Half a Year Ago — Roar Continent, Pill Pavilion Headquarters
It was a clear, blistering noon when Elder Sun Jin descended upon the colossal steps of the Pill Pavilion headquarters, tucked into the fiery heart of the Roar Continent. The sun blazed like an immortal's temper tantrum above the horizon, spilling molten light across the seas of sandstone, making even the air shimmer like it was trying to escape.
He hated it.
"Blazing skies," he muttered, yanking off his outer robe and stuffing it into his interspatial ring. "Why do alchemists insist on living in a furnace? What's next? Cultivators who live inside volcanoes?"
He stood there at the base of the Pill Pavilion stairs—a sprawling spiral of white jade and ruby-embedded stone that stretched to the heavens, guarded by statues of phoenixes, pill cauldrons, and other legendary symbols of the craft. The entrance shimmered with formations, humming with enough defensive arrays to flatten a mid-sized kingdom.
Sun Jin, elder of the Nail Strom Sect, carried himself like a man carrying a sack of complaints—and, in fact, he was. Over one shoulder rested a rectangular bronze box. Inside was a curated selection of spirit herbs and monster cores harvested and catalogued by Nail Strom's disciples over the past year. Rare frost orchids from the north. Thunderweed roots. A half-dried brainstem of a Stormhowler eel. It was tribute, yes—but also their access ticket.
Each mid-tier sect on the Foggy Lands sent in their own tribute once a year. It was a show of goodwill, a trade for rare pills, and—if they were lucky—insight from the Pavilion itself. Sun Jin, known for his sarcasm and tea addiction, had drawn the short stick this year.
"Should've faked a closed-door cultivation. Maybe swallowed a pebble and told them it was a pill embryo," he muttered.
The great doors parted before him with a hiss, reacting to the identity jade he flashed. The scent of herbs, incense, and burned metal poured out like a beast's breath.
Inside, the Pill Pavilion was an empire of alchemy. Corridors wound like veins through stone walls glowing with formation light. Pill furnaces the size of small houses lined the great halls, tended to by robed disciples moving with the careful urgency of bomb handlers. Above them, the roof opened into a dome that shimmered with solar crystals, magnifying heat and light into the very building itself.
In one corner, a room lined with crystalline cabinets displayed ancient pill cauldrons and long-forgotten herbs sealed in amber. Another hall housed rows upon rows of manuals and alchemical scrolls, guarded by cultivators who sniffed at outsiders like wolves.
But Sun Jin was not just any outsider.
He headed straight for the top floor.
The Pavilion's Inner Court—where only Pill Kings and Pavilion Elders dared walk freely.
At the highest level, beyond a corridor filled with temperature-shifting runes and spirit beast blood samples preserved in jars, Sun Jin pushed open a modest door made of Spirit Oak wood.
Inside, three men were playing chess.
Well, trying to.
One of them was snoring loudly.
"Oi," Sun Jin grunted. "You rotted herbs still alive?"
The snoring stopped. One eye cracked open. "Is that mold on your robes, Sun Jin, or just the scent of a sect that's finally decaying?"
Sun Jin snorted. "Try saying that with your tongue not stuck to the floor, Qu Huai."
"Gentlemen," the second man coughed, raising a hand, "if you'd kindly save your testosterone for after tea—"
The third man didn't speak. He just stood up and grinned, all golden teeth and deep laugh lines. His name was Yi Meng—the current Head Elder of the Pill Pavilion. A Rank 7 alchemist known throughout the continents for his Thousand Soul Rebirth Pill and his complete inability to take anything seriously.
"Sun Jin," Yi Meng said warmly. "The Tea Devil himself."
"I'd bow, but you'll think I'm looking for your lost brain cells," Sun Jin replied, already reaching for the tea table in the corner.
They sat.
Tea was poured. Steam curled. Jabs were exchanged like flying swords.
And for the first time in weeks, Sun Jin relaxed.
These three—Yi Meng, Qu Huai, and Fang Tan—were once fellow wandering cultivators. Years ago, they'd shared caves, disasters, and cheap wine. While Sun Jin had chosen the nail-biting nightmare that was sect politics, the other three had ascended the Path of the Cauldron.
"How's the Nail Strom Sect?" Fang Tan asked, swirling his cup.
"Still stormy. We've got a few new elders, some promising kids, and a sect leader who thinks he's reincarnated from a chess board."
"Still single?" Qu Huai chirped, eyes gleaming.
Sun Jin narrowed his eyes. "What does that have to do with herbs?"
"Nothing," Yi Meng chimed in with a grin. "Except we heard someone tried courting Elder Widow Yun last year."
"That's slander," Sun Jin growled. "She offered me tea!"
"Yeah," Fang Tan coughed. "And what kind of tea was it again?"
"Dark Petal Widow's Blend," Qu Huai whispered dramatically.
The room exploded in laughter.
"I drank it, you bastards," Sun Jin hissed.
"And you lived," Yi Meng clapped. "That's practically a proposal in her language!"
"Let's change the topic before I end up sealing all your kidneys," Sun Jin snapped, crossing his arms.
It was then that Yi Meng—always the sly one—decided to shift the conversation.
"You know, speaking of dangerous things you put in your body… ever hear about beast flames?"
Sun Jin blinked. "Of course. Rare spiritual flames born in high-tier beasts. Stupid strong. Alchemists love them."
"You only know the surface," Fang Tan said, sitting up straighter now. "They're more than just flames. They're living legacies. Born from the soul-qi of powerful beasts. Some say the oldest ones carry the rage of their ancestors."
"They come in ranks," Qu Huai added. "Like pills. Lowest are rank one—barely useful. Rank five and above? They can melt spatial rings. Rank seven? Heh. Good luck living."
Sun Jin raised an eyebrow. "And what happens when some idiot beast eats another idiot beast with one?"
Yi Meng chuckled. "Then the fireworks begin."
"But surely, if someone strong enough eats it—say, a beast with a good bloodline—they can suppress it?" Sun Jin asked, swirling his tea.
Fang Tan nodded. "Bloodline suppression is the classic method. If the host's blood is strong enough—old, divine, or pure—it can force the flame to kneel."
"But there are other methods," Qu Huai leaned in. "Sealing it with arrays. Extracting it with pill techniques. Finding a suitable vessel to coax it into submission. Even soul-pressure can work—but you'd need terrifying mental cultivation."
Yi Meng tapped the table. "Most of these methods are lost. Only a few old freaks like us know them. These days, beast flames usually burn their hosts alive or drive them mad."
Sun Jin sipped slowly. "So, in summary, beast flames are spiritual tsunamis that you need emperor blood, mental strength, or godly technique to tame?"
"Exactly," said Fang Tan. "They're treasures. Cursed ones."
Sun Jin filed it away. At the time, it seemed like nothing more than a curious chat among friends. A hypothetical discussion about a power most wouldn't even smell in their lifetimes.
None of them could've known that half a year later, deep in the Verdant Wilds, a certain many-mouthed wolf would swallow a beast flame of unknown rank.
And live.
Barely.
At the time, though, the room was filled with laughter again. Someone made another joke about Widow Yun. Someone else coughed up tea. Yi Meng leaned back, fanning himself.
"So, Jin," he said. "Now that you've delivered your herbs and been teased to hell, what say we brew something spicy? I've got a new recipe for a Three-Flower Mind Blaster."
Sun Jin groaned. "That name sounds like indigestion."
"It is indigestion," Qu Huai cackled. "For your soul!"
And so the afternoon drifted on, golden and hot, filled with steam, pills, and stories.
In a world of fires waiting to ignite.
The sun was lower now, dipping like a lazy crane behind the jagged peaks of Roar Continent's Flameback Ridge. Inside the private alchemical chamber of the Pill Pavilion's inner court, a pungent, floral-sweet aroma coiled into the air like a seductive dragon. Yi Meng, golden-toothed and wearing an apron that read "Kiss the Pill Master," stood over his alchemical cauldron like a general over a battlefield.
Steam hissed. Runes pulsed.
Sun Jin sat cross-legged near the tea table, half-curious, half-ready to sprint in case this turned out like the infamous Rotten Phoenix Egg disaster.
"Three-Flower Mind Blaster," Yi Meng declared, flourishing a jade ladle like a saber. "A recipe said to enlighten the mental sea, wash away spiritual fatigue, and possibly—only possibly—make you fart out a musical scale."
"I'm not drinking anything that might whistle from the wrong end," Sun Jin muttered.
Fang Tan snorted from the side, polishing a soul-forged pestle. "Come on, Sun Jin. You're always stuck on your stage like a constipated turtle. Maybe this'll push you through."
"Or push something out," Qu Huai quipped. "Yi Meng, are you sure you followed the recipe? Not the younger cousin of the recipe, the actual one?"
"I've been making pills longer than you've been growing nose hair," Yi Meng said, nose flaring with pride. "Observe."
With a flourish that made it clear he'd practiced this for a hundred years, he flipped the cauldron lid open.
The pill floated out on its own.
It was a thing of grace—an orb of swirling white-gold, surrounded by three dancing wisps of light like flower petals in an eternal breeze. It hovered, rotating gently, exuding a calm that made the room still.
"Perfect stage…" Fang Tan whispered, reverent now.
"No impurities," Qu Huai said, awe on his face. "Not a single vein or crack."
Yi Meng grinned like a drunken demigod. "I told you. Kiss the Pill Master."
Sun Jin stood slowly. "You're not really going to give that to me, are you?"
Yi Meng tossed the pill at him like it was a casual fruit. "Take it. I already have three in my vault. Besides, your soul force is always twitchy—might help you stop yelling at your disciples for existing."
Sun Jin caught it midair. It was warm. Pulsing. He could feel the vast mental sea it represented just beneath its surface. A storm trapped in a droplet.
"…Thank you," he said, unusually quiet.
The next morning, he left the Pill Pavilion after a final breakfast filled with tea, noise, insults, and half-hugs that were really just slaps on the back hard enough to bruise a boulder.
He took the long path down the sandstone steps again, this time in silence, clutching the pill in his robes like it was his last meal. His jade badge gleamed as he passed formation gates, spirit beast pens, and floating herb gardens.
And then, the Flameback Ridge swallowed him again.
---
The Advancement
He waited until he was deep in the Wind-Bent Pass, a windy ravine known more for its howling gusts and snoring rock snakes than for company.
There, with a natural formation shielding the area from sound and qi fluctuations, he finally sat.
Lit incense. Cleaned the space. Drew four formations on the ground in perfect alignment.
And swallowed the pill.
It hit like a thousand divine bells clanging in unison inside his head. His mental sea surged forward, not in chaos, but in pressure—like a great tide returning home. Waves of spiritual clarity crashed against the limits of his consciousness. Memories sharpened. Soul threads extended outward.
He saw every mistake he'd made in pill crafting over the last decade. Every flaw in his combat formations. Every hesitation when sparring, every crack in his internal foundation.
The world turned white.
And then it turned gold.
---
Core Emergence Realm, Middle Stage.
He broke through.
No drums sounded. No fireworks exploded. But in the quiet of that lonely ravine, Elder Sun Jin stood, breath misting, arms loose, and shoulders light for the first time in years.
"…Damn," he muttered. "Is this what being less cranky feels like?"
He smiled.
And then immediately frowned.
"Wait. Now I owe Yi Meng a favor. Shit."
---
The Road Home
Returning to the Foggy Lands took nearly half a year.
Even for someone as experienced as Sun Jin, the path was less a journey and more an exercise in endurance, sarcasm, and the slow accumulation of weird stories.
He flew over lava rivers. Got attacked by spirit birds that thought his hair was a nesting site. Took a detour through the Eastern Rain Fields where it rained horizontally. Had a minor duel with a wandering cultivator who mistook him for a bandit because of his robes ("They're vintage! You try finding Fog-Weave Cloth in my size!"). Got briefly married to a tree spirit queen who then divorced him because he criticized her tea.
He never found the courage to eat a second Three-Flower Mind Blaster.
Too potent, he reasoned. One more and he'd probably ascend into a tea elemental and start monologuing at lakes.
The trip was long. Tedious.
But introspective.
For the first time in years, Sun Jin felt lighter. Not just stronger in power, but clearer in mind. Yi Meng's pill had scrubbed away a haze he hadn't even known he'd been living under. The world was sharper now—colors a little brighter, senses a bit keener.
And though he'd never say it out loud, he missed his idiot friends.
He remembered the laughs. The jabs. The gentle prods about Widow Yun. The way Yi Meng had just handed over a perfect-stage pill like it was a snack.
The alchemy world was vast, sure—but sometimes, it was the people inside it that held the true medicine.
---
Arrival at the Foggy Lands
When he finally descended the cliffs of the Foggy Lands again, the swirling fog that gave the continent its name greeted him like an old frenemy. It had grown thicker.
Troublingly so.
He narrowed his eyes, sensing the shift in the spiritual air. The fog, once passive, now felt…watchful. Alive. Something had changed in the land while he was gone.
But that was a mystery for another day.
He had reports to write. Disciples to yell at. And definitely a cup of aged mountain blossom tea waiting in his personal quarters.
"Home," he muttered.
Then stopped.
Paused.
Turned, just slightly, toward the far distance. Toward the Verdant Wilds, though he didn't know why.
A faint pulse echoed from that direction.
Unknowingly, Elder Sun Jin had taken his first step onto the winding road that would soon lead him straight into a flaming storm. Into the heart of a forest on fire.
And toward a certain wolf… whose many eyes and many mouths would one day depend on the wisdom from this very moment.
But for now, he walked back into his sect like a man who'd taken a scenic detour through hell and come back with souvenirs.
The only thing he said aloud as the Nail Strom disciples welcomed him was:
"Who the hell moved my tea set?"