"Correct. This is the genuine Withered Wood Green Vine. And this is your Foundation Establishment Pill."
Su Min nodded curtly as she inspected the spiritually vibrant, well-preserved herb laid before her. The vine was supple, its surface pulsing with a faint, emerald light that illuminated her fingertips. Satisfied, she retrieved several small porcelain vials from her sleeve and handed them to the cloaked figure standing opposite her. The containers clinked together softly, a delicate sound in the stillness of the room.
"One Foundation Establishment Pill, one Qi Gathering Pill, and two Qi Inducing Pills. The agreed price."
"Indeed."
The black-robed man carefully uncorked each vial, his concealed face undoubtedly scrutinizing the quality of the elixirs. A sweet, revitalizing fragrance filled the small chamber. A moment later, he exhaled a soft sigh of relief. The legendary Danxian hadn't tried to deceive him; the pills were flawless.
"The materials for the Thunder Attracting Talisman are finally complete," Su Min thought, storing the precious vine away in her spatial ring. "This will be my key divine tool when facing the heavenly tribulation."
As she secured the materials, a sudden, sharp fluctuation in the ambient spiritual energy made her pause. The black-robed man had crushed a dark, obsidian jade pendant in his hand. The stone shattered with a sharp snap, and in the blink of an eye, a spatial distortion swallowed him. He vanished from the room as if he had never been there.
Whoosh!
At the same instant, a figure burst into the room from behind. It was one of Prince Yong Mansion's resident Foundation Establishment experts. His sword was drawn and glowing with a pale blue light, clearly intending to prevent the imperial spy from escaping.
"Senior, where is he?" the man demanded. His eyes darted around the now empty room before settling on Su Min, who remained seated with an air of unshakable calm.
"Summoned back by a pre-arranged secret technique. There's no point in chasing him now."
Su Min shook her head slightly. The escape had been instantaneous; it was a teleportation triggered too fast even for her to react. The spy had clearly known that even if she honored the trade, Prince Yong Mansion would never let a royal agent leave alive with such intelligence. He had come prepared for a swift exit.
"This…"
The expert's face darkened with frustration. He didn't dare voice any blame toward Su Min, but the failure to capture the spy stung his pride and his sense of duty. He sheathed his sword with a sharp metallic rasp.
"Update the notice. Remove the Withered Wood Green Vine from the list."
Su Min tossed the revised bounty list to the bewildered man before turning to leave. Her business in the city was concluded. Over the next six months, the Jianghu descended into absolute madness. As the rare materials were gathered one by one, the competition for the remaining items grew even more brutal. The sheer scale of the conflicts, with sects willing to burn to the ground for a chance at a pill, shocked even the seasoned Prince Yong and the cynical Emperor Wei. Neither of them had ever commanded such fervent obedience from the martial world.
Su Min eventually grew uneasy with the escalating bloodshed and issued another, smaller batch of pills to calm the frenzy. Thanks to the extensive materials Xie Yingying had left her, she had found enough surplus to refine another cauldron of Foundation Establishment Pills. These extra pills ensured she had some room for error in her own preparations, but their release only intensified the competition, as it proved the bounty was real.
Finally, after another full year, the last of the materials she needed was delivered. Her own cultivation had also grown more stable and profound during this period of intense alchemy and gathering. Her meridians felt wide and sturdy, pulsing with refined spiritual power. A few minor secret realms had emerged during this time, but Su Min had dismissed them with a glance. Her system had dispassionately rated them as One Star or Trash Tier. They were useless distractions to her current goals.
Then, on this decisive day, she stood before the high-ranking members of the manor.
"This time, I take my leave. I will be entering seclusion to attempt my breakthrough."
With the final, crucial materials in hand, Su Min had no more reason to delay. Originally, she had estimated this process would take thirty years, but thanks to Xie Yingying's unexpected patronage, the timeline had accelerated dramatically. There was no point in waiting any longer. The sooner she reached the Golden Core stage, the sooner she could fulfill her vengeance and enter deep stasis to await the opening of the Golden Core Avenue. As for the petty grudges and power struggles of Weiwu Prefecture, she no longer had any wish to be involved.
"How long will the seclusion take?" Prince Yong asked. He was unable to hide his burning curiosity and the worry lines etched into his forehead.
"If all goes perfectly, four to five years. If there are complications, perhaps a dozen. But I will return before the Demon Queen recovers her full strength. Without your faction to restrain her movements, she would pose too much trouble for my plans."
With that final warning, Su Min turned and left without ceremony. She didn't bother explaining the intricacies of a Golden Core tribulation. Even with her supreme foundation and preparations, facing heaven's judgment wasn't something any sane cultivator dared take lightly.
Beyond the familiar lands of Weiwu Prefecture lay the vast, untamed expanse of the ocean. The air turned salty and damp as she reached the coast. Even in future eras when the world would be more interconnected, these waters would still be considered a remote and desolate corner. She searched for a solitary island, one completely uninhabited and far from any shipping lanes. Even the most daring fishermen wouldn't venture this far out into the crashing surf.
Standing upon jagged, sea-battered rocks and gazing out across the boundless sea, Su Min nodded to herself. The water was a deep, slate grey under the overcast sky. This was the place. With a flick of her fingers, a small, intricately carved wooden boat, no larger than her palm, materialized.
[Ebony Spirit Boat (Low Yellow Grade): Can be powered by spiritual energy. Suitable for sea travel.]
Tossing it into the choppy water, the boat instantly expanded with a soft, pulsing glow. It grew to over twenty meters in length, bobbing gently on the waves. Su Min stepped aboard gracefully and pressed her palm against its dark hull. A steady stream of spiritual energy flowed from her, and the vessel began gliding smoothly into the open sea. It left no wake behind it, moving like a phantom through the swells.
Crossing such a treacherous ocean was perilous, even for early Golden Core cultivators. Without resting points to recover spiritual energy, a person could easily exhaust their core and die adrift. Naturally, she had come prepared. She had refined several such spirit boats for this journey. Wind sails were unnecessary; a mere trickle of her immense energy kept the boat moving several hundred kilometers per day. That was more than enough speed to ensure her tribulation wouldn't be noticed from the distant mainland.
"This should be far enough. But I must go further still. I can't afford any witnesses."
Three days later, after navigating through thick fog banks and sudden squalls that rattled the boat's timber, she found an ideal island. It wasn't too small, with sheer, forbidding cliffs surrounding its perimeter like a natural fortress. A flat, barren basin sat in the center. The sea here was fickle and violent. Even if some lost soul caught a distant glimpse of the heavenly tribulation, they would mistake the blinding lights and booms for a natural electrical storm and steer far away.
Perfect terrain. Perfect concealment.
With a light step, Su Min soared into the air, leaving the spirit boat behind. With a tug of her hand through the air, the vessel shrank and flew back into her palm. In a flash of motion, she descended into the island's central valley.
"Let's begin."
She took a moment to take stock of the treasures now laid out before her on a flat slab of rock.
"One Golden Spirit Pill. One Thunder Attracting Talisman. One Thunderbreaker Sword."
The Golden Spirit Pill was the cornerstone. It would allow her to rapidly accumulate a critical mass of energy and forcefully draw down the heavenly lightning. Even after summoning the judgment, its residual potency would circulate within her body, helping to protect her meridians. A single, high-quality pill could increase a cultivator's chances of surviving the tribulation by ten percent.
As for the talisman and sword, they were legendary among tribulation preparation tools. With these three treasures in her possession, Su Min felt a surge of confidence, even if the legendary ninefold heavenly tribulation were to descend upon her. She carried the elusive blessing of merit on her side; it was a mysterious force she knew was substantial after resolving the corpse demon calamity.
"Only the Golden Spirit Pill was truly difficult to craft. The other two are just high-grade Yellow artifacts. For my current skill, they posed no significant challenge."
After a short pause to center herself, Su Min closed her eyes and began the final crafting process. Instantly, the entire valley was engulfed in a visible wave of scorching heat. Alchemy demanded precision and spiritual balance, but artifact forging was an art of brute force and searing temperatures. Steam hissed from the damp valley floor. The hardy mosses below withered and blackened at a visible rate. She couldn't craft Earth Grade artifacts yet; she lacked the supreme materials and her cultivation was still insufficient to imbue that level of power. Slowly, painstakingly, she forged the sacred tools.
Three months later, she stood in the center of the island.
"Phew… this poor island has suffered greatly."
Su Min opened her eyes. The intense light of the Nanming Lihuo faded from her pupils as she glanced around at the now barren and glassified valley floor. She let out a dry laugh. The forging process had demanded the constant release of her heavenly flame. She was protected by her enchanted armor, but the land had no such blessing. Every last stalk of grass had been incinerated. Still, she now held her prizes: a talisman humming with concentrated thunder essence and a longsword that shimmered with arcs of captive lightning.
[Thunder-Attracting Talisman (High Yellow Grade): Greatly enhances lightning resistance when worn.]
[Thunderbreaker Sword (High Yellow Grade): Deals devastating damage against lightning-based forces and entities.]
These two items weren't versatile in general combat. The talisman, against anything other than lightning, was little more than a glowing charm. The sword, in an ordinary fight, was just a slightly better than average weapon. But in their intended domain, they rivaled even low Earth Grade artifacts.
"Now, the final step: the Golden Spirit Pill. Once this is done, I will rest and meditate before formally beginning the breakthrough."
Storing the newly forged artifacts, Su Min summoned her most reliable cauldron. The gap between a third-grade and a fourth-grade pill was a chasm of comprehension. Since reaching late-stage Foundation Establishment, she had been relentlessly pushing her limits toward this moment. If she failed, she would simply spend another decade or two tempering her spiritual energy through meditation.
As time passed, the rare materials were consumed one by one. A week later, only the purified golden demon core and a swirling cluster of herbal essences remained in the cauldron.
"The spiritual consumption is immense," she noted, feeling the drain on her core. "If someone were to ambush me now, it would be the end."
She took a deep breath. Refining a fourth-grade pill demanded unwavering focus. Now came the most dangerous step: fusing the essences and forming the pill itself. If interrupted here, the result would be a shattered pill and a critically injured alchemist. Su Min severed all external awareness, pouring every shred of her consciousness into the final refinement. For an entire week, the concentrated medicinal essence repeatedly washed over the demon core, forging the Golden Spirit Pill.
Finally—
"Done."
A radiant, golden pill, trailing streams of spiritual light, flew out of the cauldron and landed perfectly in her awaiting palm. It was warm and pulsed with a tremendous, contained power.
Crack.
A sharp, splitting sound echoed through the silent valley. Su Min watched as her trusted cauldron, which had served her for so long, fractured from top to bottom and shattered into useless pieces.
"Close call. But it was at the end of its lifespan anyway."
She smiled wryly. Even if it hadn't broken now, she would have needed to replace it after reaching Golden Core. This cauldron hadn't ever been meant to withstand the energies required for a true fourth-grade pill.
"Everything is ready. After I recover my strength, I can finally face the tribulation."
This past month of intense alchemy and forging had been a grueling test of her endurance, but it had also profoundly tempered her soul. Once she recovered, she would be stronger than ever before.
The recovery took a full week of deep meditation. When Su Min opened her eyes again, they shone with a brilliant light. She had reached the true, ultimate Great Perfection of the Foundation Establishment stage. Her foundation was solid and unshakable.
Without a moment's further hesitation, she tossed the brilliant golden pill into her mouth. It dissolved instantly, releasing a tsunami-like power that flooded her meridians.
And high above her, in the once clear sky, thunder rumbled. It was a deep, portentous growl that seemed to shake the very fabric of the world. Ominous clouds began to swirl into existence from nothingness, converging directly over her isolated position.
The Heavenly Tribulation was coming.