The men in robes split apart and then headed off to do ordinary things, removing their robes and occupying normal positions in regular clothing. For several lengthy minutes, they did not appear to be in the proximity of anything unusual, so Wei Yi was forced to return to her residence for now.

There, Min Lian was still working on her assigned experiments, seemingly not discovering anything of interest during the whole time that Wei Yi had been out observing those that worshipped the Aberrant.

“Master, I have completed forty-seven of the required experiments. Besides the already observed weakness to your ability to absorb yin, all I have noticed is that applying large quantities of killing intent can destroy both the herbs and the energy within, although never one or the other,” she reported, pausing her current attempt to explain everything of note respectfully, “Some approaches seemed to be yielding more results than others, but ultimately accomplished nothing.”

“That’s fine, as I have discovered something on my own. This may be the result of an odd mutation of spiritual will, instigated by someone called the Great Aberrant. He is difficult to detect and claims to be above the third realm at the very least.”

“Do you wish me to kill him?”

“It’d be safer for me to do it, but even if I was to send you, we would need to know his location. At the moment, I am unaware of it, so we will require more time to track down him and his forces, or, otherwise, force him to emerge earlier than he plans. Before that, however, I need to know everything you might know about a Mirror Plane or a Great Aberrant.”

Min Lian went through her memories for a while, then said, “I apologise, but I know little on the subject. I don’t have any recollection of an Aberrant, whether human or otherwise, and the only thing I have learnt regarding a Mirror Plane was a rumour about the Fu family, which was proven to be a false one fabricated in order to attempt to cover up the truth of their family’s wealth. Even then, the Mirror Plane would have been one that reflected the world truly, not one that was home to an Aberrant that surpassed mortality.”

“Unfortunate, but we may not need to learn too much about him or his organisation. Before that can be decided, however, it is important to wrap up a few other things. Continue your experiments for now, and consider a few things that you can do here and outside to appear to be a trusted assistant-”

“Actually, Master, I have already considered a few typical tasks that a refining master might request of their subordinates, but I have not yet had the time to perform them.”

“In that case, you may perform them now. You may not have mortal flesh, but you still retain your mind, meaning that you are able to exhaust yourself. Take a break from these experiments for a little while and allow me to go through what you’ve noted down, and perhaps you won’t even need to continue,” Wei Yi said, “Meanwhile, I will check on the state of that Refiner’s Duel that had been initiated.”

She bowed in understanding and requested a few coins to spend, which Wei Yi naturally provided.

After the assassin departed without any explicit statements regarding her purpose – nothing about her was unusual, so she just assumed that she decided to give her a pleasant surprise – Wei Yi looked at the results of everything Min Lian had attempted and was forced to come to the same conclusion as the assassin had, prompting her to leave and go back to the Chu Alchemical Store.

While she had been within her residence, and while she walked towards the store, she had been using her spiritual perception to observe her surroundings to ensure that if any more black-robed men showed up, she would be able to track them and observe their actions, slowly learning more about their intent and their approach to achieving it, allowing her to conclude whether they were a group that she would support or end the moment that she had the opportunity. She was already leaning towards the latter option, and if she confirmed that they were responsible for the infection of the herbs with the malevolent yin, that would likely be a certainty.

However, she didn’t detect any of them before getting to the store, where the receptionist forced her attention away from those kinds of people.

For the second day in a row, the energy within her appeared to be actively pouring out of her, and she was still rushing around wherever she wanted without any semblance of exhaustion. It was certainly abnormal.

“Hey, eh… you? What’s your name again?”

“Me?” the receptionist turned towards her and smiled brightly, “My name is Fu Xiu, and I’ve been working here-”

“Not relevant. First of all, Fu Xiu, you have failed to appear at my residence earlier for the inspection.”

“Ah… It’s already the next day? I hadn’t noticed…”

“Second, have you actually eaten or drunk anything since the day that I cured that case of narcolepsy?”

“…”

‘Someone’s out of it, then…’ Wei Yi sighed internally, placing her hand on the woman’s shoulder as she nearly began to walk away again, “Then, I think that it will be a good idea for you to go on a short break, and you don’t get to say no.”

“Your hand is so stro- Ah!”

The receptionist was pulled upstairs and into one of the empty rooms upstairs, where there were none of the local manager’s observatory arrays so that they could spend a little while in some semblance of privacy. This was achieved further with walls of killing will across every surface in the room, while a little more was used to pin her to the desk as she had transformed it into metal cuffs, sticking half of them into the surface of the desk so that she would need to break through the durable wood in order to escape.

“In case I forgot to tell you previously, depending on where this energy is coming from, you could end up aflame after exerting enough of it as your very body is consumed to keep that supply up.”

“R-Really?”

“Yes. It is vital that we confirm the nature of this oddity.”

Wei Yi placed her right hand on Fu Xiu’s forehead after it transformed into an inhumanely white, overly pure state, from which countless spiritual will and perception threads were able to emerge even more smoothly than they would have travelled through a pure, unfettered void.

“That… feels so- uh… strange…” the receptionist muttered as innumerable threads passed through the entirety of her being, their intensity intentionally being amplified so that any little detail could be observed and to ensure that she would always go to Wei Yi if she encountered similar symptoms and wouldn’t try to continue using them to her advantage.

“It can feel much worse, but for now, I should be able to understand everything just from this,” she said with certainty, although she was actually rather uncertain as to the nature of this unusual malaise. Logically, it should originate from the physique that had been present within her, but even in the few cases of physiques being removed from people before this, she had never heard of an infinite font of energy remaining in its place.

In the case of the Forbidden Deity of the End, when their inactive technique had been stolen near the beginning of their life, all it allowed them to do was cultivate a different physique for themselves in its place, permitting them to reach significantly greater heights and eventually earn their title. Another case of this, the Great Devourer, a being that cultivated the Mindful Eating art to its absolute peak and gained immense might, lost his physique after an undocumented encounter that had weakened him somewhat, but insufficiently to end his life or end his dominance over the region that he had controlled. Additionally, the third recorded case, in which the Fallen Saint had attempted to remove his physique and pass it onto his sister to save her, had confirmed that the removal of a physique would not benefit anyone in and of itself, as neither the Fallen Saint nor his sister gained anything through the encounter.

The experience did push the Fallen Saint from his original mental state, which had earned him the title of the Forgiving Saint, into a path of anger and vengeance against those that had given him the impression that it would be possible to transfer his physique, which he undertook relentlessly.

‘Although his tale is a curious one, proving why one should never trust others without reason, it has no correlation with my current situation… Furthermore, every single one of these stories typically applied to either dormant physiques or fully active ones, while the receptionist’s one was in a slightly different state…’

She shut her eyes and shifted the majority of the tendrils into the locations where she had previously observed the particles of physique energy, focusing immensely upon the spot where they had been densest, and finally discovered something. In place of the physique energy was seemingly ordinary flesh, but while it did not differ in yin or yang, nor anything else of significance that typically stood out to her, it did have an unusual formation of blood vessels, meridians and just raw energy that, when combined together, appeared to produce a most curious effect.

Equivalent to an Energy Generation array, an art of five stars and above, this random placement of the flesh could create far greater quantities of life energy from far less than digestion would typically allow, thus creating the impression of infinite energy.

Although it was not quite what it had appeared to be on the surface, it still offered great possibility.

‘With this likely accidental arrangement, created as a result of some light warping from the physique energy, the power of a basic support physique has been created without one… If bestowed upon others, it would allow even those without a cultivation to go on for far longer without food or drink, although it ought to be toned down in power prior to altering the bodies of more than a chosen few,’ Wei Yi thought, checking her own body to find that in places near the physique meridians, her body also resembled Fu Xiu’s, although the primary aspect of the array-like ability was made up of physique energy rather than simple flesh.

As she understood this, she was able to send her spiritual will threads into specific locations on the receptionist’s body in order to attempt to break the Energy Generation arrays.

However, this was easier said – or thought, in this case – than done. Any attempt at manipulating the odd arrangement of the receptionist’s body, whether aggressively or smoothly and calmly, could do nothing to these pseudo arrays, and sufficient force would only pierce and wound rather than affect the arrays.

Wei Yi shifted her hand to the right so that she could place her left hand upon the woman’s face, transforming only the parts that directly touched her skin as to not unsettle Fu Xiu any more than she already had, then infused her killing intent into her as well before merging the two sets of threads into killing will, hoping that it would somehow make a significant difference due to the general uniqueness of killing will as a whole.

And yet, no matter what she did with her killing will, all she had deduced was that even if she removed these growths of flesh, they would simply regenerate after given the opportunity to do so. As a result, her mind quickly went through the many options, and came to one conclusion.

She removed her hands from Fu Xiu’s face, revoking her mental energy threads alongside them, then looked her straight in the eyes and said, “It appears that the only solution would be to awaken a physique within you. For whatever reason, the removal of certain particles within your body has resulted in a peculiar array being created, and so we must now give it something to power unless you would like to lose your mind entirely after enough time has passed. That, or maybe you will slowly turn into a spiritual entity after your flesh burns.”

“I-Isn’t your diagnosis getting worse every time you say it? Why is this even happening to me?”

“Your original malaise, the same one that was draining energy, was resolved correctly, but it revealed that, perhaps as an attempt to compensate for the constant drain, your body has developed the ability to generate significantly more energy than before,” Wei Yi presented her with a hypothesis, one that naturally excluded certain pieces of information that either required further research or were not suitable for her to hear, “If an actual physique is formed, it will merge with these mutations and provide you with a significant degree of strength and energy, although not enough to constantly work without rest, food or drink.”

“And if you don’t do this, then-”

“You will burn, or wither, or die of the exhaustion of your mental energy. Neither ending is good for you,” her claim was inaccurate, but was believable enough for someone that lacked an understanding of physiques and the like.

“T-Then-”

“I’ll get you the things that you need within ten minutes. Don’t… well, you can’t move anyway, so just consider how you will compensate me this time. And where you’ll sleep. The latter is more important.”

For a moment, Fu Xiu didn’t even know what to say, trying to understand whether the request for payment was a joking comment to relax her and to clarify that she was certain about success, or a genuine requirement of monetary compensation, then finally said, “Alright. Please don’t take too long…”

“I won’t. Depending on your definition of those words, of course.”

Before the receptionist had a chance to say anything else, Wei Yi left the room and shut the door behind her, sealing it with killing will so that nobody would barge in and discover a woman pinned to a desk with translucent cuffs and with rather dishevelled clothing, then headed to the manager.

She didn’t bother knocking on his door, as she was within range of several observatory arrays just by standing near it, meaning that if she gave him more than a second, he would be bound to notice her presence and either request her leave, or permit her into his room. It did not take long for this to be confirmed, as her spiritual perception observed him browsing through some of his arrays and then immediately glance up towards his door the moment that he noticed her.

“Enter.”

When she did, she immediately said, “I have two things to speak to you about, and one of them is likely to be far more urgent than the other. Are you aware of the situation with your receptionist?”

“I am, and based on what you have said so far, I assume that it isn’t a passing phenomenon?”

“No, it is not. I will require a physique awakening pill of any quality or grade, or the materials to create one. As they appear to be rather pricy here, and due to the oddity of certain herbs that you must have heard me discuss previously, it is not yet something I can afford to throw money at. Before Fu Xiu is able to compensate me, will you use your position to grant these materials to me without immediate payment?”

“I would need to observe the entire process, and if you dare do anything to intentionally decrease the chances of successful refinement… Have you heard of certain northern practises of indentured servitude and outright slavery?”

“You’re threatening to enslave me if I fuck up, right? Don’t worry about it,” she replied, “One batch and I can guarantee at least one successful pill, which means that if I get any more, you can feel free to sell them and pocket all of the earnings for yourself, but only if you permit me to work in private. Otherwise, I will keep any extras for myself.”

“You speak to a man in the fifth stage of Marked Core, with fifteen marks already being active. Are you certain that your negotiations are wise, Wei Yi?”

“Remember what I told you last time? I don’t tend to do things if I am not confident.”

“… So you say. I insist on watching. Even if you keep whatever secret art you use from me now, I will see it in a few days, alongside a large number of others. You can keep all of those pills that you will supposedly be able to create.”

“Alright then. Don’t try and change the deal when you find it to be going against you,” she said.

“I also tend to act with confidence. On the topic of the Refiner’s Duel, and of your privacy, would you prefer an audience of a few attentive pill refiners only, or an additional crowd of common observers?”

“The crowd. Why would I ever turn down free advertisement?”

His eyes narrowed, “You are confident in your success, aren’t you? I suppose that we shall see whether you are right to assume your victory, but before that… Here. This token will grant you entry into the underground storage. Pick out one set of herbs exactly and get back here with both them and the token. If you need it, I can even provide assistance while you work, but if you insist on working alone or only with that assistant of yours, then I will stay back and watch.”

“The latter option is preferable. My methods can be somewhat unconventional,” Wei Yi stated, taking the token and heading towards the door, “You should have seen which room I brought Fu Xiu into, so if you want, you can wait near it.”

He did not answer by the time she shut the door behind herself, and she did not pay much attention to his actions afterwards, as she was considering how to best optimise the refinement process for herself while not revealing the Antithesis method of intentionally ruining it as much as possible before reversing the process, as that would cause far more questions than she needed to deal with for now.

There were fortunately few guards in the way, meaning that she was able to get into the storage rooms quickly and then managed to look through everything there without any interference, allowing her to discover the few herbs that lacked malevolent yin and a few that had the fewest quantity of it, allowing her to put together the necessary set of items. She was able to clear the latter portion of items of yin with a liberal application of her yin-type physique energy, and the process thankfully did little damage due to how limited the exposure to this energy was, leaving only a few portions of the plants frozen absolutely.

When she returned upstairs, she found Chu Huazhi standing beside the door containing Fu Xiu, with several marks on the frame that clearly indicated his attempts to enter before she returned.

“I’ve got everything I need,” she said, ignoring them and calmly opening the door and letting him in before shutting it after him. He turned around immediately, his eyes darting about to figure out the reason for his inability to break through something that she then opened easily. When in its combined state and while it is hidden within the walls of the room, her killing will was entirely invisible to sight and almost undetectable through common spiritual perception, or even the trained perception of a practitioner of the great arts, and so it was only natural that he was ignorant of it.

Fortunately for him, there was a different question to distract himself with.

“Do you also intend to requisition my refining furnace, or have you already moved it here while I was not observing you? Do you perhaps have a method of shrinking its volume to be able to carry it in your pocket?”

“… No,” Wei Yi replied, throwing all of her gathered ingredients into the air, where they froze as a solid layer of spiritual will formed beneath them, “I’m not intending to use one now, or in the future.”

Before his eyes, her energy formed into the shape of a refining furnace, with its two compartments and fanciful ornamentation on the outside, which, unbeknownst to him, was modelled after the one that her pill refining teacher had used alongside her. As it was composed of mental energy, it benefitted from the close emotional connection and distinct memories that would have certainly survived even if she did not possess her Ascendant’s Library.

Most of the ingredients floated away from the furnace while the initial few began to melt through the raw power of killing intent that she had added to the upper portion of the furnace while a flame made of pure planar energy slowly warmed up beneath these ingredients.

Not everything could be processed without the use of an actual flame, so in order to avoid the elemental corruption that would occur if she chose her golden flame to process these materials, she resorted to something that could reasonably be explained away as an unusual alchemical flame, even if she did not expect to have the opportunity to present this story as all focus would be – and currently was, as even Chu Huazhi’s spiritual perception was – focused wholly on the refining furnace and nothing more, not even the ingredients within as they slowly split into nine distinct portions and began to rotate around the centre of the transparent furnace.

Before any more ingredients were added, she prepared them appropriately with a few precise cuts and slashes of her spiritual will, and as they entered the furnace, they formed entirely separate clumps of matter that spun at a different pace from the previous ingredients as well as those that came after, with the third and fourth collections of herbs, stalks, leaves and roots orbiting closer and closer to the centre.

This was all according to the first and only high-quality refining technique that she had learnt, and it was intended to allow the materials to burn at a pace that is sufficient to them without requiring precise manipulation of the flames. It was more difficult to control at least nine separate clusters of matter and keep them to a consistent speed, but as this actions achieved a significant quantity of other, greater things, like raising the quality of the resulting pill via a connection to the innate laws of the Dao – hence it being part of a forbidden art, which Wei Yi somewhat regretted not learning when she had the opportunity to change Chu Ling’s mind – it was something that was worth learning and using.

However, her next step was one that she had created through the Antithesis Reversal, or rather inspired by it. Without applying the Antithesis energy to the entire product and forcing every aspect of yang to turn to yin, and vice versa, she had discovered that it was still possible to apply her Antithesis energy in a slightly different manner, by targeting the typical waste materials of any refinement process and forcing them back into the successful elements, forcefully raising the quantity and quality of the product.

Thus, when the spinning motions of the four groups of nine clumps each accelerated to the point of becoming a blur, she forced them together and simultaneously surrounded everything with inverted light, although it was overpowered entirely due to her intentional brightening of the alchemical flame, turning the entire process into a bright ball of planar violet light.

When Chu Huazhi could finally see again, he was presented with the most peculiar sight – two dozen pills, glistening like fine but uncut gemstones of a intriguing orange shade, as if containing the flame itself, lay before him on Wei Yi’s hand, which calmly held them as if the refining furnace had never been there to begin with. Furthermore, although there was bound to be an extreme amount of warmth emanating from the pills, both due to their nature as Physique Awakening pills and the process which they had just undergone, she did not appear to notice as she closed her hand kept all but one of the pills, which she then placed beside Fu Xiu.

“I trust that your statement about sticking to your deal is still accurate, Manager Chu?”

“You… How many stars?”

“Peak of three stars.”

“Within an Earth Awakening pill? With a perfect quantity? Without any flaws? In less than ten minutes? How do you not have a refiner’s emblem?”

“So many questions that you did not appear interested in asking previously. Is your receptionist’s description of your kind and non-invasive nature false, or have I somehow moved you enough to cause your very character to change?” Wei Yi asked, infusing the pill with cosmic energy in the meantime.

“No… Nonetheless, a single pill won’t be enough. What will be your catalyst?”

“Oh, please, you clearly don’t know as much as you think you do about this particular field. I know what I’m doing (or so I’d like to believe) so let me handle it. Perhaps you could substitute your receptionist for now, or otherwise get out of here now that you have seen that there is little that you can learn from me.”

“I shall do so. Do not let your success grant you arrogance, however,” he replied, “If you require assistance, I can provide it.”

“Sure, I won’t forget, and will call you if I need it. Still, I have experience with this.”

He shrugged his shoulders and left, the door sealing behind him with killing will to ensure that he or anybody else wouldn’t bother her again. Turning back to Fu Xiu, she lightly slapped her cheek so that she would awaken.

“Mhm? W-What’s going on?”

“It’s time for you to get a physique. Any preferences? Yin? Yang? Earth, water, wood, metal or fire? I’m open to suggestion, although don’t expect to get anything too impressive. I’m working on a budget, after all, and I don’t have any spare miracle fruits to force into your very being,” Wei Yi said, showing her the Earth Physique Awakening pill to give her a better idea of what had happened.

“Eh… How about water, or, eh, ice?”

“Yin and water? Sure, I can do that,” she nodded, changing her cosmic energy that had been placed into the pill into cold, although she kept enough of it to function as a method of enhancing the pill’s effects.

Then, as the receptionist’s mouth was still open, she threw it in and forced her to swallow it.

“I can’t guarantee that this will be pleasant, so I’d recommend getting it done quickly.”