Mission: Seduce the Master!

Xie Qing stood by the wall and took deep breaths, fighting the urge to present what he had eaten for the week.

The thing was, the space where Xu Mei, Zhang Mei, and Liu Yan agreed to meet was very far away, and ordinary formations could not reach it.

So, they had to go through a certain spatial distortion, and... imagine that you are eating at a speed of 500 km/h, and all around you, lights of different colors are flashing.

This journey was too heavy, and Xie Qing sighed, feeling the unpleasant sensations gradually disappear.

"Are you okay?"

Xie Qing nodded, waving his hand. He didn't even need to turn around to know who it was. The smell of pills gave her away.

"Lu Yin... do you have a pill for something like this?" Xie Qing asked with a pale face, wiping the corners of his mouth.

"Ah! That's right, I had one... p-wait, l-really?"

"Don't laugh."

"Khm... h-here, take it..."

Xie Qing snorted and swallowed the pill. Immediately, he felt a light cold spread through his body, and the unpleasant sensation of dizziness disappeared. He sighed in relief.

"I thought I would have to rest for another half an hour to come to my senses," he said, looking genuinely glad to have returned to his normal state.

"Everyone experiences this during spatial distortion. When I went through it for the first time... ugh... it's still a shameful story..." Lu Yin said with a crooked smile.

"Oh? So you were just gloating?"

"Hehe, a little."

Xie Qing rolled his eyes. The color of his face had already begun to return to normal, so his mood improved slightly.

Xu Mei left him and went to the two Sect Masters, leaving Xie Qing to rest a little.

"By the way, didn't your Master have a Sobering Pill?" Lu Yin asked on the way.

"If she did, would I be suffering? She forgot that my body is not used to such adventures..." Xie Qing replied, rolling his eyes.

"Well, she is a Transcendence cultivator. For her, spatial distortion is like a walk in the garden," Lu Yin replied with a giggle and a hint of envy in her voice.

"I will never repeat this experience, even if I reach Transcendence..." Xie Qing replied, grunting.

Involuntarily, he remembered his experience and those annoyingly bright colors... ugh, he felt like making a short presentation of the contents of his stomach again.

However, with mixed feelings, they reached a two-story wooden house, which was the only building that Xie Qing saw there.

"Over here!" a female voice belonging to Xu Mei called out.

The young man nodded and, together with Lu Yin, approached the veranda where the trio of Masters were sitting.

"And Li Yuilan?" Xie Qing was surprised not to see his other girlfriend.

"She is in secluded cultivation, so she cannot visit us for now," Zhang Mei replied in her usual cold voice.

Today, the three Masters were dressed in simple, white robes.

On the table lay teacups, from which steam rose, bringing a pleasant aroma to the air.

Xie Qing pushed back a chair and helped Lu Yin sit down, then sat down himself.

"Xie Qing, we have discussed your idea... although it will be very dangerous, especially for you, considering all the circumstances, it seems we really have to use this method," Liu Yan expressed with her usual gentle smile. She folded her hands into a lock and propped up her chin: "Of course, I'm counting on you to give us this recipe... right?"

"989,984 Spiritual Stones, and it's yours," Xie Qing replied directly with a serious face.

"Pfft, miser. But I'll buy it," Liu Yan waved her hand and threw a spatial ring at Xie Qing.

"Thank you for your purchase~."

Xie Qing brightly smiled and took out the recipe for the Dao Concealment Pill, handing it to Liu Yan, who immediately began to read it enthusiastically and mutter something to herself.

Xu Mei and Zhang Mei, and especially Lu Yin, did not react to the woman's strange behavior, and Xie Qing simply thought she had problems with her head.

Zhang Mei drank some tea and casually said:

"By the way, it seems to me that you have improved your skills a bit, haven't you?"

"Me? To my shame, it's just a minor change."

Tsk, tsk.

"...?"

Xie Qing raised an eyebrow when he heard simultaneous tongue-clicking from both sides. One came from Lu Yin, and the other from Zhang Mei.

"What was that?" he asked with a puzzled face.

"Nothing. Your Master also carried such nonsense with a serious face. Remembering this, I started to get annoyed..." Zhang Mei replied with an indifferent face.

"Hey!"

Xu Mei, who was suddenly included in the conversation, cried out in displeasure, but Zhang Mei just snorted, ignoring her.

After half an hour, Liu Yan suddenly came to her senses from her strange state and then smiled brightly.

"We're in trouble!" she suddenly said, greatly shocking everyone.

"W-what do you mean?" even the eternally indifferent Zhang Mei felt a slight nervousness when she heard Liu Yan's words.

"R-right. Stop dragging it out, what happened?" Xu Mei was worried.

Xie Qing was also curious. What could have made Liu Yan say such words?

"Well... there are two ingredients that I cannot obtain even with the help of all the cultivation sects in the world. They simply do not exist in our time!" Liu Yan replied with slight dejection: "I can look for substitute ingredients, but it will be difficult."

"Hm? Which ingredients are missing?" Xie Qing asked.

"Ah? Well, it's the Heavenly Star Flower and the Enraged Rhino Flame..." Liu Yan replied.

Almost instantly, Xie Qing activated the system store and searched for these two ingredients. His heart was beating wildly, like an Audi on the racetrack, but...

[No results found for your query].

"Damn it..."

Xie Qing was stunned and plopped down on the chair. Although they could try to find similar ingredients in properties, it would take a long time – from one year to five years.

He could not naively believe that nothing would happen during this time and their enemy would be peacefully sitting in their nest.

There was an option that with a major breakthrough, the system store would be replenished with new items, but it was not as easy as it sounded! After all, the breakthrough from Soul Integration to Spiritual Ascension required a lot of effort and resources.

Even with the most optimistic view, it would take no less than two years!

Xie Qing sighed. His mood suddenly worsened, as did the others. The only one who still held hope was Liu Yan, who immediately took a book out of her spatial ring and began flipping through the pages.

The young man shrugged and went outside for some fresh air. The Qi here was of high quality and dense, so he decided to cultivate it.

Sitting in the lotus position, the young man closed his eyes and entered deep cultivation in two seconds. Lu Yin watched him and was genuinely surprised.

"This... wow! How fast he absorbs Qi!" she exclaimed in amazement.

"Huh? Indeed. Although I've seen it once, his talent still surprises me," Zhang Mei said, casting a brief glance at Xie Qing.

"Hehe. He's my disciple!" Xu Mei boasted, puffing out her chest.

"Disciple? I thought you would say 'my husband', huh? Did you break up?" Zhang Mei added.

"S-shut up!"

"Heh."

Lu Yin was speechless, watching as two adults with incredible influence in the cultivation world... argued like children!

And she couldn't help but blush when she heard the crude words they used. These elders have no pride at all!

The girl ran away and began to cultivate next to Xie Qing, no longer wanting to listen to their dialogue. She was pleasantly surprised to discover the quality of the Qi, so she immediately immersed herself in meditation.

Xu Mei and Zhang Mei grumbled at each other for another fifteen minutes, but then they got bored.

Liu Yan had not uttered a single word during this time, flipping through the book like a possessed woman. Her eyes moved swiftly, reading every word and not missing even the commas.

***

"Any results?"

The first thing Xie Qing asked when he opened his eyes was whether they had found anything.

However, Lu Yin could only shake her head with a sour face. It seemed that this question turned out to be too difficult for them and would require more time.

Xie Qing didn't really expect them to find everything so quickly. At least the fact that steps towards this had already begun now was a good result.

"We need to ask the Empress to allocate funds so that your sect can experiment with herbs and other ingredients," Xie Qing said with a thoughtful expression.

"The Master has already sent a request and is waiting for an answer," Lu Yin said and weakly smiled: "By the way, since we have nothing to do, how about a sparring session?"

"Sparring? I'm not against it, why not?"

Xie Qing stood up and shook the dust off himself. He took out a training sword and said:

"You can use a real one. Besides, I'll take three hits and will only block your attacks."

"How nice..."

Lu Yin sighed in relief. If Xie Qing had fought seriously with her, she would have been left with only cosmic dust.

So, the girl was immediately glad to hear about the handicap. Therefore, without hesitation, she began her attack.

"Tiger's Rage Strike!"

Swoosh!

Xie Qing slightly raised his sword and felt an awful force concertizing on his wrist.