Lu Changsheng hummed a little tune as he controlled the heat with his True Fire.
Over the past few thousand years, he'd tried cooking and growing everything in his cave that could be eaten or cultivated.
He hadn't come up with any earth-shattering spirit pills or elixirs, but he'd thoroughly satisfied his appetite.
"Gurgle, gurgle..."
Bubbles rose in the pot, carrying a faint, fragrant hint of spiritual energy.
Lu Changsheng ladled himself a bowl and took a blissful sip.
"Now that hits the spot."
He let out a satisfied burp, then, out of habit, walked over to the control panel and glanced at the water mirror.
In the image, Nuwa was still sitting on that massive boulder.
For the past three thousand years, Lu Changsheng had watched her a few times every day.
He'd gone from wary and guarded at first, to ignoring her, and now... he even felt a strange twinge of sympathy for her.
"That woman's stubborn as a mule."
Lu Changsheng shook his head, feeling a little wistful.
"She's a dignified Primordial Unity Golden Immortal, and she's gorgeous. She could've found herself a blessed grotto on the Primordial Continent and lived like some celestial beauty. Instead, she came all the way out to my backwater and sat here getting blasted by the northwest wind for thousands of years."
"What's the point?"
Just as Lu Changsheng sipped his soup and grumbled to himself,
outside,
Nuwa seemed to sense Lu Changsheng watching her.
She slowly opened her eyes.
Those deep eyes, brimming with the Daoist aura of creation, met Lu Changsheng's gaze across the ripples of the water mirror's formation, a silent clash in the void.
Nuwa didn't immediately look away. Instead, she tilted her head slightly and parted her red lips.
This time, she didn't use spiritual sense to transmit her voice. She simply spoke, her voice clear as silver bells.
"Fellow Daoist."
"I have been sitting here in meditation for three thousand years. I have often smelled a curious fragrance coming from within your formation, like the scent of spirit fruit."
A perfectly measured smile touched Nuwa's face, and there was even a hint of negotiation in her tone.
"Would you be willing to trade me a piece of fruit to quench my thirst for some small item of mine?"
Inside the cave,
Lu Changsheng froze in place, as if struck by a binding spell.
Quench her thirst?
His eyes widened as he stared at the gentle-looking woman in the water mirror. He almost spat blood all over the control panel.
"Did you think I've never read a cultivation guide?"
Lu Changsheng set down his chipped bowl, laughed in anger, and fired back through the Sound Transmission Megaphone without the slightest courtesy.
"You're a dignified Primordial Unity Golden Immortal! You've been beyond the need for food for millions of years! 'Feeding on wind and drinking dew' would be putting it mildly. You absorb more Xiantian Spiritual Qi than I drink water!"
"And now you come to me saying you're thirsty? You want to eat some fruit?"
"Lady, even if you're trying to trick me into opening the door, could you at least come up with a halfway decent excuse? You'd sound more believable if you said you needed to borrow my latrine than if you said you were thirsty!"
Contempt showed plainly on Lu Changsheng's face.
It was such a shoddy scam that even the telemarketers who'd run phone scams in his previous life wouldn't have touched it.
Outside the formation,
when Nuwa heard Lu Changsheng's sarcastic, streetwise taunts, she didn't get angry. Instead, a sly smile flickered in her bright eyes.
Of course she wasn't thirsty.
At her level, even if she went tens of thousands of kalpas without eating or drinking, her body wouldn't suffer the slightest damage.
She'd simply been sitting here for three thousand years, and her curiosity about the unusual embodiment of merit inside the formation had reached its peak.
She wanted an excuse to break the impasse between them.
"Fellow Daoist, you misunderstand."
Nuwa rose unhurriedly and smoothed the hem of her Flowing Cloud Skirt. Her voice remained calm.
"At our level, we naturally have no need for mundane food or drink."
"I merely sensed the world just now and caught the scent of fruit drifting from your formation."
"That fragrance seems to contain a trace of pure, untainted, cleansing energy, entirely unlike the Tribulation Sha Qi that pervades the Primordial Land."
Nuwa looked toward the water mirror, her gaze seeming to pierce three thousand layers of light.
"I cultivate the Law of Creation, and I have a deep fondness for things that brim with pure vitality. So I ask you, shamelessly, for a taste—nothing more."
Hearing this,
Lu Changsheng rubbed his chin suspiciously.
Cleansing energy? Something brimming with vitality?
He glanced back at the Red Sun Fruit Tree he'd been growing in a pot.
Originally, it was the most common low-grade spirit fruit in the Primordial Land. Eating one could, at most, make you feel a little warm.
But here on his Nameless Low Mountain, it had first absorbed the lingering aura of thousands of years of Heavenly Dao Merit.
Then he'd transplanted it into the core of the Three Thousand Layer Array and watered it every day with the Earth Vein Spirit Spring.
Without anyone noticing, the ordinary fruit tree had indeed undergone some kind of strange mutation.
Faint golden light shimmered across its leaves, and the fruit it bore had turned a deep, purplish red, giving off an aroma that soothed the mind.
"So that's it. She's got her eye on my mutated fruit."
Lu Changsheng snorted to himself.
"Even if you praise it to the heavens, I'm still not opening the door for you."
He cleared his throat and spoke loudly into the Sound Transmission Array Eye.
"I've got fruit! But it's my food supply! Why should I give it to you for free?"
"Didn't you just say you'd trade something for it? Let me see what you've got!"
"If you try to fob me off with a few worthless rocks, forget it!"
Lu Changsheng was curious what sort of treasure this woman, who'd sat outside his door without moving for three thousand years, could offer.
Outside,
when Nuwa heard Lu Changsheng finally give way, her smile deepened.
As long as he was willing to talk, this would be easy.
She gently turned her hand over.
Her palm didn't produce some dazzling Innate Spirit Treasure or some awe-inspiring spiritual material.
There was only a drop of water.
It hovered above her palm, no bigger than a soybean, yet shone with three distinct colors.
The moment it appeared, dead plants and trees within a hundred zhang sprouted new buds!
The rich vitality of creation forced its way through the gaps in the spiritual energy and into the cave, even across the Three Thousand Layer Array.
"This water is called Three Lights Divine Water."
Nuwa held the drop in her palm, her voice carrying the pride of an Innate Divine Being.
"It is a sacred treasure of creation, formed over countless ages from the light of the sun, moon, and stars."
"Sunlight Divine Water can dissolve flesh and bone; Moonlight Divine Water can corrode the primordial spirit and soul; Starlight Divine Water can consume the true spirit and consciousness. On their own, all three are deadly poisons of the Primordial Land."
Nuwa paused, her tone turning even more ethereal.
"But once combined, they become the greatest healing remedy in the Primordial Land! They can bring the dead back to life and restore flesh to bare bones. Even if a primordial spirit is on the verge of collapse, a single drop can restore its vitality."
"By a fortunate twist of fate, I gathered a small amount while traveling long ago. Today, I'll trade you one drop for a piece of fruit. What do you think?"
Inside the cave,
silence.
Lu Changsheng stared at the three-colored drop in the water mirror as if he'd just been struck by lightning.
His breathing grew as heavy as an ox's, and his eyes turned so red they looked ready to bleed.
Three Lights Divine Water!
This was the legendary super-treasure that could dispel any poison, heal any injury, and even bring a ruined Innate Spiritual Root back to life!
In his fragmentary memories of merit, this stuff was worth no less than a mid-grade Innate Spirit Treasure!
Before you continue