The Sea of Flowers Medicine Garden lay on a mountainside that sloped gently westward, ending abruptly at the edge of a sheer cliff.
A winding bluestone path cut through the medicine garden, connecting to the cliffside ring road leading down the mountain.
Xiao Bai stood at the edge of the medicine garden cliff and glanced down at the narrow mountain path shrouded in clouds and mist, its depths unfathomable. His body shivered as he sucked in a breath of icy fog.
Generally speaking, Snow Flame Sect's high-ranking disciples mostly traveled by Sword Riding Flight, while lower-ranking disciples could also ride Flying Paper Kites. Hardly anyone took the mountain paths.
As a result, these paths were built very narrow, and with no one using them year-round, they were quickly swallowed by weeds.
For a greenhorn like Xiao Bai at the Fetal Breath Second Layer, they were actually quite dangerous.
Fortunately, he had two miraculous spirit medicines, Heart-Returning Powder and Blood Spirit Pills, and the Modifier automatically replenished his medicine.
Even if he fell halfway down the mountain and was smashed to pieces, as long as an elder came to collect his corpse, he would most likely still not die.
Right now, the only thing that could kill him was a powerhouse reducing him to ash in an instant.
A nuclear blast would work too.
Hundred Herbs Peak stood a thousand zhang tall.
Even the Pill Pavilion at the mountainside was more than three hundred zhang below.
Moreover, the snowy roads were slippery. Going down the mountain was a formidable task; one careless step and he could wipe out. Even if he did not die, it would still be embarrassing.
Xiao Bai looked around. Deep within the sea of clouds, cranes cried out in waves, while swords streaked through the air with soft whooshes. Everything was hazy, yet immortally elegant.
This was the difference between cultivators and ordinary people.
Xiao Bai felt no resentment. All he felt was excitement.
Because he would soon learn Sword Riding Flight too!
It felt like he was about to learn how to drive...
And that gave Xiao Bai the courage to risk going down the mountain to retrieve his sword.
He hurriedly checked the soles of his cloth shoes, then used the Bamboo Cutting Knife to carve several more grooves into them to increase friction.
Holding his breath, he looked only at his feet, gripped the mountain rocks tightly with both hands, and carefully felt his way down the path.
By the middle stretch, the mountainside gradually widened. There were many more brambles and solitary pines near the cliff, and the road became much easier to traverse.
Xiao Bai let out a breath of relief.
Then he suddenly felt a chill.
Looking down, he saw that his cotton-padded clothes had long been soaked through with sweat.
Even the snow that had fallen on his clothes had melted from his perspiration.
Continuing downward, he reached the mountainside, where the terrain had become a gentle slope. Medicine patches of every color grew amid dense pine woods.
A crisp, fragrant medicinal scent rushed toward him.
He had finally reached the Pill Pavilion.
Ahead was a circular bluestone plaza. It was where the Pill Pavilion stood—
Hundred Herbs Garden.
At the front of Hundred Herbs Garden was a clear pool, the Hundred Herbs Clear Pond. Beside it stood two or three cypresses and seven or eight pavilions, where disciples practiced their morning lessons.
At the rear, dozens of connected wooden houses half-suspended against the mountain had been built. They were the Disciple Quarters where over a hundred disciples of Hundred Herbs Peak lived and cultivated.
The three cave dwellings at the highest point of the Disciple Quarters belonged to Hundred Herbs Peak's three Core Disciples.
It had to be said that Master Yuhu's three Core Disciples were all legendary figures within the Snow Flame Sect.
The eldest disciple, One Sword Fox, was said to harbor crooked intentions, while her strength was unfathomable.
She had been expelled from the sect twenty years ago and was now imprisoned in the Heavenly Dao Pavilion's dungeon in the Cambrian Kingdom.
One Sword Fox...
Xiao Bai had always thought this legendary female disciple's name was absurd. Now, he seemed to understand.
You wanted to draw your sword on an elder!
Though he had never met her, Xiao Bai hoped she was a beautiful Bad Woman.
The second disciple, the Onmyoji, was skilled in everything and especially adept at all kinds of spell seals. He used spell seals to store freshly refined pills, ensuring their medicinal potency would not dissipate.
He was currently the manager of the Pill Pavilion and also taught disciples on behalf of Elder Yuhu.
If Xiao Bai wanted to ride a sword with only the cultivation of the Fetal Breath Second Layer, he would need the Onmyoji's flight spell seal.
The third disciple, Mu Yun, was the elder's Dao attendant, a role similar to an assistant.
Xiao Bai had seen her a few times as well. She was an innocent yet tsundere young girl.
She was said to be the current princess of the Cambrian Kingdom. Her cultivation talent was extraordinary—she could advance by leaps and bounds even without cultivating—yet she cared only for farming, animal husbandry, and weaving.
She was probably the legendary pastoral female cultivator.
Xiao Bai's Daoist robe would have to be woven by her own hands...
Though she had a bit of princess syndrome, Xiao Bai felt that Senior Sister Mu Yun was probably a good person. There was no need to get too close to her.
Arriving at Hundred Herbs Garden Plaza,
Xiao Bai saw an imposing, ancient seven-story tower directly ahead. It was the Pill Pavilion.
The Pill Pavilion was the Snow Flame Sect's pill repository, Medical Texts library, and teaching building for disciples from every mountain who studied medicine.
Xiao Bai had come here several times before.
Back then, he had come with the mindset of worshipping a Sacred Land and gazing up at the big shots.
Today was his first time walking down from the mountaintop. He felt vaguely as though he were looking down from above.
By seniority, he was now the Martial Granduncle of the Pill Pavilion disciples!
Martial Granduncle had arrived. Why had none of you respectfully come to greet him?
With the stride of someone who recognized neither kin nor friend, Xiao Bai clasped his hands behind his back and walked onto the plaza before the Pill Pavilion.
In the morning, a dozen or so disciples were scattered through the pavilions, attending their morning lessons.
When they saw a Laborer Disciple dressed in cotton-padded clothes, the disciples' hearts skipped a beat. They looked at one another, then almost simultaneously turned to look at him.
The elder had given them advance notice and explained Xiao Bai's situation. She had even left behind a portrait bearing an Immortal Aura at the Pill Pavilion so the disciples would not mistake him for someone else.
The disciples had not mistaken him for someone else.
Judging by his build and features, it was definitely him!
Immortal Aura? It did not exist.
His pitiful Fetal Breath Second Layer cultivation aside, he had almost no merits beyond being handsome. His sweat-soaked cotton-padded clothes made him look especially bedraggled.
The disciples attending morning lessons in the pavilions wore complicated expressions. They wanted to discuss something, but when the words reached their lips, they found nowhere to begin.
This was too absurd!
What exactly was Master thinking?
At that moment,
Xiao Bai waited for quite a while. Seeing that no one from the Pill Pavilion had come to receive him, he walked over to the pavilion and asked,
"Hello, Senior Brothers and Senior Sisters. I came to find—"
Having only just arrived at the mountain, it was not convenient for him to call himself Martial Granduncle. Better to treat everyone according to their respective seniority and quickly close the distance with these disciples.
Before he could finish speaking, however, there truly was a male disciple who refused to believe it and asked him,
"Are you really Xiao Bai?"
Xiao Bai nodded. If not for the Modifier, he himself would not have believed such a thing.
"Yes, I'm Xiao Bai. In other words, your... Martial Granduncle."
The ironclad truth lay before them. The disciples' expressions turned ugly, and they tried to forcibly conceal that ugliness, only making them look even uglier.
Someone remembered the important matter and hurriedly called out,
"Martial, Martial Granduncle..."
Xiao Bai found it quite pleasing. He was starting to float a little.
"Could you call me that again, but more solemnly?"
Only then did the others react. They hurriedly bowed with cupped fists and shouted in unison,
"Martial Granduncle!"
Xiao Bai gave a slight nod, a faint smile on his face, calm as the breeze and light as the clouds.
Beyond shock, the male disciples' faces mainly showed envy.
The female disciples generally wore traces of barely discernible contempt. Their cries of "Martial Granduncle" sounded strained and not loud enough.
Xiao Bai did not blame them. That only proved they were all good women!
He did not want to provoke good women, so he politely asked,
"May I ask where Senior Sister Mu Yun is?"
Senior Sister?
Realizing that the form of address was wrong, none of the disciples dared answer for a moment.
Until a soft, effeminate male voice drifted faintly out from within the Pill Pavilion,
"Martial Granduncle is truly rare in his approachability, but the Cultivation World has an order of rank and seniority. Since you are Master's Dao companion, you naturally belong to the same generation as Master. How can you lower your own status merely because your cultivation is insufficient?"
Putting on airs with me?
The moment Xiao Bai heard that effeminate voice, he roughly guessed who it was.
So he put on airs as well and said without turning around,
"Since you know that rank and seniority have their order, how dare you, who calls me Martial Granduncle, openly question me, your Martial Granduncle?"
The disciples were dumbfounded by the scene, so frightened that they did not even dare breathe loudly.
At some point, a cultivator in white had appeared at Xiao Bai's side. He bowed respectfully and said,
"This disciple was presumptuous."
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