On the Cultivation Continent stood Bixue Palace.
Today was a very important day for A-Wu.
She had three spiritual roots—Water, Wood, and Earth. They were not particularly bad, but they were far from outstanding either. After transmigrating into this cultivation world more than fifty years ago, she had finally managed to reach the Foundation Establishment stage.
A-Wu was not a native cultivator of this world.
She had originally been an ordinary orphan living in the twenty-first century. After graduating from college, she found a decent internship and had expected to live a simple, ordinary life.
Instead, she died in a chain-reaction car accident just before she was supposed to become a permanent employee.
No one knew which deity had taken pity on her, but after her death, A-Wu’s wandering soul somehow entered the body she now possessed.
The body’s original owner was a girl named Wu Niang.
She had been the daughter of a wealthy family in the mortal world. Because she possessed Water, Wood, and Earth spiritual roots, which complemented one another and created a continuous flow of spiritual energy, she was especially suited to cultivating Bixue Palace’s techniques.
A cultivator from Bixue Palace eventually brought her back to the sect.
Bixue Palace was not exactly one of the great righteous sects, but to ordinary mortals who could not cultivate, anyone who could fly through the sky on a sword was already an immortal.
So when Wu Niang was only ten years old, her parents happily sent her away, and she began her life of cultivation at Bixue Palace.
The saying that cultivation required money, companions, techniques, and a suitable place was no joke.
Wu Niang was only moderately attractive, nowhere near a peerless beauty. Her spiritual roots were ordinary as well. She had neither a powerful master to support her nor a blessed land where she could cultivate.
In this golden age of cultivation, where only those with two spiritual roots could enter the inner sect and only those with a single spiritual root could become personal disciples, Wu Niang had no family background and no powerful connections.
She was destined to remain an outer disciple.
Before entering the sect, Wu Niang had also been raised by her mother according to the traditional teachings for young ladies.
In an era when girls could marry at thirteen or fourteen, a ten-year-old girl already knew a thing or two about men and women.
Bixue Palace rented out cultivation furnaces—both male and female—but Wu Niang could neither accept the idea nor afford the spiritual stones required.
Personally, A-Wu thought the second reason was probably the more important one…
Wu Niang had once considered finding a Dao companion and cultivating together through dual cultivation.
Unfortunately, most of the male cultivators in the sect only wanted to sleep with her. Whenever she mentioned actually becoming Dao companions, they always found excuses to avoid the subject.
Clearly, they looked down on her cultivation level and background.
After being rejected several times, Wu Niang gave up on the idea.
Without enough spiritual stones and pills, her cultivation progressed very slowly.
She had no choice but to frequently leave the sect to complete missions.
Going out on missions while still at the Qi Refining stage was extremely dangerous.
Wu Niang eventually died during a mission to hunt a demonic beast.
For someone who had already reached the fifth level of Qi Refining, the mission should not have been deadly.
After their team completed the mission and was preparing to return to the sect, someone somehow attracted a high-level demonic beast.
As the weakest cultivator in the group, Wu Niang was naturally pushed forward by her teammates as a sacrifice.
That was when A-Wu transmigrated into her body.
If A-Wu had arrived even a moment later, the body would probably already have been inside the beast’s stomach.
As soon as A-Wu transmigrated into this cultivation world, she received all of Wu Niang’s memories.
Being thrown straight into a life-or-death crisis immediately after transmigrating was certainly frustrating, but since she had been given a second chance at life, A-Wu treasured it.
After desperately doing everything she could to escape back to the sect, A-Wu became even more determined to cultivate.
She also tried every possible way to earn spiritual stones.
But she never joined another team for missions.
Perhaps she had a natural talent for it. Over the years, A-Wu developed a surprisingly impressive skill in alchemy.
That did not mean she could refine incredibly powerful pills.
At first, it was simply because she did not have enough spiritual stones or spiritual herbs, so she had to find every possible way to improve the quality of the pills she made.
As a result, pills refined by A-Wu were usually of a slightly higher quality than those made by cultivators at the same level.
Since she only refined pills for Qi Refining cultivators, her skills were unusual but did not attract much attention.
Among the outer disciples, however, her pills were extremely popular.
Thanks to the spiritual stones she earned from selling pills, A-Wu struggled her way up to the ninth level of Qi Refining.
She was finally on the verge of Foundation Establishment.
There was only one problem.
She did not have a Foundation Establishment Pill.
As long as she had one, A-Wu was absolutely confident she could successfully break through.
After all, failing Foundation Establishment would cause a cultivator to fall back an entire minor realm. Without a Foundation Establishment Pill, A-Wu did not dare take the risk.
She might have been able to afford one from the pill shop if she sold everything she owned.
But that was impossible.
A-Wu had no intention of struggling desperately to establish her foundation only to end up working like an ox for someone else afterward.
After asking around, she learned that an inner-sect female disciple wanted to buy a pill that could change her natural aura and temperament in order to win over a male cultivator from a righteous sect.
And that female disciple happened to possess a Foundation Establishment Pill.
As for the cultivation technique of Bixue Palace’s female cultivators, it was not actually an evil technique.
But it had one very distinctive feature.
In A-Wu’s opinion, every woman who cultivated it naturally developed an alluring, seductive aura.
The higher their cultivation, the more obvious the effect became.
Their faces grew more beautiful and striking, their figures became more curvaceous, and the moment they appeared in public, people would secretly call them enchantresses.
Of course, people only dared to call them that behind their backs.
No one was foolish enough to say it to their faces.
Rumor had it that more than half of the powerful cultivators in the cultivation world had once been captivated by the ancestor of Bixue Palace.
No one wanted to offend her.
When A-Wu heard about the female disciple’s request, she immediately realized that an opportunity had fallen into her lap.
She searched through every pill formula she had collected, but this type of pill was simply too obscure.
She did not have a formula for it.
With no other choice, she gritted her teeth and spent a painful amount of spiritual stones searching through the sect’s library.
After spending a large sum that made her heart ache, she finally found a suitable pill.
The Goddess Pill.
Just as its name suggested, after taking the pill, a person would naturally give off an aura of noble, pure, and untouchable beauty, as if she were a goddess.
The effect only lasted for one month, but it perfectly matched the inner-sect disciple’s requirements.
A-Wu looked over the formula.
Fortunately, it did not require any particularly rare or precious ingredients.
Delighted, she brought the formula home to study.
She gathered the ingredients while researching the refining technique.
For some expensive ingredients, A-Wu relied on her skill at improving pill quality and substituted slightly inferior materials instead.
Even so, gathering all the ingredients took her more than a month.
Fortunately, cultivators had long lifespans. To powerful cultivators, one month was practically nothing.
The actual refining process did not take long.
In just seven days, A-Wu successfully produced three finished pills.
And that included the time she spent making one failed batch beforehand.
A-Wu believed that if she had a good alchemy furnace and high-quality spiritual fire, she could refine them even faster.
Unfortunately, both were far too expensive.
She could only dream about them for now.
Once she had the pills, A-Wu played it safe and placed the three pills in separate bottles.
Then she hurried off to meet the inner-sect female disciple.
She was a little worried.
It had already been more than a month.
What if that woman had found someone else?
What if she had lost interest in the male cultivator who liked innocent, pure-looking women?
If that happened, where was A-Wu supposed to get another Foundation Establishment Pill?
A-Wu thought about it.
If necessary, she could always put the Goddess Pills up for auction.
After all, such a rare and unusual pill perfectly suited the auction world’s golden rule:
Rare things were valuable.
Perhaps she could even trade one for a Foundation Establishment Pill.
Fortunately, A-Wu had worried for nothing.
The moment the female disciple heard that someone had actually refined such a pill, she immediately came out to meet A-Wu.
The female cultivator had already reached the middle stage of Foundation Establishment.
Her mature, domineering beauty was impossible to hide.
A-Wu stared enviously at the sect uniform stretched tightly across the woman’s chest and finally understood why she needed the pill.
With a figure like that, those serious, proper male cultivators probably did not even dare admit they liked her.
Who would dare say they were attracted to a woman who looked like a fairy when dressed but transformed into an enchantress once the clothes came off?
A-Wu was also close to Foundation Establishment.
However, perhaps because she had never experienced dual cultivation, her appearance and figure had not changed very much.
Only her features had become somewhat more beautiful and striking.
When the female cultivator heard that the pill’s effect lasted only one month, she did not mind at all.
As soon as A-Wu said she wanted to exchange it for a Foundation Establishment Pill, the woman readily handed one over.
She even told A-Wu to come to her again if she refined more of the same pills.
A-Wu immediately agreed.
She happily tucked the Foundation Establishment Pill away and returned to her cave residence.
After packing up all her belongings, she rented a quiet cultivation room filled with spiritual energy and prepared to establish her foundation.
Foundation Establishment did not involve a heavenly tribulation.
There was only the inner demon tribulation.
A-Wu did not have many inner demons, so with the help of the Foundation Establishment Pill, she broke through with ease.
In the cultivation world, reaching Foundation Establishment was considered the true beginning of the path of cultivation.
Within a sect, it also meant that she had finally gained a firm foothold.
From then on, she would at least have some ability to protect herself when traveling outside.
A-Wu emerged from seclusion in high spirits.
Along the way, every familiar Qi Refining disciple who saw her congratulated her.
After finally making it this far, A-Wu thanked each of her fellow disciples before heading toward the sect’s External Affairs Hall.
She planned to update her cultivation information and officially register as a Foundation Establishment cultivator so she could receive the benefits and resources she was entitled to.
After reaching Foundation Establishment, she was no longer an easy target that anyone could bully.
When she had still been at the Qi Refining stage, having her allotted resources secretly reduced or withheld had been common.
She had never bothered fighting over it.
Of course, even if she had complained, it would not have helped.
Which manager in the External Affairs Hall did not have some connection to the inner sect?
A-Wu had no intention of throwing her life away for nothing.
Now that she had finally reached Foundation Establishment, things were different.
Besides receiving better resources, she could also leave the sect freely. She only needed to register her departure with the External Affairs Hall.
A-Wu had long wanted to leave the sect and search for some opportunities of her own.
Unfortunately, only inner-sect disciples were allowed to fly on swords within the sect.
So A-Wu had no choice but to circulate her spiritual energy and run all the way toward the External Affairs Hall.
Halfway there, the earth suddenly shook violently.
A-Wu’s heart sank.
Something was wrong.
Sure enough, a painful dragon’s roar suddenly echoed through the sky.
Then a deep male voice thundered across the sect.
“You beast! Last time, I spared your life for Lianyan’s sake. And yet you still dared to come looking for her! Today, this venerable one will tear you to pieces!”
Lianyan was the intimate name of the legendary ancestor of Bixue Palace, whose list of admirers supposedly stretched across the entire cultivation world.
A-Wu had never actually met any of the people involved in these rumors.
But she had certainly heard enough gossip about them.
The ancestor of Bixue Palace had never taken an official Dao companion.
According to the rumors, powerful cultivators from across the cultivation world often fought each other over her.
A-Wu had simply never imagined that they would actually start fighting inside the sect.
Judging from what that man had said…
Could this dragon—or whatever it was—have been caught in bed with the ancestor?
A-Wu suddenly wanted to know how exactly her ancestor managed to flirt with so many powerful cultivators at the same time.
How did she manage to keep so many men on the hook without ever getting caught?
Could it be that once the Bixue Palace cultivation technique reached its highest level, it really turned its practitioners into irresistible heartthrobs?
A-Wu was beginning to think that the rumors might actually be true.