Airan was an orphan who did not belong to this world.
Nine years ago, his life on Earth had ended in an instant under the crushing tires of a speeding truck.
When he woke up, he was an orphan boy in a harsh, lawless realm governed by immortal cultivators, ruthless sects, and the absolute law of the strong.
Without a powerful clan or wealthy background, his prospects had seemed nonexistent.
To make matters worse, he possessed a Five-Element Pseudo-Root—the lowest tier of talent recognized by the heavens.
However, at sixteen years old, luck had finally smiled upon him.
While wandering the mountains, Airan stumbled into a long-abandoned cultivator’s cave and found a Fire Root cultivation manual.
Out of his five attributes, his Fire Root was slightly better than the rest, giving him just enough of a spark to begin his path as a rogue cultivator.
Since that day, nine long years had passed.
Airan was now twenty-five years old, surviving on the lowest rung of the cultivation world by working as a humble herb collector.
Day in and day out, he braved rugged mountain slopes and venomous beasts just to pick low-grade spiritual herbs, earning barely enough to keep himself fed and supplied.
That routine broke one afternoon when Airan received an invitation from a fellow rogue cultivator to attend a wedding ceremony.
The banquet was held in a rented courtyard filled with low-level cultivators laughing, exchanging greetings, and boasting of their modest achievements.
Airan sat quietly at one of the outer tables, keeping to himself until the host stepped forward to announce the highlight of the feast.
Servants carefully brought out a small ceramic jug, pouring a single, tiny cup of clear liquid for each guest at the table.
”My friends,” the host spoke proudly, raising his own cup.
“To celebrate this grand day, I have spent a small fortune to secure a jug of low-tier spiritual wine! Please, enjoy!”
Whispers of excitement immediately broke out among the guests.
”Spiritual wine?
The host is truly generous!”
”Even a single cup is a rare luxury for people like us!”
Airan looked down at the tiny cup in his hand.
In the borderlands, even the cheapest, lowest-tier spiritual wine cost between 50 to 60 spirit stones per bottle.
To a herb collector like Airan, 50 or 60 spirit stones was an astronomical sum—something an ordinary collector could never hope to earn in a day, or even across an entire grueling year of gathering herbs.
Curious and full of expectation, Airan lifted the cup to his mouth and took a sip.
The moment the liquid touched his tongue, his eyebrows furrowed in immediate disgust.
The wine was sour, harsh, and heavy with bitter dregs.
It burned his throat with an unrefined, acrid bite that tasted more like spoiled vinegar than a costly delicacy.
This is terrible, Airan thought, forcing himself to swallow the liquid so as not to waste the spiritual energy contained within it.
How can this stuff cost sixty spirit stones?
Even the absolute cheapest, bottom-shelf boxed wine back on Earth tasted a hundred times better than this trash.
As he set the empty cup down, his mind flashed back to his previous life.
Memories of Earth—chemistry class, commercial brewing, and basic industrial processes—floated to the surface of his mind.
He recalled how alcohol was purified on Earth.
Crude, fermented mash filled with impurities, foul odors, and bitter compounds was put through a heat-based separation process: distillation.
By boiling the liquid and condensing the alcohol vapors, one could separate pure ethanol from the sour dregs, leaving behind a smooth, concentrated spirit.
Airan’s eyes widened slightly as a sudden realization hit him like a thunderbolt.
In this world, cultivators treated raw fermented wine as a luxury, completely unaware of how to refine it further.
They drank cloudy, bitter, unrefined dregs and paid outrageous prices for it just because it held spiritual energy.
If this sour, unrefined brew sells for fifty to sixty spirit stones…
Airan thought, his heart beating faster in his chest.
What if I buy the cheapest wine available, distill out the impurities, and sell pure, high-proof spiritual wine here?
Author’s Note: Thanks for reading Chapter 1!
Airan’s journey from a penniless herb collector to a spirit distiller starts here.