["The Mountain-Sea Secret Realm..."]
[You Rou's lovely eyes shifted, and she chuckled. "I never expected you to be so interested in that secret realm, Pill Master Wang."]
[You smiled without speaking.]
[However impressive the Mountain-Sea Secret Realm's origins might have been, more than a decade had passed by now. Information about it could hardly be considered a secret.]
["No problem."]
[You Rou nodded. "I'll help you inquire about that secret realm, Pill Master Wang. But I've heard it has quite an extraordinary history, with strong ties to the Mountain Sea Sect, which mysteriously perished several centuries ago."]
["So that's how it is."]
[A trace of surprise appeared on your face at just the right moment.]
[You had learned of the connection between the Mountain-Sea Secret Realm and the Mountain Sea Sect in your first simulation, but naturally, you wouldn't reveal that in front of You Rou.]
[After seeing You Rou off, you returned to your cave abode.]
[As the Pill Alliance's deputy leader, You Rou had extensive connections. If she wanted to investigate, she would surely uncover secret information you had never learned in your first simulation.]
[After all, behind You Rou stood the Pill Alliance's leader, a genuine Foundation Establishment Realm cultivator with second-tier alchemical attainments.]
[To some extent, You Rou could draw upon a Foundation Establishment Realm cultivator's connections.]
[Such were the changes that came with a difference in standing. In your first simulation, you had merely been a cultivator at the fifth layer of Qi Refining and a Mid-Grade Alchemist. Naturally, you had been nowhere near your current level.]
["The Pill Alliance's leader..."]
[Information about this Foundation Establishment Realm cultivator flashed through your mind.]
[The Pill Alliance's leader also resided in Azure Moon Immortal City. As for Black Mountain Market? The leader only came by occasionally to take a look.]
[For Foundation Establishment Realm cultivators, Black Mountain Market was ultimately too small. Azure Moon Immortal City was the true stage.]
[The various resources and pills Foundation Establishment Realm cultivators needed for their everyday cultivation had prices but no supply in Black Mountain Market. One example was the final item at the recent auction-the Second-Tier Mid-Grade Realm-Breaking Pill.]
[In Azure Moon Immortal City, however, although such pills weren't available in unlimited quantities, you could certainly buy them as long as you had enough spirit stones.]
["The Pill Alliance's leader has second-tier low-grade alchemical attainments and can't refine Foundation Establishment Pills..."]
[You pondered silently.]
[Foundation Establishment Pills were second-tier high-grade pills. Only an Alchemist of at least the second-tier mid-grade had any hope of refining them.]
[In this respect, the Pill Alliance's leader was inferior to Master Zhao, who stood behind Pill Master Yun.]
[News that you had become a High-Grade Pill Master quickly spread throughout the area around Black Mountain Market.]
[Cultivators came to visit you every day.]
[These cultivators were either rogue cultivators in the late Qi Refining period or representatives of nearby Qi Condensation cultivation lineages.]
[Every visitor brought a gift they had prepared.]
[Naturally, their purpose in visiting was to befriend you, a High-Grade Pill Master.]
[High-Grade Pill Masters could refine high-grade pills, which was tantamount to holding the paths of advancement for the vast majority of cultivators in the late Qi Refining period in their hands.]
[While befriending a High-Grade Pill Master wasn't necessarily essential, offending one was certainly out of the question.]
[After all, Alchemists generally liked to band together. If you offended one High-Grade Pill Master, you might end up on the blacklists of several.]
[How many High-Grade Pill Masters were there in all of Black Mountain Market?]
[Three days later, a Foundation Establishment Realm cultivator came to your door in person.]
[This was the first Foundation Establishment Realm cultivator to visit you since you had become a High-Grade Pill Master.]
[This Foundation Establishment Realm cultivator came from the Green Pine Mountain Zheng Family and was the Zheng Family's Foundation Establishment Ancestor.]
[The purpose of the visit was to invite you to become the chief Alchemist of the Green Pine Mountain Zheng Family.]
[You could name your own terms.]
[The Zheng Family's Foundation Establishment Ancestor promised that, as long as you were willing, the Zheng Family would give you its full support in attempting Foundation Establishment.]
[After a moment's consideration, you still declined the Foundation Establishment Realm cultivator's invitation.]
[The main reason was that accepting would mean going to the Green Pine Mountain Zheng Family, which would leave you feeling very unsafe.]
[While dealing with one visitor after another, you once again realized just how valuable a High-Grade Pill Master was.]
[When you had become an accomplished cultivator in the late Qi Refining period, only Pill Master Yun and a handful of other friends had congratulated you.]
[Yet now that you had become a High-Grade Pill Master, there was no telling how many Qi Condensation cultivators fell within the reach of your influence.]
[Even some Foundation Establishment-level forces would not slight a High-Grade Pill Master. Many such forces had failed to nurture a High-Grade Pill Master of their own and could only rely on outside High-Grade Pill Masters to refine pills.]
[In the thirty-third year, at forty-eight years old, you discovered after a secluded cultivation session lasting several months that your cultivation was progressing as slowly as a tortoise.]
[Reaching the late Qi Refining period already counted as breaking through certain limits of cultivators with low-grade spiritual roots. At this level, even with the aid of numerous high-grade pills, you found progress agonizingly difficult.]
[In fact, even cultivators with mid-grade spiritual roots experienced slower progress in the late stages. But for those with low-grade spiritual roots, the slowdown was even more pronounced.]
[Based on your current cultivation speed, you estimated that reaching the eighth layer of Qi Condensation would take roughly eighteen to twenty years.]
[And eighteen to twenty years later, you would already be sixty-seven, only a few years away from the threshold of old age at seventy.]
[By then, never mind attempting Foundation Establishment-even cultivating to the ninth layer of Qi Condensation would be a fool's dream.]
[You realized that you had underestimated the difficulty of attempting Foundation Establishment with low-grade spiritual roots.]
[Of course, this also had something to do with your switching to the Mountain-Sea Art.]
[The Mountain-Sea Art produced incomparably dense magical power, so naturally, it was harder to cultivate than your previous cultivation method.]
[Nevertheless, you weren't discouraged in the slightest.]
[Even if you had no chance of attempting Foundation Establishment in this simulation.]
[In the next simulation, you would start over at sixteen or seventeen. With more than fifty years available, even a pig could attempt Foundation Establishment.]
[A few days later, Deputy Leader You Rou came to visit.]
[Inside your cave abode, Deputy Leader You Rou rolled her eyes. "Pill Master Wang, I made a special trip to Azure Moon Immortal City and asked the leader about this matter for you..."]
["Thank you. If you ever need me to do anything, Leader You, just say the word."]
[You immediately spoke up to make your attitude clear.]
[You Rou pursed her lips in a soft chuckle and didn't keep you in suspense. Her voice was gentle. "Pill Master Wang, that Mountain-Sea Secret Realm was created by the Mountain Sea Sect, a Core Formation-level force back then..."]
["It was the Mountain Sea Sect's last retreat."]
["And the Mountain Sea Sect was a force established by Mountain-Sea True Person,"]
["but more than two hundred years ago, Mountain-Sea True Person's junior fellow disciple, Blood-Sea True Person, came to the sect, and the two fought fiercely..."]
["The Mountain Sea Sect's destruction and disappearance had a great deal to do with this Blood-Sea True Person."]
["But afterward, not only did Mountain-Sea True Person disappear, Blood-Sea True Person vanished as well. That drew the attention of quite a few True Persons at the time."]
[Deputy Leader You Rou sat with dignified poise, a smile in her blue eyes, as she recounted this secret from two or three hundred years ago.]
["Blood-Sea True Person? Mountain-Sea True Person?"]
[You looked puzzled. "Since these two True Persons were fellow disciples, why did things escalate to such a degree?"]
["That, I don't know. The leader said it was probably because of a female cultivator. But even the leader knows little about conflicts between True Persons..."]
[Deputy Leader You Rou brushed back the hair at her temple and spoke with a smile.]