiang Li browsed through the System Store but found nothing of the sort. His expression turned strangely complicated.
A few days ago, the System had released a quest.
[Quest Issued: To earn academy credits, you take on an Academy Mission. After arriving in the Great Wei Dynasty, you make enemies among your companions. During battle, you accidentally fall off a cliff and land within a tomb. That tomb belongs to a Spirit Transformation Cultivator. Your goal: obtain the inheritance of this cultivator.]
[This quest is not recommended to be abandoned.]
[Reward: One drop of fresh White Marsh Blood, one cultivation art that can greatly enhance instant explosive power, and one Great Rejuvenation Pill.]
Not recommended to be abandoned. Up until now, Jiang Li had never seen such wording before. He decided to take it seriously.
But the problem was—it sounded a little tricky. Obtaining an inheritance wasn’t difficult for him. The real issue was—how was he supposed to know which cultivator’s inheritance it was supposed to be?
How many Spirit Transformation Cultivators were buried across the Great Wei? Even the Great Wei itself had no idea. Those kinds of cultivators often died in secret, buried themselves, and vanished from history.
Who would ever find their tombs? So Jiang Li ordered a few commanders from the Human Emperor Palace to lead their men and search the cliffs for tombs belonging to long-dead Spirit Transformation Cultivators. He would then go through them one by one himself.
At first, Jiang Li was only mildly curious. But the more he thought about it, the more suspicious he became. The timing of the System’s quest was too coincidental—so much so that he began to suspect the System could foresee what he would need and issue quests in advance.
But that didn’t make sense. The previous quests had never given him anything this useful. Why did the System suddenly get smart now?
As he pondered, a Remote Communication Talisman lit up and interrupted his thoughts. He answered it instinctively.
“Old Bai, what do you want? I’m still at your Dao Sect.”
There was silence for a moment at the other end of the talisman.
“…It’s me, Jing Xin.”
“Oh! Oh, sorry, sorry, I got distracted. What’s the matter?”
The Holy Maiden Jing Xin glanced around at those near Jiang Li and gave him a subtle signal with her eyes. Jiang Li understood. He bid Su Wei farewell, saying he’d figure out a way to solve the matter of the White Marsh Blood, then flew out from the Pill Refining Peak.
“What happened?”
“The Red Dust Ancestor has run away from home.”
“???”
“This is the letter she left behind.”
The Holy Maiden Jing Xin unfolded the letter left by the Red Dust Fairy.
“Going out for a stroll. I’ll be back in a few days. Don’t worry, I brought enough spirit stones with me. — Red Dust” Jing Xin sighed helplessly.
“Master always wanted to go out and play, but we were afraid she might cause trouble outside, so we kept stopping her. She must have gotten annoyed. And since she didn’t want to fight her way out, she sneaked away in secret.”
An Immortal departing her own sect—the one she herself had founded—was nothing difficult, even if she had lost all her past-life memories. This wasn’t a small matter. Jiang Li had seen the beauty of the Red Dust Fairy before.
To call her charming was an understatement—she could cause chaos throughout the entire Nine Provinces.
“Wait here. I’ll ask an expert in finding people.”
Jiang Li cut the talisman’s connection and turned to the Yin-Yang Heavenly Seal, asking it to trace the Red Dust Fairy through karmic force.
“Red Dust Fairy? I vaguely remember her.”
When the Red Dust Fairy first descended upon the Nine Provinces, the Yin-Yang Heavenly Seal hadn’t yet developed self-awareness, but it retained a hazy impression. It scoffed at her so-called beauty, believing such charm might work on mortals—but was it really expecting to enchant a sentient immortal artifact?
“Exaggeration. I don’t believe anyone could be so beautiful as to move all hearts.”
While it muttered, it still cast its Power of Karma. This time, the Yin-Yang Heavenly Seal’s karmic strength flowed smoothly, and almost instantly, it found the location of the Red Dust Fairy.
“She’s in the Great Wei Dynasty’s Abundance City.”
The Heavenly Seal expressed a faint curiosity—it wanted to see this woman who could shake the world. Jiang Li, however, dared not risk it. If the seal were to get charmed and, in a moment of foolishness, awakened some strange artifact into sentience, that would be a disaster.
He warned the seal to stay put in the Dao Sect and forbade it from spreading any word about the Red Dust Fairy. Having once nearly been smashed apart by Jiang Li, the Yin-Yang Heavenly Seal obediently complied. It quietly remained in the Dao Sect, continuing its work of composing cultivation methods for spirit treasures.
Curiosity is valuable, but one’s life is more so. Having confirmed her location, Jiang Li arrived above Abundance City. With a sweep of his divine sense, he immediately located the Red Dust Fairy.
She was… shopping.
(End of Chapter)